Black Mischief by Evelyn Waugh

much refreshed by his
racket.
    A
breathless day in the canal; the woman from Madagascar exhausted with
invitation. The Red Sea, the third-class passengers limp as corpses on the
lower deck; fiddle and piano indefatigable; dirty ice swimming in the dregs of
lemon juice; Basil in his bunk sullenly consuming cheroots, undeterred by the
distress of his cabin-companion. Jibuti; portholes closed to keep out the dust,
coolies jogging up the planks with baskets of coal; contemptuous savages in the
streets scraping their teeth with twigs; an Abyssinian noblewoman in a green
veil shopping at the French Emporium; an ill-intentioned black monkey in an
acacia tree near the post office. Basil took up with a Dutch South African;
they dined on the pavement of the hotel and drove later in a horse-cab to the
Somali quarter where in a lamp-lit mud hut Basil began to talk of the monetary
systems of the world until the Boer fell asleep on a couch of plaited hide and
the four dancing girls huddled together in the corner like chimpanzees and
chattered resentfully among themselves.
    The
ship was sailing for Azania at midnight. She lay far out in the bay, three
lines of lights reflected in the still water; the sound of fiddle and piano was
borne through the darkness, harshly broken by her siren intermittently warning
passengers to embark. Basil sat in the stern of the little boat, one hand
trailing in the sea; half-way to the ship the boatmen shipped their oars and
tried to sell him a basket of limes; they argued for a little in broken French,
then splashed on irregularly towards the liner; an oil lantern bobbed in the
bows. Basil climbed up the companion-way and went below; his companion was
asleep and turned over angrily as the light went up; the porthole had been shut
all day and the air was gross; Basil lit a cheroot and lay for some time
reading. Presently the old ship began to vibrate and later, as she drew clear
of the bay, to pitch very slightly in the Indian Ocean. Basil turned out the
light and lay happily smoking in the darkness.

     
     
    In London Lady Metroland
was giving a party. Sonia said: ‘No one asks us to parties now except Margot.
Perhaps there aren’t any others.’
    ‘The
boring thing about parties is that it’s far too much effort to meet new people,
and if it’s just all the ordinary people one knows already one might just as
well stay at home and ring them up instead of having all the business of remembering
the right day.’
    ‘I
wonder why Basil isn’t here. I thought he was bound to be.’
    ‘Didn’t
he go abroad?’
    ‘I
don’t think so. Don’t you remember, he had dinner with us the other evening?’
    ‘Did
he? When?’
    ‘Darling,
how can I remember that? … there’s Angela —she’ll know.’
    ‘Angela,
has Basil gone away?’
    ‘Yes,
somewhere quite extraordinary.’
    ‘My
dear, is that rather heaven for you?’
    ‘Well,
in away…’
     
     
    Basil was awakened by the
clank and rattle of steel cable as the anchor was lowered. He went up on deck
in pyjamas. The whole sky was aflame with green and silver dawn. Half-covered
figures of other passengers sprawled asleep on benches and chairs. The sailors
paddled between them on bare feet, clearing the hatches; a junior officer on
the bridge shouting orders to the men at the winch. Two lighters were already
alongside preparing to take off cargo. A dozen small boats clustered round
them, loaded with fruit.
    Quarter
of a mile distant lay the low sea-front of Matodi; the minaret, the Portuguese
ramparts, the mission church, a few warehouses taller than the rest, the Grand
Hotel de l’Empereur Amurath stood out from the white-and-dun cluster of roofs; behind
and on either side stretched the meadowland and green plantations of the
Azanian coast-line, groves of tufted palm at the water’s edge. Beyond and still
obscured by mist rose the great’ crests of the Sakuyu mountains, the Ukaka
pass and the road to Debra Dowa.
    The
purser joined Basil at the