As I led Pornic over the sands I was startled by the faint pop
of a rifle across the river; and at the same moment a bullet dropped with a
sharp "whit" close to Pornic's head.
There was no mistaking the nature of the missile-a regulation Martini-Henry
"picket." About five hundred yards away a country-boat was anchored in
midstream; and a jet of smoke drifting away from its bows in the still morning
air showed me whence the delicate attention had come. Was ever a respectable
gentleman in such an impasse? The treacherous sand slope allowed no escape
from a spot which I had visited most involuntarily, and a promenade on the
river frontage was the signal for a bombardment from some insane native in a
boat. I'm afraid that I lost my temper very much indeed.
Another bullet reminded me that I had better save my breath to cool my
porridge; and I retreated hastily up the sands and back to the horseshoe,
where I saw that the noise of the rifle had drawn sixty-five human beings from
the badger-holes which I had up till that point supposed to be untenanted. I
found myself in the midst of a crowd of spectators--about forty men, twenty
women, and one child who could not have been more than five years old. They
were all scantily clothed in that salmon-colored cloth which one associates
with Hindu mendicants, and, at first sight, gave me the impression of a band
of loathsome fakirs.
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