said Sanders, his helmet in his hand. "I feel I deserve it."
He watched the boat making a slow progress to the ship and returned to his bungalow.
CHAPTER IV
THE FALL OF THE EMPEROR
"My poor soul!" said the Houssa captain.
He looked down into the long-seated chair where Sanders sprawled limply.
"And is the owdacious female gone?" asked the soldier.
"She's gone," said Sanders.
The Houssa clapped his hands, not in applause, but to summon his orderly.
"Ahmet," he said gravely, speaking in Arabic, "mix for the lord Sandi the juice of lemons with certain cunning ingredients such as you know well; let it be as cool as the hand of Azrael, as sweet as the waters of Nir, and as refreshing as the kisses of houris – go with God."
"I wish you wouldn't fool," said Sanders, irritated.
"This is a crisis of our affairs," said Hamilton the Houssa. "You need a tonic. As for myself, if this had happened to me, I should have been in bed with a temperature. Was she very angry?"
Sanders nodded.
"She called me a British loafer and a Jew in the same breath. She flung in my face every British aristocrat who had ever married an American heiress; she talked like the New York correspondent of an Irish paper for five minutes. She threatened me with the whole diplomatic armoury of America and the entire strength of Scottish opinion; if she could have made up her mind whether she was Scot or just Philadelphia I could have answered her, but when she goaded me into a retort about American institutions she opened her kailyard batteries and silenced me."
The Houssa walked up and down the long bungalow.
"It was impossible, of course," he said seriously. "absolutely impossible. She'll land at Sierra Leone and interview Tullerton – he's the U.S. Consul. I think she'll be surprised when she hears Tullerton's point of view."
Sanders stayed to tiffin, and the discussion of Millie Tavish continued intermittently throughout the meal.
"If I hadn't given Yoka permission to overhaul the engines of the Zaire" said Sanders, "I'd start right away for the Isisi and interview Tobolaka. But by this time he'll have her cylinders open. By the way, I've remembered something," he said, suddenly.
He clapped his hands, and Hamilton's orderly came.
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