Either With
Haughty Indifference, Or Else With Injured Pride At His Not Being
Able To Command Me At His Pleasure, The King Sent Word, If
Medicine Is Brought For The Queen, Then Let It Be Taken To Her;
And So Bombay Walked Off To The Queen's Palace.
Arrived there,
he sent in to say he had brought medicine, and waited without a
reply till nightfall, when, tired of his charge, he gave the
quinine into N'yamgundu's hands for delivery, and returned h
home.
Soon after, however, N'yamgundu also returned to say the
queen would not take the dose to-day, but hoped I would
administer it personally in the morning.
Whilst all this vexations business had been going on in court -
evidently dictated by extreme jealousy because I showed, as they
all thought, a preference for the queen - Maula, more than tipsy,
brought a Mkungu of some standing at court before me, contrary to
all law - for as yet no Mganda, save the king's pages, had ever
dared enter even the precincts of my camp. With a scowling,
determined, hang-dog-looking countenance, he walked impudently
into my hut, and taking down the pombe-suckers the queen had
given me, showed them with many queer gesticulations, intended to
insinuate there was something between the queen and me. Among
his jokes were, that I must never drink pombe excepting with
these sticks; if I wanted any when I leave Uganda, to show my
friends, she would give me twenty more sticks of that sort if I
liked them; and, turning from verbal to practical jocularity, the
dirty fellow took my common sucker out of the pot, inserted one
of the queen's, and sucked at it himself, when I snatched and
threw it away.
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