"Just that. With a dose of trade gin on the cotton wool, and a match and a little careful manipulation, we'll have a portent sailing up into the sky that will astonish the Okky-men's weak nerves in most disastrous style."
"You are really a most ingenious person," said Miss O'Neill. "Isn't he, Laura?"
"It's that blessed Cascaes that's the weak spot in the defence. I suppose I've the usual West Coast prejudice against Portuguese; you know even the natives divide creation up into white men, black men, and Portuguese, and the particular specimen we've taken over here with the factory just bristles with bad points."
"I think he's rather nice," said Laura. "You were fighting with him this morning and I hated to see it."
"Well," said Carter, judicially, "I shouldn't define it as fighting exactly, but I'll admit, if you like, that I was kicking him. You see, Miss Head here has given most strict orders that not more than six strangers were ever to be admitted into the fort together at one time. He'd fourteen actually in the feteesh. Now, supposing those gallant fourteen suddenly produced weapons and held the gate whilst friends they'd ambushed outside ran across the clearing and rushed us, where'd we be?"
"Oh," said Laura, "I'm sorry I interfered if it was Kate's orders you were carrying out."
"So, Miss Head, with your permission I'll run up a chimbeque for the fellow outside the walls."
"Where did you get that word chimbeque from?" Kate asked. "It's Fiote, not Oil Rivers talk."
Carter's brown eyes twinkled. "I say, what a marvel you are to know things! I bet Laura didn't spot that. Why did I use the word? Well, we had a Portuguee linguister down at Malla-Nulla who had worked in the Congo, and he imported that and a lot more Congolese words as part of his baggage, and we absorbed them. Observe now. Trouble! I say, Trouble, come in here, and keep away from that sugar bowl in case you are tempted. Just stand there by the door. Now, tell me. You fit for savvy what a chimbeque is?"
The Krooboy's flat nose perceptibly lifted with contempt. "Dem bushman's word for hut. I fit for learn English on steamah. You can tell Missy I once was stand-by-at-crane boy on black funnel boat. I no say chimbeque; I say 'house.'"