“Can’t say, old fellow.  Don’t trouble myself much with expectations as a rule.  That’s why I and my poor old father never could get on.  I always quoted the text ‘Sufficient to the day is the evil thereof’ to him, until at length he sent for the family Bible and ruled it out with red ink in a rage.  But I say, do you think that we shall be called upon to understudy St. Lawrence on that grid?”

“Certainly, I do,” I replied, “and, as old Babemba warned you, you can’t complain.”

“Oh! but I will and I can.  And so will you, won’t you, Brother John?”

Brother John woke up from a reverie and stroked his long beard.

“Since you ask me, Mr. Somers,” he said, reflectively, “if it were a case of martyrdom for the Faith, like that of the saint to whom you have alluded, I should not object—­at any rate in theory.  But I confess that, speaking from a secular point of view, I have the strongest dislike to being cooked and eaten by these very disagreeable savages.  Still, I see no reason to suppose that we shall fall victims to their domestic customs.”

I, being in a depressed mood, was about to argue to the contrary, when Hans poked his head into the hut and said: 

“Dinner coming, Baas, very fine dinner!”

So we went out into the garden where the tall, impassive ladies were arranging many wooden dishes on the ground.  Now the moon was clear of clouds, and by its brilliant light we examined their contents.  Some were cooked meat covered with a kind of sauce that made its nature indistinguishable.  As a matter of fact, I believe it was mutton, but—­ who could say?  Others were evidently of a vegetable nature.  For instance, there was a whole platter full of roasted mealie cobs and a great boiled pumpkin, to say nothing of some bowls of curdled milk.  Regarding this feast I became aware of a sudden and complete conversion to those principles of vegetarianism which Brother John was always preaching to me.

“I am sure you are quite right,” I said to him, nervously, “in holding that vegetables are the best diet in a hot climate.  At any rate I have made up my mind to try the experiment for a few days,” and throwing manners to the winds, I grabbed four of the upper mealie cobs and the top of the pumpkin which I cut off with a knife.  Somehow I did not seem to fancy that portion of it which touched the platter, for who knew what those dishes might have contained and how often they were washed.

Stephen also appeared to have found salvation on this point, for he, too, patronized the mealie cobs and the pumpkin; so did Mavovo, and so did even that inveterate meat-eater, Hans.  Only the simple Jerry tackled the fleshpots of Egypt, or rather of Pongo-land, with appetite, and declared that they were good.  I think that he, being the last of us through the gateway, had not realized what it was which lay upon the grid.

At length we finished our simple meal—­when you are very hungry it takes a long time to fill oneself with squashy pumpkin, which is why I suppose ruminants and other grazing animals always seem to be eating—­ and washed it down with water in preference to the sticky-looking milk which we left to the natives.