CHAPTER XIII 



WE CROSS THE MAREHAN 



They are as sick that surfeit with too much, 

 As they that starve with nothing 



Merchant of Venice 



And now for a few days we struck a period of bad 

 luck. Our larder was empty save for tins of food kept 

 for dire emergencies, and the men affected to be weak 

 from scant rations. In any other caravan they would 

 never, or hardly ever, have had them supplemented bv 

 flesh food ; but we had thoroughly spoiled them. 

 Game grew scarce, even the ubiquitous dik-dik was 

 absent, and any shot we got on these flying excursions 

 of ours away from the base camp we bungled. The 

 more we failed the more disconcerted we became. 

 How true it is nothing succeeds like success ! At last 

 matters got so bad we both of us always politely 

 offered the other the chance of a miss. I would first 

 decline to take it, and then Cecily. Meanwhile the 

 buck made good its escape. We both got backward 

 in coming forward, and, in American parlance, were 

 thoroughly rattled. 



At last I volunteered to go out early one morning 

 with Clarence, and we put up a bunch of aoul some 

 five hundred yards away. They winded us, and went 

 off at their best pace. In desperation I spurred on 



