I woke with daylight, and roused Haigh. "We should get away at once," I
said to him. "We've dawdled woefully. If we'd possessed a grain of
sense between us we should have started the moment we stepped ashore.
Weems may be cooped up still, but that's only guess-work on our parts.
It's quite possible he cleared himself directly after you left, and
went to the Talayot straight away."
Haigh blinked at me sleepily. "You're in the deuce of a flurry, old
man. Been having evil dreams? That's the rancid oil they cook with
here. It always has that effect at first. But you'll get used to it
soon and like it, and think ordinary oil insipid."
"Oh, confound you, dry up. Look here, we must start at once."
"How?"
"Tramp it. Funds won't run to a vehicle."
"My dear chappie, you don't know the extent of my feebleness. I
couldn't walk two miles to save my life. Nature may have intended me
for a pirate or a highwayman, because on shipboard or horse-back I can
do tolerable service. But the good dame never built me to be a footpad.
So if this old pyramid place is to be looted, you must go and do it
yourself."
"But, my good fellow, think what there is at stake. Dash it all, man,
how do you know I shan't collar the thing and make a clean bolt with
it?"
Haigh grinned. "I'll take my chance of that."
"You'd better not. I've never set up for being obtrusively honest."
"Oh, go to Aden."
"But really, I'd take it as a favour if you would come."
"Well, if you make a point of it, I suppose I must, though I fail to
see the necessity for a pair of us making ourselves uncomfortable. Look
out of window. The sky's Prussian blue, and there isn't a breath of
wind. It's going to be a broiling day. However, dear boy, at your
behest I'll make a martyr of myself; and if transport is to be procured
on tick, I'll overhaul you. Only understand clearly that neither for
you nor any one else can I do a physical impossibility. It is
absolutely out of the question for me to walk."
That was all I could get out of him, and so I set off, very uncertain
as to whether or no he would follow.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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