The captain had half risen to hail Dick when
Mrs. Haxton stopped him.
"Let them go on," she cried. "They would not take my advice. Now they
will find that we have beaten them by a good five minutes."
Stump knew quite well, of course, that a broad-beamed English boat
could not compete with the long, slim Somali craft, but he was aware
also that Miss Fenshawe and Royson wished to land in company. So he
grinned, and sat down again.
The outcome of these cross purposes was curious in many ways. As Mrs.
Haxton foresaw, the jolly-boat was forbidden to land at the main wharf,
and Royson discovered that the Austrian did not understand Italian. It
was Irene who translated the orders shouted at them by a brigandish-
looking soldier, and they had to pull off in the direction of a smaller
pier where Mrs. Haxton and Captain Stump had already disembarked in the
midst of a crowd of jabbering natives.
"Now, captain," said Mrs. Haxton, with her sweetest smile, pointing to
a white building in the distance, "that is the telegraph-office.
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