Mississippi River. And a bare hundred yards farther his words proved true.
Their forward barge had come nearly opposite the mouth of Timshi Khor when they felt a shock, an upheaval below.
"Aground again!" Lyttleton exclaimed.
All five barges rubbed violently against one another, creaked, groaned and threatened to break apart. The engines stopped; a powerful current swung the flotilla around. The paddles reversed, and started again. Something snapped, then everything stopped. It was all over, and they were aground—solid as a church.
Lyttleton bounded down the companionway, saying things in Arabic, vitriolic, vicious, untranslatable things; his words sizzled and burned blue, like a pot of sulphur. He reappeared on deck, still swearing in that copious tongue, with an occasional English invective, sincere but vapid.
"Don't mind me," suggested the Colonel; "spit it out of your system."
"Dammit, sir," the Britisher roared; "I was trying to swear in English for your benefit—out of respect to you, sir. But after using Arabic, English is like dummy-swearing, in a sign language." Then Lyttleton broke down and laughed, "Oh, well, we can pepper away at the hippos and crocks. Plenty of 'em here."
Long after the hubbub had quieted Old Re-
