Our camp-kettle, filled from the brook, hummed
doubtfully for a while, then busily bubbled under the sidelong
glare of the flames; cups clinked and rattled; the fragrant steam
ascended, and soon this little circlet in the wilderness grew warm
and genial as my lady's drawing-room.
And after this there came the tchibouque--great comforter of those
that are hungry and wayworn. And it has this virtue--it helps to
destroy the gene and awkwardness which one sometimes feels at being
in company with one's dependents; for whilst the amber is at your
lips, there is nothing ungracious in your remaining silent, or
speaking pithily in short inter-whiff sentences. And for us that
night there was pleasant and plentiful matter of talk; for the
where we should be on the morrow, and the wherewithal we should be
fed, whether by some ford we should regain the western bank of
Jordan, or find bread and salt under the tents of a wandering
tribe, or whether we should fall into the hands of the Philistines,
and so come to see death--the last and greatest of all "the fine
sights" that there be--these were questionings not dull nor
wearisome to us, for we were all concerned in the answers.
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