love-scenes with a childlike simplicity and freedom of manner which
would not commend itself to the taste of the present day. Others again
give pictures of maidens dancing, and yet others of hunting-scenes. For
instance, the very vase from which we were then drinking had on one side
a most spirited drawing of men, apparently white in colour, attacking a
bull-elephant with spears, while on the reverse was a picture, not quite
so well done, of a hunter shooting an arrow at a running antelope, I
should say from the look of it either an eland or a koodoo.

This is a digression at a critical moment, but it is not too long for
the occasion, for the occasion itself was very long. With the exception
of the periodical passing of the vase, and the movement necessary to
throw fuel on to the fire, nothing happened for the best part of a whole
hour. Nobody spoke a word. There we all sat in perfect silence, staring
at the glare and glow of the large fire, and at the shadows thrown by
the flickering earthenware lamps (which, by the way, were not ancient).
On the open space between us and the fire lay a large wooden tray,
with four short handles to it, exactly like a butcher's tray, only not
hollowed out. By the side of the tray was a great pair of long-handled
iron pincers, and on the other side of the fire was a similar pair.
Somehow I did not at all like the appearance of this tray and the
accompanying pincers. There I sat and stared at them and at the silent
circle of the fierce moody faces of the men, and reflected that it
was all very awful, and that we were absolutely in the power of this
alarming people, who, to me at any rate, were all the more formidable
because their true character was still very much of a mystery to us.
They might be better than I thought them, or they might be worse. I
feared that they were worse, and I was not wrong. It was a curious sort
of a feast, I reflected, in appearance indeed, an entertainment of the
Barmecide stamp, for there was absolutely nothing to eat.