262 TWO DIANAS IN SOMALILAND 



though that the skin was much damaged. My arm 

 was ripped up most ingeniously for quite three inches, 

 Another rent in my poor coat to be mended ! How- 

 ever, it might all have been much worse. It might 

 have been my right arm. The wind was tempered to 

 the shorn lamb. 



I rode back to camp, with a handkerchief twisted 

 tightly round the wound, and Cecily stayed to guard 

 the oryx from vultures, until I could send some one to 

 take over, when she returned to me fired with medical 

 ardour and primed with medical knowledge from our 

 book. She pronounced the wound as of the variety 

 to be stitched. Could I bear it being stitched ? I said 

 certainly, if she could endure the horror of stitching 

 it. So we prepared for action. I told my doctor I 

 would not have the place washed because I was con- 

 vinced that Somali water, even when filtered, was not 

 calculated to cleanse, rather the reverse, and I did 

 dread blood-poisoning. I sat outside the tent on a 

 packing case, and Cecily put three most workman- 

 like stitches into my arm. She was a brick, never 

 flinching until it was done, when she let off bottled- 

 up steam by crying about four tears, and I think 

 four tears are allowable — I mean without showing 

 any sort of cowardice or lack of courage — don't you ? 

 Rome was not built in a day, and Cecily had never even 

 been hospital-nursing ; but then she is the most un- 

 fashionable person in the wide world. 



I carried my arm in a sling as we marched next 

 day. Cecily was very anxious to halt the caravan on 

 my account, but this I would not allow. The wells 



