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Chapter four. Black Magic |
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Next day we climbed up through the misty forests and over the range. Chinaorang was still lame, the men had coughs and chills, and Luikai, glooming along behind me, was (38) prophesying pneumonia for everybody. When at last we descended shivering on the promised haven, we found, not the sound huts for which we longed, but a half-derelict camp looming up through wet mist, a wild, gusty wind driving the clouds past, and thatched roofs which leaked on the pitted earth floors. The villagers were not expecting us, so it was not their fault; but when at last we secured some firewood, it was soaking wet, and the fires smoked as only Naga fires can, with acrid persistence; there was hardly a dry space large enough to hold the camp-bed and we went round and round the hut with it, defeated by drips at every place where we tried to put it down, and to top all off, a violent thunderstorm blew up and removed with one roaring blast the mats we had laboriously spread over the leaks in the roof. With one accord we all gave up the struggle and went dumbly to bed. |
