side with the strong against the weak.

And the men sighed, and sang the capstan song and hoisted the anchor
and yoked the oxen up, and away they went doing their steady knot,
which nothing could increase. It may be thought strange that with all
sail furled in dead calm and while the oxen rested they should have
cast anchor at all. But custom is not easily overcome and long
survives its use. Rather enquire how many such useless customs we
ourselves preserve: the flaps for instance to pull up the tops of
hunting-boots though the tops no longer pull up, the bows on our
evening shoes that neither tie nor untie. They said they felt safer
that way and there was an end of it.

Shard lay a course of South by West and they did ten knots that day,
the next day they did seven or eight and Shard hove to. Here he
intended to stop, they had huge supplies of fodder on board for the
oxen, for his men he had a pig or so, plenty of poultry, several sacks
of biscuits and ninety-eight oxen (for two were already eaten), and
they were only twenty miles from water. Here he said they would stay
till folks forgot their past, someone would invent something or some
new thing would turn up to take folks' minds off them and the ships he
had sunk: he forgot that there are men who are well paid to remember.

Half way between him and the oasis he established a little depot where
he buried his water-barrels. As soon as a barrel was empty he sent
half a dozen men to roll it by turns to the depot. This they would do
at night, keeping hid by day, and next night they would push on to the
oasis, fill the barrel and roll it back. Thus only ten miles away he
soon had a store of water, unknown to the thirstiest native of Africa,
from which he could safely replenish his tanks at will. He allowed his