When one comes to think of it there are enormous advantages in sleep, for that's the only time one is quite happy.

Still, I should have liked to see that Cypripedium first." "Oh! drat the Cypripedium!" I exclaimed, and blundered from the hut to tell Sammy that if he didn't stop his groaning I would punch his head.
"Jumps! Regular jumps! Who'd have thought it of Quatermain ?" I heard Stephen mutter in the intervals of lighting his pipe.
The morning went "like lightning that is greased," as Sammy remarked.
Three o'clock came and Mavovo and his following sacrificed a kid to the spirits of their ancestors, which, as Sammy remarked again, was "a horrible, heathen ceremony much calculated to prejudice our cause with Powers Above." When it was over, to my delight, Babemba appeared.

He looked so pleasant that I jumped to the conclusion that he brought the best of news with him.

Perhaps that the king had pardoned us, or perhaps--blessed thought--that Brother John had really arrived before his time.
But not a bit of it! All he had to say was that he had caused inquiries to be made along the route that ran to the coast and that certainly for a hundred miles there was at present no sign of Dogeetah.

So as the Black Elephant was growing more and more enraged under the stirrings up of Imbozwi, it was obvious that that evening's ceremony must be performed.