Fred laughed all through the story, and finally crawled under his blanket again to lie chuckling at the underside of Brown of Lumbwa's berth.
"I don't see what we've scored by telling him," said Will to me.
"We've merely given him a peg to hang jokes on!" But I knew that now Will had told the story he would not, for very shame, withdraw from the venture until we should have demonstrated that no Lady Saffren Waldon, nor Sultan of Zanzibar, nor Germans, nor Arabs could make us afraid.

And it seemed to me that was sufficient accomplishment for one night.
The train's progress slowed and grew slower.

The panting of the engine came back to us in savage blasts.

We were climbing by curves and zigzags up the grim dark wall of mountains.

And as we mounted inch by inch, foot by foot, the air freshened and grew cooler--not really cool yet by a very Jacob's ladder of degrees, but delectable by comparison.
There was something peacefully exhilarating in the thought of rising from the red dead level of that awful plain, littered with the bones of camels and the slaves whom men pinned into the yokes to perish or survive in twos.* As we mounted foot by foot we fell asleep.