about like a mad ghost. A camel had blundered into it, and wet and angry
as I was, I could not help laughing. Then I ran on, because I did not
know how many camels might have got loose, and before long I was out of
sight of the camp, plowing my way through the mud.
At last I fell over the tail-end of a gun, and by that knew I was
somewhere near the artillery lines where the cannon were stacked at
night. As I did not want to plowter about any more in the drizzle and
the dark, I put my waterproof over the muzzle of one gun, and made a
sort of wigwam with two or three rammers that I found, and lay along the
tail of another gun, wondering where Vixen had got to, and where I might
be.
Just as I was getting ready to go to sleep I heard a jingle of harness
and a grunt, and a mule passed me shaking his wet ears. He belonged to
a screw-gun battery, for I could hear the rattle of the straps and rings
and chains and things on his saddle pad. The screw-guns are tiny little
cannon made in two pieces, that are screwed together when the time comes
to use them. They are taken up mountains, anywhere that a mule can find
a road, and they are very useful for fighting in rocky country.
Behind the mule there was a camel, with his big soft feet squelching
and slipping in the mud, and his neck bobbing to and fro like a
strayed hen s. Luckily, I knew enough of beast language--not wild-beast
language, but camp-beast language, of course--from the natives to know
what he was saying.
He must have been the one that flopped into my tent, for he called to
the mule, What shall I do? Where shall I go? I have fought with a white
thing that waved, and it took a stick and hit me on the neck. (That was
my broken tent pole, and I was very glad to know it.) Shall we run on?
Oh, it was you, said the mule, you and your friends, that have
been disturbing the camp? All right. You ll be beaten for this in the
morning. But I may as well give you something on account now.
I heard the harness jingle as the mule backed and caught the camel
two kicks in the ribs that rang like a drum. Another time, he said,
you ll know better than to run through a mule battery at night,
shouting `Thieves and fire! Sit down, and keep your silly neck quiet.
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