There is no persuading the native servant who has lived under the Union
Jack that an Englishman does not need hot tea at frequent intervals,
even after three cocktails in an afternoon. So we trooped to the table
to oblige him, and went through the form of being much refreshed.

"What is that man's name?" demanded Monty.

"Hassan."

"Do you know him?"

"Everybody know him!"

"Can you get a message to him?"

"Yes, bwana."

"Tell him to come and talk with us at the hotel as soon as he hears we
are out of this."

We did not know it at the time (for I don't think that Monty guessed it
either) that we had taken the surest way of setting all Zanzibar by the
ears. In that last lingering stronghold of legal slavery,* where the
only stories judged worth listening to are the very sources of the
Thousand Nights and a Night, intrigue is not perhaps the breath of
life, but it is the salt and savory. There is a woolly-headed sultan
who draws a guaranteed, fixed income and has nothing better to do than
regale himself and a harem with western alleged amusement. There are
police, and lights, and municipal regulations. In fact, Zanzibar has
come on miserable times from certain points of view. But there remains