"Ah'm fond of little dogs! Ah'm English!"
Scamp understood nothing of the conversation, but with canine instinct
realized that he was safe; and after that he was satisfied to lie
and pant. With five red inches of tongue hanging out, and no sign
whatever of his white-uniformed guardians to trouble him, a black
man's arms were as good as any other place; he did not waste half
a thought on Byng and Crothers.
But Byng, three turnings back, spat filthy sand out of his mouth
the moment an Arab deemed it safe to leave off sitting on his head,
looked wildly around for Crothers, and bellowed--
"Where's the pup?"
Crothers, spitting out sand, too, twenty yards behind where the swifter
Byng had fallen, called back:
"Dunno. Whistle him!"
Byng tried to whistle, and the Arabs mistook the effort for a signal.
In an instant both men were face-downward again, struggling for breath
and clawing at the dirt. Then worse befell. The gentleman whose
brown anatomy had suffered from the seamen's feet and fists just
previous to their invasion of the town limped up with his eye teeth
showing and his flapping cotton raiment still unmended where the dog
had torn it.
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