so tender that
it melts in the mouth. And he puts by my side a plate of crisp fried
potatoes. Can't you smell them? And then a liveried flunky brings me a
pewter tankard, and into it he pours a bottle, a large bottle, mind you,
of foaming ale.'

'You've certainly added considerably to our cheerfulness, my friend,'
said Adamson.

Walker gaily shrugged his fat shoulders.

'I've often been driven to appease the pangs of raging hunger with a
careless epigram, and by the laborious composition of a limerick I have
sought to deceive a most unholy thirst.'

He liked that sentence and made up his mind to remember it for future
use. The doctor paused for a moment, and then he looked gravely at
Walker.

'Last night I thought that you'd made your last joke, old man; and that
I had given my last dose of quinine.'

'We were in rather a tight corner, weren't we?'

'This is the third expedition I've been with MacKenzie, and I assure you
I've never been so certain that all was over with us.'

Walker permitted himself a philosophical reflection.

'Funny thing death is, you know! When you think of it beforehand, it
makes you squirm in your shoes, but when you've just got it face to face
it seems so obvious that you forget to be afraid.'

Indeed it was only by a miracle that any of them was alive, and they had
all a curious, light-headed feeling from the narrowness of the escape.
They had been fighting, with their backs to the wall, and each one had
shown what he was made of. A few hours before things had been so serious
that now, in the first moment of relief, they sought refuge
instinctively in banter. But Dr. Adamson was a solid man, and he wanted
to talk the matter out.

'If the Arabs hadn't hesitated to attack us just those ten minutes, we
would have been simply wiped out.'

'MacKenzie was all there, wasn't he?'

Walker had the shyness of his nationality in the exhibition of
enthusiasm, and he could only express his admiration for the commander
of the party in terms of slang.

'He was, my son,' answered Adamson, drily. 'My own impression is, he
thought we were done for.'

'What makes you think that?'

'Well, you see, I know him pretty well. When things are going smoothly
and everything's flourishing, he's apt to be a bit irritable. He keeps
rather to himself, and he doesn't say much unless you do something he
don't approve of.'

'And then, by Jove, he comes down on you like a thousand of bricks,'
Walker agreed