The poet lifted the jar and gulped more beer. “Very well,” he said, and wobbled to his feet. He stood swaying for a moment, then undid his belt, dropped his trousers, and showed the Scotland Yard man his pale white buttocks, which shone in the lamplight like the full moon. They appeared to be zebra-striped.
“Ye gods!” Trounce gasped.
“Three days ago,” Swinburne slurred. “My mule was getting obstinate in one of the swamps. Said took a mighty swipe at it with that bakurof his, but, just as he lashed out, the blessed animal's hind legs suddenly sank about three feet down. I was sent sliding backward and received the cat myself!”
“Ouch! Did it hurt?”
“Deliciously!”
“You,” said Trounce, reaching for the pombe, “are a very curious young man, Algernon.”
“Thank you.”
A few more minutes of quiet were suddenly broken by a loud gurgling rumble, which echoed across the village.
“Elephant,” Trounce murmured.
“Thank goodness,” Swinburne replied. “I thought it was you.”
Trounce responded with a snore, which, as it happened, was a fair challenge to the nearby pachyderm.
Swinburne lay back down and considered the heavens. He reached into his jacket and pulled out Apollo's gold-tipped arrow of Eros, which he'd carried with him ever since the death of Thomas Bendyshe. He pointed it at the stars.
“I'm coming for you, Count Zeppelin,” he whispered.
About half an hour later, he clambered to his feet and stretched. He looked down at his sleeping companion and decided to leave him there beneath the tree. Pouncer would be fine. Even a predator brave enough to enter the village would shy away from such volcanic rumblings and snorts. Besides, the Yard man would receive a rude awakening soon enough, when the nightly rain arrived.
The stars to the east were already being obscured by cloud. The downpours were coming later and later, and were far shorter in duration. Soon the rainy season would end.
“Herbert,” Swinburne whispered. “I'll go and have a little chinwag with old tin-head.”
He staggered away, stopped when his trousers slipped to his ankles, hauled them up, fastened his belt, and continued on until he came to the philosopher's tent.
He pushed through the flap.
“I say, Herbert, I'm not in the slightest bit sleepy. Shall we-”
He stumbled to a halt. The clockwork philosopher was sitting at a makeshift table and was completely motionless. Wrapped in robes, he looked somewhat akin to a bundle of laundry.
“Herbert?”
There was no response.
Swinburne stepped over to his friend, put a hand on his shoulder, and gave him a shove.
Herbert didn't budge.
He'd wound down.
The poet sighed and turned to leave, but as he did so, a book on the table caught his eye. It was a large notepad, on the cover of which was written the legend: First Principles of Philosophy.
Curious to see how far along Herbert had got with his project, Swinburne reached for the book, slid it toward himself, and opened the first page. He read:
Only equivalence can lead to destruction or a final transcendence.
Only equivalence can lead to destruction or a final transcendence.
Only equivalence can lead to destruction or a final transcendence.
Only equivalence can lead to destruction or a final transcendence.
The poet frowned and flipped the pages to the middle of the book.
Only equivalence can lead to destruction or a final transcendence.
Only equivalence can lead to destruction or a final transcendence.
He kept turning until he came to the last page upon which anything was written.
Only equivalence can lead to destruction or a final transcendence.
Only equivalence can lead to destruction or a final transcendence.
Only equivalence can lead to destruction or a final transcendence.
“My Aunt Agatha's blue feather hat!” he exclaimed.
The next day, William Trounce complained of a thumping headache, Maneesh Krishnamurthy collapsed with malarial fever, and a messenger arrived in Ugogi. The latter had run all the way from Mzizima with a dispatch for Isabel from those Daughters of Al-Manat who'd remained behind at the fast-expanding Prussian settlement. His first words to her, in Kiswahili, and translated by Burton, were: “You will pay me very well, I should think, for I have run far and far and far!”
Burton assured him that he'd be generously rewarded.
The man closed his eyes and recounted the message in a singsong voice. He spoke in Arabic, though he obviously didn't understand the language and was merely recounting what he'd been told, parrot fashion. He said: “O Al-Manat, peace and mercy and blessings of Allah upon thee, and upon those who follow thy lead, and upon those who travel with thee. May he grant safety, speed, and good fortune to this messenger, who, regrettably, must deliver to thee bad tidings, for a great many Prussians continue to arrive in Mzizima and they are now too strong for us to fight without thy wise counsel. A force of perhaps a thousand has departed the camp and is travelling westward. We follow and are striking them at intervals, in the manner thou taught us, though we are far fewer in number. May Allah protect us and you and give us all strength to endure.”
Burton instructed Said to issue the man with a dotiof richly patterned cloth, a box of sami-samibeads, and three coils of brass wire. The messenger, much pleased, joined the villagers to rest, drink beer, swap news, and boast of his newfound wealth.
“It sounds like an invasion force,” Isabel said to Burton. “What is Bismarck up to, sending so many troops to Africa?”
“Palmerston thinks he's trying to establish a German empire, and that he intends to use Africa's vast natural-and human-resources to fuel it.”
“So the Prussians are here to stake a claim?”
“It would appear so.”
“Then we must stop them.”
“I don't see how we can. Besides which, that's not what we're here for.”
“But surely this is a challenge to the British Empire, Richard? Is it not our duty to do something about it?”
“What do you suggest?”
“We fight!”
Burton held his hands out wide in a gesture of disbelief. “Look at us, Isabel! We're nothing but a ragtag expedition! Our clothes are half-rotted off us! We look positively skeletal! We're exhausted and ill!”
“Will Palmerston send troops?”
“I consider that highly probable.”
“Then once your mission is done, Richard, I shall lead my women against the Prussians until the British Army arrives.”
The king's agent blew out a breath and shook his head. “I can't stop you, of course. You're the most obstinate woman I've ever met. You infuriate me-and it's why I fell in love with you. Just don't take unnecessary risks, please.”
“We shall do what we do best: hit them and run. Then wait, and, when they least expect it, we'll hit them again, and then we'll run again.”
The expedition spent the remainder of the day resting, writing journal entries, checking equipment, and socialising with their generous hosts.
Before sun-up the following morning, much recovered, the travellers set forth across the Marenga M'khali, a stretch of desert that would take four days to traverse. The ground was hard and cracked, the scrub thorny, and the horizon lumpy with low, quivering, and blurring hills.
Close up, the terrain was a rusty-brown shade, strewn over with rocks and rubble and tufts of brittle white grass. As it receded into the distance, it grew paler, bleaching to a soft yellow that eventually blended hazily into the washed-out-blue sky, which deepened in colour overhead.