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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/5194.txt b/5194.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d6c9e82 --- /dev/null +++ b/5194.txt @@ -0,0 +1,16914 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Ivory Trail, by Talbot Mundy + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Ivory Trail + +Author: Talbot Mundy + +Posting Date: October 2, 2010 [EBook #5194] +Release Date: February, 2004 +First Posted: June 2, 2002 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE IVORY TRAIL *** + + + + +Produced by Jake Jaqua + + + + + + + + + +THE IVORY TRAIL + + By Talbot Mundy + + + Author of + King--of the Khyber Rifles + The Winds of the World + Hira Singh + etc. + + + + +Chapter One + + +THE NJO HAPA* SONG + + Green, ah greener than emeralds are, tree-tops beckon the + dhows to land, + White, oh whiter than diamonds are, blue waves burst on the + amber sand, + And nothing is fairer than Zanzibar from the Isles o' the West + to the Marquesand. + + I was old when the world was wild with youth + (All love was lawless then!) + Since 'Venture's birth from ends of earth + I ha' called the sons of men, + And their women have wept the ages out + In travail sore to know + What lure of opiate art can leach + Along bare seas from reef to beach + Until from port and river reach + The fever'd captains go. + + Red, oh redder than red lips are, my flowers nod in the blazing + noon, + Blue, oh bluer than maidens' eyes, are the breasts o' my waves + in the young monsoon, + And there are cloves to smell, and musk, and lemon trees, and + cinnamon. + +--------- +*The words "Njo hapa" in the Kiswahili tongue are the equivalent of +"come hither!" +--------- + + +Estimates of ease and affluence vary with the point of view. While his +older brother lived, Monty had continued in his element, a cavalry +officer, his combined income and pay ample for all that the Bombay side +of India might require of an English gentleman. They say that a finer +polo player, a steadier shot on foot at a tiger, or a bolder squadron +leader never lived. + +But to Monty's infinite disgust his brother died childless. It is +divulging no secret that the income that passed with the title varied +between five and seven thousand pounds a year, according as coal was +high, and tenants prosperous or not--a mere miserable pittance, of +course, for the Earl of Montdidier and Kirkudbrightshire; so that all +his ventures, and therefore ours, had one avowed end--shekels enough to +lift the mortgages from his estates. + +Five generations of soldiers had blazed the Montdidier fame on +battle-grounds, to a nation's (and why not the whole earth's) benefit, +without replenishing the family funds, and Monty (himself a confirmed +and convinced bachelor) was minded when his own time should come to +pass the title along to the next in line together with sufficient funds +to support its dignity. + +To us--even to Yerkes, familiar with United States merchant kings--he +seemed with his thirty thousand dollars a year already a gilded +Croesus. He had ample to travel on, and finance prospecting trips. We +never lacked for working capital, but the quest (and, including Yerkes, +we were as keen as he) led us into strange places. + +So behold him--a privy councilor of England if you please--lounging in +the lazaretto of Zanzibar, clothed only in slippers, underwear and a +long blue dressing-gown. We three others were dressed the same, and +because it smacked of official restraint we objected noisily; but +Monty did not seem to mind much. He was rather bored, but unresentful. + +A French steamer had put us ashore in quarantine, with the grim word +cholera against us, and although our tale of suffering and Monty's +rank, insured us a friendly reception, the port health authorities +elected to be strict and we were given a nice long lazy time in which +to cool our heels and order new clothes. (Guns, kit, tents, and all +but what we stood in had gone to the bottom with the German cholera +ship from whose life-boat the French had rescued us.) + +"Keeping us all this time in this place, is sheer tyranny!" grumbled +Yerkes. "If any one wants my opinion, they're afraid we'd talk if they +let us out--more afraid of offending Germans than they are of cholera! +Besides--any fool could know by now we're not sick!" + +"There might be something in that," admitted Monty. + +"I'd send for the U. S. Consul and sing the song out loud, but for +you!" Yerkes added. + +Monty nodded sympathetically. + +"Dashed good of you, Will, and all that sort of thing." + +"You English are so everlastingly afraid of seeming to start trouble, +you'll swallow anything rather than talk!" + +"As a government, perhaps yes," admitted Monty. "As a people, I fancy +not. As a people we vary." + +"You vary in that respect as much as sardines in a can! I traveled +once all the way from London to Glasgow alone in one compartment with +an Englishman. Talk? My, we were garrulous! I offered him a +newspaper, cigarettes, matches, remarks on the weather suited to his +brand of intelligence--(that's your sole national topic of talk between +strangers!)--and all he ever said to me was 'Haw-ah!' I'll bet he was +afraid of seeming to start trouble!" + +"He didn't start any, did he?" asked Monty. + +"Pretty nearly he did! I all but bashed him over the bean with the +newspaper the third time he said 'haw-ah!'" + +Monty laughed. Fred Oakes was busy across the room with his most +amazing gift of tongues, splicing together half-a-dozen of them in +order to talk with the old lazaretto attendant, so he heard nothing; +otherwise there would have been argument. + +"Then it would have been you, not he who started trouble,"' said I, and +Yerkes threw both hands up in a gesture of despair. + +"Even you're afraid of starting something!" He stared at both of us +with an almost startled expression, as if he could not believe his own +verdict, yet could not get away from it. "Else you'd give the +Bundesrath story to the papers! That German skipper's conduct ought to +be bruited round the world! You said you'd do it. You promised us! +You told the man to his face you would!" + +"Now," said Monty, "you've touched on another national habit." + +"Which one?" Yerkes demanded. + +"Dislike of telling tales out of school. The man's dead. His ship's +at the bottom. The tale's ended. What's the use? Besides--?" + +"Ah! You've another reason! Spill it!" + +"As a privy councilor, y'know, and all that sort of thing--?" + +"Same story! Afraid of starting something!" + +"The Germans--'specially their navy men--drink to what they call Der +Tag y'know--the day when they shall dare try to tackle England. We all +know that. They're planning war, twenty years from now perhaps, that +shall give them all our colonies as well as India and Egypt. They're +so keen on it they can't keep from bragging. Great Britain, on the +other hand, hasn't the slightest intention of fighting if war can be +avoided; so why do anything meanwhile to increase the tension? Why +send broadcast a story that would only arouse international hatred? +That's their method. Ours--I mean our government's--is to give hatred +a chance to die down. If our papers got hold of the Bundesrath story +they'd make a deuce of a noise, of course." + +"If your government's so sure Germany is planning war," objected +Yerkes, "why on earth not force war, and feed them full of it before +they're ready?" + +"Counsel of perfection," laughed Monty. "Government's responsible to +the Common--Commons to the people--people want peace and plenty. No. +Your guess was good. We are in here while the government at home +squares the newspaper men." + +"You don't mean to tell me your British government controls the press?" + +"Hardly. Seeing 'em--putting it up to 'em straight--asking 'em +politely. They're public-spirited, y'know. Hitting 'em with a club +would be another thing. It's an easy-going nation, but kings have been +sorry they tried force. Did you never hear of a king who used force +against American colonies?" + +"Good God! So they keep you--an earl--a privy councilor--a retired +colonel of regulars in good standing--under lock and key in this +pest-house while they bribe the press not to tell the truth about some +Germans and start trouble?" + +"Not exactly" said Monty. + +"But here you are!" + +"I preferred to remain with my party." + +"You moan they'd have let you out and kept us in?" + +"They'd have phrased it differently, but that's about what it would +have amounted to. I have privileges." + +"Well, I'm jiggered!" + +"I rather suspect it's not so bad as that," said Monty. "You're with +friends in quarantine, Will!" + +For a quarantine station in the tropics it was after all not such a bad +place. We could hear the crooning of lazy rollers on the beach, and +what little sea-breeze moved at all came in to us through iron-barred +windows. The walls were of coral, three feet thick. So was the roof. +The wet red-tiled floor made at least an impression of coolness, and +the fresh green foliage of an enormous mango tree, while it obstructed +most of the view, suggested anything but durance vile. From not very +far away the aromatic smell of a clove warehouse located us, not +disagreeably, at the farther end of one of Sindbad's journeys, and the +birds in the mango branches cried and were colorful with hues and notes +of merry extravagance. Zanzibar is no parson's paradise--nor the +center of much high society. It reeks of unsavory history as well as +of spices. But it has its charms, and the Arabs love it. + +It had Fred Oakes so interested that he had forgotten his +concertina--his one possession saved from shipwreck, for which he had +offered to fight the whole of Zanzibar one-handed rather than have it +burned. + +("Damnation! it has silver reeds--it's an English top-hole one--a +wonder!") + +So the doctors who are kind men in the main disinfected it twice, once +on the French liner that picked us out of the Bundesrath's boat, and +again in Zanzibar; and with the stench of lord-knew-what zealous +chemical upon it he had let it lie unused while he picked up Kiswahili +and talked by the hour to a toothless, wrinkled very black man with a +touch of Arab in his breeding, and a deal of it in his brimstone +vocabulary. + +Presently Fred came over and joined us, dancing across the wide red +floor with the skirts of his gown outspread like a ballet +dancer's--ridiculous and perfectly aware of it. + +"Monty, you're rich! We're all made men! We're all rich! Let's spend +money! Let's send for catalogues and order things!" + +Monty declined to take fire. It was I, latest to join the partnership +and much the least affluent, who bit. + +"If you love the Lord, explain!" said I. + +"This old one-eyed lazaretto attendant is an ex-slave, ex-accomplice of +Tippoo Tib!" + +"And Tippoo Tib?" I asked. + +"Ignorant fo'castle outcast!" (All that because I had made one voyage +as foremast hand, and deserted rather than submit to more of it.) +"Tippoo Tib is the Arab--is, mind you, my son, not was--the Arab who +was made governor of half the Congo by H. M. Stanley and the rest of +'em. Tippoo Tib is the expert who used to bring the slave caravans to +Zanzibar--bring 'em, send 'em, send for 'em--he owned 'em anyway. +Tippoo Tib was the biggest ivory hunter and trader lived since old King +Solomon! Tippoo Tib is here--in Zanzibar--to all intents and purposes +a prisoner on parole--old as the hills--getting ready to die--and proud +as the very ace of hell. So says One-eye!" + +"So we're all rich?" suggested Monty. + +"Of course we are! Listen! The British government took Tippoo's +slaves away and busted his business. Made him come and live in this +place, go to church on Sundays, and be good. Then they asked him what +he'd done with his ivory. Asked him politely after putting him through +that mill! One-eye here says Tippoo had a million tusks--a +million!--safely buried! Government offered him ten per cent. of their +cash value if he'd tell 'em where, and the old sport spat in their +faces! Swears he'll die with the secret! One-eye vows Tippoo is the +only one who knows. There were others, but Tippoo shot or poisoned +'em." + +"So we're rich," smiled Yerkes. + +"Of course we are! Consider this, America, and tell me if Standard Oil +can beat it! One million tusks! I'm told--" + +"By whom?" + +"One-eye says--" + +"You'll say 'Oh!' at me to a different tune, before I've done! One-eye +says it never paid to carry a tusk weighing less than sixty pounds. +Some tusks weigh two hundred--some even more--took four men to carry +some of 'em! Call it an average weight of one hundred pounds and be on +the safe side." + +"Yes, let's play safe," agreed Monty seriously. + +"One hundred million pounds of ivory!" said Fred, with a smack of his +lips and the air of a man who could see the whole of it. "The present +market price of new ivory is over ten shillings a pound on the spot. +That'll all be very old stuff, worth at least double. But let's say +ten shillings a pound and be on the safe side." + +"Yes, let's!" laughed Yerkes. + +"One thousand million--a billion shillings!" Fred announced. "Fifty +million pounds!" + +"Two hundred and fifty million dollars!" Yerkes calculated, beginning +to take serious notice. + +"But how are we to find it?" I objected. + +"That's the point. Government 'ud hog the lot, but has hunted high and +low and can't find it. So the offer stands ten per cent. to any one +who does--ten per cent. of fifty million--lowest reckoning, mind +you!--five million pounds! Half for Monty--two and a half million. A +million for Yerkes, a million for me, and a half a million for you all +according to contract! How d'you like it?" + +"Well enough," I answered. "If its only the hundredth part true, I'm +enthusiastic!" + +"So now suit yourselves!" said Fred, collapsing with a sweep of his +skirts into the nearest chair. "I've told you what One-eye says. +These dusky gents sometimes exaggerate of course--" + +"Now and then," admitted Monty. + +"But where there's smoke you mean there's prob'ly some one smoking +hams?" suggested Yerkes. + +"I mean, let's find that ivory!" said Fred. + +"We might do worse than make an inquiry or two," Monty assented +cautiously. + +"Didums, you damned fool, you're growing old! You're wasting time! +You're trying to damp enthusiasm! You're--you're--" + +"Interested, Fred. I'm interested. Let's--" + +"Let's find that ivory and to hell with caution! Why, man alive, it's +the chance of a million lifetimes!" + +"Well, then," said Monty, "admitting the story's true for the sake of +argument, how do you propose to get on the track of the secret?" + +"Get on it? I am on it! Didn't One-eye say Tippoo Tib is alive and in +Zanzibar? The old rascal! Many a slave he's done to death! Many a +man he's tortured! I propose we catch Tippoo Tib, hide him, and pull +out his toe-nails one by one until be blows the gaff!" + +(To hear Fred talk when there is nothing to do but talk a stranger +might arrive at many false conclusions.) + +"If there's any truth in the story at all," said Monty, "government +will have done everything within the bounds of decency to coax the +facts from Tippoo Tib. I suspect we'd have to take our chance and +simply hunt. But let's hear Juma's story." + +So the old attendant left off sprinkling water from a yellow jar, and +came and stood before us. Fred's proposal of tweaking toe-nails would +not have been practical in his case, for he had none left. His black +legs, visible because he had tucked his one long garment up about his +waist, were a mass of scars. He was lean, angular, yet peculiarly +straight considering his years. As he stood before us he let his +shirt-like garment drop, and the change from scarecrow to deferential +servant was instantaneous. He was so wrinkled, and the wrinkles were +so deep, that one scarcely noticed his sightless eye, almost hidden +among a nest of creases; and in spite of the wrinkles, his polished, +shaven head made him look ridiculously youthful because one expected +gray hair and there was none. + +"Ask him how he lost his toe-nails, Fred," said I. + +But the old man knew enough English to answer for himself. He made a +wry grimace and showed his hands. The finger-nails were gone too. + +"Tell us your story, Juma," said Monty. + +"Tell 'em about the pembe--the ivory--the much ivory--the meengi +pembe," echoed Fred. + +"Let's hear about those nails of his first," said I. + +"One thing'll prob'ly lead to another," Yerkes agreed. "Start him on +the toe-nail story." + +But it did not lead very far. Fred, who had picked up Kiswahili enough +to piece out the old man's broken English, drew him out and clarified +the tale. But it only went to prove that others besides ourselves had +heard of Tippoo Tib's hoard. Some white man--we could not make head or +tail of the name, but it sounded rather like Somebody belonging to a +man named Carpets--had trapped him a few years before and put him to +torture in the belief that he knew the secret. + +"But me not knowing nothing!" he assured us solemnly, shaking his head +again and again. + +But he was not in the least squeamish about telling us that Tippoo Tib +had surely buried huge quantities of ivory, and had caused to be slain +afterward every one who shared the secret. + +"How long ago?" asked Monty. But natives of that part of the earth are +poor hands at reckoning time. + +"Long time," he assured us. He might have meant six years, or sixty. +It would have been all the same to him. + +"No. Me not liking Tippoo Tib. One time his slave. That bad. Byumby +set free. That good. Now working here. This very good." + +"Where do you think the ivory is?" (This from Yerkes.) + +But the old man shook his head. + +"As I understand it," said Monty, "slaves came mostly from the Congo +side of Lake Victoria Nyanza. Slave and elephant country were +approximately the same as regards general direction, and there were two +routes from the Congo--the southern by way of Ujiji on Tanganyika to +Bagamoyo on what is now the German coast, and the other to the north of +Victoria Nyanza ending at Mombasa. Ask him, Fred, which way the ivory +used to come." + +"Both ways," announced Juma without waiting for Fred to interpret. He +had an uncanny trick of following conversation, his intelligence +seeming to work by fits and starts. + +"That gives us about half Africa for hunting-ground, and a job for +life!" laughed Yerkes. + +"Might have a worse!" Fred answered, resentful of cold water thrown on +his discovery. + +"Were you Tippoo Tib's slave when he buried the ivory?" demanded Monty, +and the old man nodded. + +"Where were you at the time?" + +Juma made a gesture intended to suggest immeasurable distances toward +the West, and the name of the place he mentioned was one we had never +heard of. + +"Can you take us to Tippoo Tib when we leave this place?" I asked, and +he nodded again. + +"How much ivory do you suppose there was?" asked Yerkes. + +"Teli, teli!" he answered, shaking his head. + +"Too much!" Fred translated. + +"Pretty fair to middling vague," said Yerkes, +"but"--judicially--"almost worth investigating!" + +"Investigating?" Fred sprang from his chair. "It's better than all +King Solomon's mines, El Dorado, Golconda, and Sindbad the Sailor's +treasure lands--rolled in one! It's an obviously good thing! All we +need is a bit of luck and the ivory's ours!" + +"I'll sell you my share now for a thousand dollars--come--come across!" +grinned Yerkes. + +There was a rough-house after that. He and Fred nearly pulled the old +attendant in two, each claiming the right to torture him first and +learn the secret. They ended up without a whole rag between them, and +had to send Juma to head-quarters for new blue dressing-gowns. The +doctor came himself--a fat good-natured party with an eye-glass and a +cocktail appetite, acting locum-tenens for the real official who was +home on leave. He brought the ingredients for cocktails with him. + +"Yes," he said, shaking the mixer with a sort of deft solicitude. +"There's more than something in the tale. I've had a try myself to get +details. Tippoo Tib believes in up-to-date physic, and when the old +rascal's sick he sends for me. I offered to mix him an elixir of life +that would make him out-live Methuselah if he'd give me as much as a +hint of the general direction of his cache." + +"He ought to have fallen for that," said Yerkes, but the doctor shook +his head. + +"He's an Arab. They're Shiah Muhammedans. Their Paradise is a +pleasant place from all accounts. He advised me to drink my own +elixir, and have lots and lots of years in which to find the ivory, +without being beholden to him for help. Wily old scaramouch! But I +had a better card up my sleeve. He has taken to discarding ancient +prejudices--doesn't drink or anything like that, but treats his harem +almost humanly. Lets 'em have anything that costs him nothing. Even +sends for a medico when they're sick! Getting lax in his old age! +Sent for me a while ago to attend his favorite wife--sixty years old if +she's a day, and as proud of him as if he were the king of Jerusalem. +Well--I looked her over, judged she was likely to keep her bed, and did +some thinking." + +"You know their religious law? A woman can't go to Paradise without +special intercession, mainly vicarious. I found a mullah--that's a +Muhammedan priest--who'd do anything for half of nothing. They most of +them will. I gave him fifty dibs, and promised him more if the trick +worked. Then I told the old woman she was going to die, but that if +she'd tell me the secret of Tippoo Tib's ivory I had a mullah handy who +would pass her into Paradise ahead of her old man. What did she do? +She called Tippoo Tib, and he turned me out of the house. So I'm fifty +out of pocket, and what's worse, the old girl didn't die--got right up +out of bed and stayed up! My rep's all smashed to pieces among the +Arabs!" + +"D'you suppose the old woman knew the secret?" I asked. + +"Not she! If she'd known it she'd have split! The one ambition she +has left is to be with Tippoo Tib in Paradise. But he can intercede +for her and get her in--provided he feels that way; so she rounded on +me in the hope of winning his special favor! But the old ruffian knows +better! He'll no more pray for her than tell me where the ivory is! +The Koran tells him there are much better houris in Paradise, so why +trouble to take along a toothless favorite from this world?" + +"Has the government any official information?" asked Monty. + +"Quite a bit, I'm told. Official records of vain searches. Between +you and me and these four walls, about the only reason why they didn't +hang the old slave-driving murderer was that they've always hoped he'd +divulge the secret some day. But he hates the men who broke him far +too bitterly to enrich them on any terms! If any man wins the secret +from him it'll be a foreigner. They tell me a German had a hard try +once. One of Karl Peters' men." + +"That'll be Carpets!" said Monty. "Somebody belonging to Carpets--Karl +Peters." + +"The man's serving a life sentence in the jail for torturing our friend +Juma here." + +"Then Juma knows the secret?" + +"So they say. But Juma, too, hopes to go to Paradise and wait on +Tippoo Tib." + +"He told us just now that he dislikes Tippoo Tib," I objected. + +"So he does, but that makes no difference. Tippoo Tib is a big +chief--sultani kubwa--take any one he fancies to Heaven with him!" + +We all looked at Juma with a new respect. + +"I got Juma his job in here," said the doctor. "I've rather the notion +of getting my ten per cent. on the value of that ivory some day!" + +"Are there any people after it just now?" asked Monty. + +"I don't know, I'm sure. There was a German named Schillingschen, who +spent a month in Zanzibar and talked a lot with Tippoo Tib. The old +rascal might tell his secret to any one he thought was England's really +dangerous enemy. Schillingschen crossed over to British East if I +remember rightly. He might be on the track of it." + +"Tell us more about Schillingschen," said Monty. + +"He's one of those orientalists, who profess to know more about Islam +than Christianity--more about Africa and Arabia than Europe--more about +the occult than what's in the open. A man with a shovel +beard--stout--thick-set--talks Kiswahili and Arabic and half a dozen +other languages better than the natives do themselves. Has +money--outfit like a prince's--everything +imaginable--Rifles--microscopes--cigars--wine. He didn't make himself +agreeable here--except to the Arabs. Didn't call at the Residency. +Some of us asked him to dinner one evening, but he pleaded a headache. +We were glad, because afterward we saw him eat at the hotel--has ways +of using his fingers at table, picked up I suppose from the people he +has lived among." + +"Are you nearly ready to let us out of here?" asked Monty. + +"Your quarantine's up," said the doctor. "I'm only waiting for word +from the office." + +We drank three rounds of cocktails with him, after which he grew darkly +friendly and proposed we should all set out together in search of the +hoard. + +"I've no money," he assured us. "Nothing but a knowledge of the +natives and a priceless thirst. I'd have to throw up my practise here. +Of course I'd need some sort of guarantee from you chaps." + +The proposal falling flat, he gathered the nearly empty bottles into +one place and shouted for his boy to come and carry them away. + +"Think it over!" he urged as he got up to leave us. "You might take a +bigger fool than me with you. You'd need a doctor on a trip like that. +I'm an expert on some of these tropical diseases. Think it over!" + +"Fred!" said Monty, as soon as the doctor had left the room, "I'm +tempted by this ivory of yours." + +But Fred, in the new blue dressing-gown the doctor had brought, was in +another world--a land of trope and key and metaphor. For the last ten +minutes he had kept a stub of pencil and a scrap of paper working, and +now the strident tones of his too long neglected concertina stirred the +heavy air and shocked the birds outside to silence. The instrument was +wheezy, for in addition to the sacrilege the port authorities had done +by way of disinfection, the bellows had been wetted when Fred plunged +from the sinking Bundesrath and swam. But he is not what you could +call particular, as long as a good loud noise comes forth that can be +jerked and broken into anything resembling tune. + +"Tempted, are you?" he laughed. He looked like a drunken troubadour en +deshabille, with those up-brushed mustaches and his usually neat brown +beard all spread awry. "Temptation's more fun than plunder!" + +Yerkes threw an orange at him, more by way of recognition than +remonstrance. We had not heard Fred sing since he tried to charm +cholera victims in the Bundesrath's fo'castle, and, like the rest of +us, he had his rights. He sang with legs spread wide in front of him, +and head thrown back, and, each time he came to the chorus, kept on +repeating it until we joined in. + + There's a prize that's full familiar from Zanzibar to France; + From Tokio to Boston; we are paid it in advance. + It's the wages of adventure, and the wide world knows the feel + Of the stuff that stirs good huntsmen all and brings the + hounds to heel! + It's the one reward that's gratis and precedes the toilsome task-- + It's the one thing always better than an optimist can ask! + It's amusing, it's amazing, and it's never twice the same; + It's the salt of true adventure and the glamour of the game! + + CHORUS + It is tem-tem-pitation! + The one sublime sensation! + You may doubt it, but without it + There would be no derring-do! + The reward the temptee cashes + Is too often dust and ashes, + But you'll need no spurs or lashes + When temptation beckons you! + + Oh, it drew the Roman legions to old Britain's distant isle, + And it beckoned H. M. Stanley to the sources of the Nile; + It's the one and only reason for the bristling guns at Gib, + For the skeletons at Khartoum, and the crimes of Tippoo Tib. + The gentlemen adventurers braved torture for its sake, + It beckoned out the galleons, and filled the hulls of Drake! + Oh, it sets the sails of commerce, and it whets the edge of war, + It's the sole excuse for churches, and the only cause of law! + + CHORUS + It is tem-tem-pitation! etc., etc. + No note is there of failure (that's a tune the croakers sing!) + This song's of youth, and strength, and health, and time + that's on the wing! + Of wealth beyond the hazy blue of far horizons flung-- + But never of the folk returning, disillusioned, stung! + It's a tale of gold and ivory, of plunder out of reach, + Of luck that fell to other men, of treasure on the beach-- + A compound, cross-reciprocating two-way double spell, + The low, sweet lure to Heaven, and the tallyho to hell! + + CHORUS + It is tem-tem-pitation! + The one sublime sensation! + You may doubt it, but without it + There would be no derring-do! + It's the siren of to-morrow + That knows naught of lack or sorrow, + So you'll sell your bonds and borrow, + When temptation beckons you! + +Once Fred starts there is no stopping him, short of personal violence, +and he ran through his ever lengthening list of songs, not all quite +printable, until the very coral walls ached with the concertina's +wailing, and our throats were hoarse from ridiculous choruses. As +Yerkes put it: + +"When pa says sing, the rest of us sing too or go crazy!" + +I went to the window and tried to get a view of shipping through the +mango branches. Masts and sails--lateen spars particularly--always get +me by the throat and make me happy for a while. But all I could see +was a low wall beyond the little compound, and over the top of it +headgear of nearly all the kinds there are. (Zanzibar is a wonderful +market for second-hand clothes. There was even a tall silk hat of not +very ancient pattern.) + +"Come and look, Monty!" said I, and he and Yerkes came and stood beside +me. Seeing his troubadour charm was broken, Fred snapped the catch on +the concertina and came too. + +"Arabian Nights!" he exclaimed, thumping Monty on the back. + +"Didums, you drunkard, we're dead and in another world! Juma is the +one-eyed Calender! Look--fishermen--houris--how many houris?--seen 'em +grin!--soldiers of fortune--merchants--sailors--by gad, there's Sindbad +himself!--and say! If that isn't the Sultan Haroun-al-Raschid in +disguise I'm willing to eat beans and pie for breakfast to oblige +Yerkes! Look--look at the fat ruffian's stomach and swagger, will you?" + +Yerkes sized up the situation quickest. + +"Sing him another song, Fred. If we want to strike up acquaintance +with half Zanzibar, here's our chance!" + +"Oh, Richard, oh, my king!" hummed Monty. "It's Coeur de Lion and +Blondell over again with the harp reversed." + +If Zanzibar may be said to possess main thoroughfares, that window of +ours commanded as much of one as the tree and wall permitted; and +music--even of a concertina--is the key to the heart of all people +whose hair is crisp and kinky. Perhaps rather owing to the generosity +of their slave law, and Koran teachings, more than to racial depravity, +there are not very many Arabs left in that part of the world with true +semitic features and straight hair, nor many woolly-headed folk who are +quite all-Bantu. There is enough Arab blood in all of them to make +them bold; Bantu enough for syncopated, rag-time music to take them by +the toes and stir them. The crowd in the street grew, and gathered +until a policeman in red fez and khaki knickerbockers came and started +trouble. He had a three-cornered fight on his hands, and no sympathy +from any one, within two minutes. Then the man with the stomach and +swagger--he whom Fred called Haroun-al-Raschid--took a hand in masterly +style. He seized the police-man from behind, flung him out of the +crowd, and nobody was troubled any more by that official. + +"That him Tippoo Tib's nephew!" said a voice, and we all jumped. We +had not noticed Juma come and stand beside us. + +"I suspect nephew is a vague relationship in these parts," said Monty. +"Do you mean Tippoo's brother was that man's father, Juma?" + +"No, bwana.* Tippoo Tib bringing slave long ago f'm Bagamoyo. Him +she-slave having chile. She becoming concubine Tippoo Tib his wife's +brother. That chile Tippoo Tib's nephew. Tea ready, bwana." + +----------------- +* Bwana, Swahili word meaning master. +----------------- + +"What does that man do for a living?" + +"Do for a living?" Juma was bewildered. + +"What does he work at?" + +"Not working." + +"Never?" + +"No. + +"Has he private means, then?" + +"I not understand. Tea ready, bwana!" + +"Has he got mali*?" Fred demanded. + +"Mali? No. Him poor man." + +-------------- +*Mali, Swahili word meaning possession, property. +-------------- + +"Then how does he exist, if he has no mali and doesn't work?" + +"Oh, one wife here, one there, one other place, an' +Tippoo Tib byumby him giving food." + +"How many wives has he?" + +"Tea ready, bwana!" + +"How do they come to be spread all over the place?" (We were shooting +questions at him one after the other, and Juma began to look as if he +would have preferred a repetition of the toe-nail incident.) + +"Oh, he travel much, an' byumby lose all money, then stay here. Tea, +him growing cold." + +There is no persuading the native servant who has lived under the Union +Jack that an Englishman does not need hot tea at frequent intervals, +even after three cocktails in an afternoon. So we trooped to the table +to oblige him, and went through the form of being much refreshed. + +"What is that man's name?" demanded Monty. + +"Hassan." + +"Do you know him?" + +"Everybody know him!" + +"Can you get a message to him?" + +"Yes, bwana." + +"Tell him to come and talk with us at the hotel as soon as he hears we +are out of this." + +We did not know it at the time (for I don't think that Monty guessed it +either) that we had taken the surest way of setting all Zanzibar by the +ears. In that last lingering stronghold of legal slavery,* where the +only stories judged worth listening to are the very sources of the +Thousand Nights and a Night, intrigue is not perhaps the breath of +life, but it is the salt and savory. There is a woolly-headed sultan +who draws a guaranteed, fixed income and has nothing better to do than +regale himself and a harem with western alleged amusement. There are +police, and lights, and municipal regulations. In fact, Zanzibar has +come on miserable times from certain points of view. But there remains +the fun of listening to all the rumors borne by sea. "Play on the +flute in Zanzibar and Africa as far as the lakes will dance!" the Arabs +say, and the gentry who once drove slaves or traded ivory refuse to +believe that the day of lawlessness is gone forever. One rumor then is +worth ten facts. Four white men singing behind the bars of the +lazaretto, desiring to speak with Hassan, "'nephew" of Tippoo Tib, and +offering money for the introduction, were enough to send whispers +sizzling up and down all the mazy streets. + +---------------- +* Slavery was not absolutely and finally abolished in Zanzibar until +1906, during which year even the old slaves, hitherto unwilling to be +set free, had to be pensioned off. +---------------- + +Our release from quarantine took place next day, and we went to the +hotel, where we were besieged at once by tradesmen, each proclaiming +himself the only honest outfitter and "agent for all good export +firms." Monty departed to call on British officialdom (one advantage +of traveling with a nobleman being that he has to do the stilted social +stuff). Yerkes went to call on the United States Consul, the same being +presumably a part of his religion, for he always does it, and almost +always abuses his government afterward. So Fred and I were left to +repel boarders, and it came about that we two received Hassan. + +He entered our room with a great shout of "Hodi!" (and Fred knew enough +to say "Karibu!")--a smart red fez set at an angle on his shaven head, +his henna-stained beard all newly-combed--a garment like a night-shirt +reaching nearly to his heels, a sort of vest of silk embroidery +restraining his stomach's tendency to wobble at will, and a fat smile +decorating the least ashamed, most obviously opportunist face I ever +saw, even on a black man. + +"Jambo, jambo;"* he announced, striding in and observing our lack of +worldly goods with one sweep of the eye. (We had not stocked up yet +with new things, and probably he did not know our old ones were at the +bottom of the sea.) He was a lion-hearted rascal though, at all events +at the first rush, for poverty on the surface did not trouble him. + +--------------- +* Jambo, good day. +--------------- + +"You send for me? You want a good guide?" + +The Haroun-al-Raschid look had disappeared. Now he was the +jack-of-all-trades, wondering which end of the jack to push in first. + +"When I need a guide I'll get a licensed one," said Fred, sitting down +and turning partly away from him. (It never pays to let those gentry +think they have impressed you.) "What is your business, Johnson?" + +"My name Hassan, sah. You send for me? You want a headman. I'm +formerly headman for Tippoo Tib, knowing all roads, and how to manage +wapagazi,* safari,** all things!" + +--------------- +* Wapagazi, plural of pagazi, porter. +** Safari, journey, and, by inference, outfit for a journey. +--------------- + +"Any papers to prove it?" asked Fred. + +"No, sir. Reference to Tippoo Tib himself sufficient! He my +part-uncle." + +"Ready to tell any kind of a lie for you, eh?" + +"No, sir, always telling truth! You got a cook yet?" + +"Can you cook?" Fred answered guardedly. + +"Yes, sah. Was cook formerly for Master Stanley, go with him on +expedition. Later his boy. Later his headman. You want to go on +expedition, I getting you good cook. Where you want to go?" + +"Are you looking for a job?" asked Fred. + +"What you after? Ivory?" + +"Maybe." + +"I know all about ivory--I shoot, trade ivory along o' Tippoo Tib an' +Stanley. You engage my services, all very well." + +"Go and tell Tippoo Tib we want to see him. If he confirms what you +say, perhaps we'll take you on," said Fred. + +"Tell Tippoo Tib? Ha-ha! You want to find his buried ivory--that it? +All white men wanting that! All right, I go tell him! I come again!" + +"Come back here, you fat rascal!" ordered Fred. "What do you mean +about buried ivory? What buried ivory?" + +Hassan's face lost some of its transcendent cheek. Even the dyed beard +seemed to wilt. + +"What you wanting?" he asked. "Hunt, trade, travel--what your +business?" + +"Fish!" Fred answered genially. + +"Samaki?" + +"Yes--samaki--fish!" + +Having no experience of Arabs, and part-Arabs, I wondered what on earth +Fred could be driving at. But Hassan wondered still more, and that was +the whole point. He stood agape, looking from one to the other of us, +his fat good-natured face an interrogation mark. + +"I go an' tell bwana Tippoo Tib!" he announced, and departed swiftly. + +"What's the idea of fish, Fred?" I asked. + +"Oh, just curiosity. The way of getting information out of colored +folk is to get them so frantically curious they've no time to think up +lies. Tobacco would have done as well--anything unexpected. A bird +flying, and a black man lying,--are both of 'em easy to catch or +confuse unless they know which way they're heading. Let's go and look +at the bazaar." + +But in order to look one had to reach. We left the great heavy-beamed +hotel that had once been Tippoo Tib's residence, but were stopped in +the outer doorway by a crowd of native boys, each with a brass plate on +his arm. + +"Guide, sah!--Guide, sah!--My name 'McPhairson, sah!--My name Jones, +sah!--My name Johnson, sah! Guide to all the sights, sah!" + +They were as persistent and evilly intentioned as a swarm of flies, and +bold enough to strike back when anybody kicked them. While we wrestled +and swore, but made no headway, we were accosted by a Greek, who seemed +from long experience able to pass through them without striking or +being struck. We were not left in doubt another second as to whether +our friend Hassan had dallied on the way, and held his tongue or not. + +"Good day, gentlemen! I hear you are after fish! Hah! That is a good +story to tell to Arabs! You mean fishing for information, eh? Ha-hah!" + +He turned on the swarm of boys, who still yelled and struggled about +our legs. + +"Imshi!* Voetsak!** Enenda zako!*** Kuma nina, wewe!****" In a minute +he had them all scattering, for only innocence and inexperience attract +the preying youth of Zanzibar. "Now, gentlemen, my name is +Coutlass--Georges Coutlass. Have a drink with me, and let me tell you +something." + +----------------- +* Imshi (Arabic), get to hell out of here! +** Voetsak (Cape Dutch), ditto. +*** Enenda zako (Kiswahill), ditto. +**** Kuma nina (Kiswahill). An opprobrious, and perhaps the commonest +expletive In the language, amounting to a request for details of the +objurgee's female ancestry. By no means for use in drawing-rooms. +------------------ + +He was tall, dark skinned, athletic, and roguish-looking even for the +brand of Greek one meets with south of the Levant--dressed in khaki, +with an American cowboy hat--his fingers nearly black with cigarette +juice--his hands unusually horny for that climate--and his hair +clipped so short that it showed the bumps of avarice and other things, +said to reside below the hat-band to the rear. Yet a plausible, +companionable-seeming man. And Zanzibar confers democratic privilege, +as well as fevers; impartiality hovers in the atmosphere as well as +smells, and we neither of us dreamed of hesitating, but followed him +back into the bar--a wide, low-ceilinged room whose beams were two feet +thick of blackened, polished hard wood. There we sat one each side of +him in cane armchairs. He ordered the drinks, and paid for them. + +"First I will tell you who I am," he said, when he had swallowed a +foot-long whisky peg and wiped his lips with his coat sleeve. "I never +boast. I don't need to! I am Georges Coutlass! I learned that you +have an English lord among your party, and said I to myself 'Aha! +There is a man who will appreciate me, who am a citizen of three +lands!' Which of you gentlemen is the lord?" + +"How can you be a citizen of three countries?" Fred countered. + +"Of Greece, for I was born in Greece. I have fought Turks. Ah! I +have bled for Greece. I have spilt my blood in many lands, but the +best was for my motherland!--Of England, for I became naturalized. By +bloody-hell-and-Waterloo, but I admire the English! They have guts, +those English, and I am one of them! By the great horn spoon, yes, I +became an Englishman at Bow Street one Monday morning, price Five +Pounds. I was lined up with the drunks and pick-pockets, and by Jumbo +the magistrate mistook me for a thief! He would have given me six +months without the option in another minute, but I had the good luck to +remember how much money I had paid my witnesses. The thought of paying +that for nothing--worse than nothing, for six months in jail!--in an +English jail!--pick oakum!--eat skilly!--that thought brought me to my +senses. 'By Gassharamminy,' I said, 'I may be mad, but I'm sober! If +it's a crime to desire to be English, then punish me, but let me first +commit the offense!' So he laughed, and didn't question my witnesses +very carefully--one was a Jew, the other an ex-German, and either of +them would swear to anything at half price for a quantity--and they +kissed the Book and committed perjury--and lo and behold, I was English +as you are--English without troubling a midwife or the parson! Five +pounds for the 'beak' at Bow Street--fifty for the +witnesses--fifty-five all told--and cheap at the price! I had money in +those days. It was after our short war with Turkey. We Greeks got +beaten, but the Turks did not get all the loot! By prison and gallows, +no! When our men ran before a battle, I did not run--not I! I +remained, and by Croesus I grew richer in an hour than I have ever been +since!" + +"That's two countries," said I. "Which is the third that has the honor +to claim your allegiance?" + +"Honor is right!" he answered with a proud smile. "I, Georges Coutlass, +have honored three flags! I am a credit to all three countries! The +third is America--the U. S. A. You might say that is the corollary of +being English--the natural, logical, correct sequence! The U. S. laws +are strict, but their politics were devised for--what is it the +preachers call it--ah, yes, for straining out gnats and swallowing +camels. By George Washington they would swallow a house on fire! +There was a federal election shortly due. One of the +parties--Democratic--Republican--I forget which--maybe both!--needed +new voters. The law says it takes five years to become a citizen. +Politics said fifteen minutes! The politicians paid the fees too! I +was a citizen--a voter--an elector of presidents before I had been +ashore three months, and I had sold my vote three times over within a +month of that! They had me registered under three names in three +separate wards! I didn't need the money--I had plenty in those days--I +gave the six dollars I received for my votes to the Holy Church, and +voted the other way to save my conscience; but the fun of the thing +appealed! By Gassharamminy! I can't take life the way the copy-books +lay down! I have to break laws or else break heads! But I love +America! I fought and bled for America! By Abraham Lincoln, I fought +those Spaniards until I don't doubt they wished I had stayed in Greece! +Yes, I left that middle finger in Cuba--shot through the left hand by +a Don, think of it, a Don! When I came out of hospital--and I never +saw anything worse than that hot hell!--I got myself attached to the +commissariat, and the pickings were none so bad. Had to hand over too +much, though. That is the worst of America, there is no genuine +liberty. You have to steal for the man higher up. If you keep more +than ten per cent., he squeals. He has to pass most of it on again to +some one else, and so on, and they all land in jail in course of time! +Give me a country where a man can keep what he finds! There was talk +about congressional inquiries. Then a friend of mine--a Greek--who had +been out here told me of Tippoo Tib's ivory, and it looked all right to +me to change scenes for a while. I had citizenship papers--U. S., and +English, and a Greek passport in case of accident. Traveling looked +good to me." + +"If you traveled on a Greek passport you couldn't use citizenship +papers of any other country," Fred objected. + +"Who said I traveled on a Greek passport? Do you take me for such a +fool? Who listens to a Greek consul? He may protest, and accept fees, +but Greece is a little country and no one listens to her consuls. I +carry a Greek passport in case I should find somewhere someday a Greek +consul with influence or a Greek whom I wish to convince. I traveled +to South Africa as an American. I went to Cape Town with the idea of +going to Salisbury, and working my way up from there as a trader into +the Congo. I reached Johannesburg, and there I did a little I. D. B. +and one thing and another until the Boer War came. Then I fought for +the Boers. Yes, I have bled for the Boer cause. It was a damned bad +cause! They robbed me of nearly all my money! They left me to die +when I was wounded! It was only by the grace of God, and the intrigues +of a woman that I made my way to Lourenco Marquez. No, the war was not +over, but what did I care? I, Georges Coutlass, had had enough of it! +I recompensed myself en route. I do not fight for a bunch of thieves +for nothing! I sailed from Lourenco Marquez to Mombasa. I hunted +elephant in British East Africa until they posted a reward for me on +the telegraph poles. The law says not more than two elephants in one +year. I shot two hundred! I sold the ivory to an Indian, bought +cattle, and went down into German East Africa. The Masai attacked me, +stole some of the cattle, and killed others. The Germans, damn and +blast them, took the rest! They accused me of crimes--me, Georges +Coutlass!--and imposed fines calculated carefully to skin me of all I +had! Roup and rotten livers! but I will knock them head-over-halleluja +one fine day! Not for nothing shall they flim-flam Georges Coutlass! +Which of you gentlemen is the lord?" + +We bought him another drink, and watched it disappear with one +uninterrupted gurgle down its appointed course. + +"What did you do next?" Fred asked him before he had recovered breath +enough to question us. "I suppose the Germans had you at a loose end?" + +"Do you think that? Sacred history of hell! It takes more than a +lousy military German to get Georges Coutlass at a loose end! They +must get me dead before that can happen! And then, by Blitzen, as +those devils say, a dead Georges Coutlass will be better than a +thousand dead Germans! In hell I will use them to clean my boots on! +At a loose end, was I? I met this bloody rogue Hassan--the fat +blackguard who told me you have come to Zanzibar for fish--and made an +agreement with him to look for Tippoo Tib's buried ivory. Yes, sir! I +showed him papers. He thought they were money drafts. He thought me a +man of means whom he could bleed. I had guns and ammunition, he none. +He pretended to know where some of Tippoo Tib's ivory is buried." + +"Some of it, eh?" said Fred. + +"Some of it, d'you say?" said I. + +"Some of it, yes. A million tusks. Some say two million! Some say +three! Thunder!--you take a hundred good tusks and bury them; you'll +see the hill you've made from five miles off! A hundred thousand tusks +would make a mountain! If any one buried a million tusks in one spot +they'd mark the place on maps as a watershed! They must be buried +here, there, everywhere along the trail of Tippoo Tib--perhaps a +thousand in one place at the most. Which of you two gentlemen is the +lord?" + +"Did Hassan lead you to any of it?" Fred inquired. + +"Not he! The jelly-belly! The Arab pig! He led me to Ujiji--that's +on Lake Tanganika--the old slave market where he himself was once sold +for ten cents. I don't doubt a piece of betel nut and a pair of +worn-out shoes had to be thrown in with him at the price! There he +tried to make me pay the expenses in advance of a trip to Usumbora at +the head of the lake. God knows what it would have cost, the way he +wanted me to do it! Are you the lord, sir?" + +"What did you do?" asked Fred. + +"Do? I parted company! I had made him drunk once. (The Arabs aren't +supposed to drink, so when they do they get talkative and lively!) And +I knew Arabic before ever I crossed the Atlantic--learned it in +Egypt--ran away from a sponge-fishing boat when I was a boy. No, they +don't fish sponges off the Nile Delta, but you can smuggle in a sponge +boat better than in most ships. Anyhow, I learned Arabic. So I +understood what that pig Hassan said when he talked in the dark with +his brother swine. He knew no more than I where the ivory was! He +suspected most of it was in a country called Ruanda that runs pretty +much parallel with the Congo border to the west of Victoria Nyanza in +German East Africa, and he was counting on finding natives who could +tell him this and that that might put him on the trail of it! I could +beat that game! I could cross-examine fool natives twice as well as +any fat rascal of an ex-slave! Seeing he had paid all expenses so far, +however, I was not much to the bad, so I picked a quarrel with him and +we parted company. Wouldn't you have done the same, my lord?" + +But Fred did not walk into the trap. "What did you do next?" he asked. + +"Next? I got a job with the agent of an Italian firm to go north and +buy skins. He made me a good advance of trade goods--melikani,* beads, +iron and brass wire, kangas,** and all that sort of thing, and I did +well. Made money on that trip. Traveled north until I reached +Ruanda--went on until I could see the Fire Mountains in the distance, +and the country all smothered in lava. Reached a cannibal country, +where the devils had eaten all the surrounding tribes until they had to +take to vegetarianism at last." + +----------------- +* Melikani, the unbleached calico made in America that is the most +useful trade goods from sea to sea of Central Africa. +** Kanga, cotton piece goods. +----------------- + +"But did you find the ivory?" Fred insisted. + +"No, or by Jiminy, I wouldn't be here! If I'd found it I'd have +settled down with a wife in Greece long ago. I'd be keeping an inn, +and growing wine, and living like a gentleman! But I found out enough +to know there's a system that goes with the ivory Tippoo Tib buried. +If you found one lot, that would lead you to the next, and so on. I +got a suspicion where one lot is, although I couldn't prove it. And I +made up my mind that the German government knows darned well where a +lot of it is!" + +"Then why don't the Germans dig it up?" demanded Fred. + +"Aha!" laughed Coutlass. "If I know, why should I tell! If they know, +why should they tell? Suppose that some of it were in Congo territory, +and some in British East Africa? Suppose they should want to get the +lot? What then? If they uncovered their bit in German East Africa +mightn't that put the Congo and the British on the trail?" + +"If they know where it is," said I, "they'll certainly guard it." + +"Which of you is the lord?" demanded Coutlass earnestly. + +"What do you suppose Hassan is doing, then, here in Zanzibar?" asked +Fred. + +"Rum and eggs! I know what he is doing! When I snapped my thumb under +his fat nose and told him about the habits of his female ancestors be +went to the Germans and informed against me! The sneak-thief! The +turn-coat! The maggot! I shall not forget! I, Georges Coutlass, +forget nothing! He informed against me, and they set askaris* on my +trail who prevented me from making further search. I had to sit idle +in Usumbura or Ujiji, or else come away; and idleness ill suits my +blood! I came here, and Hassan followed me. The Germans made a +regular, salaried spy of him--the semi-Arab rat! The one-tenth Arab, +nine-tenths mud-rat! Here he stays in Zanzibar and spies on Tippoo +Tib, on me, on the British government, and on every stranger who comes +here. His information goes to the Germans. I know, for I intercepted +some of it! He writes it out in Arabic, and provided no woman goes +through the folds of his clothes or feels under that silken belly-piece +be wears, the Germans get it. But if a woman does, and she's a friend +of mine, that's different! Are you the lord, sir?" + +------------------ +* Askari, native soldier. +------------------ + +"What do you propose?" asked Fred. + +"Help me find that ivory!" said Coutlass. "I have very little money +left, but I have guns, and courage! I know where to look, and I am not +afraid! No German can scare me! I am English-American-Greek!--better +than any hundred Germans! Let us find the ivory, and share it! Let us +get it out through British territory, or the Congo, so that no German +sausage can interfere with us or take away one tusk! Gee-rusalem, how +I hate the swine. Let us put one over on them! Let us get the ivory +to Europe, and then flaunt the deed under their noses! Let us send one +little tip of a female tusk to the Kaiser for a souvenir--female in +proof it is all illegitimate, illegal, outlawed! Let us send him a +piece of ivory and a letter telling him all about it, and what we think +of him and his swine-officials! His lieutenants and his captains! Let +us smuggle the ivory out through the Congo--it can be done! It can be +done! I, Georges Coutlass, will find the ivory, and find the way!" + +"No need to smuggle it out," said Fred. "The British government will +give us ten per cent., or so I understand, of the value of all of it we +find in British East." + +Georges Coutlass threw back his head and roared with laughter, slapped +his thighs, held his sides--then coughed for two or three minutes, and +spat blood. + +"You are the lord, all right!" he gasped as soon as he could get +breath. "No need to smuggle it! Ha-ha! May I be damned! Ten per +cent. they'll give us! Ha-ha! Generous! By whip and wheel! they're +lucky if we give them five per cent.! I'd like to see any government +take away from Georges Coutlass ninety per cent. of anything without a +fight! No, gentlemen! No, my Lord! The Belgian Congo government is +corrupt. Let us spend twenty-five per cent.--even thirty-forty-fifty +per cent. of the value of it to bribe the Congo officials. Hand over +ninety per cent. to the Germans or the British without a fight?--Never! +Never while my name is Georges Coutlass! I have fought too often! I +have been robbed by governments too often! This last time I will put +it over all the governments, and be rich at last, and go home to Greece +to live like a gentleman! Believe me!" + +He patted himself on the breast, and if flashing eye and frothing lip +went for anything, then all the governments were as good as defeated +already. + +"You are the lord, are you not?" he demanded, looking straight at Fred. + +"My name is Oakes," Fred answered. + +"Oh, then you? I beg pardon!" He looked at me with surprise that he +made no attempt to conceal. Fred could pass for a king with that +pointed beard of his (provided he were behaving himself seemly at the +time) but for all my staid demeanor I have never been mistaken for any +kind of personage. I disillusioned Coutlass promptly. + +"Then you are neither of you lords?" + +"Pish! We're obviously ladies!" answered Fred. + +"Then you have fooled me?" The Greek rose to his feet. "You have +deceived me? You have accepted my hospitality and confidence under +false pretense?" + +I think there would have been a fight, for Fred was never the man to +accept brow-beating from chance-met strangers, and the Greek's fiery +eye was rolling in fine frenzy; but just at that moment Yerkes +strolled in, cheerful and brisk. + +"Hullo, fellers! This is some thirsty burg. Do they sell soft drinks +in this joint?" he inquired. + +"By Brooklyn Bridge!" exclaimed Coutlass. "An American! I, too, am an +American! Fellow-citizen, these men have treated me badly! They have +tricked me!" + +"You must be dead easy!" said Yerkes genially. "If those two wanted to +live at the con game, they'd have to practise on the junior +kindergarten grades. They're the mildest men I know. I let that one +with the beard hold my shirt and pants when I go swimming! Tricked +you, have they? Say--have you got any money left?" + +"Oh, have a drink!" laughed the Greek. "Have one on me! It's good to +hear you talk!" + +"What have my friends done to you?" asked Yerkes. + +"I was looking for a lord. They pretended to be lords." + +"What? Both of 'em?" + +"No, it is one lord I am looking for." + +"One lord, one faith, one baptism!" said Yerkes profanely. +"And you found two? What's your worry? I'll pretend to be a third if +that'll help you any!" + +"Gentlemen," said the Greek, rising to his full height and letting his +rage begin to gather again, "you play with me. That is not well! You +waste my time. That is not wise! I come in all innocence, looking for +a certain lord--a real genuine lord--the Earl of Montdidier and +Kirscrubbrightshaw--my God, what a name!" + +"I'm Mundidier," said a level voice, and the Greek faced about like a +man attacked. Monty had entered the barroom and stood listening with +calm amusement, that for some strange reason exasperated the Greek less +than our attitude had done, at least for the moment. When the first +flush of surprise had died he grinned and grew gallant. + +"My own name is Georges Coutlass, my Lord!" He made a sweeping bow, +almost touching the floor with the brim of his cowboy hat, and then +crossing his breast with it. + +"What can I do for you?" asked Monty. + +"Listen to me!" + +"Very well. I can spare fifteen minutes." + +We all took seats together in a far corner of the dingy room, where the +Syrian barkeeper could not overhear us. + +"My Lord, I am an Englishman!" Coutlass began. "I am a God-fearing, +law-abiding gentleman! I know where to look for the ivory that the +Arab villain Tippoo Tib has buried! I know how to smuggle it out of +Africa without paying a penny of duty--" + +"Did you say law-abiding?" Monty asked. + +"Surely! Always! I never break the law! As for instance--in Greece, +where I had the honor to be born, the law says no man shall carry a +knife or wear one in his belt. So, since I was a little boy I carry +none! I have none in my hand--none at my belt. I keep it here!" + +He stooped, raised his right trousers leg, and drew from his Wellington +boot a two-edged, pointed thing almost long enough to merit the name of +rapier. He tossed it in the air, let it spin six or seven times end +over end, caught it deftly by the point, and returned it to its +hiding-place. + +"I am a law-abiding man," he said, "but where the law leaves off, I +know where to begin! I am no fool!" + +Monty made up his mind there and then that this man's game would not be +worth the candle. + +"No, Mr. Coutlass, I can't oblige you," he said. + +The Greek half-arose and then sat down again. + +"You can not find it without my assistance!" he said, wrinkling his +face for emphasis. + +"I'm not looking for assistance," said Monty. + +"Aha! You play with words! You are not--but you will! I am no fool, +my Lord! I understand! Not for nothing did I make a friend again of +that pig Hassan! Not for nothing have I waited all these months in +this stinking Zanzibar until a man should come in search of that ivory +whom I could trust! Not for nothing did Juma, the lazaretto attendant +tell Hassan you desired to see him! You seek the ivory, but you wish +to keep it all! To share none of it with me!" He stood up, and made +another bow, much curter than his former one. "I am Georges Coutlass! +My courage is known! No man can rob me and get away with it!" + +"My good man," drawled Monty, raising his eyebrows in the comfortless +way he has when there seems need of facing an inferior antagonist. (He +hates to "lord it" as thoroughly as he loves to risk his neck.) "I +would not rob you if you owned the earth! If you have valuable +information I'll pay for it cheerfully after it's tested." + +"Ah! Now you talk!" + +"Observe--I said after it's tested!" + +"I don't think he knows anything," said Fred. "I think he guessed a +lot, and wants to look, and can't afford to pay his own expenses. +Isn't that it?" + +"What do you mean?" demanded Coutlass. + +"I can't talk Greek," said Fred. "Shall I say it again in English?" + +"You may name any reasonable price," said Monty, "for real information. +Put it in writing. When we're agreed on the price, put that in +writing too. Then, if we find the information is even approximately +right, why, we'll pay for it." + +"Ah-h-h! You intend to play a trick on me! You use my information! +You find the ivory! You go out by the Congo River and the other coast, +and I kiss myself good-by to you and ivory and money! I am to be what +d'you call it?--a milk-pigeon!" + +"Being that must be some sensation!" nodded Yerkes. + +"I warn you I can not be tampered with!" snarled the Greek, putting on +his hat with a flourish. "I leave you, for you to think it over! But +I tell you this--I promise you--I swear! Any expedition in search of +that ivory that does not include Georges Coutlass on his own terms is a +delusion--a busted flush--smashed--exploded--pfff!--so--evanesced +before the start! My address is Zanzibar! Every street child knows +me! When you wish to know my terms, tell the first man or child you +meet to lead you to the house where Georges Coutlass lives! Good +morning, Lord Skirtsshubrish! We will no doubt meet again!" + +He turned his back on us and strode from the room--a man out of the +middle ages, soldierly of bearing, unquestionably bold, and not one bit +more venial or lawless than ninety per cent. of history's gallants, if +the truth were told. + +"Let's hope that's the last of him!" said Monty. "Can't say I like +him, but I'd hate to have to spoil his chances." + +"Last of him be sugared!" said Yerkes. "That's only the first of him! +He'll find seven devils worse than himself and camp on our trail, if I +know anything of Greeks--that's to say, if our trail leads after that +ivory. Does it?" + +"Depends," said Monty. "Let's talk upstairs. That Syrian has long +ears." + +So we trooped to Monty's room, where the very cobwebs reeked of Arab +history and lawless plans. He sat on the black iron bed, and we +grouped ourselves about on chairs that had very likely covered the +known world between them. One was obviously jetsam from a steamship; +one was a Chinese thing, carved with staggering dragons; the other was +made of iron-hard wood that Yerkes swore came from South America. + +"Shoot when you're ready!" grinned Yerkes. + +I was too excited to sit still. So was Fred. + +"Get a move on, Didums, for God's sake!" he growled. + +"Well," said Monty, "there seems something in this ivory business. Our +chance ought to be as good as anybody's. But there are one or two +stiff hurdles. In the first place, the story is common property. +Every one knows it--Arabs--Swahili--Greeks--Germans--English. To be +suspected of looking for it would spell failure, for the simple reason +that every adventurer on the coast would trail us, and if we did find +it we shouldn't be able to keep the secret for five minutes. If we +found it anywhere except on British territory it 'ud be taken away from +us before we'd time to turn round. And it isn't buried on British +territory! I've found out that much." + +"Good God, Didums! D'you mean you know where the stuff is?" + +Fred sat forward like a man at a play. + +"I know where it isn't," said Monty. "They told me at the Residency +that in all human probability it's buried part in German East, and by +far the greater part in the Congo." + +"Then that ten per cent. offer by the British is a bluff?" asked Yerkes. + +"Out of date," said Monty. "The other governments offer nothing. The +German government might make terms with a German or a Greek--not with +an Englishman. The Congo government is an unknown quantity, but would +probably see reason if approached the proper way." + +"The U. S. Consul tells me," said Yerkes, "that the Congo government is +the rottenest aggregate of cutthroats, horse-thieves, thugs, yeggs, +common-or-ordinary hold-ups, and sleight-of-hand professors that the +world ever saw in one God-forsaken country. He says they're of every +nationality, but without squeam of any kind--hang or shoot you as soon +as look at you! He says if there's any ivory buried in those parts +they've either got it and sold it, or else they buried it themselves +and spread the story for a trap to fetch greenhorns over the border!" + +"That man's after the stuff himself!" said Fred. "All he wanted to do +was stall you off!" + +"That man Schillingschen the doctor told us about," said Monty, "is +suspected of knowing where to look for some of the Congo hoard. He'll +bear watching. He's in British East Africa at present--said to be +combing Nairobi and other places for a certain native. He is known to +stand high in the favor of the German government, but poses as a +professor of ethnology." + +"He shall study deathnology," said Fred, "if he gets in my way!" + +"The Congo people," said Monty, "would have dug up the stuff, of +course, if they'd known where to look for it. Our people believe that +the Germans do know whereabouts to look for it, but dread putting the +Congo crowd on the scent. If we're after it we've got to do two things +besides agreeing between ourselves." + +"Deal me in, Monty!" said Yerkes. + +"Nil desperandum, Didums duce, then!" said Fred. "I propose Monty for +leader. Those against the motion take their shirts off, and see if +they can lick me! Nobody pugnacious? The ayes have it! Talk along, +Didums!" + +For all Fred's playfulness, Yerkes and I came in of our free and +considered will, and Monty understood that. + +"We've got to separate," he said, "and I've got to interview the King +of Belgium." + +"If that were my job," grinned Yerkes, "I'd prob'ly tell him things!" + +"I don't pretend to like him," said Monty. "But it seems to me I can +serve our best interests by going to Brussels. He can't very well +refuse me a private audience. I should get a contract with the Congo +government satisfactory to all concerned. He's rapacious--but I think +not ninety per cent. rapacious." + +"Good," said I, "but why separate?" + +"If we traveled toward the Congo from this place in a bunch," said +Monty, "we should give the game away completely and have all the +rag-tag and bob-tail on our heels. As it is, our only chance of +shaking all of them would be to go round by sea and enter the Congo +from the other side; but that would destroy our chance of picking up +the trail in German East Africa. So I'll go to Brussels, and get back +to British East as fast as possible. Fred must go to British East and +watch Schillingschen. You two fellows may as well go by way of British +East Africa to Muanza on Victoria Nyanza, and on from there to the +Congo border by way of Ujiji. Yerkes is an American, and they'll +suspect him less than any of us (they'd nail me, of course, in a +minute!) So let Yerkes make a great show of looking for land to settle +on. We'll all four meet on the Congo border, at some other place to be +decided later. We'll have to agree on a code, and keep in touch by +telegraph as often as possible. Now, is all that clear?" + +"We two'll have all the Greeks of Zanzibar trailing us all the way!" +objected Yerkes. + +"That'll be better than having them trail the lot of us," said Monty. +"You'll be able to shake them somewhere on the way. We'll count on +your ingenuity, Will." + +"But what am I to do to Schillingschen?" asked Fred. + +"Keep an eye on him." + +"Do you see me Sherlock-Holmesing him across the high veld? Piffle! +Give America that job! I'll go through German East and keep ahead of +the Greeks!" + +But Monty was firm. "Yerkes has a plausible excuse, Fred. They may +wonder why an American should look for land in German East Africa, but +they'll let him do it, and perhaps not spy on him to any extent. It's +me they've their eye on. I'll try to keep 'em dazzled. You go to +British East and dazzle Schillingschen! Now, are we agreed?" + +We were. But we talked, nevertheless, long into the afternoon, and in +the end there was not one of us really satisfied. Over and over we +tried to persuade Monty to omit the Brussels part of the plan. We +wanted him with us. But he stuck to his point, and had his way, as he +always did when we were quite sure he really wanted it. + + + + +CHAPTER TWO + + +THE NJO HAPA SONG + + Gleam, oh brighter than jewels! gleam my swinging stars in + the opal dark, + Mirrored along wi' the fire-fly dance of 'longshore light and + off-shore mark, + The roof-lamps and the riding lights, and phosphor wake of + ship and shark. + + I was old when the fires of Arab ships + (All seas were lawless then!) + Abode the tide where liners ride + To-day, and Malays then,-- + Old when the bold da Gama came + With culverin and creed + To trade where Solomon's men fought, + And plunder where the banyans bought, + I sighed when the first o' the slaves were brought, + And laughed when the last were freed. + + Deep, oh deeper than anchors drop, the bones o' the outbound + sailors lie, + Far, oh farther than breath o' wind the rumors o' fabled + fortune fly, + And the 'venturers yearn from the ends of earth, for none o' + the isles is as fair as I! + + +The enormous map of Africa loses no lure or mystery from the fact of +nearness to the continent itself. Rather it increases. In the hot +upper room that night, between the wreathing smoke of oil lamps, we +pored over the large scale map Monty had saved from the wreck along +with our money drafts and papers. + +The atmosphere was one of bygone piracy. The great black ceiling +beams, heavy-legged table of two-inch planks, floor laid like a dhow's +deck--making utmost use of odd lengths of timber, but strong enough to +stand up under hurricanes and overloads of plunder, or to batten down +rebellious slaves--murmurings from rooms below, where men of every race +that haunts those shark-infested seas were drinking and telling tales +that would make Munchhausen's reputation--steaminess, outer darkness, +spicy equatorial smells and, above all, knowledge of the nature of the +coming quest united to veil the map in fascination. + +No man gifted with imagination better than a hot-cross bun's could be +in Zanzibar and not be conscious of the lure that made adventurers of +men before the first tales were written. Old King Solomon's traders +must have made it their headquarters, just as it was Sindbad the +Sailor's rendezvous and that of pirates before he or Solomon were born +or thought of. Vasco da Gama, stout Portuguese gentleman adventurer, +conquered it, and no doubt looted the godowns to a lively tune. Wave +after wave of Arabs sailed to it (as they do today) from that other +land of mystery, Arabia; and there isn't a yard of coral beach, +cocoanut-fringed shore, clove orchard, or vanilla patch--not a lemon +tree nor a thousand-year-old baobab but could tell of battle and +intrigue; not a creek where the dhows lie peacefully today but could +whisper of cargoes run by night--black cargoes, groaning fretfully and +smelling of the 'tween-deck lawlessness. + +"There are two things that have stuck in my memory that Lord Salisbury +used to say when I was an Eton boy, spending a holiday at Hatfield +House," said Monty. "One was, Never talk fight unless you mean fight; +then fight, don't talk. The other was, Always study the largest maps." + +"Who's talking fight?" demanded Fred. + +Monty ignored him. "Even this map isn't big enough to give a real idea +of distances, but it helps. You see, there's no railway beyond +Victoria Nyanza. Anything at all might happen in those great spaces +beyond Uganda. Borderlands are quarrel-grounds. I should say the +junction of British, Belgian, and German territory where Arab loot lies +buried is the last place to dally in unarmed. You fellows 'ud better +scour Zanzibar in the morning for the best guns to be had here." + +So I went to bed at midnight with that added stuff for building dreams. +He who has bought guns remembers with a thrill; he who has not, has +in store for him the most delightful hours of life. May he fall, as +our lot was, on a gunsmith who has mended hammerlocks for Arabs, and +who loves rifles as some greater rascals love a woman or a horse. + +We all four strolled next morning, clad in the khaki reachmedowns that +a Goanese "universal provider" told us were the "latest thing," into a +den between a camel stable and an even mustier-smelling home of gloom, +where oxen tied nose-to-tail went round and round, grinding out semsem +everlastingly while a lean Swahili sang to them. When he ceased, they +stopped. When he sang, they all began again. + +In a bottle-shaped room at the end of a passage squeezed between those +two centers of commerce sat the owner of the gun-store, part Arab, part +Italian, part Englishman, apparently older than sin itself, toothless, +except for one yellow fang that lay like an ornament over his lower +lip, and able to smile more winningly than any siren of the sidewalk. +Evidently he shaved at intervals, for white stubble stood out a third +of an inch all over his wrinkled face. The upper part of his head was +utterly bald, slippery, shiny, smooth, and adorned by an absurd, round +Indian cap, too small, that would not stay in place and had to be +hitched at intervals. + +He said his name was Captain Thomas Cook, and the license to sell +firearms framed on the mud-brick wall bore him witness. (May he live +forever under any name he chooses!) + +"Goons?" he said. "Goons? You gentlemen want goons? I have the goon +what settled the hash of Sayed bin Mohammed--here it be. This other +one's the rifle--see the nicks on her butt!--that Kamarajes the Greek +used. See 'em--Arab goons--slaver goons--smooth-bore elephant +goons--fours, eights, twelves--Martinis--them's the lot that was +reekin' red-hot, days on end, in the last Arab war on the Congo, +considerable used up but goin' cheap;--then here's Mausers (he +pronounced it "Morsers")--old-style, same as used in 1870--good goons +they be, long o' barrel and strong, but too high trajectory for some +folks;--some's new style, magazines an' all--fine till a grain o' sand +jams 'em oop;--an' Lee-Enfields, souvenirs o' the Boer War, some o' +them bought from folks what plundered a battle-field or two--mostly all +in good condition. Look at this one--see it--hold it--take a squint +along it! Nineteen elephants shot wi' that Lee-Enfield, an' the man's +in jail for shootin' of 'em! Sold at auction by the gov'ment, that one +was. See, here's an Express--a beauty--owned by an officer fr'm +Indy--took by a shark 'e was, in swimmin' against all advice, him what +had hunted tigers! There's no goon store a quarter as good as mine +'tween Cairo an' the Cape or Bombay an-' Boma! Captain Cook's the boy +to sell ye goons all right! Sit down. Look 'em over. Ask anything ye +want to know. I'll tell ye. No obligation to buy." + +There is no need to fit out with guns and tents in London. Until both +good and bad, both cowardly and brave give up the habit of dying in +bed, or getting killed, or going broke, or ending up in jail for one +cause and the other, there will surely always be fine pickings for men +on the spot with a little money and a lot of patience--guns, tents, +cooking pots, and all the other things. + +We spent a morning with Captain Thomas Cook, and left the store--Fred, +Yerkes and I--with a battery of weapons, including a pistol +apiece--that any expedition might be proud of. (Monty, since he had to +go home in any case, preferred to look over the family gun-room before +committing himself.) + +Then, since the first leg of the journey would be the same for all of +us we bought other kit, packed it, and booked passages for British East +Africa. Between then and the next afternoon when the British India +steamboat sailed we were fairly bombarded by inquisitiveness, but +contrived not to tell much. And with patience beyond belief Monty +restrained us from paying court to Tippoo Tib. + +"The U. S. Consul says he's better worth a visit than most of the +world's museums," Yerkes assured us two or three times. "He says +Tippoo Tib's a fine old sport--damned rogue--slave-hunter, but white +somewhere near the middle. What's the harm in our having a chin with +him?" + +But Monty was adamant. + +"A call on him would prove nothing, but he and his friends would +suspect. Spies would inform the German government. No. Let's act as +if Tippoo Tib were out of mind." + +We grumbled, but we yielded. Hassan came again, shiny with sweat and +voluble with offers of information and assistance. + +"Where you gentlemen going?" he kept asking. + +"England," said Monty, and showed his own steamer ticket in proof of +it. + +That settled Hassan for the time but Georges Coutlass was not so easy. +He came swaggering upstairs and thumped on Monty's door with the air of +a bearer of king's messages. + +"What do you intend to do?" he asked. (We were all sitting on Monty's +bed, and it was Yerkes who opened the door.) + +"Do you an injury," said Yerkes, "unless you take your foot away!" The +Greek had placed it deftly to keep the door open pending his +convenience. + +"Let him have his say" advised Monty from the bed. + +"Where are you going? Hassan told me England. Are you all going to +England? If so, why have you bought guns? What will you do with six +rifles, three shot-guns, and three pistols on the London streets? What +will you do with tents in London? Will you make campfires in Regent +Circus, that you take with you all those cooking pots? And all that +rice, is that for the English to eat? Bah! No tenderfoot can fool me! +You go to find my ivory, d'you hear! You think to get away with it +unknown to me! I tell you I have sharp ears! By Jingo; there is +nothing I can not find out that goes on in Africa! You think to cheat +me? Then you are as good as dead men! You shall die like dogs! I +will smithereen the whole damned lot of you before you touch a tusk!" + +"Get out of here!" growled Yerkes. + +"Give him a chance to go quietly, Will," urged Monty, and Coutlass +heard him. Peaceful advice seemed the last spark needed to explode his +crowded magazines of fury. He clenched his fists--spat because the +words would not flow fast enough--and screamed. + +"Give me a chance, eh? A chance, eh?" Other doors began opening, and +the appearance of an audience stimulated him to further peaks of rage. +"The only chance I need is a sight of your carcasses within range, and +a long range will do for Georges Coutlass!" He glared past Yerkes at +Monty who had risen leisurely. "You call yourself a lord? I call you +a thief! A jackal!" + +"Here, get out!" growled Yerkes, self-constituted Cerberus. + +"I will go when I damned please, you Yankee jackanapes!" the Greek +retorted through set teeth. Yerkes is a free man, able and willing to +shoulder his own end of any argument. He closed, and the Greek's ribs +cracked under a vastly stronger hug than he had dreamed of expecting. +But Coutlass was no weakling either, and though he gasped he gathered +himself for a terrific effort. + +"Come on!" said Monty, and went past me through the door like a bolt +from a catapult. Fred followed me, and when he saw us both out on the +landing Monty started down the stairs. + +"Come on!" he called again. + +We followed, for there is no use in choosing a leader if you don't +intend to obey him, even on occasions when you fail at once to +understand. There was one turn on the wide stairs, and Monty stood +there, back to the wall. + +"Go below, you fellows, and catch!" he laughed. "We don't want Will +jailed for homicide!" + +The struggle was fierce and swift. Coutlass searched with a thumb for +Will's eye, and stamped on his instep with an iron-shod heel. But he +was a dissolute brute, and for all his strength Yerkes' cleaner living +very soon told. Presently Will spared a hand to wrench at the +ambitious thumb, and Coutlass screamed with agony. Then he began to +sway this way and that without volition of his own, yielding his +balance, and losing it again and again. In another minute Yerkes had +him off his feet, cursing and kicking. + +"Steady, Will!" called Monty from below; but it was altogether too +late for advice. Will gathered himself like a spring, and hurled the +Greek downstairs backward. + +Then the point of Monty's strategy appeared. He caught him, saved him +from being stunned against the wall, and, before the Greek could +recover sufficiently to use heels and teeth or whisk out the knife he +kept groping for, hurled him a stage farther on his journey--face +forward this time down to where Fred and I were waiting. We kicked him +out into the street too dazed to do anything but wander home. + +"Are you hurt, Will?" laughed Monty. "This isn't the States, you know; +by gad, they'll jail you here if you do your own police work! Instead +of Brussels I'd have had to stay and hire lawyers to defend you!" + +"Aw--quit preaching!" Yerkes answered. "If I hadn't seen you there on +the stairs with your mouth open I'd have been satisfied to put him down +and spank him!" + +It was then that the much more unexpected struck us speechless--even +Monty for the moment, who is not much given to social indecision. We +had not known there was a woman guest in that hotel. One does not look +in Zanzibar for ladies with a Mayfair accent unaccompanied by menfolk +able to protect them. Yet an indubitable Englishwoman, expensively if +carelessly dressed, came to the head of the stairs and stood beside +Yerkes looking down at the rest of us with a sort of well bred, rather +tolerant scorn. + +"Am I right in believing this is Lord Montdidier?" she asked, +pronouncing the word as it should be--Mundidger. + +She had been very beautiful. She still was handsome in a hard-lipped, +bold way, with abundant raven hair and a complexion that would have +been no worse for a touch of rouge. She seemed to scorn all the +conventional refinements, though. Her lacy white dress, open at the +neck, was creased and not too clean, but she wore in her bosom one +great jewel like a ruby, set in brilliants, that gave the lie to +poverty provided the gems were real. And the amber tube through which +she smoked a cigarette was seven or eight inches long and had diamonds +set in a gold band round its middle. She wore no wedding ring that I +could see; and she took no more notice of Will Yerkes beside her than +if he had been a part of the furniture. + +"Why do you ask?" asked Monty, starting upstairs. She had to make way +for him, for Will Yerkes stood his ground. + +"A fair question!" she laughed. Her voice had a hard ring, but was +very well trained and under absolute control. I received the +impression that she had been a singer at some time. "I am Lady Saffren +Waldon--Isobel Saffren Waldon." + +Fred and I had followed Monty up and were close behind him. I heard +him mutter, "Oh, lord!" under his breath. + +"I knew your brother," she added. + +"I know you did." + +"You think that gives me no claim on your acquaintance? Perhaps it +doesn't. But as an unprotected woman--" + +"There is the Residency," objected Monty, "and the law." + +She laughed bitterly. "Thank you, I am in need of no passage home! I +overheard that ruffian say, and I think I heard you say too that you +are going to England. I want you to take a message for me." + +"There is a post-office here," said Monty without turning a hair. He +looked straight into her iron eyes. "There is a cable station. I will +lend you money to cable with." + +"Thank you, my Lord!" she sneered. "I have money. I am so used to +being snubbed that my skin would not feel a whip! I want you to take a +verbal message!" + +It was perfectly evident that Monty would rather have met the devil in +person than this untidy dame; yet he was only afraid apparently of +conceding her too much claim on his attention. (If she had asked +favors of me I don't doubt I would have scrambled to be useful. I +began mentally taking her part, wondering why Monty should treat her so +cavalierly; and I fancy Yerkes did the same.) + +"Tell me the message, and I'll tell you whether I'll take it," said +Monty. + +She laughed again, even more bitterly. + +"If I could tell it on these stairs," she answered, "I could cable it. +They censor cablegrams, and open letters in this place." + +"I suspect that isn't true," said Monty. "But if you object to +witnesses, how do you propose to deliver your message to me?" he asked +pointedly. + +"You mean you refuse to speak with me alone?" + +"My friends would draw out of earshot," he answered. + +"Your friends? Your gang, you mean!" She drew herself up very +finely--very stately. Very lovely she was to look at in that +half-light, with the shadows of Tippoo Tib's* old stairway hiding her +tale of years. But I felt my regard for her slipping downhill (and so, +I rather think did Yerkes). "You look well, Lord Montdidier, trapesing +about the earth with a leash of mongrels at your heel! Falstaff never +picked up a more sordid-looking pack! What do you feed them--bones? +Are there no young bloods left of your own class, that you need travel +with tradesmen?" + +------------- +* The principal hotel In Zanzibar was formerly Tippoo Tib's residence, +quite a magnificent mansion for that period and place. +------------- + +Monty stood with both hands behind him and never turned a hair. Fred +Oakes brushed up the ends of that troubadour mustache of his and struck +more or less of an attitude. Will reddened to the ears, and I never +felt more uncomfortable in all my life. + +"So this is your gang, is it?" she went on. "It looks sober at +present! I suppose I must trust you to control them! I dare say even +tavern brawlers respect you sufficiently to keep a lady's secret if you +order them. I will hope they have manhood enough to hold their +tongues!" + +Of course, dressed in the best that Zanzibar stores had to offer we +scarcely looked like fashion plates. My shirt was torn where Coutlass +had seized it to resist being thrown out, but I failed to see what she +hoped to gain by that tongue lashing, even supposing we had been the +lackeys she pretended to believe we were. + +"The message is to my brother," she went on. + +"I don't know him!" put in Monty promptly. + +"You mean you don't like him! Your brother had him expelled from two +or three clubs, and you prefer not to meet him! Nevertheless, I give +you this message to take to him! Please tell him--you will find him at +his old address--that I, his sister, Lady Saffren Waldon, know now the +secret of Tippoo Tib's ivory. He is to join me here at once, and we +will get it, and sell it, and have money, and revenge! Will you tell +him that!" + +"No!" answered Monty. + +I looked at Yerkes, Yerkes looked at Fred, and Fred at me. + +There was nothing to do but feel astonished. + +"Why not, if you please?" + +"I prefer not to meet Captain McCauley," said Monty. + +"Then you will give the message to somebody else?" she insisted. + +"No" said Monty. "I will carry no message for you." + +"Why do you say that? How dare you say that? In front of your +following--your gang!" + +I should have been inclined to continue the argument myself--to try to +find out what she did know, and to uncover her game. It was obvious +she must have some reason for her extraordinary request, and her more +extraordinary way of making it. But Monty saw fit to stride past her +through his open bedroom door, and shut it behind him firmly. We stood +looking at her and at one another stupidly until she turned her back +and went to her own room on the floor above. Then we followed Monty. + +"Did she say anything else?" he asked as soon as we were inside. I +noticed he was sweating pretty freely now. + +"Didums, you're too polite!" Fred answered. "You ought to have told +her to keep her tongue housed or be civil!" + +"I don't hold with hitting back at a lone woman," said Yerkes, "but +what was she driving at? What did she mean by calling us a pack of +mongrels?" + +"Merely her way," said Monty offhandedly. "Those particular McCauleys +never amounted to much. She married a baronet, and he divorced her. +Bad scandal. Saffren Waldon was at the War Office. She stole papers, +or something of that sort--delivered them to a German paramour--von +Duvitz was his name, I think. She and her brother were lucky to keep +out of jail. Ever since then she has been--some say a spy, some say +one thing, some another. My brother fell foul of her, and lived to +regret it. She's on her last legs I don't doubt, or she wouldn't be in +Zanzibar." + +"Then why the obvious nervous sweat you're in?" demanded Fred. + +"And that doesn't account for the abuse she handed out to us," said +Yerkes. + +"Why not tip off the authorities that she's a notorious spy?" I asked. + +"I suspect they know all about her," he answered. + +"But why your alarm?" insisted Fred. + +"I'm scarcely alarmed, old thing. But it's pretty obvious, isn't it, +that she wants us to believe she knows what we're after. She's +vindictive. She imagines she owes me a grudge on my brother's account. +It might soothe her to think she had made me nervous. And by gad--it +sounds like lunacy, and mind you I'm not propounding it for +fact!--there's just one chance that she really does know where the +ivory is!" + +"But where's the sense of abusing us?" repeated Yerkes. + +"That's the poor thing's way of claiming class superiority," said +Monty. "She was born into one class, married into another, and divorced +into a third. She'd likely to forget she said an unkind word the next +time she meets you. Give her one chance and she'll pretend she +believes you were born to the purple--flatter you until you half +believe it yourself. Later on, when it suits her at the moment, she'll +denounce you as a social impostor! It's just habit--bad habit, I +admit--comes of the life she leads. Lots of 'em like her. Few of 'em +quite so well informed, though, and dangerous if you give 'em a chance." + +"I still don't see why you're sweating," said Fred. + +"It's hot. There's a chance she knows where the ivory is! She has +money, but how? She'd have begged if she were short of cash! It's my +impression she has been in German government employ for a number of +years. Possibly they have paid her to do some spy-work--in the +Zanzibar court, perhaps--the Sultan's a mere boy--" + +"Isn't he woolly-headed?" objected Yerkes. + +"Mainly Arab. It's a French game to send a white woman to intrigue at +colored courts, but the Germans are good imitators." + +"Isn't she English?" asked Yerkes. + +"Her trade's international," said Monty dryly. "My guess is that +Coutlass or Hassan told her what we're supposed to be doing here, and +she pretends to know where the ivory is in order to trap us all in some +way. The net's spread for me, but there's no objection to catching you +fellows as well." + +"She'll need to use sweeter bait than I've seen yet!" laughed Yerkes. + +"She'll probably be sweetness itself next time she sees you. She'll +argue she's created an impression and can afford to be gracious." + +"Impression is good!" said Yerkes. "I mean it's bad! She has created +one, all right! What's the likelihood of her having double-crossed the +Germans? Mightn't she have got a clue to where the stuff is, and be +holding for a better market than they offer?" + +"I was coming to that," said Monty. "Yes, it's possible. But whatever +her game is, don't let us play it for her. Let her do the leading. If +she gets hold of you fellows, one at a time or all together, for the +love of heaven tell her nothing! Let her tell all she likes, but admit +nothing--tell nothing--ask no questions! That's an old rule in +diplomacy (and remember, she's a diplomat, whatever else she may be!) +Old-stagers can divine the Young ones' secrets from the nature of the +questions they ask! So if you got the chance, ask her nothing! Don't +lie, either! It would take a very old hand to lie to her in such way +that she couldn't see through it!" + +"Why not be simply rude and turn our backs?" said I. + +"Best of all--provided you can do it! Remember, she's an old hand!" + +"D'you mean," said Yerkes, "that if she were to offer proof that she +knows where that ivory is, and proposed terms, you wouldn't talk it +over?" + +"I mean let her alone!" said Monty. + +But it turned out she would not be let alone. We dine in the public +room, but she had her meals sent up to her and we flattered ourselves +(or I did) that her net had been laid in vain. Folk dine late in the +tropics, and we dallied over coffee and cigars, so that it was going on +for ten o'clock when Yerkes and I started upstairs again. Monty and +Fred went out to see the waterfront by moonlight. + +We had reached our door (he and I shared one great room) when we heard +terrific screams from the floor above--a woman's--one after another, +piercing, fearful, hair-raising, and so suggestive in that gloomy, grim +building that a man's very blood stood still. + +Yerkes was the first upstairs. He went like an arrow from a bow, and I +after him. The screams had stopped before we reached the stairhead, +but there was no doubting which her room was; the door was partly +open, permitting a view of armchairs and feminine garments in some +disorder. We heard a man talking loud quick Arabic, and a +woman--pleading, I thought. Yerkes rapped on the door. + +"Come in!" said a voice, and I followed Yerkes in. + +We were met by her Syrian maid, a creature with gazelle eyes and timid +manner, who came through the doorway leading to an inner room. + +"What's the trouble?" demanded Yerkes, and the woman signed to us to go +on in. Yerkes led the way again impulsively as any knight-errant +rescuing beleaguered dames, but I looked back and saw that the Syrian +woman had locked the outer door. Before I could tell Will that, he was +in the next room, so I followed, and, like him, stood rather bewildered. + +Lady Saffren Waldon sat facing us, rather triumphant, in no apparent +trouble, not alone. There were four very well-dressed Arabs standing +to one side. She sat in a basket chair by a door that pretty obviously +led into her bedroom; and kept one foot on a pillow, although I +suspected there was not much the matter with it. + +"We heard screams. Thought you were being murdered!" said Yerkes, out +of breath. + +"Oh, indeed, no! Nothing of the kind! I fell and twisted my +ankle--very painful, but not serious. Since you are here, sit down, +won't you?" + +"No, thanks," said he, turning to go. + +"The maid locked the door on us!" said I, and before the words were out +of my mouth three of the Arabs slipped into the outer room. There was +no hint or display of weapons of any kind, but they were big men, and +the folds of their garments were sufficiently voluminous to have hidden +a dozen guns apiece. + +"She'll open it!" said Will, with inflection that a fool could +understand. + +"One minute, please!" said Lady Saffren Waldon. (It was no poor +imitation of Queen Elizabeth ordering courtiers about.) + +"We didn't come to talk," said Will. "Heard screams. Made a mistake. +Sorry. We're off!" + +"No mistake!" she said; and the sweetness Monty prophesied began to +show itself. The change in her voice was too swift and pronounced to +be convincing. "I did scream. I was, in pain. It was kind of you to +come. Since you are here I would like you to talk to this gentleman." + +She glanced at the Arab, an able-looking man, with nose and eyes +expressive of keen thought, and the groomed gray beard that makes an +Arab always dignified. + +"Some other time," said Will. "I've an engagement!" And he turned to +go again. + +"No--now!" she said. "It's no use--you can't get out! You may as well +be sensible and listen!" + +We glanced at each other and both remembered Monty's warning. Will +laughed. + +"Take seats," she said, with a very regal gesture. She was not +carelessly dressed, as she had been earlier in the day. From hair to +silken hose and white kid shoes she was immaculate, and she wore rouge +and powder now. In that yellow lamplight (carefully placed, no doubt) +she was certainly good-looking. In fact, she was good-looking at any +time, and only no longer able to face daylight with the tale of youth. +Her eyes were weapons, nothing less. We remained standing. + +"This gentleman will speak to you," she said, motioning to the Arab to +commence, and he bowed--from the shoulders upward. + +"I am from His Highness the Sultan of Zanzibar" he announced, a little +pompously. "A minister from His Highness." (In announcing their own +importance Arabs very seldom err in the direction of under-estimate.) +"I speak about the ivory, which I am informed you propose to set out on +a journey to discover." + +"Where did you get your information?" Yerkes countered. + +"Don't be absurd!" ordered Lady Safrren Waldon. "I gave it to him! +Where else need he go to get it?" + +"Where did you get it, then?" he retorted. + +"Never mind! Listen to what Hamed Ibrahim has to say!" + +The Arab bowed his head slightly a second time. + +"The ivory you seek," he said, "is said to be Tippoo Tib's own, and he +will not tell the hiding-places. It does not belong to him. Such +little part of it as ever was his was long ago swallowed by the +interest on claims against him. The whole is now in truth the property +of His Highness the Sultan of Zanzibar, and whoever discovers it shall +receive reward from the owner. His Highness is willing, through me his +minister, to make treaty in advance in writing with suitable parties +intending to make search." + +"You mean the Sultan wants to hire me to hunt for ivory for him?" Will +asked, and the Arab made a gesture of impatience. At that Lady Saffren +Waldon cut in, very vinegary once more. + +"You two men are prisoners! Show much more sense! Come to terms or +take the consequences! Listen! Tippoo Tib buried the ivory. The +Sultan of Zanzibar claims it. The German government, for reasons of +its own, backs the Sultan's claim; ivory found in German East Africa +will be handed over to him in support of his claim to all the rest of +it. If you--Lord Montdidier and the rest of you--care to sign an +agreement with the Sultan of Zanzibar you can have facilities. You +shall be supplied with guides who can lead you to the right place to +start your search from--" + +"Thought you wanted Lord Montdidier to say in London that you know +where it all is," Will objected. + +She colored slightly, and glared. + +"Perhaps I am one of the guides," she said darkly. "I know more than I +need tell for the sake of this argument! The point is, you can have +facilities if you sign an agreement with the Sultan. Otherwise, you +will be dogged wherever you go! Whatever you should find would be +claimed! Every difficulty will be made for you--every treachery +conceivable practised on you. Lord Montdidier can get influential +backing, but not influence among the natives! He can not get good men +and true information by pulling wires in London. The British +government once offered ten per cent. of the value of the ivory found. +The Sultan of Zanzibar offers twenty per cent.--" + +"Twenty-five per cent.," corrected Hamed Ibrahim. + +"Yes, but I should want five per cent. for my commission!" + +"This sounds like a different yarn to the one you told on the stairs +this afternoon," said Will. "See Monty and tell it to him." + +"It is for you to tell Lord Montdidier. He runs away from me!" + +"I refuse to tell him a word!" said Will, with a laugh like that of a +boy about to plunge into a swimming pool--sort of "Here goes!" + +"You are extremely ill advised!" + +"Do your worst! Monty'll be hunting for us two in about a minute. +We're prisoners, are we? Suit yourself!" + +"You are prisoners while I choose! You could be killed in this room, +removed in sacks, thrown to the sharks in the roadstead, and nobody the +wiser! But I have no intention of killing you. As it happens, that +would not suit my purpose!" + +We both glanced behind us involuntarily. It may be that we both heard +a footstep, but it is always difficult to say certainly after the +event. At any rate, while in the act of turning our heads, two of the +three Arabs, who had previously left the room, threw nooses over them +and bound our arms to our sides with the jiffy-swiftness only sailors +know. The third man put the finishing touches, and presently adjusted +gags with a neatness and solicitude worthy of the Inquisition. + +"Throw them!" she ordered, and in a second our heels were struck from +under us and I was half stunned by the impact of my head against the +solid floor (for all the floors of that great place were built to +resist eternity). + +"Now!" she said. "Show them knives!" + +We were shown forthwith the ugliest, most suggestive weapons I have +ever seen--long sliver-thin blades sharper than razors. The Arabs +knelt on our chests (their knees were harder and more merciless than +wooden clubs) and laid the blades, edge-upward, on the skin of our +throats. + +"Let them feel!" she ordered. + +I felt a sharp cut, and the warm blood trickled down over my jugular to +the floor. I knew it was only a skin-cut, but did not pretend to +myself I was enjoying the ordeal. + +"Now!" she said. + +The Arabs stepped away and she came and stood between us, looking down +at one and then the other. + +"There isn't a place in Africa," she said, "that you can hide in where +the Sultan's men can't find you! There isn't a British officer in +Africa who would believe you if you told what has happened in this room +tonight! Yet Lord Montdidier will believe you--he knows you +presumably, and certainly he knows me! So tell Lord Montdidier exactly +what has happened! Assure him with my compliments that his throat and +yours shall be cut as surely as you dare set out after that ivory +without signing my agreement first. Tell Lord Montdidier he may be +friends with me if he cares to. As his friend I will help make him +rich for life! As his enemy, I will make Africa too hot and dangerous +to hold him! Let him choose!" + +She stepped back and, without troubling to turn away, put powder on her +nose and chin. + +"Now let them up!" she said. + +The Arabs lifted us to our feet. + +"Loose them!" + +The expert of the three slipped the knots like a wizard doing parlor +tricks; but I noticed that the other two held their knives extremely +cautiously. We should have been dead men if we had made a pugnacious +motion. + +"Now you may go! Unless Lord Montdidier agrees with me, the only +safety for any of you is away from Africa! Go and tell him! Go!" + +"I'll give you your answer now!" said Will. + +"No, you don't!" said I, remembering Monty's urgent admonition to tell +her nothing and ask no questions. "Come away, Will! There's nothing +to be gained by talking back!" + +"Right you are!" he said, laughing like a boy again--this time like a +boy whose fight has been broken off without his seeking or consent. +Like me, he pulled out a handkerchief and wiped blood from his neck. +The sight of his own blood--even such a little trickle as that--has +peculiar effect an a man. + +"By Jiminy, she has scratched the wrong dog's ear!" he growled to me as +we went to the door together. + +"They're all in there!" I said excitedly, when the door slammed shut +behind us. "Hurry down and get me a gun! I'll hold the door while you +run for police and have 'em arrested!" + +"Piffle!" he said. "Come on! Three Sultan's witnesses and two lone +white women against us two--come away! Come away!" + +Monty and Fred were still out, so we went to our own room. + +"I'm wondering," I said, "what Monty will say." + +"I'm not!" said Will. "I'm not troubling, either! I'm not going to +tell Monty a blessed word! See here--she thinks she knows where some +o' that ivory is. Maybe the government of German East Africa is in on +the deal, and maybe not; that makes no present difference. She thinks +she's wise. And she has fixed up with the Sultan to have him claim it +when found, so's she'll get a fat slice of the melon. There's a scheme +on to get the stuff, when who should come on the scene but our little +party, and that makes 'em all nervous, 'cause Monty's a bad man to be +up against. Remember: she claimed that she knows Monty and he knows +her. She means by that that he knows she's a desperado, and she thinks +he'll draw the line at a trip that promises murder and blackmail and +such like dirty work. So she puts a scare into us with a view to our +throwing a scare into him. If I scare any one, it's going to be that +dame herself. I'll not tell Monty a thing!" + +"How about Coutlass the Greek?" said I. "D'you suppose he's her +accomplice?" + +"Maybe! One of her dupes perhaps! I suspect she'll suck him dry of +information and cast him off like a lemon rind. I dare bet she's using +him. She can't use me! Shall you tell Monty?" + +"No," I said. "Not unless we both agreed." + +He nodded. "You and I weren't born to what they call the purple. +We're no diplomatists; but we get each other's meaning." + +"Here come Monty and Fred," said I. "Is my neck still bloody? No, +yours doesn't show." + +We met them at the stairhead, and Monty did not seem to notice anything. + +"Fred has composed a song to the moonlight on Zanzibar roadstead while +you fellows were merely after-dinner mundane. D'you suppose the +landlord 'ud make trouble if we let him sing it?" + +"Let's hope so!" said Will. "I'm itching for a row like they say +drovers in Monty's country itch for mile-stones! Let Fred warble. +I'll fight whoever comes!" + +Monty eyed him and me swiftly, but made no comment. + +"Bill's homesick!" said Fred. "The U. S. eagle wants its Bowery! +We'll soothe the fowl with thoughts of other things--where's the +concertina?" + +"No, no, Fred, that'll be too much din!" + +Monty made a grab for the instrument, but Fred raised it above his head +and brought it down between his knees with chords that crashed like +wedding bells. Then he changed to softer, languorous music, and when +he had picked out an air to suit his mood, sat down and turned art +loose to do her worst. + +He has a good voice. If he would only not pull such faces, or make so +sure that folk within a dozen blocks can hear him, he might pass for a +professional. + +"Music suggestive of moonlight!" he said, and began: + + "The sentry palms stand motionless. Masts move against the sky. + With measured creak of curving spars dhows gently to the + jeweled stars + Rock out a lullaby. + + "Silver and black sleeps Zanzibar. The moonlit ripples croon + Soft songs of loves that perfect are, long tales of + red-lipped spoils of war, + And you--you smile, you moon! + For I think that beam on the placid sea + That splashes, and spreads, and dips, and gleams, + That dances and glides till it comes to me + Out of infinite sky, is the path of dreams, + And down that lane the memories run + Of all that's wild beneath the sun!" + +"You fellows like that one? Anybody coming? Nobody for Will to fight +yet? Too bad! Well--we'll try a-gain! There's no chorus. It's all +poetic stuff, too gentle to be yowled by three such cannibals as you! +Listen! + + "Old as the moonlit silences, to-night's loves are the same + As when for ivory from far, and cloves and gems of Zanzibar + King Solomon's men came. + + "Sinful and still the same roofs lie that knew da Gama's heel, + Those beams that light these sleepy waves looked on when + men threw murdered slaves + To make the sharks a meal. + And I think that beam on the silvered swell + That spreads, and splashes, and gleams, and dips, + That has shone on the cruel and brave as well, + On the trail o' the slaves and the ivory ships, + Is the lane down which the memories run + Of all that's wild beneath the sun." + +The concertina wailed into a sort of minor dirge and ceased. Fred +fastened the catch, and put the instrument away. + +"Why don't you applaud?" he asked. + +"Oh, bravo, bravo!" said Will and I together. + +Monty looked hard at both of us. + +"Strange!" he remarked. "You're both distracted, and you've each got a +slight cut over the jugular!" + +"Been trying out razors," said Yerkes. + +"Um-m-m!" remarked Monty. "Well--I'm glad it's no worse. How about +bed, eh? Better lock your door--that lady up-stairs is what the +Germans call gefaehrlich!* Goo'night!" + +----------- +* Gefaehrlich, dangerous. +----------- + + + + +CHAPTER THREE + + +THE NJO HAPA SONG + + Tongues! Oh, music of eastern tongues, harmonied murmur + of streets ahum! + Trade! Oh, frasila weights of clove--ivory--copra--copal + gum-- + Rubber--vanilla and tortoise-shell! The methods change. + The captains come. + + I was old when the clamor o' Babel's end + (All seas were chartless then!) + Drove forth the brood, and Solitude + Was the newest quest of men. + I lay like a gem in a silken sea + Unseen, uncoveted, unguessed + Till scented winds that waft afar + Bore word o' the warm delights there are + Where ground-swells sing by Zanzibar + Long rhapsodies of rest. + + Wild, oh wilder than winter blasts my wet skies shriek when + the winds are freed. + Mild, oh milder than virgin mirth is the laugh o' the reefs + where sea-birds feed, + Screaming and skirling and down again. (Though the sea-birds + warn do captains heed?) + + +There is no public landing wharf at Zanzibar. Passengers have to +submit their persons into the arms of loud-lunged Swahili longshoremen, +who recognize one sole and only point of honor: neither passenger nor +luggage shall be dropped into the surf. + +Their invariable habit, the instant the view-halloa is raised, is to +scamper headlong, pounce on the victim and pull him apart (or so it +feels) until fortune, superior strength, or some such element decides +the point; and then more often than not it is the victim's fate to be +carried between two men, each hold of a thigh, each determined to get +ashore or to the boat first, and each grimly resolved not to let go +until three times the proper fee shall have been paid. Of only these +two things let the passenger assure himself--fight how he may, he will +neither escape their clutches nor get wet. Rather they will hold him +upside-down until the contents of his pockets fall into the surf. Dry +on the beach or into the boat they will dump him. And whatever he +shall pay them will surely be insufficient. + +But we had a privy councilor of England of our party, and favors were +shown us that never fall to the lot of ordinary travelers. Opposite +the Sultan's palace is the Sultan's private wharf, so royal and private +that it is a prison offense to trespass on it without written +permission. Because of his official call at the Residency, and of his +card left on the Sultan, wires had been pulled, and a pompous +individual whose black face sweated greasily, and whose palm itched for +unearned increment, called on Monty very shortly after breakfast with +intimation that the wharf had been placed at our disposal, since His +Highness the Sultan desired to do us honor. + +So when the B. I. steamer dropped anchor in the great roadstead shortly +after noon we were taken to the wharf by one of the Sultan's +household--a very civil-spoken Arab gentleman--and three English +officers met us there who made a fuss over Monty and were at pains to +be agreeable to the rest of us. While we stood chatting and waiting +for the boat that should row us and belongings the mile-and-a-half or +so to the steamer, I saw something that made me start. Fred gazed +presently in the same direction. + +"Johnson is number one!" he said, as if checking off my mental +processes. He meant Hassan. "Number two is Georges Coutlass, our +friend the Greek. Number three is--am I drunk this early in the +day?--what do you see?--doesn't she look to you like?--by the big blind +god of men's mistakes it's--Monty! Didums, you deaf idiot, look! See!" + +At that everybody naturally looked the same way. Everybody nodded. +Coutlass the Greek, and Hassan, reputed nephew of Tippoo Tib, were +headed in one boat toward the steamer, the worse for the handling, but +right side up and no angrier than the usual passenger. Following them +was another boat containing a motley assortment of Arabs and +part-Arabs, who might, or might not be associated with them. + +On the beach still, surrounded yet by a swarm of longshoremen who +yelled and fought, Lady Isobel Saffren Waldon and her Syrian maid stood +at bay. Her two Swahili men-servants were overwhelmed and already +being carried to a boat. Her luggage was being borne helter-skelter +after them, and another boat waited for her just beyond the belt of +surf, the rowers standing up to yell encouragement at the sweating pack +that dared not close in on its victims. Lady Isobel Saffren Waldon +appeared to have no other weapon than a parasol, but she had plainly +the upper hand. + +"She has a way with her with natives," said the senior officer present. + +"It's a pity," said Monty. "I mean, one scarcely likes to use this +wharf and watch that." + +"Quite so. Yet we daren't accord her official recognition. She'd be +certain to make capital out of it. We're awfully glad she's going. +The Residency atmosphere is one huge sigh of relief. We would like to +speed the parting guest, but it mayn't be done. However, you'll know +there are others not so particular. I imagine her friends are late for +the appointment." + +"Where's she going?" asked Monty. + +"British East Africa." + +"Mombasa?" + +"And then on. She has drafts on a German merchant in Nairobi." + +From that moment until we were safely in our quarters on the steamer +Monty's attitude became one of rigid indifference toward her or +anything to do with her. The British officers went out to the steamer +with us, but all the way Monty only talked of the climate, trade +conditions, and the other subjects to which polite conversation of +Africa's east coast is limited. Fred kept nudging him, but Monty took +no notice. Yerkes whispered to Fred. Then I heard Fred whisper to +Monty in one of those raucous asides that he perfectly well knows can +be heard by everybody. + +"Why don't you ask 'em about her, you ass?" + +But Monty refused to rise. He talked of the bowed and ancient slaves +of Zanzibar, who refused in those days to be set free and afforded +prolific ground for attack on British public morals by people whose +business it is to abuse England for her peccadillos and forget her +virtues.* + +--------------- +* In 1914 there were still thousands of slaves in German East, although +the German press and public were ever loudest in their condemnation of +British conditions. +--------------- + +We reached the ship, and were watching our piles of luggage arrive up +the accommodation ladder when the solution of Lady Isobel Saffren +Waldon's problem appeared. She arrived alongside in the official boat +of the German consulate, a German officer in white uniform on either +hand, and the German ensign at the stern. + +"Pretty fair impudence, paying official honors to our undesirables, yet +I don't see what we can do," said the senior from the Residency. + +Yerkes drew me aside. + +"Did you ever see anything more stupidly British?" he demanded. + +"It's as obvious as the nose on your face that she's up to some game. +It's as plain as twice two that the Germans are backing her whether the +British like it or not. Look at those two Heinies now!" + +We faced about and watched them. After bowing Lady Waldon to her +cabin, they approached our party with brazen claim to recognition--and +received it. They were met, and spoken to apparently as cordially as +if their friendship had been indisputable. + +"Did you ever see anything to beat it? Why not kick 'em into the sea? +Either that woman's a crook or she isn't. If she isn't, then the +British have treated her shamefully, turning their backs on her. But +we know she is a crook! And so do they. The Germans know it, too, and +they're flaunting her under official British noses! They're using her +to start something the British won't like, and the British know it! +Yet she's going to be allowed to travel to British territory on a +British ship, and the Heinies are shaken hands with! If you complained +to Monty I bet he'd say, 'Don't talk fight unless you mean fight!'" + +"Monty might also add, 'Don't talk-fight!'" said I. + +"Oh, rot!" Will answered. "British individuals may bridle a bit, but +their government'll shut its eyes until too late, whatever happens! +You mark my words!" + +We strolled back toward our party in great discontent, I as much as he, +never supposing there was another country in the world that could so +deliberately shut its eyes to dog's work until absolutely forced to +interfere, by a hair not quite too late. + +Coutlass and Hassan traveled second-class--the Arab and half-Arab +contingent third--and none of them troubled us, at present, except that +Will swore at sight of Coutlass swaggering as if the ship and her +contents were all his. + +"To hear him brag you'd believe the British government afraid of him!" +he grumbled. + +But an immediate problem drove Coutlass out of mind. Lady Isobel +Saffren Waldon had been given a cabin in line with ours, at the end of +our corridor. Her maid, and her two Swahili servants were obliged to +pass our doors to get to her cabin at all. As nearly all ships' cabins +on those hot routes do, ours intercommunicated by a metal grill for +ventilating purposes, and a word spoken in one cabin above a whisper +could be heard in the next. + +Fred was the first to realize conditions. He opened his door in his +usual abrupt way to visit Monty's cabin and almost fell over the Syrian +maid, her eye at Monty's key-hole--a little too early in the game to +pass for sound judgment, as Fred was at pains to assure her. + +The alarm being given, we locked our cabin doors, repaired to the +smoking-room, and ordered drinks at a center table where no +eavesdropper could overhear. + +"It's one of two things," said Monty. He had his folding board out, +and we did not doubt he would play chess from there to London. "Either +they know exactly where that ivory is, or they haven't the slightest +idea." + +"My, but you're wise!" said Will. + +Monty ignored him. "They suspect us of knowing. They mean to prevent +our getting any of it. If they do know, they've some reason of their +own for not getting it themselves at present. If they don't know, they +suspect we know and intend to claim what we find." + +"How should they think we know?" objected Will. "The first we ever +heard of the stuff was in the lazaretto in Zanzibar." + +"True. Juma told us. Juma probably told them that we told him. +Natives often put the cart before the horse without the slightest +intention of lying." + +"All the same, why should they believe him?" + +"Why not? Zanzibar's agog with the story--after all these years. The +ivory must have been buried more than a quarter of a century ago. Some +one's been stirring the mud. We arrive, unexpectedly from nowhere, ask +questions about the ivory, make plans for British East Africa--and +there you are! The people who were merely determined to get the stuff +jump to the false conclusion that we really know where it is.'' + +"Q. E. D.!" said Fred, finishing his drink. + +"Not at all," said Monty. "There are two things yet to be +demonstrated. They're true, but not proven. The German government is +after the stuff. And the German government has very special reasons +for secrecy and tricks." + +"We four against the German government looks like longish odds," said +I. + +"Remains to be seen," said Monty. "If the German government's very +special reasons were legal or righteous they'd be announced with a +fanfare of trumpets." + +"Where's all this leading us?" demanded Fred. + +"To a slight change of plan," said Monty. + +"Thank the lord! That means you don't go to Brussels--stay with us!" + +"Nothing of the sort, Fred. But you three keep together. They're +going to watch you. You watch them. Watch Schillingschen particularly +closely, if you find him. The closer they watch you, the more likely +they are to lose sight of me. I'll take care to have several red +herrings drawn across my trail after I reach London. Perhaps I'll +return down the west coast and travel up the Congo River. At any rate, +when I do come, and whichever way I come, I'll have everything legal, +in writing. Let your game be to seem mysterious. Seem to know more +than you do, but don't tell anybody anything. Above all, listen!" + +Fred leaned back in his chair and laughed. + +"Didums!" he said. "This is the idioticest wild goose chase we ever +started on! I admit I nosed it. I gave tongue first. But think of +it--here we are--four sensible men--hitherto sensible--off after ivory +that nobody can really prove exists, said to be buried somewhere in a +tract of half-explored country more than a thousand miles each way--and +the German government, and half the criminals in Africa already on our +idiotic heels!" + +"Yet the German government and the crooks seem convinced, too, that +there's something worth looking for!" laughed Monty. And none of us +could answer that. + +For that matter, none of us would have been willing to withdraw from +the search, however dim the prospect of success might seem in the +intervals when cold reason shed its comfortless rays on us. Intuition, +or whatever it is that has proved superior so often to worldly wisdom +(temptation, Fred calls it!) outweighed reason, and Fred himself would +have been last to agree to forego the search. + +The voyage is short between Zanzibar and Mombasa, but there was +incident. We were spied on after very thorough fashion, Lady Saffren +Waldon's title and gracious bearing (when that suited her) being +practical weapons. The purser was Goanese--beside himself with the +fumes of flattery. He had a pass-key, so the Syrian maid went through +our cabins and searched thoroughly everything except the wallet of +important papers that Monty kept under his shirt. The first and second +officers were rather young, unmarried men possessed of limitless +ignorance of the wiles of such as Lady Waldon. It was they who signed +a paper recommending Coutlass to the B. I. agents and a lot of other +reputable people in Mombasa and elsewhere, thus offsetting the +possibility that the authorities might not let him land. (Had we known +all that at the time, Monty's word against him might have caused him to +be shipped back whence he came, but we did not find it out until +afterward; nor did we know the law.) + +And at Mombasa we made our first united, serious mistake. It was put +to the vote. We all agreed. + +"I can come ashore," said Monty, "introduce you to officialdom, get you +put up for the club, and be useful generally. That, though, 'll lend +color to the theory that you're in league with me--whereas, if I leave +you to your own resources, that may help lose my scent. When they pick +it up again we'll be knowing better where we stand." + +"If you came ashore for a few hours we'd have the benefit of your +prestige," said I. + +"I admit it." + +"I suspect a title's mighty near as useful on British territory as in +N'York or Boston," said Will. "We'd bask in smiles." + +"Not wholly," said Monty. "There's another side to that. There's an +English official element that would rather be rude to some poor devil +with a title than draw pay (and it loves its pay, you may believe me!). +You'd have friends in high places, but make enemies, too, if I go +ashore with you." + +"What's your own proposal?" Fred demanded. + +"I've stated it. I want you fellows to choose. There's no need of me +ashore--that's to say, I've a draft to bearer for the amount you three +have in the common fund--here, take it. If you think you'll need more +than that, then I'll have to go to the bank with you and cash some of +my own draft. I think you'll have enough." + +"Plenty," said Will. + +"Let's send him home!" proposed Fred. + +"How about communications?" We had contrived a code already with the +aid of a pocket Portuguese-English dictionary, of which Fred and Monty +each possessed a similar edition. + +"The Mombasa Bank, Will. You keep them posted as to your whereabouts. +When I write the bank manager I'll ask him to keep my address a secret." + +So we said good-by to Monty and left him on board, and wished we hadn't +a dozen times before noon next day, and a hundred times within the +week. The last sight we had of him was as the shore boat came +alongside the wharf and the half-breed customs officials pounced +smiling on us. My eyes were keenest. I could see Monty pacing the +upper deck, too rapidly for evidence of peace of mind--a +straight-standing, handsome figure of a man. I pointed him out to the +others, and we joked about him. Then the gloom of the customs shed +swallowed us, and there was a new earth and, for the present, no more +sea. + +The island of Mombasa is so close to the cocoanut-fringed mainland that +a railway bridge connects them. Like Zanzibar, it is a place of +strange delights, and bridled lawlessness controlled by the veriest +handful of Englishmen. There are strange hotels--strange +dwellings--streets--stores--tongues and faces. The great grim fort +that brave da Gama built, and held against all comers, dominates the +sea front and the lower town. The brass-lunged boys who pounce on +baggage, fight for it, and tout for the grandly named hotels are of as +many tribes as sizes, as many tongues as tribes. + +Everything is different--everything strange--everything, except the +heat, delightful. And as Fred said, "some folk would grumble in hell!" +Trees, flowers, birds, costumes of the women, sheen of the sea, glint +of sun on bare skins of every shade from ivory to ebony, dazzling coral +roadway and colored coral walls, babel of tongues, sack-saddled donkeys +sleepily bearing loads of coral for new buildings, and--winding in and +out among it all--the narrow-gauge tramway on which trolleys pushed by +stocky little black men carry officialdom gratis, and the rest of the +world and his wife according to tariff; all those things are the +alphabet of Mombasa's charm. Arranged, and rearranged--by chance, by +individual perspective, and by point of view--they spell fascination, +attractiveness, glamour, mystery. And no acquaintance with Mombasa, +however intimate or old, dispels the charm to the man not guilty of +cynicism. To the cynic (and for him) there are sin--as Africa alone +knows how to sin--disease, of the dread zymotic types--and death; death +peering through the doors of godowns, where the ivory tusks are piled; +death in the dark back-streets of the bazaar, where tired policemen +wage lop-sided warfare against insanitary habits and a quite +impracticable legal code; death on the beach, where cannibal crabs +parade in thousands and devour all helpless things; death in the scrub +(all green and beautiful) where the tiny streets leave off and snakes +claim heritage; death in the grim red desert beyond the coast-line, +where lean, hopeless jackals crack today men's dry bones left fifty +years ago by the slave caravans--marrowless bones long since stripped +clean by the ants. But we are not all cynics. + +Last to be cynic or pessimist was Louis McGregor Abraham, proprietor of +the Imperial Hotel--Syrian by birth, Jew by creed, Englishman by +nationality, and admirer first, last and all the time of all things +prosperous and promising, except his rival, the Hotel Royal. + +"You came to the right place," he assured us when the last hot porter +had dumped the last of our belongings on the porch, had ceased from +chattering to watch Fred's financial methods, had been paid double the +customary price, and had gone away grumbling (to laugh at us behind our +backs). "They'd have rooked you at the other hole--underfed you, +overcharged you, and filled you full of lies. I tell the truth to folk +who come to my hotel." + +And he did, some of it. He was inexhaustible, unconquerable, tireless, +an optimist always. He had a store that was part of the hotel, in +which he claimed to sell "everything the mind of man could wish for in +East Africa"; and the boast was true. He even sold American dime +novels. + +"East Africa's a great country!" he kept assuring us. "Some day we'll +all be rich! Have to get ready for it! Have to be prepared! Have to +stock everything the mind of man can want, to encourage new arrivals +and make the old ones feel at home. Lose a little money, but why +grumble? Get it back when the boom comes. As it will, mind you. As +it will. Can't help it. Richest country in the world--grow +anything--find anything--game--climate--elevation--scenery--natives by +the million to do the work--all good! Only waiting for white men with +energy, and capital to start things really moving!" + +But there were other points of view. We went to the bank, and found +its manager conservative. The amount of the draft we placed to our +credit insured politeness. + +"Be cautious," he advised us. "Take a good look round before you +commit yourselves!" + +He agreed to manage the interchange of messages between us and Monty, +and invited us all to dinner that evening at the club; so we left the +bank feeling friendly and more confident. Later, a chance-met English +official showed us over the old fort (now jail) where men of more +breeds and sorts than Noah knew, better clothed and fed than ever in +their lives, drew endless supplies of water in buckets from da Gama's +well. + +"Some of them have to be kicked out when their sentences expire!" he +told us. "See you at the club tonight. Glad to help welcome you." + +But there was a shock in store, and as time passed the shocks increased +in number and intensity. Our guns had not been surrendered to us by +the customs people. We had paid duty on them second-hand at the rate +for new ones, and had then been told to apply for them at the +collector's office, where our names and the guns' numbers would be +entered on the register--for a fee. + +We now went to claim them, and on the way down inquired at a store +about ammunition. We were told that before we could buy cartridges we +would need a permit from the collector specifying how many, and of what +bore we might buy. There was an Arab in the store ahead of us. He was +buying Martini Henry cartridges. I asked whether he had a permit, and +was told he did not need one. + +"Being an Arab?" I asked. + +"Being well known to the government," was the answer. + +We left the store feeling neither quite so confident nor friendly. And +the collector's Goanese assistant did the rest of the disillusioning. + +No, we could not have our guns. No, we could have no permit for +ammunition. No, the collector was not in the office. No, he would not +be there that afternoon. It was provided in regulations that we could +have neither guns, sporting licenses, nor permits for ammunition. The +guns were perfectly safe in the government godown--would not be +tampered with--would be returned to us when we chose to leave the +country. + +"But, good God, we've paid duty on them!" Oakes protested. + +"You should not have brought the guns with you unless you desired to +pay duty," said the Goanese. + +"But where's the collector?" Yerkes demanded. + +"I am only assistant," was the answer. "How should I know?" + +The man's insolence, of demeanor and words, was unveiled, and the more +we argued with him the more sullen and evasive he grew, until at last +he ordered us out of the office. At that we took chairs and announced +our intention of staying until the collector should come or be fetched. +We were informed that the collector was the most important government +official in Mombasa--information that so delighted Fred that he grew +almost good tempered again. + +"I'd rather twist a big tail than a little one!" he announced. "Shall +we sing to pass the time?" + +The Goanese called for the askari,* half-soldier, half-police-man, who +drowsed in meek solitude outside the office door. + +---------------- +* Askari, soldier. +---------------- + +"Remove these people, please!" he said in English, and then repeated it +in Kiswahili. + +The askari eyed us, shifted his bare feet uncomfortably, screwed up his +courage, tried to look stern, and said something in his own tongue. + +"Put them out, I said!" said the Goanese. + +"He orders you to put us out!" grinned Fred. + +"The office closes at three," said the Goanese, glancing at the clock +in a half-hearted effort to moderate his own daring. + +"Not unless the collector comes and closes it himself, it doesn't!" +Fred announced with folded arms. + +Will pulled out two rupees and offered them to the sentry. + +"Go and bring us some food," he said. "We intend to stay in here until +your bwana makubwa* comes." + +-------------- +* Bwana makubwa, lit. big master, senior government officer. +-------------- + +The sentry refused the money, waving it aside with the air of a Caesar +declining a crown. + +"Gee!" exclaimed Will. "You've got to hand it to the British if they +train colored police to refuse money." + +The askari, it seemed, was a man of more than one kind of discretion. +Without another word to the Goanese he saluted the lot of us with a +sweep of his arm, turned on his heel and vanished--not stopping in his +hurry to put on the sandals that lay on the door-step. We amused +ourselves while he was gone by flying questions at the Goanese, +calculated to disturb what might be left of his equanimity without +giving him ground for lawsuits. + +"How old are you?"--"How much pay do you get?"--"How long have you held +your job?"--"Do you ever get drunk?"--"Are you married?"--"Does your +wife love you?"--"Do you keep white mice?"--"Is your life +insured?"--"How often have you been in jail?"--"Are you honest?"--"Are +you vaccinated against the jim-jams?"--"Why is your name Fernandez and +not Braganza?" + +The man was about distracted, for he had been unwise enough to try to +answer, when suddenly the collector came in great haste and stalked +through the office into the inner room. + +"Fernandez!" he called as he passed, and the Goanese hurried after him, +hugely relieved. There was five minute's consultation behind the +partition in tones too low for us to catch more than a word or two, and +then Fernandez came out again with a "Now wait and see, my hearties!" +smile on his face. He was actually rubbing his palms together, sure of +a swift revenge. + +"He says you are to go in there," he announced. + +So we filed in, Fred Oakes first, and it seemed to me the moment I saw +the collector's face that the outlook was not so depressing. He looked +neither young nor incompetent. His jaw was neither receding nor too +prominent. His neck sat on his shoulders with the air of full +responsibility, unsought but not refused. And his eyes looked straight +into those of each of us in turn with a frank challenge no honest +fellow could resent. + +"Take seats, won't you," he said. "Your names, please?" + +We told him, and he wrote them down. + +"My clerk tells me you tried to bribe the askari. You shouldn't do +that. We are at great pains to keep the police dependable. It's too +bad to put temptation in their way." + +Will, with cold precision, told him the exact facts. He listened to +the end, and then laughed. + +"One more Goanese mistake!" he said. "We have to employ them. They +mean well. The country has no money to spend on European office +assistants. Well--what can I do for you?" + +At that Fred cut loose. + +"We want our guns before dark!" he said. "It's the first time my +character has been questioned by any government, and I say the same for +my friends!" + +"Oh?" said the collector, eying us strangely. + +"Yes!" said Fred. + +"That is so," said I. + +"Entirely so," said Will. + +"I have information," said the collector, tapping with a pencil on his +blotter, "that you men are ivory hunters. That you left Portuguese +territory because the German consul there had to request the Portuguese +government to expel you." + +"All easily disproved," said Fred. "Confront us, please, with our +accusers." + +"And that Lord Montdidier, with whom you have been traveling, became so +disgusted with your conduct that he refused to land with you at this +port as he at first intended!" + +We all three gasped. The first thing that occurred to me, and I +suppose to all of us, was to send for Monty. His steamer was not +supposed to sail for an hour yet. But the thought had hardly flashed +in mind when we heard the roar of steam and clanking as the anchor +chain came home. The sound traveled over water and across roofs like +the knell of good luck--the clanking of the fetters of ill fate. + +"Where's her next stop?" said I. + +"Suez," Fred answered. + +Simultaneously then to all three the thought came too that this +interpretation of Monty's remaining on board was exactly what we +wanted. The more people suspected us of acting independently of him +the better. + +"Confront us with our accusers!" Fred insisted. + +"You are not accused--at least not legally," said the collector. "You +are refused rifle and ammunition permits, that is all." + +"On the ground of being ivory hunters?" + +"Suspected persons--not known to the government--something rather +stronger than rumor to your discredit, and nothing known in your favor." + +"What recourse have we?" Fred demanded. + +"Well--what proof can you offer that you are bona fide travelers or +intending settlers? Are you ivory hunters or not?" + +"I'll answer that," said Fred--dexterously I thought, "when I've seen a +copy of the game laws. We're law-abiding men." + +The collector handed us a well thumbed copy of the Red Book. + +"They're all in that," he said. "I'll lend it to you, or you can buy +one almost anywhere in town. If you decide after reading that to go +farther up country I'm willing to issue provisional game licenses, +subject to confirmation after I've looked into any evidence you care to +submit on your own behalf. You can have your guns against a cash +deposit--" + +"How big?" + +"Two hundred rupees for each gun!" + +Fred laughed. The demand was intended to be away over our heads. The +collector bridled. + +"But no ammunition," he went on, "until your claim to respectability +has been confirmed. By the way, the only claim you've made to me is +for the guns. You've told me nothing about yourselves." + +"Two hundred a gun?" said Fred. "Counting a pistol or revolver as +one? Three guns apiece--nine guns--eighteen hundred rupees' deposit?" + +The collector nodded with a sort of grim pleasure in his own +unreasonableness. Fred drew out our new check book. + +"You fellows agreeable?" he asked, and we nodded. + +"Here's a check on the Mombasa Bank for ten thousand, and your +government can have as much more again if it wants it," he said. "Make +me out a receipt please, and write on it what it's for." + +The collector wrote. He was confused, for he had to tear up more than +one blank. + +"I suppose we get interest on the money at the legal local rate?" asked +Fred maliciously. + +"I'll inquire about that," said the collector. + +"Excuse me," said Fred, "but I'm going to give you some advice. While +you're inquiring, look into the antecedents of Lady Isobel Saffren +Waldon! It's she who gave out the tip against us. Her tip's a bad +one. So is she." + +"She hasn't applied for guns or a license," the collector answered +tartly. "It's people who want to carry firearms--people able +and likely to make trouble whom we keep an eye on." + +"She's more likely to make trouble for you than a burning house!" put +in Will Yerkes. "If my partner hadn't paid you that check I'd be all +for having this business out! I'm going to let them know in the States +what sort of welcome people receive at this port!" + +"You came of your own accord. You weren't invited," the collector +answered. + +"That's a straight-out lie!" snapped Will. "You know it's a lie! Why, +there isn't a newspaper in South Africa that hasn't been carrying ads +of this country for months past. Even papers I've had sent me from the +States have carried press-agent dope about it. Why, you've been +yelling for settlers like a kid squalling for milk--and you say we're +not invited now we've come here! I'm going to write and tell the U. S. +papers what that dope is worth!" + +"Ivory hunters are not settlers," the collector interjected. + +"Who said we're ivory hunters?" Will was in a fine rage, and Fred and +I leaned back to enjoy the official's discomfort. "Besides, your ads +bragged about the big game as one of the chief attractions! All the +information you can possibly have against us must have come from a +female crook in the pay of the German government! You're not behaving +the way gentlemen do where I was raised!" + +"There is no intention to offend," said the collector. + +"Intention is good!" said Will, laughing in spite of himself. "There's +another thing I want to know. What about ammunition? We're to have +our guns. They're useless without cartridges. What about it?" + +"The guns shall be sent to your hotel tonight. The provisional +sporting licenses--if you want them--will be ready tomorrow +morning--seven hundred and fifty rupees apiece--I'll charge them +against your deposit. If the licenses should be confirmed after +inquiry, I will send you permits through the post for fifty rounds of +ammunition each." + +Will snorted. Fred Oakes yelled with laughter, and I gaped with +indignation. + +"I'm going into this to the hilt!" spluttered Fred. "I wouldn't have +missed it for a fortune! We three are going to constitute ourselves a +committee of inspection. We're going to wander the country over and +report home to the newspapers--South African--British--U. S. A.--and +any other part of the world that's interested! We won't worry about +ammunition. Send us permits for whatever quantity seems to you proper, +and we'll note it all down in our diaries!" + +We all stood up, the collector obviously uncomfortable and we, if not +at ease, at least happier than we had been. + +Fred nodded to the collector genially, and we all walked out. + +Mombasa is a fairly large island, but the built-over part of it is +small, so it was not surprising that we should emerge from the office +face to face with Lady Saffren Waldon. She was the one surprised, not +we. She probably thought she had spiked our guns in that part of the +world forever, and the sight of us coming laughing from the very office +where we should have been made glum must have been disconcerting. + +She was riding on one of the little trolley-cars, pushed by two boys in +white official uniform, dressed in her flimsiest best, a lace parasol +across her knee, and beside her an obvious member of the +government--young, and so recently from home as not to have lost his +pink cheeks yet. + +Had there not been an awning over the trolley-car she might have used +the parasol to make believe she had not seen us. But the awning +precluded that, and we were not more than two or three yards away. + +"Laugh!" whispered Fred. + +So we crossed the track laughing and the trolley had to pause to let us +by. We laughed as we raised our helmets to her--laughed both at her +and at the pink and white puppy she had taken in leash. And then the +sort of thing happened that nearly always does when men with a +reasonable faith in their own integrity make up their minds to see +opprobrium through. Fate stepped hard on our arm of the balance. + +If built-over Mombasa is a small place, so is Africa. So is the world. +Striding down the hill from the other hotel, the rival one, the Royal, +came a man so well known in so many lands that they talk of naming a +tenth of a continent after him--the mightiest hunter since Nimrod, and +very likely mightier than he; surely more looked-up to and +respected--a little, wiry-looking, freckled, wizened man whose beard +had once been red, who walked with a decided limp and blinked genially +from under the brim of a very neat khaki helmet. + +"Why, bless my soul if it isn't Fred Oakes!" he exclaimed, in a +squeaky, worn-out voice that is as well known as his face, and +quickened his pace down-hill. + +"Courtney!" said Fred. "There's only one man I'd rather meet!" + +The little man laughed. "Oh, you and your Montdidier are still +inseparable, I suppose! How are you, Fred? I'm glad to see you. Who +are your friends?" + +At that minute out came the collector from his office--stood on the +step, and stared. Fred introduced us to Courtney, and I experienced +the thrill of shaking hands with the man accounts of whose exploits had +fired my schoolboy imagination and made stay-at-home life forever after +an impossibility. + +"I missed the steamer, Fred. Not another for a week. Going down now +to see about a passage to Somaliland. I suppose you'll be at the club +after dinner?" + +"No" said Fred. "We've an invitation, but I think we'll send a note +and say we can't come. We'll dine at our hotel and sit on the veranda +afterward." + +I wondered what Fred was driving at, and so did the collector who was +headed across the street and listening with all ears. + +"That so? Not a bad idea. They've very kindly made me an honorary +member of the club, but I rather expect there's a string to that--eh, +Fred, don't you? They'll expect stories,--stories. I get tired of +telling the same tales so many times over. Suppose I join you fellows, +eh? I'm at the Royal. You at the other place? Suppose I join you +after dinner, and we have a pipe together on the veranda?" + +"Nothing I'd like better," said Fred, and I felt too pleased with the +prospect to say anything at all. Growing old is a foolish and +unnecessary business, but there is no need to forego while young the +thrills of unashamed hero-worship; in fact, that is one of the ways of +continuing young. It is only the disillusioned (poor deceived ones) +and the cynics, who grow old ungracefully. + +We went upstreet, through the shadow of the great grim fort. The +trolley-car trundled down among the din, smells and colors of the +business-end of town. Looking over my shoulder I saw Courtney talking +to the collector. + +"We're getting absolution, Fred!" said I. + +"I'm not sure we need it," Fred answered. "I hope Courtney won't tell +too much!" So quickly does a man jump from praying for friends at +court to fearing them! + +"Courtney looked to me," said Will, "like a man who would give no games +away." + +"Glad you think that of him," said Fred. + +"Why?" + +"Tell you later, maybe." + +But he did not tell until after dinner. (It was a good dinner for East +Africa. Shark steak figured in it, under a more respectable name; and +there was zebu hump, guinea-fowl, and more different kinds of fruit +than a man could well remember.) When it was over we sat in deep +armchairs on the long wide veranda that fronts the whole hotel. The +evening sea-breeze came and wafted in on us the very scents of Araby; +the night sounds that whisper of wilderness gave the lie to a tinkling +guitar that somewhere in the distance spoke of civilized delights. The +surf crooned on coral half a mile away, and very good cigar smoke (from +a box that Monty had sent ashore with our belongings) supplemented +coffee and the other aids to physical contentment. Then, limping +between the armchairs, and ashamed that we should rise to greet +him--motioning us down again with a little nervous laugh--Courtney came +to us. Within five minutes of his coming the world, and the clock, and +the laws of men might have all reversed themselves for aught we cared. +Without really being conscious he was doing it Courtney plunged into +our problem, grasped it, sized it up, advised us, flooded us with +priceless, wonderful advice, and did it with such almost feminine +sympathy that I believe we would have been telling him our love-affairs +at last, if a glance at the watch he wore in a case at his belt had not +told him it was three A. M. + +"There's trouble" he began when he had filled his pipe. "You boys are +in trouble. What is it?" he asked, shifting and twitching in his +seat--refusing an armchair--refusing a drink. + +"Tell us first what's the matter with you," said Fred. + +"Oh, nothing. An old wound. A lion once dragged me by this shoulder +half a mile or so. At this time of year I get pains. They last a day +or two, then pass--Go on, tell me!" + +He never sat really still once that whole evening, yet never once +complained or made a gesture of impatience. + +"I propose," said Fred, with a glance at Yerkes and me, "to tell +Courtney everything without reserve." + +The little old hunter nodded, watching us with bright blue eyes. I +received the impression that he knew more secrets than he could tell +should he talk down all the years that might be left him. He was the +sort of man in whom nearly every one confides. + +"We're after Tippoo Tib's ivory!" said Fred, plunging into the middle +of things. "Monty has gone to drive a bargain with the King of +Belgium. Do you think it's a wild goose chase?" + +Courtney chuckled. "No," he said. "I wouldn't call it that. They've +been killing elephants in Africa ever since the flood. Ivory must have +accumulated. It's somewhere. Some of it must be so old and well +seasoned as to be practically priceless, unless rats have spoiled it. +Rats play old Harry with ivory, you know." + +"Have you a notion where it is?" demanded Fred. + +Courtney laughed. "Behold me leaving the country!" he said. +"If I knew I'd look. If I saw I'd take!" + +"Can you give us a hint?" + +"There are caves near the summit of Mount Elgon that would hold the +world's revenues. None of them have ever been thoroughly explored. +Cannibals live in some of them. Cannibals and caverns is a combination +that might appeal to Tippoo Tib, but there's no likelihood that he +buried all that ivory in one place, you know. I suspect the greater +part is in the Congo, and that the Germans know its whereabouts within +a mile or two." + +"How did they discover it?" + +"Why don't they dig it out?" + +"What keeps 'em from turning their knowledge into money?" + +We had forgotten our own troubles. Courtney, too, seemed to forget for +the moment that he had began by asking us a question. + +"Remember Emin Pasha? When was it--'87--'88--'89 that Stanley went and +rescued him? Perhaps you recall what was then described as Emin's +ingratitude after the event? British government offered him a billet. +Khedive of Egypt cabled him the promise of a job, all on Stanley's +recommendation. Emin turned 'em all down and accepted a job from the +Germans. Nobody understood it at the time. My own idea is that Emin +thought he knew more or less where that hoard is. He didn't really +want to come away with Stanley, you know. Being a German, I suppose he +preferred to share his secret with his own crowd. I dare say he +thought of telling Stanley but judged that the 'Rock breaker' might +demand a too large share. The value of the stuff must be so enormous +that it's almost worth going to war about, from the point of view of a +nation hungry for new colonies. Emin is dead, and it's likely he left +no exact particulars behind him. To my personal knowledge the Germans +have had a swarm of spies for a long time operating beyond the Congo +border." + +"Were you looking for the stuff yourself?" I asked. + +"Oh, no," he laughed. "But when I'm hunting I look about me. I'll +tell you where the stuff may possibly be. There's a section of country +called the Bahr el Gazal that the Congo people claim, but that I +believe will eventually prove to lie on the British side of the +boundary. It was good elephant country--which is to say bad living and +traveling for man--since the earth took shape out of ooze. Awful +swampy, malarious, densely wooded, dangerous country, sparsely +inhabited by savages not averse to cannibalism when they've +opportunity. The ivory may be there. If the Germans know it's there +they're naturally afraid the British government would claim the whole +district the minute the secret was out. Their plan may possibly be to +wait until a boundary dispute arises in the ordinary course of time +(keeping a cautious eye on the cache meanwhile, of course) and then +take the Congo government side. If they can contrive to have it +acknowledged as Congo territory, they might then pick a quarrel with +the Congo government--or come to some sort of terms with them." + +"They've patience," I said, "if they're playing that game!" + +Courtney raised his eyebrows until his forehead was a mass of deep +wrinkles. Then he blew a dozen smoke rings. + +"Patient--perhaps. It's my impression they're as remorseless and +persistent as white ants--undermining, digging, devouring everywhere +while the rest of the world sleeps. Do you remember there was a mutiny +of native troops in Uganda not many years ago? Some said that was +because the troops were being paid in truck instead of money, and like +most current excuses that one had some truth in it. But the men +themselves vowed they were going to set up an African Muhammedan +empire." + +"What had that to do with Germans?" asked Fred. + +"Nothing that I can personally prove" said Courtney. "But I've a broad +acquaintance among natives, and considerable knowledge of their +tongues. Muhammedanism is spreading among them very rapidly. Over and +over again, beside camp-fires, and in the dark when they thought I was +not listening, I have heard them talk of missionaries from German +territory who spread a doctrine of what you might call pan-Islam for +lack of a better name. I said at the time of the Uganda mutiny that I +believed Germans were behind it. I've seen no reason to change my +opinion since. It's obvious that if the mutiny had by some ill chance +succeeded Uganda would have been an easy prey for Karl Peters and his +Germans. If that ivory of Tippoo Tib's is really in the Bahr el Gazal +at the back of Uganda, then the German motive for stirring up the +Uganda mutiny would be obvious." + +"But doesn't our government know all this?" demanded Fred. + +"That depends on what you mean by the word know," answered Courtney. +"I've made no secret of my own opinion!" + +"But they wouldn't listen?" + +"Some did, some didn't. The Home government--which was the India +Office in those days--took no notice whatever. One or two men out here +believed, but I think they're dead. When the Foreign Office took the +country over I don't suppose they overhauled old reports very +carefully. I dare say my letters on the subject lie inches deep in +dust." + +"England doesn't deserve to keep her colonies!" vowed Fred, caught in a +sudden flood of indignation. + +Courtney laughed. + +"When you've seen as many of the other nations' colonies as I have +you'll qualify that verdict! We do our best. God gave us our work to +do, and the devil came and made us stupid! Take this country, for +instance." + +"Yes!" agreed Fred. "Take this country! We came ashore today--left +Monty on board ship on his way to Europe. Nobody knew a thing about +us. A female woman, known to the police in Zanzibar and so notorious +in Europe that she's in no hurry to go home--said, too, on every hand +to be in the pay of the German government--chose to tell lies about us +to the chuckle-headed puppies in charge of Mombasa. Net result--what +do you suppose?" + +"I know," said Courtney. "I've been told this evening." His eyes +changed, and his voice took on the almost feminine note of appeal that +came strangely from a big game hunter. "You boys must overlook things. +These boys you're angry with are younger than you, Fred. That +collector you've contrived to pick a quarrel with has fought Arabs and +cannibal troops--odds against him of fifty or a hundred to one, mind +you--all across the Congo and back again. He fought in the Uganda +mutiny. He's a man. He's a merchant, though, with a merchant's +education. He was taken over with the rest of the clerks when the +British government superseded the British East Africa Trading Company. +He has never had the advantage of legal training. Went to a common +school. No advantages of any kind. Poorly paid and overworked. +There's no money in the country yet. Nobody to tax. +Salaries--expenses and so on come from home, voted by Parliament. As +long as that condition lasts they're all going to feel nervous. They +know they'll get the blame for everything that goes wrong, and precious +little credit in any case. Parliament advertised the country in answer +to their complaints of no revenue. Parliament called for settlers. +But they're not ready for settlers. They don't know how to handle +them. They've no troops--nothing but a handful of black police. How +shall they keep in order colonials armed with repeating rifles? +They're not ready. The Uganda Railway isn't finished yet; trains get +through to Victoria Nyanza once a week, but there's endless work to be +done yet on the line, and Parliament grudges them every penny they +spend on it. Yet the railway was rushed through by order of Parliament +to prevent Doctor Karl Peters and the Germans from claiming occupation +of the head-waters of the Nile and so dominating Upper Egypt. You boys +must be considerate." + +"All right," said Fred. "I'll grant all that." + +"But what gets me" Will interrupted, "is that they should condemn us +out-of-hand--on sight--untried--on the say-so of this Lady Saffren +Waldon. She carries German letters of credit. She's so notoriously in +league with Germans that you'd think even these little Napoleons 'ud +know it. I'm American myself, thank God, but these two men are their +own kith and kin. Why should they judge their own countrymen unheard +on the say-so of a woman like that? That's what rattles me!" + +Courtney blew six smoke rings. + +"You'll have to forgive them, lad. Too many of the Englishmen who have +come here were bad bats from the South, so hot-footed that they burned +the grass. Then--don't forget that the Germans have a military +government to the south of us--all experienced men--a great many of +them unmitigated rascals, but nearly all of them clever--students of +strategy and psychology and tactics--some of them brilliant men who +have had to apply for colonial service because of debt or scandal. +They're overmanned where we are under-manned--backed up from home where +our boys are only blamed and neglected--well supplied with troops and +ammunition, where our police are kept down to the danger point and now +and then even without cartridges. The Germans have no railway yet, but +they've a policy and they keep it secret. We have a railway, and no +policy except retrenchment and economy. I'm convinced the German +government has no scruples. We have. So you must sympathize with our +young men, not quarrel with them." + +"Believe me," I said, "we didn't start out to quarrel with anybody. +That woman lied about us. There's no excuse for believing her without +giving us a hearing." + +"Oh, yes there is. I spoke with her myself this evening," said +Courtney. "She's staying at my hotel, you know. She's a match for +much more experienced men than our young officials. They've been +fighting Arabs, not flirting. She had the impudence to try to flatter +me. I don't doubt she's telling a crowd of men tonight that I'm in +love with her--perhaps not exactly telling them that, but giving them +to understand it. Why don't I stroll down to the club and deny it? +For the same reason that you don't openly denounce her! It's semi- or +wholly-sentimental chivalry--rank stupidity, if you like to call it +that, but it's national, I'm glad to say, and I'm as proud of it as any +one." + +"Doesn't it look to you," said Fred, "that if she and the German +government are so infernally anxious to spoil our chances--and they +suspect what we're after, you know--doesn't it look to you as if there +may really be something in this quest of ours?" + +"Undoubtedly," said Courtney. "There's ivory in it, tons and tons and +tons of ivory. Somebody will find it some day." + +"Join us then!" said Fred. "Cancel your trip to Somaliland and come +with us! I can speak for Monty. I know he'll welcome you into the +partnership!" + +"I believe I could almost speak for Monty, too," laughed Courtney. "He +and I were at Eton together, and we've never ceased being friends. But +I can't come with you. No. I'm making a sort of semi-official trip. +I shall hunt, of course, but there are observations to be made. The +pan-Islamic theory is said to be making headway also in Somaliland." + +"Do you feel you have any lien on the Elgon Caves and Bahr el Gazal +clues?" Fred asked. + +"No. I make you a present of those ideas. I'm sure I hope you find +the stuff. I'm wondering, though--I'm wondering." + +"I'll bet you a dollar I'm thinking of the same thing," said Will. + +"Out with it, then." + +"What's to prevent the Germans from making their own dicker with the +King of the Belgians or with the Congo government, and rifling the +hoard on a fifty-fifty or some such basis?" + +"Correct," said Courtney. "I confess myself puzzled about that. But I +know no European politics. There may be a thousand reasons. And then, +you know, the King of the Belgians has the name of being a grasping +dealer. The management of his private zone on the Congo is +unspeakable. It's possible the Germans may prefer not to risk putting +His Majesty on the scent." + +"Well, we've our work cut out," said Fred, laughing and yawning. "That +woman has started us off with a bad name." + +"That is one thing I can really do for you," Courtney answered. "I've +no official standing, but the boys all listen to me. I'll tell them--" + +"For the love of God don't tell them too much!" Fred exclaimed. + +"I'll tell them you're friends of mine," he went on. "I believe that +will solve the sporting license and ammunition problem. As for the +woman--if I were in your shoes I would steal a march on her. I +wouldn't be surprised if your licenses and ammunition permits were here +at the hotel by ten tomorrow morning. I see they've sent your guns +already. Well, there's a train for Nairobi tomorrow noon, and not +another for three days. I'd take tomorrow's train if I were you. I +always find in going anywhere the start's the principal thing. You'll +go?" + +"We will," we answered, one after the other. + +"Good night, then, boys; I'll be going." + +But we walked with him down to his hotel--I, and I think the others, +full to the teeth with the pleasure of knowing him, as well as of envy +of his scars, his five or six South African campaigns, his adventures, +and (by no means least) his unblemished record as a gentleman. Merely +a little bit of a man with a limp, but better than a thousand men who +lacked his gentleness. + + + + +CHAPTER FOUR + +THE NJO HAPA SONG + + Delights--ah, Ten are the dear delights (and the Book + forbids them, one by one)-- + The broad old roads of a thousand loves--back turned to the + Law--the lawless fun-- + Old Arts for new--old hours reborn--and who shall mourn + when the sands have run? + + I was old when they told the Syren Tales + (All ears were open then!) + And the harps were afire with plucked desire + For the white ash oars again-- + For oars and sail, and the open sea, + High prow against pure blue, + The good sea spray on eye and lip, + The thrumming hemp, the rise and dip, + The plunge and the roll of a driven ship + As the old course boils anew! + + Sweetly I call, the captains come. The home ties draw at + hearts in vain. + Potent the spell of Africa! Who East and South the course + has ta'en + By Guardafui to Zanzibar may go, but he, shall come again. + + +Courtney proved better than his word. Our Big Game Licenses arrived +after breakfast, and permits for five hundred rounds of rifle +ammunition each. In an envelope in addition was Fred's check with the +collector's compliments and the request that we kindly call and pay for +the licenses. In other words we now had absolution. + +We called, and were received as fellow men, such was the genius of +Courtney's friendship. A railway man looked in. The collector's dim +office became awake with jokes and laughter. + +"Going up today?" he asked. "I'll see you get berths on the train." + +We little realized at the moment the extent of that consideration; but +understanding dawned fifteen minutes before high noon when we strolled +to the station behind a string of porters carrying our luggage. +Courtney was there to see us off, and he looked worried. + +"I'm wondering whether you'll ever get your luggage through," he said +with a sort of feminine solicitude. It was strange to hear the hero of +one's school-days, mighty hunter and fearless leader of forlorn +campaigns, actually troubled about whether we could catch our train. +But so the man was, gentle always and considerate of everybody but +himself. + +There was law in this new land, at all events along the railway line. +Not even handbags or rifles could pass by the barrier until weighed and +paid for. Crammed in the vestibule in front of us were fifty people +fretfully marshalling in line their strings of porters lest any later +comer get by ahead of them; foremost, with his breast against the +ticket window, was Georges Coutlass. Things seemed not to be +proceeding as he wished. + +There was one babu behind the window--a mild, unhappy-looking Punjabi, +or Dekkani Mussulman. There was another at the scales, who knew almost +no English: his duty was to weigh--do sums--write the result on a +slip, and then justify his arithmetic to office babu and passenger, +before any sort of progress could be made. The fact that all +passengers shouted at him to hurry or be reported to big superiors +complicated the process enormously; and the equally discordant fact +that no passenger--and especially not Georges Coutlass--desired or +intended to pay one anna more than he could avoid by hook, crook, or +argument, made the game amusing to the casual looker-on, but hastened +nothing (except tempers). The temperature within the vestibule was +112' by the official thermometer. + +"You pair of black murderers!" yelled Coutlass as we took our place in +line. "You bloody robbers! You pickpockets! You train-thieves! Go +out and dig your graves! I will make an end of you!" + +"You should not use abusive language" the babu retorted mildly, +stopping to speak, and then again to wipe his spectacles, and his +forehead, and his hands, and to glance at the clock, and to mutter what +may or may not have been a prayer. + +Coutlass exploded. + +"Shouldn't, eh? Who the hell are you to tell me what I shouldn't do? +Sell me a ticket, you black plunderer, d'you hear! Look! Listen!" + +He snatched a piece of paper from the babu's hand and turned to face +the impatient crowd. + +"This hell-cat--" (the unhappy babu looked less like a hell-cat than +any vision of the animal I ever imagined) "wants to make out that +seventy-one times seven annas and three pice is forty-nine rupees, +eleven annae! Oh, you charlatan! You mountebank! You black-blooded +robber! You miscreant! Cut your throat, I order you!" + +The babu expostulated, stammered, quailed. Coutlass drew in his breath +for the gods of Greece alone knew what heights of fury next. But +interruption entered. + +"There, that's enough of you! Get to the back of the line!" + +The man who had promised us berths came abruptly through the barrier, +and unlike the babu did not appear afraid of any one. The Greek let +out his gathered breath with a bark of fury, like a seal coming up to +breathe. Taking that for a symptom of opposition the newcomer, very +cool in snow-white uniform and helmet, seized Coutlass by the neck and +hustled him, arguing like a boiler under pressure, through the crowd. +The Greek was three inches taller, and six or eight inches bigger round +the chest, but too astonished to fight back, and perhaps, too, aware of +the neighborhood of old da Gama's fort, where more than one Greek was +pining for the grape and olive fields of Hellas. With a final shove +the railway official thrust him well out into the road. + +"If you miss the train, serve you right!" he said. "Babus are willing +servants, to be treated gently!" + +Then he saw us. + +"You're late! Where's your luggage? These your porters? All +right--put you on your honor. Go on through. Save time. Have your +stuff weighed, and settle the bill at Nairobi. All of it, mind! Babu, +let these people through!" + +Followed by Courtney, who seemed to have right of way wherever it +suited him to wander, we filed through the gate, crossed the blazing +hot platform, and boarded a compartment labeled "Reserved." The +railway man nodded and left us, to hurry and help sell tickets. + +It was an Indian type railway carriage be left us in, a contraption not +ill-suited to Africa--nor yet so comfortable as to diminish the +sensation of travel toward new frontiers. + +Each car was divided into two compartments, entirely separate and +entered from opposite ends; facing ours was the rear end of a +second-class car, into which we could look if the doors were open and +we lay feet-foremost on the berths. The berths were arranged +lengthwise, two each side, and one above the other. + +It was what they called a mixed train, mixed that is of freight and +passengers--third-class in front, second next, then first, and a dozen +little iron freight cars of two kinds in front. In those days there +were neither tunnels nor bridges on that railway, and there was a +single seat on the roof at each end of first- and second-class +compartments reached by a ladder, for any passenger enamored of the +view. Even the third-class compartments (and they were otherwise as +deliberately bare and comfortless as wood and iron could make them) had +lattice-work shades over the upper half of the windows. + +For the babu's encouragement, and to increase the panic of the +ticketless, the engineer was blowing the whistle at short intervals. +Passengers, released in quicker order now that a white official was +lending the two babus a hand, began coming through the barrier in +sudden spurts, baggage in either hand and followed hot-foot by natives +with their heavier stuff. They took headers into the train, and the +porters generally came back grinning. + +"I see through the whistling stunt," Will announced. "My, but that +fellow on the engine has faith; or else the system's down real fine in +these parts! He won't be back for a week. Those woolly-headed porters +are going to save up his commission and hand it to him when he brings +the down-train in! The game's good: he whistles--passenger +runs--can't make change--pays two, three, four, ten times what the +job's worth--and the porters divvy up with the engineer. But good +lord, the porters must be honest!" + +Presently a pale white man in khaki with a red beard entered our +compartment, and Courtney had to make room for him on the seat. He +apologized with less conviction of real regret than I ever remember +noticing, although the pouches under his eyes gave him a rather +world-weary look. + +"Not another first-class berth on the train--every last one engaged. +Might be worse. Might have had to ride with Indians. Curse of this +country, Indians are. I'd rid the land of 'em double-quick if +government 'ud pay me a rupee a head--an' I'd provide cartridges! But +government likes 'em! Ugh! Ever travel in one compartment with a +dozen of 'em? Sleep in a tent with a score of 'em? Share blankets +with a couple of 'em on a cold night? No? You be glad I'm not an +Indian. One's enough!" + +We made room for his belongings, and leaned from the window all on one +seat together. The time to start arrived and passed; hot passengers +continued spurting for the train at intervals--all sorts of +passengers--English, Mauritius--French, Arab, Goanese, German, Swahili, +Indian, Biluchi, one Japanese, two Chinamen, half-breeds, +quarter-breeds of all the hues from ivory to dull red, guinea-yellow, +and bleached out black; but the second-class compartment facing our +door remained empty. There was a name on the card in the little metal +reservation frame, and every passenger who could read English glanced +at it, but nobody came to claim it even when the engine's extra shrill +screaming and at last the ringing of a bell warned Courtney that time +was really up, and he got out on the platform. + +"Good-by," he said through the window. "I've done what I could to bring +you luck. Don't be tempted to engage the first servants who apply to +you at Nairobi. If you wait there a week I'll send my Kazimoto to you; +he's a very good gun-bearer. He'll be out of a job when I'm gone. I +shall give him his fare to Nairobi. Engage him if you want a +dependable boy, but remember the rule about dogs: a good one has one +master! I don't mean Kazimoto is a dog--far from it. I mean, treat +him as reasonably as you would a dog, and he'll serve you well. He's a +first-class Nyamwezi, from German East. Oh, and one more scrap of +advice--": + +He came close to the window, but at that moment the engine gave a final +scream and really started. Passengers yelled farewells. The engine's +apoplectic coughs divided the din into spasms, and there came a great +bellowing from the ticket office. He could not speak softly and be +heard at all. Louder he had to speak, and then louder, ending almost +with a shout. + +"The best way to Elgon is by way of Kisumu and Mumias, whatever anybody +else may tell you. And if you find the stuff, or any of it," (he was +running beside the train now)--"be in no hurry to advertise the fact! +Go and make terms first with government--then--after you've made +terms--tell 'em you've found it! Find the stuff--make terms--then +produce what you've found! Get my meaning? Good-by, all. Good luck!" + +We left him behind then, wiping the sweat from his wrinkled, freckled +forehead, gazing after us as if we had all been lifelong friends of +his. He made no distinction between us and Fred, but was equally +anxious to serve us all. + +"If that man isn't white, who is?" demanded Will, and then there was +new interest. + +We had left the ticket office far behind, but the train was moving +slowly and there was still a good length of platform before our car +would be clear of the station altogether. We heard a roar like a +bull's from behind, and a dozen men--white, black and yellow--came +careering down the platform carrying guns, baggage, bedding, and all +the paraphernalia that travelers in Africa affect. + +First in the van was Georges Coutlass, showing a fine turn of speed but +tripping on a bed-sheet at every other step, with his uncased rifle in +one hand, his hat in the other, an empty bandolier over one shoulder +and a bag slung by a strap swinging out behind him. He made a leap for +the second-class compartment in front of us, and landed on all fours on +the platform. We opened the door of our compartment to watch him +better. + +Once on the platform he threw his rifle into the compartment and braced +himself to catch the things his stampeding followers hurled after +him--caught them deftly and tossed them in, yelling instructions in +Greek, Kiswahili, Arabic, English, and two or three other languages. +It may be that the engineer looked back and saw what was happening (or +perhaps the guard signaled with the cord that passed through eyeholes +the whole length of the train) for though we did not slow down we +gained no speed until all his belongings had been hurled, and caught, +and flung inside. Then came his traveling companions--caught by one +hand and dragged on their knees up the steps. They were heavy men, but +he snatched all three in like a boy pulling chestnuts from the fire. + +The first was a Greek--evil-looking, and without the spirit that in the +case of Coutlass made a stranger prone to over-look +shortcomings--dressed in khaki, with rifle and empty bandolier. Next, +chin, elbow, hand and knee up the steps came a fat, tough-looking +Goanese, dressed anyhow at all in pink-colored dirty shirt, dark pants, +and a helmet, also with rifle and empty bandolier. I judged he weighed +about two hundred and eighty pounds, but Coutlass yanked him in like a +fish coming overside. Last came a man who might be Arab, or part-Arab, +part-Swahili, whom I did not recognize at first, fat, black, dressed in +the white cotton garments and red fez of the more or less well-to-do +native, and voluble with rare profanity. + +"Johnson!" shouted Fred with almost the joy of greeting an old +acquaintance. + +It was Hassan, sure enough, short-winded and afraid, but more afraid of +being left behind than of the manhandling. Coutlass took hold of his +outstretched arm, hoisted him, cracked his shins for him against the +top step, and hurled him rump-over-shoulders into the compartment, +where the other Greek and the Goanese grabbed him by the arms and legs +and hove him to an upper berth, on which he lay gasping like a fish out +of water and moaning miserably. Their compartment was a mess of +luggage, blankets, odds-and-ends, and angry men. Coutlass found a +whisky bottle out of the confusion, and swallowed the stuff neat while +the other Greek and the Goanese waited their turn greedily. There was +nothing much in that compartment to make a man like Hassan feel at home. + +"Those Greeks," said our red-bearded traveling companion as we shut the +door again, "are only one degree better than Indians--a shade less +depraved perhaps--a sight more dangerous. I sure do hate a Punjabi, +but I don't love Greeks! The natives call 'em bwana masikini to their +faces--that means Mister Mean White y'know. They're a lawless lot, the +Greeks you'll run across in these parts. My advice is, shoot first! +Walk behind 'em! If they ain't armed, hoof 'em till they cut an' run! +Greeks are no good!" + +We introduced ourselves. He told us his name was Brown. + +"There's three Browns in this country: Hell-fire Brown of Elementaita, +Joseph Henry Brown of Gilgil, and Brown of Lumbwa. Brown of Lumbwa's +me. Don't believe a word either of the other two Browns tell you! +Yes, we're all settlers. Country good to settle in? Depends what you +call good. If you like lots of room, an' hunting, natives to wait an' +your own house on your own square mile--comfortable climate--no +conventions--nor no ten commandments, why, it's pretty hard to beat. +But if you want to wear a white shirt, and be moral, and get rich, it's +rotten! You've a chance to make money if you're not over law-abiding, +for there's elephants. But if you're moral, and obey the laws, you +haven't but one chance, an' she's a slim one." + +"Well," said Fred, genially, "tell us about the only one. We're men to +whom the ten commandments are--" + +"You look it!" Brown interrupted. "Well, what's the odds? You'll +never find it, and anyhow, everybody knows it's Tippoo Tib's ivory. I +mean to have a crack at spotting it myself, soon as I get my farm +fenced an' one or two other matters attended to. Gov'ment offers ten +per cent. to whoever leads 'em to it, but they can't believe any one's +as soft as that surely! They'll be lucky if they get ten per cent. of +it themselves! Man alive, but they say there's a whale of a hoard of +it! Hundreds o' tons of ivory, all waiting to be found, and fossicked +out, an' took! Say--if I was some o' those Greeks for instance, tell +you what I'd do: I'd off to Zanzibar, an' kidnap Tippoo Tib. The old +card's still living. I'd apply a red-hot poker to his silver-side an' +the under-parts o' his tripe-casings. He'd tell me where the stuff is +quicker'n winking! Supposin' I was a Greek without morals or no +compunctions or nothin', that's what I'd do! I don't hold with +allowin' any man to play dog in the manger with all that plunder!" + +"Have you a notion where the stuff might be?" Fred wondered guilelessly. + +"Ah! That 'ud be tellin'!" + +We had crossed the water that divides Mombasa from the mainland. +Behind us lay the prettiest and safest harbor on all that +thousand-league-long coast; before us was the narrow territory that +still paid revenue and owed nominal allegiance to the Sultan of +Zanzibar, although really like the rest of those parts under British +rule. We were bowling along beside plantations of cocoanut, peanut, +plantain and pineapple, with here and there a thicket of strange trees +to show what the aboriginal jungle had once looked like. When we +stopped at wayside stations the heat increased insufferably, until we +entered the great red desert that divides the coast-land from the +hills, and after that all seemed death and dust, and haziness, and hell. + +At first we passed occasional baobabs, with trunks fifteen or twenty +feet thick and offshoots covering a quarter of an acre. Then the trees +thinned out to the sparse and shriveled all-but-dead things that +struggle for existence on the border-lines between man's land and +desolation. At last we drew down the smoked panes over the window to +escape the glare and sight of the depressing desolation. + +The sun beat down on the iron roof. The heat beat up from the tracks. +Red dust polluted the drinking water in the little upright tank. Dust +filled eyes, nostrils, hair. Dust caked and grew stiff in the sweat +that streamed down us. Yet we stopped once at a station, and humans +lived there and a man got off the train. A lone lean babu and his +leaner, more miserable native crew came out and eyed the train like +vultures waiting for a beast to die. But we did not die, and the train +passed on into illimitable dusty redness, leaving them to watch the hot +rails ribbon out behind our grumbling caboose. + +There began to be carousing in the second-class compartment next ahead +of us. Our own Brown of Lumbwa produced a stone crock of Irish whisky +from a basket, imbibed copiously, offered us in turn the glistening +neck, looked relieved at our refusal, and grew voluble. + +"Hear them Greeks an' that Goa. You'd think they were gentlemen o' +breeding to hear 'em carryin' on! Truth is we've no government worth a +moment's consid'ration, an' everybody knows it, Greeks included! You +men lookin' for farms? Take your time! Once you get a farm, an' get +your house built, an' stock bought, an' stuff planted--once you've got +your capital invested so to speak, they've got you! Till then you're +free! Till then they'll maybe treat you with consideration! Till then +you leave the country when you like an' kiss yourselves good-by to them +an' Africa. Till then they've got no hold! The courts can fine you, +maybe, but can they make you pay? It's none so easy if you're half +awake! But take me: Suppose I break a reggylation. What happens? +They know where to find me--how much I've got--where it is--an' if I +don't pay the fine, they come an' collar my cattle an' sticks! D'you +notice any Greeks applyin' for farms? Not no crowds of 'em you don't! +I don't know one single Greek who has a farm in all East Africa! Any +Goas? Not a bit of it! Any Indians? Not one! So when a few extry +elephants get shot, I get the blame--down at Lumbwa, where there ain't +no elephants; an' the Greeks, Goas, Arabs an' Indians get fat on the +swag! It's easy to keep track of a white man; the natives all know +him, an' his name, an' where he lives, an' report everything he does to +the nearest gov'ment officer. But Greeks an' Goas an' Indians an' +Arabs ain't white, so the natives make no mention of 'em. They do the +lootin'; we settlers get the blame; an' the whole perishing country's +going to blazes as fast as a lump of ice melting in hell--but not so +fast as I'd like to see it go. Have some o' this whisky, won't you?" + +I was scarcely listening to him, but he seemed to get drunk just "so +far and no further," and Fred found him worth attention. It happened +that Fred, Will and I were all thinking of the same thing. Will put a +hand to his neck and stroked the little scar the Arab knife had made in +Zanzibar. + +"What sort of a country's this for women?" Fred demanded. + +"Which women?" Brown asked in sort of mild amazement. + +"White women?" + +"Rotten! Leastwise, there aren't any. Yes, there's three. Two +officials' wives, an' Pioneer Jane French. Heard o' her? Walked from +South Africa, Jane did--hoofed it along o' French, bossed his boys, +drove the cattle, shot the meat, ran the whole shootin' match, an' runs +him, too, when he's sober an' she's drunk. When they're both drunk +everybody ducks. She's scarcely a woman, she's sort of +three-men-rolled-into-one. Give her a horsewhip ae she'll manage the +unruliest crowd o' savages ever you or she set eyes on! Countin' her +as one, an' the two officials wives, an' her on this train, there's +four!" + +Our eyes met. I awoke to sudden interest that startled our informant +and made him curious in turn. + +"On this train?" + +"On this train. Didn't you see her? She was watching you chaps through +the window slits like the Queen o' Sheba keepin' tabs on Solomon. Say, +what's she doing in this country anyhow? I made a try to get a seat in +her carriage, but she ordered me out like Aunt Jemima puttin' out the +cat the last thing. She's got a maid in with her, but the maid ain't +white--Jew--Syrian--Levantine--Dago--some such breed. She's in this +compartment next behind." + +Our eyes met again. Fred laughed, and Will leaned forward to whisper +to me: "She heard what Courtney said to us about the way to Mount +Elgon!" + +"D'you know her name?" asked Brown. + +"No!" we all three lied together with one voice. + +"I do! I seen it on the reservation card. Lady Isobel Saffren Waldon! +Pretty high-soundin' patronymic, what? Lady Isobel Saffren Waldon!" +He repeated the name over and over, crescendo, with growing fervor. +"What's a woman with a title doin' d'you suppose? The title's no fake. +She's got the blood all right, all right! You ought to ha' heard her +shoo me out! Lummy! A nestin' hen giving the office to a snake +weren't in it to her an' me! Good looker, too! What's she doin' in +East Africa?" + +We made no shift to answer. + +"The officials' wives," he went on, "are keen after Tippoo's ivory, +but, bein' obliged to stay in the station except when their husbands go +on safari, an' then only go where their husbands go, they've no show to +speak of. Pioneer Jane's nuts on it, an' she's dangerous. Jane's as +likely to find the stuff as any one. She's independent--go where she +blooming well pleases--game as a lioness--looks like one, too, only a +lioness is kind o' softer an' not so quick in the uptake. My money's +on Jane for a place. But d'you suppose this Lady Saffren +Whatshername's another one? Them Greeks ahead of us I'm sure of; all +the Greeks in Africa are huntin' for nothin' else. But what about the +dame?" + +"Going to join her husband, perhaps," suggested Fred to put him off. + +"There's no man o' that name in British East or Uganda. I know 'em +all--every one." + +"Father--brother--uncle--nephew--oh, perhaps she's just traveling," +said Fred. + +"Just traveling my eye! Titled ladies don't come 'just traveling' in +these parts--not by a sight, they don't--not alone!" + +He helped himself to more whisky, but had reached the stage where it +had no further visible effect on him. + +"Anyhow," he said, wiping the neck of the jar with his hand, "if she +kids herself she'll be let go where she pleases--why, she kids herself! +It takes Pioneer Jane to trespass where writs don't run! Jane goes +where her husband don't dare follow. The officials don't say a word. +Y'see there's no jail where they could stow a white woman and observe +the decencies. So she goes over the borderline whenever she sees fit. +The king's writ runs maybe for thirty miles north o' this railway. +Once over that they can't catch you. But unless you're a black man, or +Pioneer Jane, the natives tip the gov'ment off an' gov'ment rounds you +up afore you get two-thirds the way. They'll take less than half a +chance with her ladyship or I'm a Dutchman. Why! How would it look to +have to bring her back between two native policemen? She'll not be +allowed five miles outside Nairobi township!" + +He up-ended his whisky again, consumed about a pint of it, and settled +down to sleep. We took him by the legs and arms and threw him on the +upper berth to stew in the cabined heat under the roof. + +"It's good Monty's not with us," said Fred. He sat down and laughed at +our surprise that he should state such heresy. "Monty mustn't break +laws, but who cares if we do?" + +"Laws?" said Will disgustedly. "I don't care who makes, or breaks the +laws of this land! Let's beat it! Let's join Monty in London and make +plans for some other trip. Everybody's after this ivory. We haven't a +look-in. Even if we knew where to look for it we'd be followed. Let's +take the next train back from Nairobi, and the next boat for Europe!" + +Fred rubbed his hands delightedly, and stroked his beard into the neat +point it refuses to keep for long at a time in very hot weather. + +"Let's stay in Nairobi" he said, "at least until Courtney sends that +boy he promised us. We can put in the time asking questions, and +then--" + +"What then?" grumbled Will. + +"There may be truth in what Brown of Lumbwa says about a dead-line." + +"Dead-line?" + +"Beyond which the king's writ doesn't run." + +"Betcherlife there's truth in it!" Brown mumbled from the upper berth. + +Will exploded silently, going through the motions of reeling off all +the bad language he knew--not an insignificant performance. + +"He's really asleep now," I said, standing on the lower berth and +lifting the man's eyelid to make sure. + +"Who cares?" said Will. "He's heard. We've given the game away. The +woman heard Courtney shout about how to reach Mount Elgon. So did this +sharp. Now he hears Fred talk about dead-lines and the king's writ and +breaking laws! The game's up! Me for the down-train and a steamer!" + +We smoked in silence, rendered more depressing by the deepening gloom +outside. With the evening it grew no cooler. What little wind there +was followed the train, so that we traveled in stagnation. Utter +darkness brought no respite, but the fascination of flitting shadows +and the ever-new mystery of African night. The train drew up at last +in a station in the shadow of great overleaning mountains, and the heat +shut down on us like hairy coverings. We seemed to breathe through +thicknesses of cloth, and the very trees that cast black shadow on the +platform ends were stifling for lack of air. + +"One hour for dinner!" called the guard, walking limply along the train. +"Just an hour for dinner! Dinner waiting!" + +He was not at all a usual-looking guard. He was dressed in riding +breeches and puttee leggings, and wore a worn-out horsey air as if in +protest against the obligation to work in a black man's land. In +countries where the half-breed and the black man live for and almost +monopolize government employment few white men take kindly to braid and +brass buttons. That fellow's contempt for his job was equaled only by +the babu station master's scorn of him and his own for the station +master. Yet both men did their jobs efficiently. + +"Only an hour for dinner, gents--train starts on time!" + +"Guard!" called a female voice we all three recognized--"Guard! Come +here at once, I want you!" + +We left Brown of Lumbwa snoring a good imitation of the Battle of +Waterloo on the upper berth, and filed out to the dimly-lighted +platform. A space in the center was roofed with corrugated iron and +under that the yellow lamplight cast a maze of moving shadows as the +passengers swarmed toward the dining-room. The smell of greasy cooking +blended with the reek of axle and lamp oil. At the platform's forward +end shadowy figures were throwing cord-wood into the tender, and the +thump-thump-thump of that sounded like impatience; everything else +suggested lethargy. + +"Guard!" called the voice again. "Come here, guard!" + +He stopped in passing to close our windows and lock our compartment +door against railway thieves. + +"There's a man asleep in there," I said. + +"The 'eat 'll sober 'im!" he grinned, slamming the last window down. +"What'll you bet 'er 'ighness don't want me to fetch dinner to 'er? +She was in the train in Mombasa two hours afore startin' time, an' the +things she ordered me to do 'ud have made a 'alf-breed think 'e was +demeaning of 'imself! I 'aven't seen the color of 'er money yet. If +she wants dinner she gets out and walks or 'er maid fetches it--you +watch!" + +Coutlass, the other Greek and the Goanese staggered out beside us on to +the platform, drunk enough not to know whether Hassan was with them or +not. He came out and stood beside them in a sort of alert defensive +attitude. + +"Guard!" called the voice again. "Where is the man?" + +We followed the last of the crowd through the screened doors, and took +seats at a table marked "First Class Only!" There were four men there +ahead of us, two government officials disinclined to talk; a +missionary in a gray flannel shirt, suffering from fever and too +suspicious to say good evening; and a man in charge of that section of +the line, who checked the station master's accounts and counted money +in a tray between mouthfuls. Between us and the second-class tables +was a wooden screen on short legs, and beyond that arose babel. +Second-class is democratic always, and talks with its mouth full. In +addition to our privilege of paying more for exactly the same food, we +enjoyed exclusiveness, a dirty table-cloth, and the extra smell from +the kitchen door. (The table-cloth was dirty because the barefoot +Goanese waiters invariably stubbed their feet against a break in the +floor and spilt soup exactly in the same place.) + +We had scarcely taken our seats when Coutlass swaggered in, closely +followed by his gang. Inside the door he turned on Hassan. + +"Black men eat outside!" he snarled, and shoved him out again backward. +Then he came over to us and stood leering at the framed sign, "First +Class Only," avoiding our eyes, but plainly at war with us. + +"Gassharamminy!" he growled. "You think you're popes or something! +You three would want a special private piece of earth to spit on!" He +raised his voice to a sort of scream. "I proclaim one class only!" + +At that he lifted his foot about level with his chest and kicked the +screen over. The crash brought everybody to his feet except the two +officials and the railway man. They continued eating, and the railway +man continued counting copper coins as if life depended on that alone. + +"Sit down all!" yelled Coutlass. "You will eat with better appetite +now that you can behold the blushes of these virgins!" Then he +swaggered over to the long table, thrust the other Greek and the +Goanese into chairs on either side of him, and yelled for food. It was +the first time we had been referred to publicly as virgins, and I think +we all three felt the strain. + +The Goanese manager--a wizened old black man with perfectly white +hair--came running from the kitchen in a state of near-collapse, the +sweat streaming off him and his hands trembling. + +"What shall I do?" he asked, almost upsetting the railway man's tray of +money. "That man is crazy! He came in once before and broke the +dishes! Twice he has come in here and eaten and refused to pay! What +shall I do?" + +"Nothing," said the railway man. "Go on serving dinner. Serve him +too." + +The manager hurried out again and the running to and fro resumed. Then +in came the guard. + +"First-class for two on trays!" he shouted. + +The railway man beckoned to him and he winked as he passed by us. + +"When you've seen to that, and had your own meal, I want you," said the +railway man. + +"Thought you said the lady's maid would have to come and fetch the +food?" I said maliciously as the guard passed my chair a second time. + +"So I did. But if you know how to refuse her, just teach me! I told +her flat to have the maid fetch it. She let on they're both too +frightened to cross the platform in the dark! Never saw anything like +'em! Tears! An' dignified! When I climbed down they was too afraid +next to be left alone. Swore train-thieves 'ud murder 'em! I had to +leave 'em my key to lock 'emselves in with until I come back with the +grub! What d'you think of that?" + +But our soup came, and one could not think and eat that stuff +simultaneously. The railway man looked up for a moment, saw my face, +and explained in a moment of expansiveness that meat would not keep in +that climate but was "perfectly good" when cooked. + +"Besides," he added, "you'll get nothing more until you reach Nairobi +tomorrow noon!" + +That turned out to be not quite true, but as an argument it worked. We +swallowed, like the lined-up merchant seamen taking lime-juice under +the skipper's eye. + +The guard grew impatient and went into the kitchen, but had scarcely +got through the door when a scream came from the direction of the train +that brought him back on the run. No black woman ever screams in just +that way, and in a land of black and worse-than-black men imagination +leaps at a white woman's call for help. + +There was a stampede for the door by every one except the Greeks and +Goanese and the railway man. (He had to guard the money.) We poured +through the screen doors, the guard fighting to burst between us, and, +because with a self-preserving instinct that I have never thought quite +creditable to the human race, everybody ran toward his own compartment, +it happened that we three and the two officials and the guard came +first on the scene of trouble. + +Brown of Lumbwa was still drunk-affectionate, it seemed, by that time. + +"You've no call to be 'fraid of me, li'l sweetheart!" The door was +open. Within the compartment all was dark, but every sound emerged. +There came a stifled scream. + +"Li'l stoopid! What d'you come in for, if you're 'fraid o' poor ole +Brown? I won't hurt you." + +The guard passed between us and went up the step. He listened, looked, +disappeared through the open door, and there came a sound of struggling. + +"Whassis?" shouted Brown. "An interloper? No you don't! This is my +li'l sweetheart! She came in to see me--didn't you, Matilda Ann?" + +The woman apparently broke free. The guard yelled for help. Fred and +one of the government officials were nearest and as they entered they +passed the woman coming out. I recognized Lady Saffren Waldon's Syrian +maid, with the big railway key in her fist that the guard had left with +her. By that time there was a considerable crowd about our car, unable +to see much because it stood in the way of the station lamp-light. She +slipped through--to the right--not toward Lady Isobel's compartment, +and I lost sight of her behind some men. I ran after her, but she was +gone among the shadows, and although I hunted up and down and in and +out I could find her nowhere. + +When I returned to our car Brown of Lumbwa was out on the platform with +his hair all tousled and a wild eye. The guard was wiping a bloody +nose and everybody was inventing an account of what nobody had seen. + +"Scrag him!" advised some expert on etiquette. + +"What the hell right has anybody got," demanded Brown with querulous +ferocity, "to interfere between me and a lady? Eh? Whose compartment +was she in? Me in hers or her in mine? Eh? Me. I'm sleeping. +Hasn't a gent a right to sleep? Next thing I know she's fingerin' my +whiskers. How should I know she's not balmy on red beards an' makin' +love to me? What right's she got in my compartment anyhow? Who let +her in? Who asked her? What if I did frighten her? What then?" + +"Who was she?" demanded the official. "Had anybody seen her before?" + +"The maid attending the lady in the next compartment," said I. + +"Are you sure?" + +"Positive." + +"Very well. Guard! See who is in there!" + +The guard wiped blood from his nose and obeyed orders. We clustered +round the steps to hear. + +"'Ow many's in here?" he demanded. + +There was no answer. He tried the door and it opened 'readily. + +"'Scuse me, but is there two of you? I can't see in the dark." + +"Oh, is that our dinner?" said Lady Saffren Waldon's Voice. + +"No ma'am, not the dinner yet." + +"Why not, pray?" + +"There's folks accusin' your maid o' enterin' the next compartment +an'--an'--" + +"Nonsense! My maid is here! You kept us so long waiting for dinner we +were both asleep! Ah! There's light at last, thank heaven!" + +Two native porters running along the roofs were dropping lamps into the +holes appointed for them, and the train that had been a block of +darkness hewn out of the night was now a monster, many-eyed. + +"They're both in there, so 'elp me!" the guard reported, retreating +backward through the door and leering at us. + +There remained nobody, except the still indignant Brown of Lumbwa to +levy charges, and the crowd remembered its dinner (not that anything +could be expected to grow cold in that temperature). + +"The train will start on time!" announced the babu station master, and +everybody hurried to the dining-room. Brown came with us, bewildered. + +"How did it happen?" he demanded. "When did we get here? Why wasn't I +called for dinner? How did she get in? Where did she go to?" + +"Oh, come and eat curried cow, it's lovely!" answered Will. + +Fred overtook us at the door, and whispered: + +"Our things have been gone through, but I can't find that anything's +missing." + +Within the dining-room was new ground for discontent. The British race +and its offshoots wash, but disbelieve with almost unanimity in water +as a drink. Every guest at either table had left at his place a partly +emptied glass of beer, or brandy and soda, or whisky. Each looked for +the glass on his return, and found it empty. + +"Those Greeks!" exclaimed the Goanese manager, with a fearful air, and +shoulders shrugged to disclaim his own responsibility. + +Coutlass and the other Greek were sitting at a table with a gorged +look, glancing neither to the right nor left, yet not eating. I looked +at the railway official, who had not left his seat. It struck me he +was laughing silently, but he did not look up. The crowd, after the +manner of all crowds, stormed at the Goanese manager. + +"What can I do? What shall I do?" wailed the unhappy little man. +"They are bigger than I! They were greedy! They took!" + +All those charges were evidently true, and stated mildly. Coutlass +rose to his feet. + +"Gassharamminy!" he thundered, and his stomach stuck out over the table +it was so full of various drinks. "Why should we not take? Who isn't +thirsty in this hell of a place? Who leaves good drink deserves to +lose it!" + +"What shall I do?" wailed the Goanese manager. + +"Take the orders for drinks again," said the railway man, glancing up +from his figures. "Bring the account to me." + +The waiters ran to fill orders, and a babel of abuse at the second +table was hurled at Coutlass and his friends; but they did not leave +the table because there was another course to come, and, as the manager +had said, they were greedy. Then in came the guard, his face a +blood-and-smudgy picture of discontent. + +"Say!" he yelled. "Ain't I goin' to get those two first-classes on +trays?" He came and stood by us. "Did you ever 'ear the likes of it? +They swear neither of 'em was out of the compartment. They call me a +liar for askin' for my key back! They swear I never gave it to 'em, +'an they never asked for it, an' their door was never locked, nor +nothin'!" + +He passed on to the railway man. + +"I'll have to borry your key, sir. Mine's lost. Can't open doors +until I get one from somewhere." + +The railway man passed him his key with a bored expression and no +remark. + +"Don't forget that I want you presently," he ordered. "Be quick and +get your own dinner." + +"I'm in love with this ivory hunt!" Fred whispered to us across the +table. "If she's sure our pockets are worth going through, I'm sure +there's something to look for!" + +"Are you sure the maid went through our things?" asked Will. + +"Quite. I left my shooting jacket hanging on a hook. Everything was +emptied out of the pockets on to the berth." + +"I think I'll make you a confession presently," said I, with a look at +Will that just then he did not understand. + +"Never confess before dessert and coffee!" advised Fred. "It spoils +the appetite." + + + + +CHAPTER FIVE + + +THE SLAVE GANGS + + Our fathers praised the old accustomed things, + The privilege of chiefs, the village wall + Within whose circling dark Monumme* sings + O' nights of belly-full and ease and all + They taught us we should prize and praise + (Only of dearth and pestilence should be our fears;) + And now behind us are the green, regretted days. + The water in the desert is our tears. + Then ye, who at the waters drink + Of Freedom, oh with Pity think + On us, who face the desert brink + Your fathers entered willingly. + + Our fathers mocked the might of the Unseen, + Teaching that only what we saw and felt + Was good to fight about--what aye had been, + Old-fashioned foods that their forefathers smelt, + Old stars each night illuming the old sky, + The warm rain softening ere women till the ground, + The soft winds singing, only ask not why! + And now our weeping is the desert sound. + Oh ye, who gorge the daily good, + Unquestioned heirs of all ye would, + Spare not too timidly the blood + Your fathers shed so willingly. + + Our fathers taught us that the village good was best. + Later we learned the red, new tribal creed + That our place was the sun--night owned the rest + Unless their treasure profited our greed! + But now we gather nothing where our fathers sowed, + For harvest grim the vultures wait in rows + As, urged by greedier than us with gun and goad, + Yoked two by two the slave safari goes. + Oh ye, who from true judgment shrink, + Nor gentleness with courage link, + Be thoughtful when the cup ye drink + Your fathers spilled so willingly. + +---------- +* Monumme (Kiswahili)--Lit. male-man in his prime. +---------- + +The guard procured his trays at last, delivered them at a run, returned +in a hurry and swallowed his own meal at a side-table. Then, with his +mouth full, he reported for orders to the railway official, who was +still checking figures. The room was beginning to grow empty. +Coutlass and his Greek friend and the Goanese sat almost alone at the +far end of the other table, finishing their pudding. I had not noticed +until then that the guard was a singularly little man. He stood very +few inches taller than the seated official. I suppose that hitherto in +some way his energy had seemed to increase his inches. + +"Are there handcuffs in the caboose?" + +"Yes, sir." + +"Fetch them." + +In spite of Brown of Lumbwa's protests, who wept at the notion of +having to eat alone, we were in the act of settling our bills and +going. But mention of handcuffs suggesting entertainment, we lit +cigars and, imagining we stayed for love of him, Brown cooed at us. + +"I've the darbies in my pocket, sir!" + +I thought the guard looked more undersized than ever. He would have +made a fair-sized middle-weight jockey. + +"Tell that Greek--Coutlass his name is--to come here." + +With his tongue stuck into his cheek and a wink at us the guard obeyed. + +"He says for you to go to 'ell, sir!" he reported after a moment's +interview. + +"Very well. Arrest him!" + +"He'll need help," I interrupted. "My two friends and I--" + +"Oh, dear no," said the official. "He is fully up to his work." + +So we moved our chairs into position for a better view. + +The guard advanced fox-terrierwise to within about six paces of +Coutlass. + +"Up with both your 'ands, Thermopylea!" he snapped. "Your bloomin' +reckonin's come!" + +Coutlass showed tobacco-stained teeth for answer, and his friends +rutched their chairs clear of the table, ready for action. Yet they +were taken unawares. With a terrier's speed the guard pounced on +Coutlass, seized him by the hair and collar, hurled him, chair and all, +under a side-table, and was on the far side of the table kicking his +prostrate victim in the ribs before either Greek or Goanese--likewise +upset in the sudden onslaught--could gather themselves and interfere. + +The Goanese was first on his feet. He hurled a soda-water bottle. The +guard ducked and the bottle smashed into splinters on the wall. Before +the sound of smashing glass had died the Goanese was down again, laid +out by blows on the nose and jugular. Then again the guard kicked +Coutlass, driving him back under the table from which he was trying to +emerge on all fours. + +The second Greek looked more dangerous. His face grew dark with rage +as the lips receded from his yellow teeth. He reached toward his boot, +but judged there were too many witnesses for knife work and rushed in +suddenly, yelling something in Greek to Coutlass as he picked up a +chair to brain the guard with. He swung the chair, but the guard met +it with another one, dodged him, and tripped him as he passed. In +another second it was his turn to be kicked in the ribs until he yelled +for mercy. (An extra large dinner and all those assorted drinks in +addition to what they had had in the train made neither man's wind +good.) + +No mercy was forthcoming. He was kicked, more and more violently, +until the need of crawling through the door to safety dawned on his +muddled wits and he made his exit from the room snake fashion. By that +time Coutlass was on his feet, and he too elected to force the issue +with a chair. The guard sprang at the chair as Coutlass raised it, +bore it down, and drove his fist hard home into the Greek's right eye +three times running. + +"'Ave you 'ad enough?" he demanded, making ready for another assault. +The Goanese had recovered and staggered to his feet to interfere, but +Coutlass yielded. + +"All right," he said, "why should I fight a little man? I surrender to +save bloodshed!" + +"Put your 'ands out, then!" + +Coutlass obeyed, and was handcuffed ignominiously. + +"Outside, you!" + +A savage kick landed in exactly the place where the Goanese least +expected and most resented it. He flew through the door as if the +train had started, and then another kick jolted Coutlass. + +"Forward, march! Left-right-left-right!" + +With hands manacled in front and the inexorable bantam guard behind, +Coutlass came and stood before the railway official, who at last +condescended not to seem engrossed in his accounts. + +"'Ere he is, sir!" + +"I suppose you know, my man, that I have magisterial powers on this +railway?" said the official. + +Coutlass glowered but said nothing. + +"This is not the first time you have made yourself a nuisance. You +broke dishes the last time you were here." + +"That is long ago," Coutlass objected. "That was on the day the place +was first opened to the public. There was a celebration. Every one +was drunk." + +"You broke plates and refused to pay the damage!' + +"Officials were drunk. I saw them!" + +"The damage amounted to seventeen rupees, eight annas." + +"Gassharamminy! All the crockery from Mombasa to Nairobi isn't worth +that amount! I shall not pay!" + +"Now there's another bill for those drinks you and your friends stole +when passengers' backs were turned. I saw you do it!" + +"Why didn't you object at the time?" sneered Coutlass. + +"Here is the bill: twenty-seven rupees, twelve annas. Total, +forty-five rupees, four annas. You may make the manager a present of +the odd sum for his injured feelings, and call it an even fifty. +Settle now, or wait here for the down-train and go to jail in Mombasa!" + +"Wait in this place?" asked Coutlass, aghast. + +"Where else? There'll be a down passenger train in a week." + +"I pay!" said the Greek, with a hideous grimace. + +"Take the irons off him, then." + +The guard unlocked the handcuffs and Coutlass began to fumble for a +money-bag. + +"Give me a receipt!" he demanded, thumbing out the money. + +"You are the receipt!" said the official. "An Englishman would have +been sent to jail with a fine, and have paid the bill into the bargain. +You're treated leniently because you can't be expected to understand +decent behavior. You're expected to learn, however. Next time you +will catch it hot!" + +"All aboard!" called the guard cheerfully. "All aboard!" + +"Tears, idle tears!" said Brown of Lumbwa, taking my arm and Fred's. + +"Thass too true--too true! They'd have jailed an Englishman--me, +f'rinstance. One little spree, an' they'd put me in the Fort! One +li'l indishcresshion an' they'd jug me for shix months! Him they let +go wi' a admonisshion! It's 'nother case o' Barabbas, an' a great +shame, but you can't change the English. They're ingcorridgible! +Brown o' Lumbwa's my name," he added by way of afterthought. + +"Take advice and get under blankets afore you go to sleep, gents!" +warned the guard. All windows were once more opened wide, and every +one was panting. + +"A job on this 'ere line's a circus!" he grinned. "I'm lucky if +there's only one fight before Nairobi! 'Ave your blankets ready, +gents! Cover yourselves afore you sleep!" + +That sounded like a joke. The sweat poured from every one in streams. +The hot hair cushions were intolerable. The dust gathered from the +desert stirred and hung, and there was neither air to breathe nor +coolness under all those overhanging mountains. + +"Get under your blankets, gents!" advised the guard, passing down the +train; and then the train started. + +I had the upper berth opposite Brown's, where it was hottest of all +because of the iron roof. Drunk though he was, I noticed that the +first thing Brown did after we had hoisted him aloft was to dig among +the blankets like a dog and make the best shift he could of crawling +under them. With one blanket twisted about his neck and shoulders and +the other tangled about his knees he remarked to the roof that his name +was Brown of Lumbwa, and proceeded to sob himself to sleep. He had +made the journey a dozen times, so knew what he was doing. I drew on +my own blankets, and stifling, blowing out red dust, remembered a +promise. + +"Will!" I said. "Tell Fred what happened to us in Zanzibar while he +and Monty viewed the moon!" + +"We agreed not to," he answered, but it seemed to me he might arouse +his own enthusiasm if he did tell. + +"Who's afraid of Fred?" said I. + +That settled it. + +"One of you shall tell before you sleep!" Fred announced, sitting up. +"Who feareth not God nor regardeth me will blench before the prospect +of a sleepless night! Speak, America!" + +He took out a cleaning rod from his gun-case, and proceeded to stir +Will's ribs and whack his feet. In a minute there was a +rough-house--panting, and bursts of laughter--cracks of the cleaning +rod on Will's bare legs--the sound of hands slipping on sweaty arms--and + +"Murder!" yelled Brown of Lumbwa, waking up. "Murder! Oh, mur-durrr!" + +"Shut up, you fool!" I shouted at him. But he only yelled the louder. + +"I knew these tears were not for nothing!" he wailed. "It was +premonition! Pass me the whisky! Pass it up here! Oh, look! They're +at each other's throats! Murder! Oh, mur-durrr! Pass the whisky or +I'll come down and kill everybody in self-defense! Murrrrr-durrr!" + +They stopped fooling because his idiotic screams could be heard all +down the train. + +"There," said Brown, "you see, I've saved two worthless lives! Very +foolish of me! Pass the whisky! See that I save a little for the +morning!" + +At that he fell asleep again; and because Fred threatened to start new +commotion and wake him unless Will or I confessed at once, Will took up +the tale, I leaning over the edge of my berth to prompt him. 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. Later, +as we mounted higher, we shivered under blankets. There is a spirit +and a spell of Africa that grip men even in sleep. The curt engine +blasts became in my dreams the panting of enormous beasts that fought. +A dream-continent waged war on itself, and bled. I saw the caravans +go, thousands long, the horsed and white-robed Arab in the lead--the +paid, fat, insolent askaris, flattering and flogging--slaves burdened +with ivory and other, naked, new ones, two in a yoke, shivering under +the askari's lash, the very last dogged by vultures and hyenas, lean as +they, ill-nourished on such poor picking. + +----------- +* It was the cheerful Arab rule never to release one slave from the +yoke if the other failed on the journey, on the principle that then the +stronger would be more likely to care for, encourage, and drive the +weaker. +----------- + +Then I saw elephants in herds five thousand strong that screamed and +stormed and crashed, flattening out villages in rage that man should +interfere with them--in fear of the ruthless few armed men with rifles +in their rear. Whole herds crashed pell-mell through artfully staged +undergrowth into thirty-foot-deep pits, where they lingered and died of +thirst, that Arabs (who sat smoking within hail until they died) might +have the ivory. + +And all I saw in my dream was nothing to the things I really was to +see. None of the cruelty of man, none of the rage and fear of animal +have vanished yet from Africa. Some of the cruelty is more refined; +some of the herds are smaller; some good is making headway but Africa +is unchanged on the whole. It is a land of nightmares, with lovely +oases and rare knights errant; a land whose past is gloom, whose +present is twilight and uncertainty, but whose future under the rule of +humane men is immeasurable, unimaginable. + +In my dream din followed crash and confusion until the engine's +screaming at last awoke me. My blanket had fallen to the floor and I +was shivering from cold. I jumped down to recover it and realized it +was dawn already. We were bowling along at a fine pace past green +trees and undulating veld, and I wondered why the engine should keep on +screaming like a thing demented. I knelt on Fred's berth to lean from +the window and look ahead. We were going round a slight curve and I +could see the track ahead for miles. + +Three hundred yards away a full-grown rhinoceros stood planted on the +track, his flank toward us and his interest fixed on anything but +trains. He was sniffing the cool morning, looking the other way. + +"Wake up, you fellows!" I yelled, and Fred and Will put their heads +through the window beside me just in time to see the rhino take notice +of the train at last. When the engine was fifty yards from him he +wheeled, took a short-sighted squint at it, sniffed, decided on war, +and charged. The engineer crowded on steam. + +"He's a game enough sport!" chuckled Fred. + +"He's a fool!" grinned Will. + +He was both, but he never flinched. He struck the cow-catcher head-on +and tried to lift it sky-high. The speed and weight of the engine sent +him rolling over and over off the track, and the shock of the blow came +backward along the train in thunderclaps as each car felt the check. +The engineer whistled him a requiem and a cheer went up from fifty +heads thrust out of windows. But he was not nearly done for. + +He got up, spun around like a polo pony to face the train, deliberately +picked out level going, and charged again. This time he hit the car we +were in, and screams from the compartment behind us gave notice that +Lady Saffren Waldon's maid was awake and looking through a window too. +He hit the running-board beside the car, crumpled it to matchwood, +lifted the car an inch off the track, but failed to disrail us. The +car fell back on the metal with a clang, and the rhino recoiled +sidewise, to roll over and over again. This time the impetus sent him +over the edge of a gully and we did not doubt he was dead at the bottom +of it. + +The guard stopped the train and came running to see what the damage +amounted to. + +"Any gent got his rifle handy?" he shouted. "The train's ahead o' +time. There's twenty minutes for sport!" + +We dived for our rifles, but Coutlass had his and was on the track +ahead of us, his eye a ghastly sight from the guard's overnight +attentions, his face the gruesome color of the man who has eaten and +drunk too much, but his undamaged eye ablaze, and nothing whatever the +matter with his enthusiasm. + +"Give me a cartridge--a cartridge, somebody!" he yelled. "Gassharamminy! +He's not dead! I saw him kick as he went over the edge legs upwards! +Give me one cartridge and I'll finish him!" + +By that time every male passenger was out on the track, some in +night-shirts, some in shirts and pants, some with next-to-nothing at +all on, but nearly all with guns. Somebody gave Coutlass a handful of +cartridges that fitted his Mauser rifle and he was off in the lead like +a hero leading a forlorn hope, we after him. We searched high and low +but lost all trace of the rhino, and at the end of half an hour the +engine's whistle called us back. There were blood and hair all over +the engine--blood and hair on our car, but the rhino had been as +determined in defeat as in attack, and if he died of his wounds he +contrived to do it alone and in dignity. + +"That leaves Coutlass with six cartridges," said I, overtaking Fred. +"Let's hope their owner asks for them back." + +The owner did ask for them. He stood with his hand out by the door of +the Greek's compartment. + +"You didn't use those cartridges," he said. + +"But I will!" sneered Coutlass. "Out of my way!" + +He sprang for his door and slammed it in the man's face, and the other +Greek and the Goanese jeered through the window. I caught sight of +Hassan beside them looking gray, as unhappy black men usually do. Will +saw him too. + +"The cannibal's ours," he said, "supposing we want him and play our +cards kind o' careful." + +The next thing to delay the train was an elephant, who walked the track +ahead of us and when the engine whistled only put on speed. Hypnotized +by the tracks that reached in parallel lines to the horizon, with trunk +outstretched, ears up, and silly tail held horizontally he set himself +the impossible task of leaving us behind. The more we cheered, the +more the engine screamed, the fiercer and less dignified became his +efforts; he reached a speed at times of fourteen or fifteen miles an +hour, and it was not until, after many miles, he reached a culvert he +dared not cross that he switched off at right angles. Realizing then +at last that the train could not follow him to one side he stood and +watched us pass, red-eyed, blown and angry. He had only one tusk, but +that a big one, and the weight of it caused him to hold his head at a +drunken-looking angle. + +"Stop the train!" yelled Coutlass, brandishing his rifle as he climbed +to the seat on the roof. But the guard, likewise on the roof at his end +of the train, gave no signal and we speeded on. We were already in the +world's greatest game reserve, where no man might shoot elephant or any +other living thing. + +We began to pass herds of zebra, gnu, and lesser antelope--more than a +thousand zebra in one herd--ostriches in ones and twos--giraffes in +scared half-dozens--rhinoceros--and here and there lone lions. +Scarcely an animal troubled to look up at us, and only the giraffes ran. + +Watching them, counting them, distinguishing the various breeds we +three grew enormously contented, even Will Yerkes banishing depression. +Obviously we were in a land of good hunting, for the strictly policed +reserve had its limits beyond which undoubtedly the game would roam. +The climate seemed perfect. There was a steady wind, not too cold or +hot, and the rains were recent enough to make all the world look green +and bounteous. + +To right and left of us--to north and south that is--was wild mountain +country, lonely and savage enough to arouse that unaccountable desire +to go and see that lurks in the breast of younger sons and all +true-blue adventurers. We got out a map and were presently tracing on +it with fingers that trembled from excitement routes marked with tiny +vague dots leading toward lands marked "unexplored." There were vast +plateaus on which not more than two or three white men had trodden, and +mountain ranges almost utterly unknown--some of them within sight of +the line we traveled on. If the map was anything to go by we could +reach Mount Elgon from Nairobi by any of three wild roads. Fred and I +underscored the names of several places with a fountain pen. + +"And say!" said Will. "Look out of the window! If we once got away +into country like that, who could follow us!" + +"But you can't get away!" said a. weary voice from the upper berth. +"I'm Brown of Lumbwa. That's my name, gents, and I know, because I +tried! Thought I was sound asleep, didn't you! Well, I weren't! +Listen to me, what happens. You start off. They get wind of it. They +send the police helter-skelter hot-foot after you--native police--no +officer--Masai they are, an' I tell you those Masai can make their +sixty miles a day when they're minded an' no bones about it either! +Maybe the Masai catches you and maybe not. S'posing they do they can't +do much. They've merely a letter with 'em commanding you to return at +once and report at the gov'ment office. And o' course--bein' ignorant, +same as me, an' hot-headed, an' eager--you treat that contumelious an' +tip the Masai the office to go to hell. Which they do forthwith. +They're so used to bein' told to go to hell by wishful wanderers that +they scarcely trouble to wait for the words. Presently they draw a +long breath an' go away again like smoke being blowed downwind. An' +you proceed onward, dreamin' dreams o' gold an' frankincense an' +freedom." + +"Well, what next?" said I, for he made a long pause, either for +reminiscence or because of headache. + +"Whisky next!" he answered. "I left a little for the morning, didn't +I? I almost always do. Hold the bottle up to the light--no, no, +you'll spill it!--pass it here! Ah-h-h--gug-gug!" + +He finished what was left and tried to hurl the empty bottle through +the window, but missed and smashed it against the woodwork. + +"'Sapity!" he murmured. "Means bad luck, that does! Poor ole Brown o' +Lumbwa--poor ole fella'. Pick up the pieces, boys! Pick 'em up +quick--might get some o' poor ole Brown's bad luck--cut yourselves or +what not. Pick 'em up careful now!" + +We did, and it took ten minutes, for the splinters were scattered +everywhere. + +"Next time you do a thing like that you shall get out an' walk!" +announced Fred. + +"That 'ud be only my usual luck!" he answered mournfully. "But I was +tellin' how you notify the Masai police to go to hell, an' they oblige. +It's the last obligin' anybody does for you. Every native's a bush +telegraph--every sleepy-seemin' one of 'em! They know tracks in an' +out through the scrub that ain't on maps, an' they get past you day or +night wi'out you knowin' it, an' word goes on ahead o' you--precedes +you as the sayin' is. You come to a village. You need milk, food, +Porters maybe, an' certainly inf'mation about the trail ahead. You +ask. Nobody answers. They let on not to sling your kind o' lingo. +Milk--never heard o' such stuff--cows in them parts don't give milk! +Food? They're starving. It isn't overeating makes their bellies big, +it's wind. Porters? All the young men are lame, an' old 'uns too old, +an' the middle 'uns too middle-aged--an' who ever heard of a native +woman workin' anyhow. Who tills the mtama patch, then? It don't get +tilled, or else the women only 'tend to it at tillin' time. Nobody +works at anythin' about the time you come on the scene, for work ain't +moral, pleasin' nor profitable, an' there you are! As for the trail +ahead, lions an' cannibals are the two mildest kind of calamities they +guarantee you'll meet." + +"You don't have to believe them," I argued. "No man in his senses +would start without porters of his own--" + +"Who never run away, an' never, oh never go lame o' course!" said Brown. + +"Porters enough and to spare," I continued. "And food for a month or +two--" + +"How are you going to get away right under their noses with food for a +month or two?" demanded Brown. "You've got to live off the country +after a certain distance. The further you go, the worse for you, for +they'll sell you nothing and give you less. By and by your porters get +tipped off by the natives of some village you spend a night at. You +look for 'em next mornin' and where are they? Gone! There are their +loads, an' no one to carry 'em! You've got to leave your loads an' +return, an' the police you told so stric'ly to go to hell meet you with +broad grins and lead you to the gov'ment office. There the collector, +or, what's worse, the 'sistant collector, gives you a lecture on infamy +an' the law of doin' as you'd be done by. You ask for your loads back, +an' he laughs at you. An' that's all about it, excep' that next time +you happen to want a favor done you by gov'ment you get a lecture +instead! No, you can't get away, an' it's no use tryin'! If you was +Greeks maybe, or Arabs, yes. Bein' English, the Indian Penal Code, +which is white man's law in these parts, 'll get you sure!" + +Brown of Lumbwa sighed at recollection of his wrongs, turned over, and +went to sleep again. The train bowled along over high veld, cutting in +half magnificent distances and stopping now and then at stations whose +excuse for existence was unimaginable. We stopped at a station at last +where the Hindu clerk sold tea and biscuits. The train disgorged its +passengers and there was a scramble in the tiny ticket office like the +rush to get through turnstiles at a football game at home, only that +the crowd was more polyglot and less good-natured. + +Coutlass, his Greek friend and the Goanese being old travelers on that +route were out of the train first, first into the room, and first +supplied with breakfast. Fred and I were nearly last. Brown of Lumbwa +refused to leave his berth but lay moaning of his wrongs, and the +iniquity of drink not based on whisky. I missed Will in the scramble, +and although it was nearly half an hour before I got served I did not +catch sight of him in all that time. + +I counted eleven nations taking tea in that tiny room and there were +members of yet other tribes strolling the platform, holding themselves +aloof with the strange pride of the pariah the wide world over. + +When Will came in he was grinning, and his ears seemed to stick out +more than usual, as they do when he is pleased with himself. + +"Didn't I say fat Johnson was ours if we'd play our cards right?" he +demanded. + +"You mean Hassan?" + +"He'd had no breakfast. He'd had no supper. He had no money. The +Greeks took away what little money he did have on the pretext that he +might buy a return ticket and desert them. They seem to think that a +day or two's starvation might make him good and amenable. I found him +trying to beg a bite from a full-blooded Arab, and say! they're a +loving lot. The Arab spat in his eye! I offered to buy him eats but +he didn't dare come in here for fear the Greeks 'ud thrash him, so I +slipped him ten rupees for himself and he's the gratefulest fat black +man you ever set eyes on. You bet it takes food and lots of it to keep +that belly of his in shape. There's a back door to this joint. He +slipped round behind and bribed the babu to feed him on the rear step, +me standing guard at the corner to keep Greeks at bay. He's back in +the car now, playing possum." + +"Let's trade him for Brown of Lumbwa," suggested Fred genially. "Call +him into our car and kick Brown out!" + +"Trade nothing! I tell you the man is ours! Call him, and he'll +bargain. Let him be, and the next time the Greeks ill-treat him he'll +come straight to us in hope we'll show him kindness." + +"Swallow your tea quickly, Solomon!" Fred advised him. "There goes the +whistle!" + +It was fresh tea, just that minute made for him. Will gulped down the +scalding stuff and had to be thumped on the back according to Fred. +With eyes filled with water he did not see what I did, and Fred was too +busy guarding against counter-blows. The most public place and the +very last minute always suited those two best for playing horse. + +"Thought you said Johnson was asleep," said I. + +"Possuming," coughed Will. "Shamming sleep to fool the Greeks." + +"Possuming, no doubt," I answered, "but the Greeks are on. He has just +come scurrying out of Lady Saffren Waldon's compartment. The Greeks +watched him and made no comment!" + +We piled into our own appointed place and sat for a while in silence. + +"All right," said Will at last, lighting his pipe. "I own I felt like +quitting once. I'll see it through now if there's no ivory and nothing +but trouble! That dame can't thimblerig me!" + +"We're supposed to know where the ivory is," grinned Fred. "Keep it +up! They'll hunt us so carefully that they'll save us the trouble of +watching them!" + +"I'm beginning to think we do know where the ivory is," said I. "I +believe it's on Mount Elgon and they mean to prevent our getting it." + +"If that turns out true, we'll have to give them the slip, that's all," +said Fred, and got out his concertina. Just as Monty always played chess +when his brain was busy, Fred likes to think to the strains of his +infernal instrument. One could not guess what he was thinking about, +but the wide world knew he was perplexed, and Lady Saffren Waldon in +the next compartment must have suffered. + +After a while he commenced picking out the tunes of comic songs, and +before long chanced on one that somebody in the front part of the train +recognized and began to sing. In ten minutes after that he was playing +accompaniments for a full train chorus and the scared zebra and impala +bolted to right and left, pursued by Tarara-boom-de-ay, +Ting-a-ling-a-ling, and other non-Homeric dirges that in those days +were dying an all-too-lingering death. + +It was to the tune of After the Ball that the engine dipped +head-foremost into a dry watercourse, and brought the train to a +jaw-jarring halt. The tune went on, and the song grew louder, for +nobody was killed and the English-speaking races have a code, +containing rules of conduct much more stringent than the Law of the +Medes and Persians. Somebody--probably natives from a long way off, +who needed fuel to cook a meal--had chopped out the hard-wood plate on +which the beams of a temporary culvert rested. Time, white ants, +gravity and luck had done the rest. It was a case thereafter of walk +or wait. + +"Didn't I tell you?" moaned Brown of Lumbwa. "Didn't I say walkin' 'ud +be only just my luck?" + +So we walked, and reached Nairobi a long way ahead of Coutlass and his +gang, whose shoes, among other matters, pinched them; and we were +comfortably quartered in the one hotel several hours before the arrival +of Lady Saffren Waldon and those folk who elected to wait for the +breakdown gang and the relief train. + +It was a tired hotel, conducted by a tired once-missionary person, just +as Nairobi itself was a tired-looking township of small parallel roofs +of unpainted corrugated iron, with one main street more than a mile +long and perhaps a dozen side-streets varying in length from fifty feet +to half a mile. + +He must have been a very tired surveyor who pitched on that site and +marked it as railway headquarters on his map. He could have gone on +and found within five miles two or three sightlier, healthier spots. +But doubtless the day's march had been a long one, and perhaps he had +fever, and was cross. At any rate, there stood Nairobi, with its +"tin-town" for the railway underlings, its "tin" sheds for the repair +shops, its big "tin" station buildings, and its string of +pleasant-looking bungalows on the only high ground, where the +government nabobs lived. + +The hotel was in the middle of the main street, a square frame building +with a veranda in front and its laundry hanging out behind. Nairobi +being a young place, with all Africa in which to spread, town plots +were large, and as a matter of fact the sensation in our corner room +was of being in a wilderness--until we considered the board partition. +Having marched fastest we obtained the best room and the only bath, but +next-door neighbors could hear our conversation as easily as if there +had been no division at all. However, as it happened, neither Coutlass +and his gang nor Lady Saffren Waldon and her maid were put next to us +on either side. To our right were three Poles, to our left a Jew and a +German, and we carried on a whispered conversation without much risk. + +She and her maid arrived last, as it was growing dusk. We had already +seen what there was to see of the town. We had been to the post-office +on the white man's habitual hunt, for mail that we knew was +non-existent. And I had had the first adventure. + +I walked away from the post-office alone, trying to puzzle out by +myself the meaning of Lady Saffren Waldon's pursuit of us, and of her +friendship with the Germans, and her probable connection with Georges +Coutlass and his riff-raff. I had not gone far either on my stroll or +with the problem--perhaps two hundred yards down a grassy track that +they had told me led toward a settlement--when something, not a sound, +not a smell, and certainly not sight, for I was staring at the ground, +caused me to look up. My foot was raised for a forward step, but what +I saw then made me set it down again. + +To my right front, less than ten yards away, was a hillock about twice +my own height. To my left front, about twelve yards away was another, +slightly higher; and the track passed between them. On the right-hand +hillock stood a male lion, full maned, his forelegs well apart and the +dark tuft on the end of his tail appearing every instant to one side or +the other as he switched it cat-fashion. He was staring down at me +with a sort of scandalized interest; and there was nothing whatever +for me to do but stare at him. I had no weapon. One spring and a jump +and I was his meat. To run was cowardice as well as foolishness, the +one because the other. And without pretending to be able to read a +lion's thoughts I dare risk the assertion that he was puzzled what to +do with me. I could very plainly see his claws coming in and out of +their sheaths, and what with that, and the switching tail, and the +sense of impotence I could not take my eyes off him. So I did not look +at the other hillock at first. + +But a sound like that a cat makes calling to her kittens, only greatly +magnified, made me glance to the left in a hurry. I think that up to +that moment I had not had time to be afraid, but now the goose-flesh +broke out all over me, and the sensation up and down my spine was of +melting helplessness. + +On the left-hand hillock a lioness stood looking down with much +intenser and more curious interest. She looked from me to her mate, +and from her mate to me again with indecision that was no more +reassuring than her low questioning growl. + +I do not know why they did not spring on me. Surely no two lions ever +contemplated easier quarry. No victim in the arena ever watched the +weapons of death more helplessly. I suppose my hour had not come. +Perhaps the lions, well used to white men who attacked on sight with +long-range weapons, doubted the wisdom of experiments on something new. + +The lioness growled again. Her mate purred to her with an uprising +reassuring note that satisfied her and sent my heart into my boots. +Then he turned, sprang down behind the hillock, and she followed. The +next I saw of them they were running away like dogs, jumping low +bushes and heading for jungle on the near horizon faster than I had +imagined lions could travel. + +That ended my desire for further exercise and solitude. I made for the +hotel as fast as fear of seeming afraid would let me, and spent fifteen +aggravating minutes on the veranda trying to persuade Fred Oakes that I +had truly seen lions. + +"Hyenas!" he said with the air of an old hunter, to which he was quite +entitled, but that soothed me all the less for that. + +"More likely jackals," said Will; and he was just as much as Fred +entitled to an opinion. + +While I was asserting the facts with increasing anger, and they were +amusing themselves with a hundred-and-one ridiculous reasons for +disbelieving me, Lady Saffren Waldon came. She had, as usual, +attracted to herself able assistance; a settler's ox-cart brought her +belongings, and she and her maid rode in hammocks borne by porters +impressed from heaven knew where. It was not far from the station, but +she was the type of human that can not be satisfied with meek +beginnings. That type is not by any means always female, but the +women are the most determined on their course, and come the biggest +croppers on occasion. + +She was determined now, mistress of the situation and of her plans. +She left to her maid the business of quarreling about accommodations; +(there was little left to choose from, and all was bare and bad); +dismissed the obsequious settler and his porters with perfunctory +thanks that left him no excuse for lingering, and came along the +veranda straight toward us with the smile of old acquaintance, and such +an air of being perfectly at ease that surprise was disarmed, and the +rudeness we all three intended died stillborn. + +"What do you think of the country?" she asked. "Men like it as a rule. +Women detest it, and who can blame them? No comfort--no manners--no +companionship--no meals fit to eat--no amusement! Have you killed +anything or anybody yet? That always amuses a man!" + +We rose to make room for her and I brought her a chair. There was +nothing else one could do. There is almost no twilight in that part of +East Africa; until dark there is scarcely a hint that the day is +waning. She sat with us for twenty or thirty minutes making small +talk, her maid watching us from a window above, until the sun went down +with almost the suddenness of gas turned off, and in a moment we could +scarcely see one another's faces. + +Then came the proprietor to the door, with his best ex-missionary air +of knowledge of all earth's ways, their reason and their trend. + +"All in!" he called. "All inside at once! No guest is allowed after +dark on the veranda! All inside! Supper presently!" + +"Pah!" remarked Lady Saffren Waldon, rising. "What is it about some +men that makes one's blood boil? I suppose we must go in." + +She came nearer until she stood between the three of us, so close that +I could see her diamond-hard eyes and hear the suppressed breathing +that I suspected betrayed excitement. + +"I must speak with you three men! Listen! I know this place. The +rooms are unspeakable--not a bedroom that isn't a megaphone, magnifying +every whisper! There is only one suitable place--the main dining-room. +The proprietor leaves the oil-lamp burning in there all night. People +go to bed early; they prefer to drink in their bedrooms because it +costs less than treating a crowd! I shall provide a light supper, and +my maid shall lay the table after everybody else is gone up-stairs. +Then come down and talk with me. Its important! Be sure and come!" + +She did not wait for an answer but led the way into the hotel. There +was no hall. The door led straight into the dining-room, and the noisy +crowd within, dragging chairs and choosing places at the two long +tables, made further word with her impossible, even if she had not +hurried up-stairs to her room. "What do you make of it--of her? Isn't +she the limit?" + +The words were scarcely out of Will's mouth when a roar that made the +dishes rattle broke and echoed and rumbled in the street outside. The +instant it died down another followed it--then three or four--then a +dozen all at once. There came the pattering of heavy feet, like the +sound of cattle coming homeward. Yet no cattle--no buffaloes ever +roared that way. + +"Now you know why I ordered you all inside," grinned the ex-missionary +owner of the place. I divined on the instant that this was his habit, +to stand by the door before supper and say just those words to the last +arrivals. I had a vision of him standing by his mission door +aforetime, repeating one jest, or more likely one stale euphuism night +after night. + +"Lions?" I asked, hating to take the bait, yet curious beyond power to +resist. + +"Certainly they're lions! Did you think you were dreaming? Are you +glad you came in when I called you? Would you rather go out again now? +Make a noise like a herd of cattle, don't they! That's because +they're bold. They don't care who hears them! The day is ours. It +used to be theirs, but the white man has come and broken up their +empire. The night is still theirs. They're reveling in it! They're +boasting of it! Every single night they come swaggering through like +this just after sunset. They'll come again just before dawn, roaring +the same way. You'll hear them. They'll wake you all right. No +trouble in this hotel about getting guests down-stairs for early +breakfast!" + +"I'll get my rifle and settle the hash of one or two of them before I +eat supper!" announced Will, turning away to make good his words. But +the proprietor seized him by the arm. + +"Don't be foolish! It has been tried too often! I never allowed such +foolishness at my place. A party up-street fired from the windows. +Couldn't see very well in the dark, but wounded two or three lions. +What happened, eh? Why the whole pack of lions laid siege to the +house! They broke into the stable and killed three horses, a donkey, +and all the cows and sheep. There weren't any shutters on the house +windows--nothing but glass. It wasn't long before a young lion broke a +window, and in no time there were three full-grown ones into the house +after him. They injured one man so severely that he died next day. +They only shot two of the lions that got inside. The other two got +safely away, and since that time people here have known enough not to +interfere with them except by daylight! They'll do no harm to speak of +unless you fire and enrage them. They'll kill the stray dogs, or any +other animal they find loose; and heaven help the man they meet! But +the place to be after six P.M. in Nairobi is indoors. And it's the +place to stay until after sunrise! Hear them roar! Aren't they +magnificent? Listen!" + +The noise that twenty or thirty lions can make, deliberately bent on +making it and roaring all at once, is unbelievable. They throw their +heads up and glory in strength of lungs until thunders take second +place and the listener knows why not the bravest, not the most +dangerous of beasts has managed to impose the fable of his grandeur on +men's imagination. + +We were summoned to the table by the din of Georges Coutlass rising to +new heights of gallantry. + +"Gassharamminy!" he shouted, thumping with a scarred fist. With a +poultice on his eye he looked like a swashbuckler home from the wars; +and as he had not troubled to shave himself, the effect was heightened. +"What sort of company sits when a titled lady enters!" He seized a +big spoon and rapped on the board with it. "Blood of an onion! Rise, +every one!" + +Everybody rose, although there were men in the room in no mind to be +told their duty by a Greek. Lady Saffren Waldon walked to a place near +the head of the table with a chilling bow. As usual when night and the +yellow lamplight modified merciless outlines, she looked lovely enough. +But she lacked the royal gift of seeming at home with the vulgar herd. +She could make men notice her--serve her, up to a certain point--and +feel that she was the center of interest wherever she might choose to +be; but because she was everlastingly on guard, she lacked the power +to put mixed company at ease. + +Only the ex-missionary at the head of the table seemed to consider +himself socially qualified to entertain her. She was at no pains to +conceal contempt for him. + +"You honor my poor hotel!" he assured her. + +"It is certainly a very poor hotel," she answered. + +"Do you expect to remain long, may I ask?" + +"What right have you to ask me questions? Tell that native to go away +from behind my chair. My own maid will wait on me!" + +Whether purposely or not, she cast such a chill upon the company that +even Georges Coutlass subsided within himself, and, though he ate like +a ravening animal, did not talk. Almost the only conversation was +between the owner and the native servants, who waited at table +abominably and were noisily reprimanded, and argued back. Each +reprimand increased their inefficiency and insolence. Natives detest a +fussy, noisy white man. + +Bad food, indifferent cooking, and no conversation worthy of the name +produced gloom that drove every one from table as soon as possible. +Even the proprietor, with unsatiable curiosity exuding from him, but no +spirit for forcing issues, departed to a sanctum of his own up +somewhere under the roof. The boys cleared the tables. The smell of +food spread itself and settled slowly. A half-breed butler served +countless orders of drinks on trays, and sent them upstairs to +bedrooms. Presently we three sat alone in the long bare room. + +"Shall we wait for her?" I asked. "Haven't we had enough of her?" + +Fred laughed. "She can scarcely cut the throats of all three of us!" + +"I said we'd never hear the last of it!" said Will, with a scowl at me. + +"Shall we wait for her?" I repeated. + +My own vote would have been in favor of going upstairs and leaving her +to her own devices. I could see that Fred was afire with curiosity, +but guessed that Will would agree with me. However, the point was +settled for us by the arrival of her maid, who smiled with unusual +condescension and produced from a basket an assortment of drinks, nuts, +cigarettes and sandwiches. She spread them on the table and went away +again. + +We sat and smoked for an hour after that, imagining every moment that +Lady Saffren Waldon would be coming. Whenever we yawned in chorus and +rose to go upstairs, a footstep seemed to herald her arrival. To have +passed her on the stairs would have been too awkward to be amusing. + +At last we really made up our minds to go to bed; and then she really +came, appearing at the bend in the stairs just as I set my foot on the +lower step, so we trooped back to our chairs by the window. She was +dressed in a lacy silk negligee, and took pains this time to appear +gracious. + +"I waited until I felt sure we should not be disturbed," she said, +smiling. "Won't you come and sit down?" + +We brought our chairs to the table, she sitting at one end and we +together at one side, Fred nearest her and I farthest away. She made a +sign toward the wine and sandwiches, and offered us cigarettes of a +sort I had never seen. Without feeling exactly like flies in a +spider's web, we were nervous as schoolboys. + +"What do you want with us?" asked Will at last. + +She laughed and took a cigarette. + +"Don't let us talk too loud. You three men are after the Tippoo Tib +ivory. So is the Sultan of Zanzibar. So is the German government. So +am I." + +She gave the statement time to do its own work, and smoked a while in +silence. The strength of her position, and our weakness, lay in there +being three of us. Any one of us might let drop an ill-considered word +that would commit the others. I think we all felt that, for we sat and +said nothing. + +"You answer her, Fred," I said at last, and Will nodded agreement. + +So Fred got up and sat on the other side of the table, where we could +see his face and he ours. + +"You haven't answered Mr. Yerkes' question," he said. "What do you want +with us, Lady Saffren Waldon?" + +"I want an understanding with you. I will be plain to begin with. We +all know you know where the ivory is. Lord Montdidier is not the man +to connect himself with any wild goose chase. We don't pretend to know +how you came by the secret or why he has gone to London, but we are +sure you know it, perfectly sure, and for five or six reasons. We are +willing to buy the secret from you at your own price." + +"Who are 'we'?" asked Fred pointedly, helping himself to nuts. + +"The German government, the Sultan of Zanzibar, and myself." + +Fred smiled. "Between you you probably could pay," he remarked. + +"I will tell you a few hard facts," she said, "now that the ice is +broken. You will never be allowed to make full use of your own secret. +You have arrived at an inopportune moment, for you and for us. Our +plans have been on foot a long time. Our search has been systematic, +and it is a mathematical certainty we shall find what we look for in +time. We do not propose to let new arrivals on the scene spoil all our +plans and disappoint us just because they happen to have information. +If you go ahead you will be watched like mice whom cats are after. If +you find the ivory, you will be killed before you can make the +discovery known!" + +"We seem up against it, don't we!" smiled Fred. + +"You are! But you can save us trouble, if you will. Name your price. +Tell me your secret. Go your way. If your story proves true you shall +be paid by draft on London." + +"Are you overlooking the idea," asked Fred, "that we might tell the +secret to the British government, and be contented with our ten per +cent. commission?" + +"I am not. You are expressly warned against any such foolishness. In +the first place, you will be killed at once if you dare. In the +second place, how do you know the British government would pay you ten +per cent.?" + +"I've had dealings with the English!" laughed Fred. + +"Bah! Do you think this is Whitehall? Do you think the officials here +are proof against temptation? When I tell you that in Whitehall itself +I can bribe two officials out of three, perhaps you'll understand me +when I say that all these people have their price! And the price is +low! Tell them where the ivory is--lead them to it--and they'll swear +they found it themselves, so as to keep the commission themselves! And +as for you--you three"--she sneered with the most sardonic, thin-lipped +smile I ever saw--"there are lions out here, and buffalo, snakes, +fevers, native uprisings--more ways of being rid of you than by choking +you to death with butter!" + +"Do you suppose" asked Fred, "that Lord Montdidier has no influence in +London, that he--" + +"I know he had influence. I should have told you first, perhaps. Lord +Montdidier was murdered on board ship. A telegram reached Mombasa +yesterday at ten A.M. from up-coast saying that the body of an unknown, +Englishman had been picked up at sea by an Arab dhow, with the face too +badly eaten by fish to be recognizable. You may take it from me, that +is Lord Montdidier's corpse." + +The calm announcement was intended to surprise us, and it did, but the +result surprised her. + +"You she-devil!" said Will. "If you and your gang have murdered that +fine fellow I'll turn the tables on you! You go up-stairs, and pray he +isn't dead! Pray that corpse may prove to be some one's else! If he's +dead I'll guarantee you it's the worst day's work you ever had a hand +in! Go up-stairs!" + +He flung away the cigarette she had given him and knocked his chair +away. + +"Sit down, you young fool!" she said. "Don't make all that noise!" + +But Will had none of the respect for titles acquired by marriage that +made most men an easy mark for her. + +"Leave the room!" he ordered. "Go away from us! Just you hope that's +a lie about Monty, that's all!" + +"Sit down!" she repeated. "I admit I am a little previous. The story +is unconfirmed yet. Sit down and be sensible! Something of the sort +will happen to all of you unless you three men get religion!" + +But Will began to pace the floor noisily, stopping to glare at her each +time he turned. + +"Is there any sense in protracting the scene?" asked Fred. + +"No," she admitted. "I see you are too hot-headed to be reasoned with. +But it makes little difference! +Fever--animals--climate--sun--flood--accident--natives--there are +excuses in plenty--explanations by the dozen! I will say good night, +then--and good-by!" + +"Yes, good-by!" growled Will, facing her with his back to the stairs. +"You take us for men with a price, do you?" + +"All men have a price," she smiled bitterly. "Only it is no use +offering flowers to pigs! We must treat pigs another way--pigs, and +young fools! And fools old enough to know better!" she added with a +nod toward Fred, who bowed to her in mock abasement--too politely, I +thought. + +Will got out of her way and she went up-stairs with the manner of an +empress taking leave of subjects. Fred swept her food and wine from +the table and stowed it in a corner, and we sat down at the table again. + +"The whole thing's getting ridiculous." he said. + +"Why don't we hunt up some official in the morning," I proposed, "and +simply expose her?" + +"No use," said Will. "She never followed us up here and tried that +game without being sure of her pull. Besides--what kind of a tale +could we tell without letting on we're after the ivory? I vote we see +the game through to a finish." + +"Good!" said Fred. "I agree!" + +"The only clue we've got," said I, "is Courtney's advice about Mount +Elgon." + +"And what Coutlass said in Zanzibar about German East," added Will. + +"Tell you what," said Fred, rapping the table excitedly. "Instead of +falling foul of this government by slipping over the dead-line, why not +run down to German East--pretend to search for the stuff down +there--and go from German East direct to Mount Elgon, giving 'em all +the slip. Who's got the map?" + +"It's up-stairs," I said. "I'll fetch it." + +There was nothing like silence in the rooms above. Men were smoking +and drinking in one another's rooms. Some doors were open to make +conversation easier across the landing, and nobody was asleep. But I +was surprised to see Georges Coutlass leaning against the door-post of +the room he shared with the other Greek and the Goanese, obviously on +guard, but against whom and on whose behalf it was difficult to guess. + +"Are you off to bed?" he asked, piercing me with his unbandaged eye. +"Why don't the others go, too?" + +It dawned on me what he was after. + +"Take the wine if you want it," I said. "None of us will prevent you." + +He went down-stairs in his stocking feet, leaving his own door wide. I +glanced in. The other Greek and the Goanese were asleep. Hassan lay +on the floor on a mat between their cots. He looked up at me. I did +not dare speak, but I smiled at him as friendly as I knew how and made +a gesture I hoped he would interpret as an invitation to come and +attach himself to our party. Then I hurried on, for Coutlass was +coming back with a bottle of wine in each hand. + +I was five minutes in our bedroom. In a minute I knew what had +happened. We had left the door locked, but the lock was a common one; +probably the keys of other doors fitted it, and there was not one thing +in the room placed exactly where we had left it. Everything was more +or less in place, but nothing quite. + +I returned empty-handed down-stairs, locking the bedroom door behind me. + +"Listen, you chaps!" I said. "While we waited for that woman she and +her maid went through our things again!" + +"How d'you know it was she?" asked Fred. + +"No mistaking the scent she uses. Where's our money?" + +"Here in my pocket." + +"Good. The map's gone, though!" + +Will showed big teeth in the first really happy smile for several days. + +"Good enough!" he said. "Let's go to bed now. I'll bet you my share +of the ivory they're poring over the map with a magnifying-glass! +D'you remember the various places we underscored? They'll think it's a +cryptogram and fret over it all night! Come on--come to bed!" + + + + +CHAPTER SIX + + +THE SONG OF THE GREAT GAME RESERVE + + Noah was our godfather, and he pitched and caulked a ship + 'With stable-room for two of each and fodder for the trip, + Lest when the Flood made sea of earth the animals should die; + And two by two he stalled us till the wrath of God was by. + But who in the name of the Pentateuch can the paleface people be + Who ha' done on the plains of Africa more than he did at sea? + + A million hoofs once drummed the dust (Kongoni led the way!) + From river-pool to desert-lick we thundered in array + Until the dark-skin people came with tube and smoke and shot, + Hunting and driving and killing, and leaving the meat to rot. + And we didn't know who the hunters were, but we saw the herds grow thin + That used to drum the dust-clouds up with thousand-footed din. + + We were few when the paleface people came--scattered and few and afraid. + Fewer were they, but they brought the law, and the dark-skin men obeyed. + The paleface people drew a line that none by dark or day + Might cross with fell intent to hunt--capture or drive or slay. + But who can the paleface people be with red-meat appetites + Who ruled anew what Noah knew--that animals have rights? + + And now in the Athi Game Reserve--in a million-acre park + A million creatures graze who went by twos into the Ark. + We sleep o' nights without alarm (Kongoni, prick your ear!) + And barring the leopard and lion to watch, and ticks, we've nought + to fear, + Zebra, giraffe and waterbuck, rhino and ostrich too-- + But who can the paleface people be who know what Noah knew? + + +The lions awoke us a little before dawn as the proprietor had promised. +They seemed to have had bad hunting, for their boastfulness was gone. +They came in twos and threes, snarling, only roaring intermittently--in +a hurry because the hated daylight would presently reverse conditions +and put them at disadvantage. + +I grew restless and got up. The air being chilly, I put my clothes on +and sat for a while by the window. So it happened I caught sight of +Hassan, very much afraid of lions, but obviously more afraid of being +seen from the hotel windows. He was sneaking along as close to the +house as he could squeeze, his head just visible above the veranda rail. + +For no better reason than that I was curious and unoccupied, I slipped +out of the house and followed him. + +Once clear of the hotel he seemed to imagine himself safe, for without +another glance backward he ran up-street in the direction of the +bazaar. I followed him down the bazaar--a short street of corrugated +iron buildings--and out the other end. Being fat, he could not run +fast, although his wind held out surprisingly. If he saw me at all he +must have mistaken me for a settler or one of the Nairobi officials, +for he seemed perfectly sure of himself and took no pains whatever now +to throw pursuers off the track. + +It soon became evident that he was making for an imposing group of +tents on the outskirts of the town. As he drew nearer he approached +more slowly. + +It now became my turn to take precautions. There was no chance of +concealment where I was--nothing but open level ground between me and +the tents. But now that I knew Hassan's destination, I could afford to +let him out of sight for a minute; so I turned my back on him, walked +to where a sort of fold in the ground enabled me to get down unseen +into a shallow nullah, and went along that at right angles to Hassan's +course until I reached the edge of some open jungle, about half a mile +from the tents. I noticed that it came to an end at a spot about three +hundred yards to the rear of the tents, so I worked my way along its +outer edge, and so approached the encampment from behind. + +I had brought a rifle with me, not that I expected to shoot anything, +but because the lion incident of the previous afternoon had taught me +caution. It had not entered my head that in that country a strange +white man without a rifle might have been regarded as a member of the +mean white class; nor that anybody would question my right to carry a +rifle, for that matter. + +The camp was awake now. There were ten tents, all facing one way. Two +of them contained stores. The central round tent with an awning in +front was obviously a white man's. One tent housed a mule, and the +rest were for native servants and porters. The camp was tidy and +clean--obviously belonging to some one of importance. Fires were +alight. Breakfast was being cooked, and smelled most uncommonly +appetizing in that chill morning air. Boys were already cleaning +boots, and a saddle, and other things. There was an air of discipline +and trained activity, and from the central tent came the sound of +voices. + +I don't know why, but I certainly did not expect to hear English. So +the sound of English spoken with a foreign accent brought me to a +standstill. I listened to a few words, and made no further bones about +eavesdropping. Circumstances favored me. The boys had seen I was +carrying a rifle and was therefore a white man of importance, so they +did not question my right to approach. The tent with the mule in it +and the two store tents were on the right, pitched in a triangle. I +passed between them up to the very pegs of the central tent from which +the voices came, and discovered I was invisible, unless some one should +happen to come around a corner. I decided to take my chance of that. + +The first thing that puzzled me was why a German (for it was a +perfectly unmistakable German accent) should need to talk English to a +native who was certainly familiar with both Arabic and Kiswahili. When +I heard the German addressed as Bwana Schillingschen I wondered still +more, for from all accounts that individual could speak more native +tongues than most people knew existed. It did not occur to me at the +time that if he wished not to be understood by his own crowd of boys he +must either speak German or English, and that Hassan would almost +certainly know no German. + +"A good thing you came to me!" I heard. The accent was clumsy for a +man so well versed in tongues. "Yes, I will give you money at the +right time. Tell me no lies now! There will be letters coming from +people you never saw, and I shall know whether or not you lie to me! +You say there are three of the fools?" + +"Yes, bwana. There were four, but one going home--big lord gentleman, +him having black m'stache, gone home." + +There was no mistaking Hassan's voice. No doubt he could speak his +mother tongue softly enough, but in common with a host of other people +he seemed to imagine that to make himself understood in English he must +shout. + +"Why did he go home?" + +"I don't know, bwana." + +"Did they quarrel?" + +"Sijui."* [* Sijui, I don't know: the most aggravating word In +Africa, except perhaps bado kidogo, which means "presently," "bye and +bye," "in a little while." + +"Don't you dare say 'sijui' to me!" + +"Maybe they quarrel, maybe not. They all quarreling with Lady +Saffunwardo--staying in same hotel, Tippoo Tib one time his house--she +wanting maybe go with him to London. He saying no. Others saying no. +All very angry each with other an' throwing bwana masikini, Greek man, +down hotel stairs." + +"What had he to do with it?" + +"Two Greek man an' one Goa all after ivory, too. She--Lady Saffunwardo +afterwards promising pay them three if they come along an' do what she +tell 'em. They agreeing quick! Byumby Tippoo Tib hearing bazaar talk +an' sending me along too. She refuse to take me, all because German +consul man knowing me formerly and not making good report, but Greek +bwana he not caring and say to me to come along. Greek people very +bad! No food--no money--nothing but swear an' kick an' call bad +names--an' drunk nearly all the time!" + +"What makes you think these three men know where the ivory is?" said +the German voice. It was the voice of a man very used to questioning +natives--self-assertive but calm--going straight each time to the point. + +"They having map. Map having marks on it." + +"How do you know?" + +"She--Lady Saffunwardo go in their bedroom, stealing it last night." + +"Did you see her take it?" + +"Yes, bwana." + +"Did you see the marks on it?" + +"No, bwana." + +"Then how do you know the marks were on it? Now, remember, don't lie +to me!" + +"Coutlass, him Greek man, standing on stairs keeping watch. Them three +men you call fools all sitting in dining-room waiting because they +thinking she come presently. She send maid to their room. Maid, fool +woman, upset everything, finding nothing. 'No,' she say, 'no map--no +money--no anything in here.' An' Lady Saffunwardo she very angry an' +say, 'Come out o' there! Let me look!' And Lady Saffunwardo going in, +but maid not coming out, an' they both search. Then Lady Saffanwardo +saying all at once, 'Here it is. Didn't you see this?' An' the maid +answering, 'Oh, that! That nothing but just ordinary pocket map! That +not it!' But Lady Saffunwardo she opening the map, an' make little +scream, an' say, 'Idiot! This is it! Look! See! See the marks!' +So, bwana, I then knowing must be marks on map!" + +"Good. What did she do with it?" + +"Sujui." + +"I told you not to dare say 'sijui' to me!" + +"How should I know, bwana, what she doing with it?" + +"Could you steal it?" + +"No, bwana!" + +"Why not?" + +"You not knowing that woman! No man daring steal from her! She very +terrible!" + +"If I offered you a hundred rupees could you steal it?" + +"Sujui, bwana." + +"I told you not to use that word!" + +"Bwana, I--" + +"Could you steal it?" + +"Maybe." + +"That is no answer!" + +"Say that again about hundred rupees!" + +"I will give you a hundred rupees if you bring me that map and it +proves to be what you say." + +"I go. I see. I try. Hundred rupees very little money!" + +"It's all you'll get, you black rascal! And you know what you'll get +if you fail! You know me, don't you? You understand my way? Steal +that map and bring it here, and I shall give you a hundred rupees. +Fail, and you shall have a hundred lashes, and what Ahmed and Abdullah +and Seydi got in addition! The hundred lashes first, and the ant-hill +afterward! You're not fool enough to think you can escape me, I +suppose?" + +"No, bwana." + +"Then go and get the map!" + +"But afterward, what then? She very gali* woman." [*Gali, same as +Hindustani kali--cruel, hard, fierce, terrible.] + +"Nonsense! Steal the map and bring it here to me. Then I've other +work for you. Are you a renegade Muhammedan?" + +"No, bwana! No, no! Never! I'm good Moslem." + +"Very well. Back to your old business with you! Preach Islam up and +down the country. Go and tell all the tribes in British territory that +the Germans are coming soon to establish an empire of Islam in Africa! +Good pay and easy living! Does that suit you?" + +"Yes, bwana. How much pay?" + +"I'll tell you when you bring the map. Now be going!" + +Hassan went, after a deal of polite salaaming. Then boys began +bringing the German's breakfast, and unless I chose to confess myself +an eavesdropper it became my business to be in the tent ahead of them. +So I strode forward as if just arrived and purposely tripped over a +tent-rope, stumbling under the awning with a laugh and an apology. + +"Who are you?" demanded the German without rising. He had the splay +shovel beard described to us in Zanzibar--big dark man, sitting in the +doorway of a tent all hung with guns, skins and antlers. He was in +night-shirt and trousers--bare feet--but with a helmet on the back of +his head. + +"A visitor," I answered, "staying at the hotel--out for a morning shot +at something--had no luck--got nothing--saw your tents in the distance, +and came out of curiosity to find out who you are." + +"My name is Professor Schillingschen," he answered, still without +getting up. There was no other chair near the awning, so I had to +remain standing. I told him my name, hoping that Hassan had either not +done so already, or else that he might have so bungled the +pronunciation as to make it unrecognizable. I detected no sign of +recognition on Schillingschen's face. + +The boys reached the tent with his breakfast, and one of them dragged a +chair from inside the tent for me. I sat down on it without waiting +for the professor to invite me. + +"I'm tired," I said, untruthfully, minded to refuse an invitation to +eat, but interested to see whether he would invite me or not. + +"Have you any friends at the hotel?" he asked, looking up at me darkly +under the bushiest eyebrows I ever saw. + +"I've got friends wherever I go," I answered. "I make friends." + +"Are you going far?" he demanded, holding out a foot for his boy to +pull a stocking on. + +"That depends," I said. + +"On what?" + +"On whether I get employment." + +I said that at random, without pausing to think what impression I might +create. He pulled the night-shirt off over his head, throwing the +helmet to the ground, and sat like a great hairy gorilla for the boy to +hang day-clothes on him. He had the hairiest breast and arms I ever +saw, hung with lumpy muscles that heightened his resemblance to an ape. + +"I might give you work," he said presently, beginning to eat before the +boy had finished dressing him. + +"I want to travel" I said. "If I could find a job that would take me +up and down the length and breadth of this land, that would suit me +finely." + +"That is the kind of a man I want," he said, eying me keenly. "I have +a German, but I need an Englishman. Do you speak native languages?" + +"Scarcely a word." + +To my surprise he nodded approval at that answer. + +"I have parties of natives traveling all over the country gathering +folk lore, and ethnographical particulars, but they get into a village +and sit down for whole weeks at a time, drawing pay for doing nothing. +I need an Englishman to go with them and keep them moving." + +"All well and good," I said, "but I understand the government is not in +favor of white men traveling about at random." + +"But I am known to the government," he answered. "I have been accorded +facilities because of my professional standing. Have you references +you can give me?" + +"No," I said. "No references." + +I thought that would stump him, but on the contrary he looked rather +pleased. + +"That is good. References are too frequently evidence of back-stairs +influence." + +All this while he kept eying me between mouthfuls. Whenever I seemed +to look away his eyes fairly burned holes in me. Whenever food got in +his beard (which was frequently) be used the napkin more as a shield +behind which to take stock of me than as a means of getting clean +again. By the time his breakfast was finished his beard was a beastly +mess, but he probably had my features from every angle fixed indelibly +in his memory. The sensation was that I had been analyzed and card +indexed. + +"I pay good wages," he remarked, and then stuck his face, beard and +all, into the basin of warm water his boy had brought. "Where did you +get that rifle?" he demanded, spluttering, and combing the beard out +with his fingers. + +It was on the tip of my tongue to say "At Zanzibar," but, as that might +have started him on a string of questions as to how I came to that +place and whom I knew there, I temporized. + +"Oh, I bought it from a man." + +"That is no answer!" he retorted. + +If I had been possessed of much inclination to play deep games and +match wits with big rascals I suppose I would have answered him civilly +and there and then learned more of his purpose. But I was not +prepossessed by his charms or respectful of his claim to superiority. +The German type super-education never did impress me as compatible with +good breeding or good sense, and it annoyed me to have to lie to him. + +"It's all the answer you'll get!" I said. + +"Where is your license for it?" he growled. + +The game began to amuse me. + +"None of your business!" I answered. + +"How long have you been in the country!" + +"Since I came," I said. + +"And you have no license! You have been out shooting. A lucky thing +you came to my camp and not to some other man's! The game laws are +very strict!" + +He spoke then to a boy who was standing behind me, giving him very +careful directions in a language of which I did not know one word. The +boy went away. + +"The last man who went shooting near Nairobi without a license," he +said, "tried to excuse himself before the magistrate by claiming +ignorance of the law. He was fined a thousand rupees and sentenced to +six months in jail!" + +"Very severe!" I said. + +"They are altogether too severe," he answered. "I hope you have killed +nothing. It is good you came first to me. You would better stand that +rifle over here in the corner of my tent. To walk back to the hotel +with it over your shoulder would be dangerous." + +"I've taken bigger chances than that," said I. + +"If you have shot nothing, then it is not so serious," he said, +disappearing behind a curtain into the recesses of his tent. + +He stayed in there for about ten minutes. I had about made up my mind +to walk away when four of his boys approached the tent from behind, and +one of them cried "Hodi!" The boy to whom he had given directions +across my shoulder was not among them. + +They threw the buck down near my feet, and he came out from the gloomy +interior and stared at it. He asked them questions rapidly in the +native tongue, and they answered, pointing at me. + +"They say you shot it," he told me, stroking his great beard +alternately with either hand. + +"Then they lie!" I answered. + +"Let me see that rifle!" he said, reaching out an enormous freckled +fist to take it. + +I saw through his game at last. It would have been the easiest thing +in the world to extract a cartridge from the clip in the magazine and +claim afterward that I had fired it away. Evidently he proposed to get +me in his power, though for just what reason he was so determined to +make use of me rather than any one else was not so clear. + +"So I shot the buck, did I?" I asked. + +"Those four natives say they saw you shoot it." + +"Then it's mine?" + +He nodded. + +"It's heavy," I said, "but I expect I can carry it." + +I took the buck by the hind legs and swung myself under it. It weighed +more than a hundred pounds, but the African climate had not had time +enough to sap my strength or destroy sheer pleasure in muscular effort. + +"What's mine's my own!" I laughed. "You gave me something to eat after +all! Good day, and good riddance!" + +The boys tried to prevent my carrying the buck away. + +"Come back!" growled the professor. "I will take responsibility for +that buck and save you from punishment. Bring it back! Lay it down!" + +But I continued to walk away, so he ordered his boys to take the +carcass from me. I laid it down and threatened them with my butt end. +He brought his own rifle out and threatened me with that. I laughed at +him, bade him shoot if he dared, offered him three shots for a penny, +and ended by shouldering the buck again and walking off. + +Meat was cheap in Nairobi in those days, so the owner of the hotel was +not so delighted as I expected. He reprimanded me for being late for +breakfast, and told me I was lucky to get any. Fred and Will had +waited for me, and while we ate alone and I told them the story of my +morning's adventure a police officer in khaki uniform tied up his mule +outside and clattered in. + +"Whose buck is that hanging outside the kitchen?" he demanded. + +"There's some doubt about it," I said. "I've been accused of being the +owner." + +"Then you're the man I want. The court sits at nine. You'd better be +there, or you'll be fetched!" + +He placed in my hand what proved to be a summons to appear before the +district court that morning on the charge of carrying an unregistered +rifle and shooting game without a license. Two native policemen he had +with him took down the buck from the hook outside the kitchen door and +carried it off as evidence. + +We finished our breakfast in great contentment, and strode off +arm-in-arm to find the court-house, feeling as if we were going to a +play--perhaps a mite indignant, as if the subject of the play were one +we did not quite approve, but perfectly certain of a good time. + +The court was crowded. The bearded professor, his four boys, and two +other natives were there, as well as several English officials, all +apparently on very good terms indeed with Schillingschen. + +As we entered the court under the eyes of a hostile crowd I heard one +official say to the man standing next him: + +"I hope he'll make an example of this case. If he doesn't every new +arrival in this country will try to take the law in his own hands. I +hope he fines him the limit!" + +"Give me your hunting-knife, Fred!" said I, and Fred laughed as he +passed it to me. For the moment I think he thought I meant to plunge +it into the too talkative official's breast. + +First they called a few township cases. A drunken Muhammedan was fined +five rupees, and a Hindu was ordered to remove his garbage heap before +noon. Three natives were ordered to the chain-gang for a week for +fighting, and a Masai charged with stealing cattle was remanded. Then +my case was called, very solemnly, by a magistrate scarcely any older +than myself. + +The police officer acted as prosecutor. He stated that "acting on +information received" he had proceeded to the hotel. Outside of which +he saw a buck hanging (buck produced in evidence); that he had entered +the hotel, found me at breakfast, and that I had not denied having shot +the buck. He called his two colored askaris to prove that, and they +reeled off what they had to say with the speed of men who had been +thoroughly rehearsed. Then he put the German on the stand, and +Schillingschen, with a savage glare at me, turned on his verbal +artillery. He certainly did his worst. + +"This morning," he announced, after having been duly sworn on the Book, +"that young man whose name I do not know approached my tent while I was +dressing. The sound of a rifle being fired had awakened me earlier +than usual. He carried a rifle, and I put two and two together and +concluded he had shot something. Not having seen him ever before, and +he standing before my tent, I asked him his name. He refused to tell +me, and that made me suspicious. Then came my four boys carrying a +buck, which they assured me they had seen him shoot. I asked him +whether he had a license to shoot game, and he at once threatened to +shoot me if I did not mind my own business. Therefore, I sent a note +to the police at once." + +His four boys were then put on the stand in turn, and told their story +through an interpreter. Their words identical. If the interpreter +spoke truth one account did not vary from the next in the slightest +degree, and that fact alone should have aroused the suspicion of any +unprejudiced judge. + +Having the right to cross-examine, I asked each in turn whether the +rifle I had brought with me to court was the same they had seen me +using. They asserted it was. Then I recalled the German and asked him +the same question. He also replied in the affirmative. I asked him +how he knew. He said he recognized the mark on the butt where the +varnish had been chafed away. +Then I handed the hunting knife I had borrowed from to the police +officer and demanded that he have the bullet cut out of the buck's +carcass. The court could not object to that, so under the eyes of at +least fifty witnesses a flattened Mauser bullet was produced. I called +attention to the fact that my rifle was a Lee-Enfield that could not +possibly have fired a Mauser bullet. The court was young and very +dignified--examined the bullet and my rifle--and had to be convinced. + +"Very well," was the verdict on that count, "it is proved that you did +not shoot this particular buck, unless the police have evidence that +you used a different rifle." + +The policeman confessed that he had no evidence along that line, so the +first charge was dismissed. + +"But you are charged," said the magistrate, "with carrying an +unregistered rifle, and shooting without a license." + +For answer I produced my certificate of registration and the big game +license we had paid for in Mombasa. + +"Why didn't you say so before?" demanded the magistrate. + +"I wasn't asked," said I. + +"Case dismissed!" snapped his honor, and the court began to empty. + +"Don't let it stop there!" urged Will excitedly. "That Heinie and his +boys have all committed perjury; charge them with it!" + +I turned to the police officer. + +"I charge all those witnesses with perjury!" I said. + +"Oh," he laughed, "you can't charge natives with that. If the law +against perjury was strictly enforced the jails wouldn't hold a +fiftieth of them! They don't understand." + +"But that blackguard with a beard--that rascal Schillingschen +understands!" said I. "Arrest him! Charge him with it!" + +"That's for the court to do," he answered. "I've no authority." + +The magistrate had gone. + +"Who is the senior official in this town?" I demanded. + +"There he goes," he answered. "That man in the white suit with the +round white topee is the collector." + +So we three followed the collector to his office, arriving about two +minutes after the man himself. The Goanese clerk had been in the +court, and recognized me. He had not stayed to hear the end. + +"Fines should be paid in the court, not here!" he intimated rudely. + +We wasted no time with him but walked on through, and the collector +greeted us without obvious cordiality. He did not ask us to sit down. + +"My friend here has come to tell you about that man Schillingschen," +said Fred. + +"I suppose you mean Professor Schillingschen!" + +The collector was a clean-shaven man with a blue jowl that suffered +from blunt razors, and a temper rendered raw by native cooking. But he +had photos of feminine relations and a little house in a dreary Midland +street on his desk, and was no doubt loyal to the light he saw. I +wished we had Monty with us. One glimpse of the owner of a title that +stands written in the Doomsday Book would have outshone the halo of +Schillingschen's culture. + +I rattled off what I had to say, telling the story from the moment I +started to follow Hassan from the hotel down to the end, omitting +nothing. + +"Schillingschen is worse than a spy. He's a black-hearted, schemer. +He's planning to upset British rule in this Protectorate and make it +easy for the Germans to usurp!" + +"This is nonsense!" the collector interrupted. "Professor +Schillingschen is the honored friend of the British government. He +came to us here with the most influential backing--letter of +introduction from very exalted personages, I assure you! Professor +Schillingschen is one of the most, if not the most, learned +ethnologists in the world to-day. How dare you traduce him!" + +"But you heard him tell lies in court!" I gasped. "You were there. +You heard his evidence absolutely disproved. How do you explain that +away?" + +"I don't attempt to! The explanation is for you to make!" he answered. +"The fact that he did not succeed in proving his case against +you is nothing in itself! Many a case in court is lost from lack of +proper evidence! And one more matter! Lady Isobel Saffren Waldon is +staying--or rather, I should say, was staying at the hotel. She is now +staying at my house. She complains to me of very rude treatment at the +hands of you three men--insolent treatment I should call it! I can +assure you that the way to get on in this Protectorate is not to behave +like cads toward ladies of title! I understand that her maid is afraid +to be caught alone by any one of you, and that Lady Saffren Waldon +herself feels scarcely any safer!" + +Fred and I saw the humor of the thing, and that enabled us to save Will +from disaster. There never was a man more respectful of women than +Will. He would even get off the sidewalk for a black woman, and would +neither tell nor laugh at the sort of stories that pass current about +women in some smoking-rooms. His hair bristled. His ears stuck out on +either side of his head. He leaned forward--laid one strong brown hand +on the desk--and shook his left fist under the collector's nose. + +"You poor boob!" he exploded. Then he calmed himself. "I'm sorry for +your government if you're the brightest jewel it has for this job! +That Jane will use everything you've got except the squeal! Great +suffering Jemima! Your title is collector, is it? Do you collect bugs +by any chance? You act like it! So help you two men and a boy, a +bughouse is where I believe you belong! Come along, fellows, he'll +bite us if we stay!" + +"Be advised" said the collector, leaning back in his chair and +sneering. "Behave yourselves! This is no country for taking chances +with the law!" + +"Remember Courtney's advice," said Fred when we got outside. "Suppose +we give him a few days to learn the facts about Lady Isobel, and then +go back and try him again?" + +"Say!" answered Will, stopping and turning to face us. "What d'you +take me for? I like my meals. I like three squares a day, and +tobacco, and now and then a drink. But if this was the Sahara, and +that man had the only eats and drinks, I'd starve." + +"Telling him the truth wouldn't be accepting favors from him," +counseled Fred. + +"I wouldn't tell him the time!" + +That attitude--and Will insisted that all the officials in the land +would prove alike--limited our choice, for unless we were to allay +official suspicion it would be hopeless to get away northward. +Southward into German East seemed the only way to go; there was +apparently no law against travel in that direction. On our way to the +hotel we passed Coutlass, striding along smirking to himself, headed +toward the office from which we had just come. + +"I'll bet you," said Will, "he's off to get an ammunition permit, and +permission to go where he damned well pleases! I'll bet he gets both! +This government's the limit!" + +We laughed, but Will proved more than half right. Coutlass did get +ammunition. Lady Saffren Waldon's influence was already strong enough +for that. He did not ask for leave to go anywhere for the simple +reason that his movements depended wholly on ours--a fact that +developed later. + +At the hotel there was a pleasant surprise for us. A squarely built, +snub-nosed native, not very dark skinned but very ugly--his right ear +slit, and almost all of his left ear missing--without any of the brass +or iron wire ornaments that most of the natives of the land affect, but +possessed of a Harris tweed shooting jacket and, of all unexpected +things, boots that he carried slung by the laces from his neck-waited +for us, squatting with a note addressed to Fred tied in a cleft stick. + +It does not pay to wax enthusiastic over natives, even when one +suspects they bring good news. We took the letter from him, told him +to wait, and went on in. Once out of the man's hearing Fred tore the +letter open and read it aloud to us. + +"Herewith my Kazimoto," it ran. "Be good to him. It +occurred to me that you might not care after all to linger in +Nairobi, and it seemed hardly fair to keep the boy from getting a good +job simply because he could make me comfortable for the +remainder of a week. So, as there happened to be ae special train +going up I begged leave for him to ride in the caboose. He is +a splendid gun-bearer. He never funks, but reloads coolly under the +most nerve-trying conditions. He has his limitations, of course, +but I have found him brave and faithful, and I pass him along to you +with confidence. + +"And by the way: he has been to Mount Elgon with me. I +was not looking for buried ivory, but he knows where the caves +are in which anything might be! + +"Wishing you all good luck, Yours truly, + "F. Courtney" + +For the moment we felt like men possessed of a new horse apiece. We +were for dashing out to look the acquisition over. But Will checked us. + +"Recall what Courtney said about a dog?" he asked. "We can't all own +him!" + +Fred sat down. "Ex-missionaries own dice," he announced. "That's how +they come to be ex! You'll find them in the little box on the shelf, +Will. We'll throw a main for Kazimoto!" + +"I know a better gamble than that!' + +"Name it, America." + +"Bring the coon in and have him choose." + +So I went out and felt tempted to speak cordially to the homeless ugly +black man--to give him a hint that he was welcome. But it is a fatal +mistake to make a "soft" impression on even the best natives at the +start. + +"Karibu!"* I said gruffly when I had looked him over, using one of the +six dozen Swahili words I knew as yet. [*Karibu, enter, come in.] + +He arose with the unlabored ease that I have since learned to look for +in all natives worth employing; and followed me indoors. Will and +Fred were seated in judicial attitudes, and I took a chair beside them. + +"What is your name?" demanded Fred. + +"Kazimoto." + +"Um-m! That means 'Work-like-the-devil.' Let us hope you live up to +it. Your former master gives you a good character." + +"Why not, bwana? My spirit is good." + +"Do you want work?" + +"Yes." + +"How much money do you expect to get?" + +"Sijui!" + +"Don't say sijui!" I cut in, remembering Schillingschen's method. + +"Six rupees a month and posho," he said promptly. Posho means rations, +or money in lieu of rations. + +"Don't you rather fancy yourself?" suggested Fred with a perfectly +straight face. + +"Say two dollars a month all told!" Will whispered to me behind his +hand. + +"I am a good gun-bearer!" the native answered. "My spirit is good. I +am strong. There is nobody better than me as a gun-bearer!" + +"We happen to want a headman," answered Fred. "Have you ever been +headman?" + +"Would you like to be?" + +"Yes." + +"Are you able?" + +"Surely." + +"Choose, then. Which of us would you like to work for?" + +"You!" he answered promptly, pointing at Fred. + +It was on the tip of the tongue of every one of us to ask him instantly +why, but that would have been too rank indiscretion. It never pays to +seem curious about a native's personal reasons, and it was many weeks +before we knew why he had made up his mind in advance to choose Fred +and not either of us for his master. + +His choice made, and the offer of his services accepted, he took over +Fred forthwith--demanded his keys--found out which our room was--went +over our belongings and transferred the best of our things into Fred's +bag and the worst of his into ours--remade Fred's bed after a +mysterious fashion of his own, taking one of my new blankets and one of +Will's in exchange for Fred's old ones--cleaned Fred's guns thoroughly +after carefully abstracting the oil and waste from our gun-cases and +transferring them to Fred's--removed the laces from my shooting boots +and replaced them with Fred's knotted ones--sharpened Fred's razors and +shaved himself with mine (to the enduring destruction of its once +artistic edge)--and departed in the direction of the bazaar. + +He returned at the end of an hour and a half with a motley following of +about twenty, arrayed in blankets of every imaginable faded hue and in +every stage of dirtiness. + +"You wanting cook," he announced. "These three making cook." + +He waved three nondescripts to the front, and we chose a tall Swahili +because he grinned better than the others. "Although," as Fred +remarked, "what the devil grinning has to do with cooking is more than +anybody knows." The man, whose name was Juma, turned out to be an +execrable cook, but as he never left off grinning under any +circumstances (and it would have been impossible to imagine +circumstances worse than those we warred with later on) we never had +the heart to dismiss him. + +After that, Will and I selected a servant apiece who were destined +forever to wage war on Kazimoto in hopeless efforts to prevent his +giving Fred the best end of everything. Mine was a Baganda who called +himself Matches, presumably because his real name was unpronounceable. +Will chose a Malindi boy named Tengeneza (and that means arrange in +order, fix, make over, manage, mend--no end of an ominous name!). They +were both outclassed from the start by Kazimoto, but to add to the +handicap he insisted that since he was a headman he would need some one +to help look after Fred at times when other duties would monopolize his +attention. He himself picked out an imp of mischief whose tribe I +never ascertained, but who called himself Simba (lion), and there and +then Simba departed up-stairs to steal for Fred whatever was left of +value among Will's effects and mine. + +We had scarcely got used to the idea of once more having a savage +apiece to wait on us when Kazimoto turned up at the door with a string +of porters and a Goanese railway clerk. We had left our tents and +heavy baggage checked at the station, but had said nothing about them +to our new headman; however, he had made inquiries and worked out a +plan on his own account. The railway clerk asked to know whether he +should let Kazimoto have our things. + +"Why?"' demanded Fred. + +"This hotel no good!" announced Kazimoto. "No place for boys. Heap +too many plenty people. Pitching camp, that good!" + +"All right," said Fred, and then and there paid our baggage charges. + +Presently Brown of Lumbwa, who had spent most of the daylight hours in +the little corrugated iron bar run by a Goanese in the bazaar, came +lurching past the township camping ground, and viewed Kazimoto with his +gang pitching our tents. He asked questions, but could get no +information, so came along to us. + +"Where you schaps going?" he demanded, leaning against the wall. Fred +took advantage of the opportunity and examined him narrowly as to his +knowledge of German East and ways of getting there. He was in an +aggravating mood that made at one moment a very well of information of +him, and at the next a mere garrulous ass. + +"Come along o' me t' Lumbwa," was his final word on the matter. "I'll +put you on a road nobody knows an' nobody, uses!" + +We spent that night under canvas and talked the matter out. The usual +way to reach Lumbwa was to wait for a freight, or construction train +and beg leave to ride on that, for as yet, no passenger trains were +running regularly on the western section of the line. But there was no +rule against traveling anywhere south of the equator, and it was our +purpose to march down into German East without any one being the wiser. + +The next morning we imagined Brown was sober and sorry enough to hold +his tongue, so, without going into details with him, we agreed to go +with him "some of the way," and Fred spent the whole of that morning in +the bazaar buying loads of food and general supplies. Will and I +engaged porters, and with Kazimoto's aid as interpreter, had fifty +ready to march that afternoon. + +The whole trick of starting on a journey is to start. If you only make +a mile or two the first day you have at least done better than stand +still; loads have been apportioned and porters broken in to some +extent; you have broken the spell of inertia, and hereafter there is +less likely to be trouble. We made up our minds to get away that +afternoon, and I was sent back to the hotel to find Brown, who had gone +for his belongings. + +If Brown had stayed sober all might have been well, but his headache +and feeling of unworthiness had been too much for him and I found him +with a straw in the neck of a bottle of whisky alternately laying down +law to Georges Coutlass and drinking himself into a state of temporary +bliss. + +"You Greeks dunno nothin'!" he asserted as I came in. "You never did +know nothin', an' you're never goin' to know nothin'! 'Cause why? +'I'll tell you. Simply because I am goin' to tell! I'm mum, I am! +When s'mother gents an' me 'ave business, that's our business--see! +None o' your business--'ss our business, an' I'm not goin' to tell you +Greeks nothin' about where we're off to, nor why, nor when. An' you +put that in your pipe an' smoke it!" + +I sat in the dining-room for a while, hoping that the Greek would go +away; but as Brown was fast drinking himself into a condition when he +could not have been moved except on stretcher, and was momentarily +edging closer to an admission of all he knew or guessed about our +intention, I took the bull by the horns at last--snatched away his +whisky bottle, and walked off with it. + +He came after me swearing like a trooper, and his own porters, who had +been waiting for more than an hour beside his loads, trailed along +after him. Once in our camp we made a hammock for him out of a blanket +tied to a pole, and made him over to two porters with the promise that +they would get no supper if they lost him. Then we started--uphill, +toward the red Kikuyu heights, where settlers were already trying to +grow potatoes for which there was no market, and onions that would only +run to seed. + +To our left rear and right front were the highest mountain ranges in +Africa. Before us was the pass through which the railway threaded over +the wide high table-land before dipping downward to Victoria Nyanza. +On our left front was all Kikuyu country, and after that Lumbwa, and +native reserves, and forest, and swamp, and desert, and the German +boundary. + +We made a long march of it that first day, and camped after dark within +two miles of Kikuyu station. Most of the scrub thereabouts was castor +oil plant, that makes very poor fuel; yet there were lions in plenty +that roared and scouted around us even before the tents were pitched. + +Nobody got much sleep that night, although the porters were perfectly +indifferent to the risk of snoozing on the watch. Kazimoto produced a +thing called a kiboko--a whip of hippopotamus-hide a yard and a half +long, and with the aid of that and Will's good humor we constituted a +yelling brigade, whose business was to make the welkin ring with +godless noises whenever a lion came close enough to be dangerous. + +I made up a signal party of all our personal boys with our lanterns, +swinging them in frantic patterns in the darkness in a way to terrify +the very night itself. Fred played concertina nearly all night long, +and when dawn came, though there were tracks of lions all about the +camp we were only tired and sleepy. Nobody was missing; nobody killed. + +We never again took lions so seriously, although we always built fires +about the camp in lion country when that was possible. Partly by dint +of carelessness that brought no ill results, and partly from +observation we learned that where game is plentiful lions are more +curious than dangerous, and that unless something should happen to +enrage them, or the game has gone away and they are hungry, they are +likely to let well alone. + +If there are dogs in camp--and we bought three terrier pups that +morning from a settler at Kikuyu--leopards are likely to be more +troublesome than lions. The leopards seemed to yearn for dog-meat much +as Brown of Lumbwa yearned for whisky. + +The journey to Lumbwa is one of the pleasantest I remember. We took +Brown's supply of whisky from him, locked up with our own, sent him +ahead in the hammock, and let him work as guide by promises of +whisky for supper if he did his duty, and threats of mere cold water if +he failed. + +"But water rots my stomach!" he objected. + +"Lead on, then!" was the invariable, remorseless answer. So Brown led +until we reached Naivasha with its strange lake full of hippo at an +elevation so great that the mornings are frosty (and that within sight +of the line). There was never a day that we were once out of sight of +game from dawn to dark. When we awoke the morning mist would scatter +slowly and betray sleepy herds of antelope, that would rise leisurely, +stand staring at us, suddenly become suspicious, and then gallop off +until the whole plain was a panorama of wheeling herds, reminding one +of the cavalry maneuvers at Aldershot when the Guards regiments were +pitted against the regular cavalry--all riding and no wits. + +Although we had to shoot enough meat for ourselves and men, we never +once took advantage of those surprise parties in the early morning, +preferring to stalk warier game at the end of a long march. The rains +were a thing of the past, and we seldom troubled to pitch tents but +slept under the stars with a sensation that the universe was one vast +place of peace. + +Occasionally we reached an elevation from which we could look down and +see men toiling to build the railway, that already reached Nyanza after +the unfinished fashion of work whose chief aim is making a showing. +Profits, performances were secondary matters; that railway's one +purpose was to establish occupation of the head waters of the Nile and +refute the German claim to prior rights there. At irregular intervals +trains already went down to the lake, and passengers might ride on +suffrance; but we deluded ourselves with the belief that by marching +we threw enemies off the scent. It was pure delusion, but extremely +pleasant while it lasted. Where Africa is green and high she is a +lovely land to march across. + +Brown grew sober on the trip, as if approaching his chosen home gave +him a sense of responsibility. His own reason for preferring the march +to a ride in a construction train was simple: + +"Every favor you ask o' gov'ment, boys, leaves one less to fall back on +in a pinch! Ask not, and they'll forget some o' your peccadillos. Ask +too often, and one day when you really need a kindness you'll find the +Bank o' Good Hope bu'sted! And, believe me, boys, that 'ud be a hell +of a predicament for a poor sufferin' settler to find himself in!" + +The approach to Lumbwa was over steep hilly grass land, between forests +of cedar--perfect country, kept clean by a wind that smelt of fern and +clover. + +"You can tell we're gettin' near my place," said Brown, "by the number +o' leopards that's about." + +We had to keep our three pups close at heel all the time, and even at +that we lost two of them. One was taken from between Will's feet as he +sat in camp cleaning his rifle. All he heard was the dog's yelp, and +all he saw was a flash of yellow as the leopard made for the boulders +close at hand. The other was taken out of my tent. I had tied it to +the tent pole, but the stout cord snapped like a hair and the darkness +swallowed both leopard and its prey before I could as much as reach my +rifle to get a shot. + +"Splendid country for farmin'," Brown remarked, "Splendid. Only you +can't keep sheep because the leopards take 'em. You can't keep hens +for the same reason. Nor yet cows, because the leopards get the +calves--leastways, that's to say unless you watch out awful cautious. +Nor yet you can't keep pigeons, 'cause the leopards take them too. I +sent to England for fancy pigeons--a dozen of em. Leopards got all but +one, so I put him in the loft above my own house, where it seemed to me +'tweren't possible for a leopard to get, supposin' he'd dared. Went +away the next day for some shootin', an' lo and behold!--came back that +evenin' to discover my cook an' three others carryin' on as if Kingdom +Come had took place at last. Never heard or saw such a jamboree. The +blamed leopard was up in the loft; and had eaten the pigeon, feathers +and all, but couldn't get out again!" + +"What happened? Nothin'! I was that riled I didn't stop to +think--fixed a bayonet on the old Martini the gov'ment supplies to +settlers out of the depths of its wisdom an' generosity--climbed up by +the same route the leopard took--invaded him--an' skewered him wi' the +bayonet in the dark! I wouldn't do it again for a kingdom--but I won't +buy more pigeons either!" + +"What do you raise on your farm, then--pigs?" we asked. + +"No, the leopards take pigs." + +"What then?" + +"Well--as I was explainin' to that Greek Georges Coutlass at +Nairobi--there's a way of farmin' out your cattle among the natives +that beats keepin' 'em yourself. The natives put 'em in the village +pen o' nights; an' besides, they know about the business. + +"All you need do is give 'em a heifer calf once in a while, and they're +contented. I keep a herd o' two hundred cows in a native village not +far from my place. The natural increase o' them will make me +well-to-do some day." + +The day before we reached Brown's tiny homestead we heard a lot of +shooting over the hill behind us. + +"That'll be railway men takin' a day off after leopards," announced +Brown with the air of a man who can not be mistaken. + +Nevertheless, Fred and I went back to see, but could make out nothing. +We lay on the top of the hill and watched for two or three hours, but +although we heard rifle firing repeatedly we did not once catch sight +of smoke or men. We marched into camp late that night with a feeling +of foreboding that we could not explain but that troubled us both +equally. + +Once or twice in the night we heard firing again, as if somebody's camp +not very far away was invaded by leopards, or perhaps lions. Yet at +dawn there were no signs of tents. And when that night we arrived at +Brown's homestead we seemed to have the whole world to ourselves. + +Brown's house was a tiny wooden affair with a thick grass roof. It +boasted a big fireplace at one end of the living-room, and a chimney +that Brown had built himself so cunningly that smoke could go up and +out but no leopards could come down. + +He got very drunk that night to celebrate the home-coming, and stayed +completely drunk for three days, we making use of his barn to give our +porters a good rest. By day we shot enough meat for the camp, and at +night we sat over the log fire, praying that Brown might sober up, Fred +singing songs to his infernal concertina, and all the natives who could +crowd in the doorway listening to him with all their ears. Fred made +vast headway in native favor, and learned a lot of two languages at +once. + +Every day we sent Kazimoto and another boy exploring among the Lumbwa +tribe, gathering information as to routes and villages, and it was +Kazimoto who came running in breathless one night just as Brown was at +last sobering up, with the news that some Greeks had swooped down on +Brown's cattle, had wounded two or three of the villagers who herded +them, and had driven the whole herd away southward. + +That news sobered Brown completely. He took the bottle of whisky he +had just brought up from the cellar and replaced it unopened. + +"There's on'y one Greek in the world knew where my cattle were!" he +announced grimly. "There's on'y one Greek I ever talked to about +cattle. Coutlass, by the great horn spoon! The blackguard swore he +was after you chaps--swore he didn't care nothing about me! What he +did to you was none o' my business, o' course--an' I figured anyway as +you could look out for yourselves! Not that I told the swine any o' +your business, mind! Not me! I was so sure he was gunnin' for you +that I told him my own business to throw him off your track! And now +the devil goes an' turns on me!" + +He got down his rifle and began overhauling it, feverishly, yet with a +deliberate care that was curious in a man so recently drunk. While he +cleaned and oiled be gave orders to his own boys; and what with having +servants of our own and having to talk to them mostly in the native +tongue, we were able to understand pretty well the whole of what he +said. + +"You're not going to start after them to-night?" Fred objected. But he +and Will were also already overhauling weapons, for the second time +that evening. (It is religion with the true hunter never to eat supper +until his rifle is cleaned and oiled.) I got my own rifle down from +the shelf over Brown's stone mantelpiece. + +"What d'you take me for?" demanded Brown. "There's one pace they'll go +at, an' that's the fastest possible. There's one place they'll head +for, an' that's German East. They can't march faster than the cattle, +an' the cattle'll have to eat. Maybe they'll drive 'em all through the +first night, and on into the next day; but after that they'll have to +rest 'em an' graze 'em a while. That's when we'll begin to gain. The +tireder the cattle get, the faster we'll overhaul 'em, for we can eat +while we're marchin', which the cattle can't! You chaps just stay here +an' look after my farm till I come back!" + +"You mean you propose to go alone after them?" asked Fred. + +"Why not? Whose cattle are they?" + +He was actually disposed to argue the point. + +"Man alive, there'll be shootin'!" he insisted. "If they once get over +the border with all those cattle, the Germans'll never hand 'em over +until every head o' cattle's gone. They'll fine 'em, an' arrest 'em, +an' trick 'em, an' fine 'em again until the Germans own the herd all +legal an' proper--an' then they'll chase the Greeks back to British +East for punishment same as they always do. What good 'ud that be to +me? No, no! Me--I'm going to catch 'em this side o' the line, or else +bu'st--an' I won't be too partic'lar where the line's drawn either! +There's maybe a hundred miles to the south o' their line that the +Germans don't patrol more often than once in a leap-year. If I catch +them Greeks in any o' that country, I'm going to kid myself deliberate +that it's British East, and act accordin'!" + +At last we convinced him, although I don't remember how, for he was +obstinate from the aftermath of whisky, that we would no more permit +him to go alone than he would consider abandoning his cattle. Then we +had to decide who should follow with our string of porters, for if +forced marching was in order it was obvious that we should far +outdistance our train. + +We invited Brown to follow with all the men while we three skirmished +ahead, but he waxed so apoplectically blasphemous at the very thought +of it that Fred assured him the proposal was intended for a joke. Then +we argued among ourselves, coaxed, blarneyed, persuaded, and tried to +bribe one another. Finally, all else failing, we tossed a coin for it, +odd man out, and Fred lost. + +So Brown, Will Yerkes and I, with Kazimoto, our two personal servants, +and six boys to carry one tent for the lot of us and food and cooking +pots, started off just as the moon rose over the nearest cedars, and +laughed at Fred marshaling the sleepy porters by lamplight in the open +space between the house and barn. He was to follow as fast as the +loaded porters could be made to travel, and with that concertina of his +to spur them on there was little likelihood of losing touch. But the +rear-guard, when it comes to pursuing a retreating enemy, is ever the +least alluring place. + +"You've got all the luck," he shouted. "Make the most of it or I'll +never gamble on the fall of a coin again!" + +That pursuit was a journey of accidents, chapter after chapter of them +in such close sequence that the whole was a nightmare without let-up or +reason. I began the book by falling into an elephant pit. + +Before we had gone a mile in the dark we stood in doubt as to whether +the most practicable trail went right or left. Brown set his own +indecision down frankly to the whisky that had muddled him. Even +Kazimoto, who had passed that way three times, did not know for +certain. So I went forward to scout--stepped into the deep shadow of +some jungle--trod on nothing--threw the other foot forward to save +myself--and fell downward into blackness for an eternity. + +I brought up at last unhurt in the trash and decaying vegetation at the +bottom of a pit, and looked up to see the stars in a rough +parallelogram above me, whose edge I guessed was more than thirty feet +above my head. I started to dig my way out, but the crumbling sides +fell in and threatened to bury me alive unless I kept still. So I +shouted until my lungs ached, but without result. I suppose the noise +went trumpeting upward out of the hole and away to the clouds and the +stars. At any rate, Will and Brown swore afterward they never heard it. + +I was fifteen minutes in the hole that very likely had held many an +elephant with his legs wedged together under him until the poor brute +perished of thirst, before it occurred to me to fire my rifle. I fired +several shots when I did think of it; but we had agreed on no system +of signals, and instead of coming to find me at once, the other two +cursed me for wasting time shooting at leopards in the dark instead of +scouting for the track. I used twenty cartridges before they came to +see what sort of battle I was waging, and with the last shot I nearly +blew Brown's helmet off as he stooped over the hole to look down in. + +Then there were more precious minutes wasted while someone cut a long +pole for me to swarm up, and at the end of that time, when I stood on +firm ground at last and wiped the blood from hands and knees, we were +no wiser about the proper direction to take. + +The next accident was a little before midnight. Will Yerkes was +leading, I following, next the boys, and Brown bringing up the rear +(for in those wild hills there is never a good track wide enough for +two men to march abreast. Even the cattle proceed in single file +unless driven furiously.) Will came on a leopard devouring its kill, a +fat buck, in the midst of the track in the moonlight, and the brute +resented the interruption of his meal. It slunk into the shadows +before Will could get a shot at it, and for the next two hours followed +us, slinking from shadow to shadow, snarling and growling. It plainly +intended murder, but which of us was to be the victim, and when, there +was no means of guessing, so that the nerves of all of us were tortured +every time the brute approached. + +We wasted at least thirty cartridges on futile efforts to guess his +whereabouts in velvet black shadows, and Brown went through all the +stages from simple nervousness to fear, and then to frenzy, until we +feared he would shoot one of us in frantic determination to ring the +leopard's knell. + +At last the brute did rush in, and of course where least expected. He +seized one of our porters by the shoulder, his claws doing more damage +than his teeth. I shot him by thrusting my rifle into his ear, and +although that dropped him instantly his claws, in the dying spasm and +by the weight of his fall, tore wounds in the man's arm eighteen or +twenty inches long. + +One of the things we did have with us was bandages. But it took time +to attend to the man's wounds properly by lamp and moonlight, and after +that he could neither march fast, nor was there anywhere to leave him. + +So just before dawn Fred came up with us, and was more pleased at our +discomfiture than sympathetic. He told off two men to carry the injured +porter to a mission station more than a day's march away, and +redistributed the loads. Then we went on again, once more placing rock, +hill, and cedar forest between us and our supply column, this time with +Fred's counsel ringing in our ears. + +"Better send for nursemaids and perambulators, and have yourselves +pushed!" + +At noon that day we found the track of the driven cattle, and soon +after that came on the half-devoured carcass of a heifer that the +Greeks had shot, presumably because it could not march, and perhaps +with the added reason that freshly-killed meat would draw off leopards +and hyenas and provide peace for a few miles. + +Once on the trail it would not have been easy to lose it, except in the +dark, for the Greek marauders were bent on speed and the driven cattle +had smashed down the undergrowth in addition to leaving deep +hoof-prints at every water-course. + +The first suspicion that dawned on me of something more than mere +freebooting on the part of Coutlass, was due to the discovery of +hoof-prints of either mules or horses. I was marching alone in +advance, and came on them beside a stream that was only apparently +fordable in that one place. After making sure of what they were I +halted to let Will and Brown catch up. + +"Did Coutlass have money enough to buy mules for himself and gang?" +wondered Will. + +"That robber?" snorted Brown. "When Lady Saffren Waldon refused him +tobacco money in the hotel he tried to borrow from me!" + +"Where could be steal mules?" Will asked. + +"Nowhere. Aren't any!" + +"Horses' then?" + +"He'd never take horses. They'd die." + +"What are they riding, then?" + +"Unless he stole trained zebras from the gov'ment farm at Naivasha," +said Brown, "an' they're difficulter to ride 'an a greasy pole up-ended +on a earthquake, he must ha' bought mules from the one man who has any +to sell. And he lives t'other side o' Nairobi. There are none between +there and here--none whatever. Zachariah Korn--him who owns mules--is +too wide awake to be stolen from. He bought 'em, you take it from me, +and paid twice what they were worth into the bargain." + +"Then he bought them with her money!" said Will. + +"If not Schillingschen's," said I. + +"Or the Sultan of Zanzibar's" said Will, "or the German government's." + +"But why? Why should she, or they, conspire at great expense and risk +to steal Brown's cattle?" + +"They'll figure," said Will, "that Brown is helping us, and therefore, +Brown is an enemy. Prob'ly they surmise Brown is in league with us to +show us a short cut to what we're after. If that's how they work it +out, then they wouldn't need think much to conclude that putting Brown +on the blink would hoodoo us. Maybe they allow that that much bad luck +to begin with would unsettle Brown's friendly feelings for us. +Anyway--somebody bought the mules--somebody stole the cattle--cattle +are somewhere ahead. Let's hurry forward and see!" + +We did hurry, but made disgustingly poor time. Once a dozen buffalo +stampeded our tiny column. Our five porters dropped their loads, and +the biggest old bull mistook our only tent for our captain's dead body +and proceeded to play ball with it, tossing it and tearing it to pieces +until at last Will got a chance for a shoulder shot and drilled him +neatly. Two other bulls took to fighting in the midst of the +excitement and we got both of them. Then the rest trotted off; so we +packed the horns of the dead ones on the head of our free porter (for +the tent he had carried was now utterly no use) and hastened on. + +Once, in trying to make a cut that should have saved us ten or fifteen +miles between two rivers, we fell shoulder-deep into a bog and only +escaped after an hour's struggle during which we all but lost two +porters. We had to retrace our steps and follow the Greek's route, +only to have the mortification of seeing Fred and our column of +supplies coming over the top of a rise not eight miles behind us. + +Determined not to be overtaken by him a second time and treated to +advice about nursemaids, we dispensed with sleep altogether for that +night, and nearly got drowned at the second river. + +We found a native who owned a thing he called a mtungi--a near-canoe, +burned out of a tree-trunk. He assured us the ford was very winding +(he drew a wiggly finger-mark in the mud by way of illustration) but +that his boat would hold twice our number, and that he could take us +over easily in the dark. In fact he swore he had ferried twice our +number over on darker nights more than twenty or thirty times. He also +said that he had taken the cattle over by the ford early that morning, +and then had crossed over in the boat with two Greeks and a bwana Goa. +He showed us the brass wire and beads they gave him in proof of that +statement, and we began to put some faith in his tale. + +So we all piled into his crazy boat with our belongings, and he +promptly lost the way amid the twelve-foot grass-papyrus mostly--that +divided the river into narrow streams and afforded protection to the +most savagely hungry mosquitoes in the world. Our faces and hands were +wet with blood in less than two minutes. + +Presently, instead of finding bottom for his pole, he pushed us into +deep water. The grass disappeared, and a ripple on the water lipping +dangerously within three inches of our uneven gunwale proved that we +were more or less in the main stream. We had enjoyed that sensation +for about a minute, and were headed toward where we supposed the +opposite bank must be, when a hippo in a hurry to breathe blew just +beside us--saw, smelt, or heard us (it was all one to him)--and dived +again. + +I suppose in order to get his head down fast enough he shoved his rump +up, and his great fat back made a wave that ended that voyage abruptly. +Our three inches of broadside vanished. The canoe rocked violently, +filled, turned over, and floated wrong side up. + +"All the same," laughed Will, spluttering and spitting dirty water, +"here's where the crocks get fooled! They don't eat me for supper!" + +He was first on top of the overturned boat, and dragged me up after +him. Together we hauled up Brown, who could not swim but was +bombastically furious and unafraid; and the three of us pulled out the +porters and the fatuous boat's owner. The pole was floating near by, +and I swam down-stream and fetched it. When they had dragged me back +on to the wreck the moon came out, and we saw the far bank hazily +through mist and papyrus. + +The boat floated far more steadily wrong side up, perhaps because we +had lashed all our loads in place and they acted as ballast. Will took +the pole and acted the part of Charon, our proper pilot contenting +himself with perching on the rear end lamenting the ill-fortune noisily +until Kazimoto struck him and threatened to throw him back into the +water. + +"They don't want a fool like you in the other world," he assured him. +"You will die of old age!" + +The papyrus inshore was high enough to screen the moon from us, and we +had to hunt a passage through it in pitch darkness. Then, having found +the muddy bank at last (and more trillions of mosquitoes) we had to +drag the overturned boat out high and dry to rescue our belongings. +And that was ticklish work, because most of the crocodiles, and +practically all the largest ones, spend the night alongshore. + +Matches were wet. We had no means of making a flare to frighten the +monsters away. We simply had to "chance it" as cheerfully and swiftly +as we could, and at the end of a half-hour's slimy toil we carried our +muddied loads to the nearest high ground and settled down there for the +night. + +It would be mad exaggeration to say we camped. Wet to the skin--dirty +to the verge of feeling suicidal--bitten by insects until the blood ran +down from us--lost (for we had no notion where the end of the ford +might be)--at the mercy of any prowling beasts that might discover us +(for our rifle locks were fouled with mud)--we sat with chattering +teeth and waited for the morning. + +When the sun rose we found a village less than four hundred yards away +and sent the boys down to it to unpack the loads and spread everything +in the sun to dry, while we went down to the river again and washed our +rifles. Then we dried and oiled them, and without a word of bargain or +explanation, invaded the cleanest looking hut, lay down on the stamped +clay floor, and slept. It was only clean-looking, that hut. It housed +more myraids of fleas than the air outside supported "skeeters"; but we +slept, unconscious of them all. + +At four that afternoon we had the mortification of being roused by +Fred's voice, and the dumping of loads as his sixty porters dropped +their burdens inside the village stockade. He had scorned the ferry +and crossed the ford on foot, making a prodigious splash to keep +crocodiles away, and was as full of life and fun as a schoolboy on +vacation. + +"Wake up, you vorloopers!" he shouted. "Wake up! Shake off the fleas +and come, and I'll show you something." + +He had already had the tale of our night's misfortune in detail from +the owner of the only canoe (who claimed double pay on the ground that +we had lost no loads in spite of over-turning. "The last really white +man who crossed lost all his loads!" he explained.). + +"Come and I'll show you something you never saw before, you +scouts!--you advance guard!--you line of skirmishers!" + +Will hurled a lump of earth at him, and chased him to the river, where +they wrestled, trying to throw each other in, until both were +breathless. Then, when neither could make another effort: + +"Look!" gasped Fred. + +There was an island in mid-stream below where we must have crossed. +The stream was straight, and from where we stood we could see more than +half a mile of alluvial mud with an arm of the river on either side. +The mud was white, not black--so white that it dazzled the eyes to look +at it. + +"Know what it is?" Fred panted. + +We did not know, and it was no use guessing. It looked like burned +lime, or else the secretions of about a billion birds; and there were +no birds to speak of. + +"Crocodile eggs!" said Fred. + +We did not believe that. Even Brown did not believe it. There was no +time to spare, but Brown out of curiosity agreed, so we took the absurd +canoe and poled down to investigate. As we came nearer the solid white +broke up into a myriad dots, and Fred's tale stood confirmed. + +They were as long as two hens' eggs laid end to end, or longer. They +lay in the sun in batches in every stage of incubation, and from almost +every batch there were little crocodiles emerging, that made straight +for the water. What worse monster preyed on them to keep their numbers +down, or what disease took care of their prolixity we could not guess. +Perhaps they ate one another, or just died of hunger. The owner of the +boat vowed there were no fish left in the river, and that the +crocodiles did not eat hippo unless it were first dead. + +We took another tent from among Fred's loads, changed two of our +porters for stronger ones, and went forward that evening; for it began +to be obvious that the speed had been telling on the cattle. We passed +two more dead heifers within a few miles of the river bank, and there +were other signs that for all our long sleep we were gaining on them. + +Perhaps the Greeks thought they had shaken off pursuit. Judging by the +compass they were headed for the shore of Victoria Nyanza, where the +grazing would be better, food for men would be purchaseable, and the +number of villages closely spaced would make the task of night-herding +vastly easier. There isn't a village in that part of Africa that is +not proud to be a host to anybody's cattle, if only because the +ownership of so much living wealth casts glory on all who come in +contact with it. + +There was no means of telling whether or not we were over the German +border. The boundary line had not been surveyed yet, and on the map +the part where we were was set down as "unexplored," although that was +scarcely accurate; the route was well enough known to Greeks and +Arabs, and other bad characters bent on smuggling or in some other way +defeating the ends of justice. + +We marched that night until midnight, slept until dawn, and were off +again. At noon we reached rising ground, and Kazimoto ran ahead of us +to the summit. We saw him standing at gaze for three or four minutes +with one hand shading his eyes before he came scampering back, as +excited as if his own fortune were in the balance. + +"Hooko-chini!" he shouted. "Hooko-chini--mba-a-a-li sana!"--(They're +down below there, very far away!) + +We hurried up-hill, but for many minutes could see nothing except a +plain of waving grass higher than a man's head and almost as +impenetrable as bamboo-country that carried small hope in it for man or +beast, that would be a holocaust in the dry season when the heat set +fire to the grass, and was an insect-haunted marsh at most other times. +However, path across it there must be, for the Greeks had driven +Brown's cattle that way that very morning, and Kazimoto swore he could +see them in the distance, although Brown, and Will, and I--all three +keen-sighted--could see nothing whatever but immeasurable, worthless +waving grass. + +At last I detected a movement near the horizon that did not synchronize +with the wind-blown motion of the rest. I pointed it out to the +others, and after a few minutes we agreed that it moved against the +wind. + +"They're hurrying again," said Brown, peering under both hands. +"There's no feed for cattle on all this plain. They're racing to get +to short grass before the cattle all die. Come on--let's hurry after +'em!" + +For the second time on that trip we essayed a short cut, making as +straight as a bee would fly for the point on the horizon where we knew +the Greeks to be. And for the second time we fell into a bog, nearly +losing our lives in it. We had to pull one another out, using even our +precious rifles as supports in the yielding mud, and then spending +equally precious time in cleaning locks and sights again. + +After that we hunted for the cattle trail and followed that closely; +and that was not so easy as it reads, because the trampled grass had +risen again, and cattle and mounted men can cross easily ground that +delays men on foot. + +The heat was that of an oven. The water--what there was of it in the +holes and swampy places--stank, and tasted acrid. The flies seemed to +greet us as their only prospect of food that year. The monotony of +hurrying through grass-stems that cut off all view and only showed the +sky through a waving curtain overhead was more nerve-trying than the +physical weariness and thirst. + +We slept a night in that grass, burning some of it for a smudge to keep +mosquitoes at bay, and an hour after dawn, reaching rising ground +again, realized that we had our quarry within reach at last. + +They were out in the open on short good grazing. The Greeks' tent was +pitched. We could see their mules, like brown insects, tied under a +tree, and the cattle dotted here and there, some lying down, some +feeding. + +"At last!" said Brown. "Boys, they're our meat! There's a tree to +hang the Greeks and the Goa to! When we've done that, if you'll all +come back with me I'll send to Nairobi for an extra jar of Irish +whisky, and we'll have a spree at Lumbwa that'll make the fall of Rome +sound like a Sunday-school picnic! We're in German territory now, all +right. There's not a white man for a hundred miles in any +direction--except your friend that's coming along behind. There's +nobody to carry tales or prevent! I'm no savage. I'm no degenerate. +I don't hold with too much of anything, but--" + +"There'll be no dirty work, if that's what you mean," said Will quietly. + +Brown stared hard at him. + +"D'you mean you'll object to hanging 'em?" + +"Not in the least. We hang or shoot cattle thieves in the States. I +said there'll be no dirty work, that's all." + +"Shall we rest a while, and come on them fresh in the morning?" I +proposed. + +"Forward!" snorted Brown. "Why d'you want to wait?" + +"Forward it is!" agreed Will. "When we get a bit closer we'll stop and +hold council of war." + +"One minute!" said I. "Tell me what that is?" + +I had been searching the whole countryside, looking for some means of +stealing on the marauders unawares and finding none. They had chosen +their camping place very wisely from the point of view of men unwilling +to be taken by surprise. Far away over to our right, appearing and +disappearing as I watched them, were a number of tiny black dots in +sort of wide half-moon formation, and a larger number of rather larger +dots contained within the semicircle. + +"Cattle!" exploded Brown. + +"And men!" added Will. + +"Black men!" said I. "Black men with spears!" + +"Masai!" said Kazimoto excitedly. He had far the keenest eyes of all +of us. + +We were silent for several minutes. The veriest stranger in that land +knows about the feats and bravery of the Masai, who alone of all tribes +did not fear the Arabs, and who terrorized a quarter of a continent +before the British came and broke their power. + +"Mbaia cabisa!" muttered Kazimoto, meaning that the development was +very bad indeed. And he had right to know. + +He explained it was a raid. The Masai, in accordance with time-honored +custom, had come from British East to raid the lake-shore villages of +German territory, and were driving back the plundered cattle. None can +drive cattle as Masai can. They can take leg-weary beasts by the tail +and make them gallop, one beast encouraging the next until they all go +like the wind. For food they drink hot blood, opening a vein in a +beast's neck and closing it again when they have had their fill. Their +only luggage is a spear. Their only speed-limit the maximum the cattle +can be stung to. On a raid three hundred and sixty miles in six days +is an ordinary rate of traveling. + +Just now they did not seem in much hurry. They had probably butchered +the fighting men of all the villages in their rear, and were well +informed as to the disposition of the nearest German forces. There +were probably no Germans within a hundred miles. There was no +telegraph in all those parts. To notify Muanza by runner and Bagamoyo +on the coast from there by wire would take several days. Then Bagamoyo +would have to wire the station at Kilimanjaro, and there was no earthly +chance of Germans intercepting them before they could reach British +East. + +Nor was there any treaty provision between British and German colonial +governments for handing over raiders. The Germans had refused to make +any such agreement for reasons best known to themselves. The fact that +they were far the heaviest losers by the lack of reciprocal police +arrangements was due to the fact that most of the Masai lived in +British East. The Masai would have raided across either border with +supreme indifference. + +"Masai not talking. Masai using spear and kill!" remarked Kazimoto. + +"One good thing our gov'ment's done," said Brown. "Just one. It has +kept those rascals from owning rifles! But lordy! They've got spears +that give a man the creeps to see!" + +He began looking to his rifle. So did Will and I. + +"Now this here is my fight," he explained. "Them's my cattle. They're +all the wealth I own in the world. If I lose 'em I'm minded to die +anyhow. There's nothing in life for a drunkard like me with all his +money gone and nothing to do but take a mean white's job. You chaps +just wait here and watch while I 'tend to my own affairs." + +"Exactly!" Will answered dryly. "I've a hundred rounds in my pockets. +That ought to be enough." + +While we made ready, leaving our loads and porters in a safe place and +giving the boys orders, I saw two things happen. First, the Masai +became aware of the little Greek encampment and the two hundred head of +cattle waiting at their mercy; and second, the Greeks grew aware of +the Masai. + +The Greeks had boys with them; I saw at least half a dozen go +scattering to round up the cattle. The tents began to come down, and I +saw three figures that might be the Greeks and the Goanese holding a +consultation near the tree. + +"And now," remarked Will, "I begin to see the humor in this comedy. +Which are we--allies of the Greeks or of the Masai? Are we to help the +Greeks get away with Brown's cattle, or help the Masai steal 'em from +the Greeks? Are your cattle all branded, Brown?" + +"You blooming well bet they are!" + +"Masai know enough to alter a brand?" + +"Never heard o' their doing it." + +"Then if the Masai get away with them to British East, if you can find +'em you can claim 'em, eh?" + +"Claim 'em in court wi' the whole blooming tribe o' Masai--more'n a +quarter of a million of 'em--all on hand to swear they bought 'em from +me; an' the British gov'ment takin' sides with the black men, as it +always does? Oh, yes! It sounds easy, that does!" + +"But if the Greeks get away with 'em," argued Will, "you've no chance +of recovering at all." + +"I'll not take sides with Masai--even against Greeks!" Brown answered +grimly, and Will laughed. + +"If we attack the Greeks first," I said, "perhaps they'll run. We're +nearer to them than the Masai are. The Masai, will have to corral +their own cattle before they can leave them to raid a new lot. We can +open fire at long range to begin with. If that scares the Greeks away, +then we can round up Brown's cattle and drive them back northward. We +may possibly escape with them too quickly for the Masai to think it +worth while to follow." + +Brown laughed cynically. + +"We can try it," he said. "An' if the Greeks don't run pretty quick +they'll never run again--I'll warrant that!" + +Nobody had a better plan to propose, so we emptied our pockets of all +but fifty rounds of ammunition each, and gave the rest to Kazimoto to +carry, with orders to keep in hiding and watch, and run with cartridges +to whoever should first need them. + +Then, because instead of corraling their cattle the Masai were already +dividing themselves into two parties, one of which drove the cattle +forward and the other diverged to study the attack, we ducked down +under a ridge and ran toward the Greeks. The sooner we could get the +first stage of the fighting off our hands the better. + +It proved a long way--far longer than I expected, and the going was +rougher. Moreover, the Greeks' boys were losing no time about rounding +up the cattle. By the time they were ready to make a move we were +still more than a mile away, and out of breath. + +"If they go south," panted Brown, throwing himself down by a clump of +grass to gasp for his third or fourth wind, "the Masai'll catch 'em +sure, an' we'll be out o' the running! Lord send they head 'em back +toward British East!" + +He was in much the worst physical condition because of the whisky, but +his wits were working well enough. The Greeks on the other hand seemed +undecided and appeared to be arguing. Then Brown's prayer was +answered. The Greeks' boys decided the matter for them by stampeding +the herd northward toward us. They did not come fast. They were lame, +and bone-weary from hard driving, but they knew the way home again and +made a bee line. Within a minute they were spread fan-wise between us +and the Greeks, making a screen we could not shoot through. + +"Scatter to right and left!" Brown shouted. "Get round the wings!" + +But what was the use? He was in the center, and short-winded. I +climbed on an ant-hill. + +"The Greeks are on the run!" I said. "They are headed southward! +They've got their boys together, and have abandoned the cattle! +They're off with their tent and belongings due south!" + +"The cowards!" swore Brown, with such disappointment that Will and I +laughed. + +"Laugh all you like!" he said. "I've a long job on my hands! I'll +have revenge on 'em if it takes the rest o' my life! I'll follow 'em +to hell-and-gone!" + +"Meanwhile," I said, still standing on the ant-hill, "the Masai are +following the cattle! They're smoking this way in two single columns +of about twenty spears in each. The remainder are driving their own +cattle about due eastward so as to be out of the way of trouble." + +"All right," said Brown, growing suddenly cheerful again. "Then it'll +be a rear-guard action. Let the cattle through, and open fire behind +'em! Send that Kazimoto o' yours to warn our boys to round 'em up and +drive 'em slow and steady northward!" + +Kazimoto ran back and gave the necessary orders. He lost no time about +it, but returned panting, and lay down in a hollow behind us with +cartridges in either fist and a grin on his face that would have done +credit to a circus clown. I never, anywhere, saw any one more pleased +than Kazimoto at the prospect of a fight. + +We let the cattle through and lay hidden, waiting for the raiders. +They were in full war dress, which is to say as nearly naked as +possible except for their spears, a leg ornament made from the hair of +the colobus monkey, a leather apron hung on just as suited the +individual wearer's fancy, a great shield, and an enormous +ostrich-feather head-dress. They seemed in no hurry, for they probably +guessed that the cattle would stop to graze again when the first scare +was over; yet they came along as smoke comes, swiftly and easily, +making no noise. + +Suddenly those in the lead caught sight of our boys getting behind the +cattle to herd them northward. They halted to hold +consultation--apparently decided that they had only unarmed natives to +deal with--and came on again, faster than before. + +"Better open fire now!" said Brown, when they were still a quarter of a +mile away. + +"Wait till you can see their eyes!" Will advised. "An unexpected +volley at close quarters will do more havoc than hours of long-range +shooting. + +"This ain't a long range!" Brown objected. "As for unexpected--just +watch me startle 'em! My sight's fixed at four hundred. Watch!" + +He fired--we wished he had not. The leading Masai of the right-hand +column jerked his head sidewise as the whistling bullet passed, and +then there was nothing for it but to follow his lead and blaze away for +all we were worth. If Brown had been willing to accept Will's advice +there is nothing more likely than that the close-quarter surprise would +have won the day for us. We would have done much more execution with +three volleys at ten-yard range. As it was, we all missed with our +finest shots, and the Masai took heart and charged in open order. + +The worst of it was that, although we dropped several of them, now the +others had a chance to discover there were only three of us. Their +leader shouted. The right-hand column continued to attack, but changed +its tactics. The left-hand party made a circuit at top speed, +outflanked us, and pursued the cattle. + +Supposing my count was right, we had laid out, either wounded or dead, +seven of the crowd attacking us. This left perhaps fourteen against +us, to be dealt with before the others could come back with the cattle +and take us in the rear. + +Will brought another man down; I saw the blood splash on his forehead +as the bullet drilled the skull cleanly. Then one man shouted and they +all lay prone, beginning to crawl toward us with their shields held +before, not as protection against bullets (for as that they were +utterly worthless) but as cover that made their exact position merest +guesswork. + +I fell back and took position on the ant-hill from which I had first +seen them, thus making our position triangular and giving myself a +chance to protect the other two should they feel forced to retire. The +extra height also gave me a distinct advantage, for I could see the +legs of the Masai over the tops of their shields, and was able to wound +more than one of them so severely that they crawled to the rear. + +But the rest came on. Kazimoto began to be busy supplying cartridges. +In that first real pinch we were in he certainly lived up to all +Courtney had said of him, for without the stimulus of his proper +master's eye he neither flinched nor faltered, but crawled from one to +the other, dividing the spare rounds equally. + +The Masai began to attempt to outflank us, but my position on the +ant-hill to the rear made that impossible; they found themselves faced +by a side of the triangle from whichever side they attacked. But in +turning to keep an eye on the flank I became aware of a greater danger. +The cattle were coming back. That meant that the other Masai were +coming, too, and that in a few moments we were likely to be +overwhelmed. I shouted to Will and Brown, but either they did not hear +me, or did not have time to answer. + +I fired half a dozen shots, and then distinctly heard the crack of a +rifle from beyond the cattle. That gave matters the worst turn yet. +If one of the raiders had a rifle, then unless I could spot him at once +and put him out of action our cause was likely lost. I stood up to +look for him and heard a wild cheer, followed by three more shots in +quick succession. Then at last I saw Fred Oakes running along a +depression in the ground, followed at a considerable distance by the +advance-guard of his porters. He was running, and then kneeling to +fire--running, and kneeling again. And he was not wasting ammunition. +He was much the best shot of us all, now that Monty was absent. + +The terrified cattle stampeded past us, too wild to be cheeked by any +noise. Seeing them, and sure now of their booty, the party attacking +us hauled off and took to their heels. Will and Brown were for +speeding them with bullets in the rear, but I yelled again, and this +time made myself heard. Those who had got behind the cattle and were +driving them were coming on with spears and shields raised to slay us +in passing. The other two joined me, and we stood on the ant-hill +three abreast. They charged us--seven or eight of them. Three bit the +dust, but the rest came on, and if it had not been for two swift shots +from Fred's rifle in the very nick of time we should have all been dead +men. + +As it was, one seized me by the knees and we went over together, +rolling down the ant-hill, he slashing at me with his great +broad-bladed spear, I ahold of his wrist with one hand, and with the +other fist belaboring him in the face. He was stronger than +I--greasier--sweatier--harder to hold. He slipped from under me, +rolled on top, wrenched his wrist free, and in another second grinned +in my face as, with both knees in my stomach, he raised the spear to +kill. I shut my eyes. I had not another breath left, nor an effort in +me, I thought I would deny him the pleasure of watching my death agony. +But I could not keep my eyes shut. Opening them to see why he did not +strike, I saw Kazimoto with my rifle in both hands swing for his skull +with the full weight of the butt and all his strength. Kazimoto +grunted. The Masai half turned his head at the sound. The butt hit +home--broke off--and my face and breast were deluged with blood and +brains. + +When I had wiped off that mess with Kazimoto's help I saw Fred and Will +and Brown pursuing the retreating Masai, kneeling to shoot every few +yards, at every other shot or so bringing down a victim, but being +rapidly out-distanced. Cattle are all the Masai care about. They had +the cattle. They had hold of tails and were making the whole herd +scamper due east, where they no doubt knew of a trail not in maps. +They made no attempt to defend themselves--left their dead lying--and +ran. I saw two or three wounded ones riding on cows, and no doubt some +of those who ran holding to the cows' tails were wounded, too. + +I was useless now, as far as fighting was concerned, for the butt of my +rifle was broken clean off at the grip, but I ran on, and heard Brown +shout: + +"Shoot cattle! Don't let the brutes get away with them all!" + +He was shooting cows himself when I came up, but it was Fred who +stopped him. + +"Never mind that, old man. We'll follow 'em up! Our time's our own. +We'll get your cattle back, never fear. Dead ones are no use." + +Brown stopped shooting and began to blubber. Whisky had not left him +manhood enough to see his whole available resources carried away before +his eyes, and he broke down as utterly as any child. It was neither +agreeable nor decent to watch, and I turned away. I was feeling sick +myself from the pressure of the Masai's knees in my stomach. That, and +the sun, and the long march, and hunger (for we had not stopped to eat +a meal that day) combined in argument, and I hunted about for a soft +place and a little shade. It happened that Fred Oakes was watching me, +although I did not know it. He suspected sunstroke. + +I saw a clump of rushes that gave shade enough. I could crush down +some, and lie on those. I hurried, for I was feeling deathly sick now. +As I reached the grass my knees began giving under me. I staggered, +but did not quite fall. + +That, and Fred's watchfulness, saved my life; for at the moment that +my head and shoulders gave the sudden forward lurch, a wounded Masai +jumped out of the rushes and drove with his spear at my breast. The +blade passed down my back and split my jacket. + +He sprang back, and made another lunge at me, but Fred's rifle barked +at the same second and he fell over sidewise, driving the spear into my +leg in his death spasm. + +The twenty minutes following that are the worst in memory. Kazimoto +broke the gruesome news that the spear-blade was almost surely +poisoned--dipped in gangrene. The Masai are no believers in wounded +enemies, or mercy on the battlefield. + +We doubted the assertion for a while--I especially, for none but a +hypochondriac would care to admit without proof that gangrene had been +forced into his system. Kazimoto grew indignant, and offered to prove +the truth of his claim on some animal. But there was no living animal +in sight on which to prove it. We asked him how long gangrene, +injected in that way, took to kill a man. + +"Very few minutes!" he answered. + +Then it occurred that none of us knew what to do. Kazimoto announced +that he knew, and offered to make good at once if given permission. He +demanded permission again and again from each one of us, making me +especially repeat my words. Then he gathered stems of grass a third of +an inch thick from the bed of the tiny watercourse, and proceeded to +make a tiny fire, talking in a hurry as he did it to several of Fred's +string of porters, who were now arriving on the scene. + +While I watched with a sort of tortured interest what he was doing at +the fire, five of the largest boys with whom he had been speaking +rushed me from behind, and before I could struggle, or even swear, had +me pinned out on my back on the ground. One sat on my head; one on my +poor bruised stomach; the others held wrists and ankles in such way +that I could not break free, nor even kick much, however hard I tried. + +Then Kazimoto came with glowing ends of grass from the fire, blowing on +them to keep them cherry-red, and inserted one after another into the +open spear-wound. I could not cry out, because of the man sitting on +my face, but I could bite. And to the everlasting glory of the +man--Ali bin Yema, his name was--be it written that he neither spoke +nor moved a muscle, although my front teeth met in his flesh. + +I do not know how long the process lasted, or how many times Kazimoto +returned to the fire for more of his sizzling sticks, for I fainted; +and when I came round the agony was still too intense to permit +interest in anything but agony. They had my leg bandaged, how and with +what I neither knew nor cared. And it was evident that unless they +chose to leave me in camp where I was they would have to abandon all +thought of pursuing Masai for the present. Even Brown saw the force of +that, and he was the first to refuse flatly to leave me there. + +For a while they hunted through the grass for more wounded men, but +found none. There must have been several, but they probably feared the +sort of mercy from us that they habitually gave to their own enemies, +and crawled away--in all likelihood to die of thirst and hunger, unless +some beast of prey should smell them out and make an earlier end. + +Then there was consultation. It was decided a doctor for me was the +most urgent need; that Muanza, the largest German station on Victoria +Nyanza, was probably as near as anywhere, and that German East being +our immediate destination anyway, the best course to take was forward, +roughly south by west. So I was slung in a blanket on a tent-pole, and +we started, I swearing like a pirate every time a boy stumbled and +jolted me. (There is something in the nature of a burn that makes bad +language feel like singing hymns.) + +Our troubles were not all over, for we passed through a country where +buck were fairly plentiful, and that meant lions. They did no damage, +but they kept us awake; and one night near the first village we came +to, where our porters all quartered themselves with the villagers for +sake of the change from their crowded tents, the fires that we made +went out, and five lions (we counted their foot-prints afterward) came +and sniffed around the pegs of the tent in which Fred and I lay, we +lying still and shamming dead. To have lifted a rifle in the darkness +and tried to shoot would have been suicide. + +Then there were trees we passed among--baobabs, whose youngest tendrils +swung to and fro in the evening breeze like snakes head-downward. And +taking advantage of that natural provision, twenty-foot pythons swung +among them, in coloring and marking aping the habit of the tree. One +of them knocked Fred's helmet off as he marched beside me. They are +easy to kill. He shot it, and it dropped like a stone, three hundred +pounds or more, but the sweat ran down Fred's face for half an hour +afterward. + +(Since then I have seen pythons kill their prey a score of times. I +never once saw one kill by crushing. The end of their nose is as hard +as iron, and they strike a terrific blow with that, so swift that the +eye can not follow it. Then, having killed by striking, they crawl +around their prey and crush it into shape for swallowing.) + +But the worst of the journey was the wayside villages--dirty beyond +belief, governed in a crude way by a headman whom the Germans honored +with the title of sultani. These wayside beggars (for they were no +better)--destitute paupers, taxed until their wits failed them in the +effort to scrape together surplus enough out of which to pay--were +supplied with a mockery of a crown apiece, a thing of brass and +imitation plush that they wore in the presence of strangers. To add to +the irony of that, the law of the land permitted any white man passing +through to beat them, with as many as twenty-five lashes, if they +failed to do his bidding. + +On arriving at such a village, the first thing we did was to ask for +milk. If they had any they brought it, not daring to refuse for fear +lest a German sergeant-major should be sent along to wreak vengeance +later. But it was always too dirty to drink. + +That ceremony over, the headman retired and the village sick were +brought for our inspection. Gruesome sores, running ulcers, wounds and +crippled limbs were stripped and exposed to our most reluctant gaze. +There was little we could do for them. Our own supply of medicines and +bandages was almost too small for our own needs to begin with. By the +time we passed three villages we scarcely had enough lint and liniment +left to take care of my wound; but even that scant supply we cut in +half for a particularly bad case. + +"Don't the Germans do anything for you?" we demanded, over and over +again. + +The answer was always the same. + +"Germani mbaia!" (The Germans are bad!) + +They were lifeless--listless--tamed until neither ambition nor courage +was left. When their cattle had brought forth young and it looked as +if there might be some profit at last, the Masai came and raided them, +taking away all but the very old ones and the youngest calves. The +Germans, they said, taxed them and took their weapons away, but gave +them no protection. + +At one place we passed a rifle, lying all rusted by the track. At the +next village we asked about it. They told us that a German native +soldier had deserted six months before and had thrown his rifle away. +Since that day no one had dared touch it, and they begged us to send +back and lay it where we found it, lest the Germans come and punish +them for touching it. So we did that, to oblige them, and they were +grateful to the extent of offering us one of their only two male sheep. + +I forget now for how many days we traveled across that sad and +saddening land, Fred always cheerful in spite of everything, Will more +angry at each village with its dirt and sores, Brown moaning always +about his lovely herd of cows, and I groaning oftener than not. + +My leg grew no better, what with jolting and our ignorance of how to +treat it. Sometimes, in efforts to obtain relief, I borrowed a cow at +one village and rode it to the next; but a cow is a poor mount and +takes as a rule unkindly to the business. Now and then I tried to walk +for a while, on crutches that Fred made for me; but most of the time I +was carried in a blanket that grew hotter and more comfortless as day +dragged after day. + +At last, however, we topped a low rise and saw Muanza lying on the +lake-shore, with the great island of Ukereweto to northward in the +distance. From where we first glimpsed it it was a tidy, tree-shaded, +pleasant-looking place, with a square fort, and a big house for the +commandant on a rise overlooking the town. + +"Now we'll wire Monty at last!" said Fred. + +"Now we'll shave and wash and write letters!" said Will. + +"Now at last for a doctor!" said I. + +But Brown said nothing, and Kazimoto wore a look of anxious discontent. + + + + +CHAPTER SEVEN + +THE DARKNESS COMPREHENDED IT NOT + + When Kenia's peak glows gold and rose + A dawn breeze whispers to the plain + With breath cooled sweet by mountain snows-- + "The darkness soon shall come again!" + Stirs then the sleepless, lean Masai + And stands o'er plain and peak at gaze + Resentful of the bright'ning sky, + Impatient of the white man's days. + + Oh dark nights, when the charcoal glowed and falling hammers rang! + When fundis* forged the spear-blades, and the warriors danced and sang! + When the marriageable spearmen gathered, calling each to each + Telling over proverbs that the tribal wisemen teach, + Brother promising blood-brother partnership in weal and woe-- + Nightlong stories of the runners come from spying on the foe-- + Nights of boasting by the thorn-fire of the coming tale of slain-- + Oh the times before the English! When will those times come again! + + Oh the days and nights of raiding, when the feathered spearmen strode + With the hide shields on their forearms, and the wild Nyanza road + Grew blue with smoking villages, grew red with flaring roofs, + Grew noisy with the shouting and the thunder of the hoofs + As we drove the plundered cattle--when we burned the night with haste-- + When we leapt at dawn from ambush--when we laid the shambas waste! + +---------------- +*Fundis--skilled workman. +---------------- + + Oh the new spears dipped in life-blood as the women shrieked in vain! + Oh the days before the English! When will those days come again! + Oh the homeward road in triumph with the plunder borne along + On the heads of taken women! Oh the daughter and the song! + Oh the tusks of yellow ivory--the frasilas of beads-- + And, best of all, the heifers that the marriageable needs! + The yells when village eyes at last our sky-line feathers see + And the maidens run to count how many marriages shall be-- + Ten heifers to a maiden (and the chief's girl stands for twain)-- + Oh the days before the English! When will those days come again! + + Now the fat herds grow in number, and the old are rich in trade, + Now the grass grows green and heavy where the six-foot spears were made. + Now the young men walk to market, and the wives have beads and wire-- + Brass and iron--glass and cowrie--past the limit of desire. + There is peace from lake to mountain, and the very zebra breed + Where a law says none may hurt them (and the wise are they who heed!) + Yea--the peace lies on the country as our herds oerspread the plain-- + But the days before the English--when shall those days come again! + + When Kenia's peak glows gold and rose + A dawn breeze whispers to the plain + With breath cooled sweet by mountain snows-- + "The darkness soon shall come again!" + Stirs then the sleepless, lean Masai + And stands o'er plain and peak at gaze + Resentful of the bright'ning sky, + Impatient of the white man's days. + + +What first looked like a pleasant place dwindled into charmlessness and +insignificance as we approached. There was neatness--of a kind. The +round huts were confined to certain streets, and all inhabited by +natives. Arabs, Swahili, Indians, Goanese, Syrians, Greeks and so on +had to live in rectangular huts and keep to other streets. On one +street, chiefly of stores, all the roofs were of corrugated iron. And +all the streets were straight, with shade trees planted down both sides +at exactly equal intervals. + +But the German blight was there, instantly recognizable by any one not +mentally perverted by German teaching. The place was governed--existed +for and by leave of government. The inhabitants were there on +suffrance, and aware of it--not in the very least degree enthusiastic +over German rule, but awfully appreciative. + +The first thing we met of interest on entering the township was a +chain-gang, fifty long, marching at top speed in step, led by a Nubian +soldier with a loaded rifle, flanked by two others, and pursued by a +fourth armed only with the hippo-hide whip, called kiboko by the +natives, that can cut and bruise at one stroke. He plied it liberally +whenever the gang betrayed symptoms of intending to slow down. + +Those Nubiains, we learned later, were deserters from British Sudanese +regiments, and runaways from British jails, afraid to take the +thousand-mile journey northward home again, scornful of all foreign +black men, fanatic Muhammedans, and therefore fine tools in the German +hand. They worked harder than the chain-gang, for they had to march +with it step for step and into the bargain force it to do its appointed +labor. The chain-gang kept the township clean--very clean indeed, as +far as outward appearance went. + +The boma, or fort, was down by the water-front and its high eastern +wall, pierced by only one gate, formed one boundary of the drill-ground +that was also township square. Facing the wall on the eastern side of +the square was a row of Indian and Arab stores. At the north end was +the market building--an enormous structure of round stucco pillars +supporting a great grass roof; and facing that at the southern end +were the court-house, the hospital, and a store owned by the Deutch +Oest Africa Gesellschaft, known far and wide by its initials--a concern +that owned the practical monopoly of wholesale import and export trade, +and did a retail business, too. + +We went first to the hospital. Fred and Will lifted me out of the +hammock, for my wound had grown much worse during the last few days, +and the door being shut they set me down on the step. Then we sent +Kazimoto into the fort with a note to the senior officer informing him +that a European waited at the hospital in need of prompt medical +treatment. + +The sentry admitted Kazimoto readily enough, but he did not come out +again for half-an-hour, and then looked glum. + +"Habanah!" he said simply, using the all-embracing native negative. + +"Isn't any one in there?" we demanded all together. + +"Surely." + +"How many?" + +"Very many." + +"Officers?" + +He nodded. + +"Is a doctor there?" + +He told us he had asked for the doctor. A soldier had pointed him out. +He had placed the note in the doctor's hand. + +"Did he read it?" we asked. + +"Surely. He read it, and then showed it to the other officers." + +"What did they say?" + +"They laughed and said nothing." + +It seemed pretty obvious that Kazimoto had made a mistake in some way. +Perhaps he had visited the non-commissioned officers' mess. + +"I'll go myself," announced Will. "I can sling the German language like +a barkeep. Bet you I'm back here with a doctor inside of three +minutes!" + +He strode off like Sir Galahad in football shorts, and was passed +through the gate by the sentry almost unchallenged. But he was gone +more than fifteen minutes, and came back at last with his ears crimson. +Nor would he answer our questions. + +"Shall I go?" suggested Fred. + +"Not unless you like insolence! We passed the camping-ground, it +seems, on our way in. We've leave to pitch tents there. We'd better +be moving." + +So we trailed back the way we had come to a triangular sandy space +enclosed by a cactus hedge at the junction of three roads. There were +several small grass-roofed shelters with open sides in there, and two +tents already pitched, but we were not sufficiently interested just +then to see who owned the other tents. We pitched our own--stowed the +loads in one of the shelters--gave our porters money for board and +rations--and sent them to find quarters in the town. Another of the +shelters we took over for a kitchen, and while our servants were +cooking a meal we four gathered in Fred's tent and began to question +Will again. + +"They've got a fine place in there," he said. "Neat as a new pin. +Officers' mess. Non-commissioned officers' quarters. Stores. +Vegetable garden. Jail--looks like a fine jail--hold a couple of +hundred. Government offices. Two-story buildings. Everything fine. +The officers were all sitting smoking on a veranda. + +"'Is one of you the doctor?' I asked in German, and a tall lean one +with a mighty mean face turned his head to squint at me: but he didn't +take his feet off the rail. He looked inquisitive, that's all. + +"'Are you the doctor?' I asked him. + +"'I am staff surgeon,' he answered. 'What do you want?' + +"I told him about your wound, and how we'd marched about two hundred +miles on purpose to get medical assistance. He listened without asking +a question, and when I'd done he said curtly that the hospital opens +for out-patients at eight in the morning. + +"Well, I piled it on then. I told him your leg was so rotten that you +might not be alive to-morrow morning. He didn't even look interested. +I piled it on thicker and told him about the poisoned spear. He didn't +bat an eyelid or make a move. So I started in to coax him. + +"I did some coaxing. Believe me, I swallowed more pride in five +minutes than I guessed I owned! A ward-heeler cadging votes for a +Milwaukee alderman never wheedled more gingerly. I called him 'Herr +Staff Surgeon' and mentioned the well-known skill of German medicos, +and the keen sense of duty of the German army, and a whole lot of other +stuff. + +"'Tomorrow morning at eight!' was all the answer I got from him. + +"I reckon it was somewhere about that time I began to get rattled. I +pulled out money and showed it. He looked the other way, and when I +went on talking he turned his back. I suspect he didn't dare keep on +lookin' at money almost within reach. Anyhow, then I opened on him, +firin' both bow guns. I dared him to sit there, with a patient in need +of prompt attention less than two hundred yards away. I called him +names. I guaranteed to write to the German government and the United +States papers about him. I told him I'd have his job if it cost me all +my money and a lifetime's trouble. He was just about ready to +shoot--I'd just about got the red blood rising on his neck and +ears--when along came the commandant--der Herr Capitain--the officer +commanding Muanza--a swag-bellied ruffian with a beard and a beery look +in his eye, but a voice like a man falling down three stories with all +the fire-irons. + +"'What do you want?' he demanded in English, and I thanked him first +for not having mistaken me for one of his own countrymen. Then I told +him what I'd come for. + +"'To-morrow at eight o'clock!' he snapped, after he'd had a word with +the medico. 'Meanwhile, make yourself scarce out of here! There is a +camping-ground for the use of foreigners. You and your party go to it! +If you do any damage there you will hear from me later!' + +"I didn't come as easy as all that. I stood there telling him things +about Germany and Germans, and what I'd do to help his personal +reputation with the home folks, until I guessed he had his craw as near +full as he could stand it without having me arrested. Then I did +come--whistling Yankee-doodle. And say--Fred! Where's that concertina +of yours?" + +Fred patted it. His beloved instrument was never far from hand. + +"Why don't you play all the American and English tunes you know +to-night? Play and sing 'em, Britannia Rule the Waves--Marching +Through Georgia--My Country 'tis of Thee--The Marseillaise--The Battle +Hymn of the Republic--and anything and everything you know that +Squareheads won't like. Let's make this camp a reg'lar--hello--see +who's here!" + +Fred had begun fingering the keys already and the first strains of +Marching Through Georgia began to awake the neighborhood to recognition +of the fact that foreigners were present who held no especial brief for +German rule. The tent-door darkened. Brown leapt to his feet and +swore. + +"Gassharamminy!" said a voice we all recognized instantly. "That tune +sounds good! I've lived in the States! I'm a United States citizen! +A man can't forget his own country's tunes so easily!" + +Cool and impudent, Georges Coutlass entered and, without waiting for an +invitation, took a seat on a load of canned food. Brown grabbed the +nearest rifle (it happened to be Fred's)--snapped open the +breach--discovered it was loaded--and took aim. Coutlass did not even +blink. He was either sure Fred and Will would interfere, or else at +the end of his tether and indifferent to death. + +"Don't be an ass, Brown!" + +Fred knocked the rifle up. Will took it away and returned it to the +corner. + +"All very easy for you men to take high moral ground and all that sort +of rot," Brown grumbled. "It's my cattle he took! It's me be's +ruined! What do I care if the Germans hang me? Let me have a crack at +him--just one!" + +"Use your fists all you care to!" grinned Will. + +But Brown was no match for the Greek without weapons--very likely no +match for him with them. Coutlass sat still and grinned, while Brown +remained in the back of the tent, glaring. + +"Bah!" sneered Coutlass. "Of what use is being sulky? I found cattle +in a village. How should I know whose cattle they were? Why blame me? +The Masai got the cattle, not I! They took them from me, and they'd +have taken them from you just the same! You lost nothing by my lifting +them first! Gassharamminy! By blazes! We're all in the same boat! +Let's be friendly, and treat one another like gentlemen! We're all in +the power of the Germans, unless we can think of a way to escape! I +and my party are under arrest. So will you be by to-morrow! I shall +tell a tale to-morrow that will keep you by the heels for a month at +least while they investigate! Wait and see!" + +"Get out of this tent!" growled Fred in the dead-level voice he uses +when he means to brook no refusal. + +"Presently!" + +Fred made a spring at him, but Coutlass was on his feet with the speed +of a cat, and just outside the tent in time to avoid the swing of +Fred's fist. He withdrew about two yards and stood there grinning +maliciously. + +"You'll be glad to make terms with me by this time to-morrow!" he +boasted. "By James, you'll be glad to have me for a friend! Listen, +you fools! Make terms with me now; let us all go together and unearth +that Tippoo Tib ivory, and I can arrange with these Germans to let us +go away! Otherwise, you shall see how long you stop here! By the +Twelve Apostles! You shall rot in a German jail until your joints +creak!" + +His Greek friend and the Goanese, supposing him in trouble perhaps, +came and stood in line with him. Very comfortless they looked, and of +the three only Coutlass had courage of a kind. + +"They stole the cattle on the British side of the border," Will said +sotto voice. "No earthly use threatening them with German law." + +"Keep away from our camp," Fred Ordered them, "or take the +consequences! Mr. Brown here is in no mood for pleasantries!" + +"That drunkard Brown?" roared Coutlass. "He is in no mood for--oh, +haw-hah-hee-ho-ha-ha-ha-ha! Drunkard Brown of Lumbwa wants to avenge +himself, and his friends won't let him! Oh, isn't that a joke! Oh, +ha-ha-ha-hee-hee-ha-ho-ho!" + +His two companions made a trio of it, yelling with stage laughter like +disgusting animals. Fred took a short quick step forward. Will +followed, and Brown reached for the rifle again. But I stopped all +three of them. + +"Come back! Don't let's be fools!" I insisted. "I never saw a more +obvious effort to start trouble in my life! It's a trap! Keep out of +it!" + +"Sure enough," Will admitted. "You're right!" + +He returned into the tent and the Greeks, perhaps supposing he went for +weapons, retreated, continuing to shout abuse at Brown who, between a +yearning to get drunk and sorrow for his stolen cattle, was growing +tearful. + +"They got here first," I argued. "They've had time to tell their own +story. That may account for our cold reception by the Germans. He +says they're under arrest. That may be true, or it may be a trick. +It's perfectly obvious Coutlass wanted to start a fight, and I'm dead +sure he wasn't taking such a chance as it seemed. Who wants to look +behind the cactus hedge and see whether he has friends in ambush?" + +"Drunkard Brown is on the town--on the town--on the town!" roared +Coutlass and his friends from not very far away. + +"Oh, let me go and have a crack at 'em!" begged Brown. "I tell you I +don't care about jail! I don't care if I do get killed!" + +Fred kept a restraining hand on him. Will left the tent and walked +straight for the gap in the cactus hedge by which we had entered the +enclosure. It was only twenty yards away. + +Once through the gap he glanced swiftly to right and left--laughed--and +came back again. + +"Only six of 'em!" he grinned. "Six full-sized Nubians in uniform, +with army boots on, no bayonets or rifles, but good big sticks and +handcuffs! If we'd touched those Greeks they'd have jumped the fence +and stretched us out! What the devil d'you suppose they want us in +jail for?" + +"D'you suppose they think," I said, "that if they had us in jail in +this God-forsaken place we'd divulge the secret of Tippoo's ivory?" + +"Why don't we tell 'em the secret!" suggested Will, and that seemed +such a good idea that we laughed ourselves back into good temper--even +Brown, who had no notion whether we knew the secret, being perfectly +sure we would not be such fools as to tell the true whereabouts of the +hoard in any case. + +"I want to get even with all Africa!" he grumbled. "I want to make +trouble that'll last! I'd start a war this minute if I knew how! If +it weren't for those bloody Greeks laughing at me I'd get more drunk +to-night than any ten men in the world ever were before in history! +Yes, sir! And my name's Brown of Lumbwa to prove I mean what I say!" + +After a while, seeing that no trouble was likely, the Nubian soldiers +came out of ambush and marched away. We ate supper. The Greeks and +the Goanese subsided into temporary quiet, and our own boys, squatting +by a fire they had placed so that they could watch the Greeks' +encampment, began humming a native song. Their song reminded Fred of +Will's earlier suggestion, and he unclasped the concertina. + +Then for three-quarters of an hour he played, and we sang all the tunes +we knew least likely to make Germans happy, repeating The Marseillaise +and Rule Britannia again and again in pious hope that at least a few +bars might reach to the commandant's house on the hill. + +Whether they did or not--whether the commandant writhed as we hoped in +the torture of supreme insult, or slept as was likely from the +after-effect of too much bottled beer with dinner--there were others +who certainly did hear, and made no secret of it. + +To begin with, the part of the township nearest us was the quarter of +round grass roofs, where the aborigines lived; and the Bantu heart +responds to tuneful noise, as readily as powder to the match. All that +section of Muanza, man, woman and child, came and squatted outside the +cactus hedge. (It was streng politzeilich verboten for natives to +enter the European camping-ground, so that except when they wanted to +steal they absolutely never trespassed past the hedge.) + +Enraptured by the unaccustomed strains they sat quite still until some +Swahili and Arabs came and beat them to make room. When the struggle +and hot argument that followed that had died down, Indians began +coming, and other Greeks, until most of the inhabitants of the eastern +side of town were either squatting or standing or pacing to and fro +outside the camping-ground. + +At last rumor of what was happening reached the D.O.A.G.--the store at +the corner of the drill-ground, where it seemed the non-commissioned +officers took their pleasure of an evening. Pleasure, except as laid +down in regulations, is not permitted in German colonies to any except +white folk. No less than eight German sergeants and a sergeant-major, +all the worse for liquor, turned out as if to a fire and came down +street at a double. + +They had kibokos in their hands. The first we heard of their approach +was the crack-crack-crack of the black whips falling on naked or +thin-cotton-clad backs and shoulders. There was no yelling (it was not +allowed after dark on German soil, at least by natives) but a sudden +pattering in the dust as a thousand feet hurried away. Then, in the +glow of our lamplight, came the sergeant-major standing spraddle-legged +in front of us. + +He was a man of medium height, in clean white uniform. The first thing +I noticed about him was the high cheek-bones and murderous blue eyes, +like a pig's. His general build was heavy. The fair mustache made no +attempt to conceal fat lips that curled cruelly. His general air was +that most offensive one to decent folk, of the bully who would +ingratiate by seeming a good fellow. + +"'nabnd, meine Herren!" he said aggressively, with a smile more than +half made up of contempt for courtesy. "Ich heiess Schubert-Feldwebel +Hans Schubert." + +"Wass wollen Sie?" Will asked. He was the only one of us who knew +German well. + +But Schubert, it seemed, knew English and was glad to show it off. + +"You make fine music! Ach! Up at the D.O.A.G. very near here we +Unteroffitzieren spend the evening, all very fond of singing, yet +without music at all. Will you not come and play with us?" + +"I only know French and English tunes!" lied Fred. + +"Ach! I do not believe it! Kommen Sie! There is beer at the +D.O.A.G.--champagne--brandy--whisky--rum--?" + +"I'm going, then, for one!" announced Brown, getting up immediately. + +"Cigars--cigarettes--tobacco," the sergeant-major continued. "There is +no closing time." He saw that the line of argument was not tempting, +and changed his tactics. "Listen! You gentlemen have not too many +friends in Muanza! I speak in friendship. I invite you on behalf of +myself and other Unteroffitzieren to spend gemuthlich evening with us. +That can do you no harm! In the course of friendly conversation much +can be learned that official lips would not tell! + +"Kommen Sie nun!" + +"Let's go!" I said. "My leg hurts like hell. If I stay here I can't +sleep. Anything to keep from thinking about it! Besides, some one +must go and look after Brown!" + +"Who'll watch those Greeks?" Fred demanded. "They'd as soon steal as +eat!" + +"We'd better all stay here together," said Will, "and take turns +keeping watch till morning." He said it with a straight face, but I +did not think he was in earnest. + +"Ach!" exclaimed Schubert. "That is all ganz einfach! You shall have +askaris!" + +He turned and shouted an order. A non-commissioned officer went +running back up-street. + +"You shall have three askaris to guard your camp. So nothing whatever +shall be stolen! Then come along and make music--seien Sie gemuthlich! +Yah?" + +Brown had already gone, jingling money in his pocket. We waited until +the Nubian soldiers came--saw them posted--and then walked up-street +behind the sergeants, Schubert leading us all, and I limping between +Fred and Will. They as good as carried me the last half of the way. + +The sergeants marched with the air peculiar to military Germans, of men +who are going to be amused. They said nothing--did not smile--but +strode straight forward, three abreast, swinging their kibokos with a +sort of elephantine sporty air. They were men of all heights and +thicknesses, but each alike impressed me with the Prussian military +mold that leaves a man no imagination of his own, and no virtue, but +only an animal respect for whatever can make to suffer, or appease an +appetite. + +The D.O.A.G. proved a mournful enough lounging place in which to spend +convivial evenings. However, it seemed that when the sergeant-major +had decreed amusement the non-commissioned officers' mess overlooked +all trifles in brave determination to obey. They marched in, humming +tunes (each a different one, and nearly all high tenor) and took seats +in a room at the rear of the building with their backs against a +mud-brick wall that was shiny from much rubbing by drill tunics. + +Down the center was a narrow table, loaded with drinks of all sorts. A +case of bottled beer occupied the place of pride at one end; as +Schubert had boasted, nothing was lacking that East Africa could show +in the way of imported alcohol. Under the table was an unopened case +of sweet German champagne, and on a little table against one wall were +such things as absinth, chartreuse, peppermint, and benedictine. +Soda-water was slung outside the window in a basket full of wet grass +where the evening breeze would keep it cool. + +"Now for Gesang!" shouted Schubert, knocking the neck off a bottle of +beer, and beginning to sing like a drunken pirate. + +A man whom he introduced as "a genuine Jew from Jerusalem" came out +from a gloomy recess filled with tusks and sacks of dried red pepper, +and watched everything from now on with an eye like a gimlet, writing +down in a book against each sergeant's name whatever he took to drink. +They appeared to have no check on him. Nobody signed anything. Nobody +as much as glanced at his account. + +"What is the use?" said Schubert, noticing my glance and interpreting +the unspoken question. "There is just so much drink in the whole +place. We shall drink every drop of it! All that matters is, who is +to pay for the champagne? That stuff is costly." + +They all took beer to begin with, knocking the necks from the bottles +as if that act alone lent the necessary air of deviltry to the whole +proceedings. A small, very black Nyamwesi came with brush and pan and +groped on the floor all night for the splinters of glass, sleeping +between times in a corner until a fresh volley of breaking bottle necks +awoke him to work again. + +"Die Wacht am Rhein!" yelled Schubert. "Start it up! Sing that +first!" He began to sing it himself, all out of tune. + +Fred cut the noise short by standing up to play something nobody could +sing to a jangling clamor of chords and runs on which he prides +himself, that he swears is classical, but of which neither he nor +anybody knows the name. Then he drank some beer and sang a comic song +or two in English, we joining in the choruses. + +Meanwhile, Brown was soaking away steadily, taking whatever drink came +first to hand, and having no interest whatever in anything but the task +of assuaging the thirst he had accumulated in the course of all that +long marching since he left home. He had forgotten his cattle +already--the Greeks who stole them--the Masai who stole from the +Greeks. He paid for all he took, to the Jew's extreme surprise and +satisfaction, and grumbled at the price of everything, to the Jew's +supremest unconcern. + +"An' my name's Brown o' Lumbwa, just in proof of all I say!" he +informed the room at large at intervals. + +When Will had exhausted all the American songs he knew, and Fred had +run through his own long list there was nothing left for it but to make +up accompaniments to the songs the sergeants had been raised on. Fred +made the happy discovery that none of them knew The Marseillaise, so he +played that as an antidote each time after they had made the hard-wood +rafters ring and the smoke-filled air vibrate with Teutonic jingoism. +The Jew, who probably knew more than he cared to admit, grew more and +more beady-eyed each time The Marseillaise was played. + +There was a pause in the proceedings at about ten o'clock, by which +time all the sergeants except Schubert were sufficiently drunk to feel +thoroughly at ease. Schubert was cold-eyed sober, although scarcely +any longer thirsty. + +A native was brought in by two askaris and charged before Schubert with +hanging about the boma gate after dark. He was asked the reason. The +Jew, sitting beside me with his book of names and charges, poured cool +water over my bandages and translated to me what they all said. He +spoke English very well indeed, but in such low tones that I could +scarcely catch the words, drawing in his breath and not moving his lips +at all. + +The native explained that he had waited to see the bwana makubwa--the +commandant. He had nowhere to go and no money with which to pay for +lodging, so he proposed to wait outside the gate and watch for the +coming of the commandant next morning. He would intercept him on his +way down from the white house on the hill. + +He was asked why. To beg a favor. What favor? Satisfaction. For +what? For his daughter. He was the father of the girl whom the +commandant had favored with attentions. She had been a virgin. Now +she was to have a child. It would be a half-black, half-white child. +Who would now marry a woman with such a child as that? Yet nothing bad +been given her. She had been simply sent back home to be a charge on +her parents and an already poverty-stricken village. Therefore he had +come to ask that justice be done, and the girl be given at least a +present of money. + +The sergeants roared with laughter, all except Schubert, who seemed +only appalled by the impudence of the request. He sat back and ordered +the story repeated. + +"And you dare ask for money from the bwana makubwa!" he demanded. +"You dog of a Nyamwesi! Is the honor not sufficient that your black +brute of a daughter should have a baby by such a great person? You +cattle have no sense of honor! You must learn! Put him down! Beat +him till I say stop!" + +There was no need to put him down, however. The motion of the hand, +voice inflection, order were all too well understood. The man lay +face-downward on the floor without so much as a murmur of objection, +and buried his face in both hands. The askaris promptly stripped him +of the thin cotton loin-cloth that constituted his only garment, +tearing it in pieces as they dragged it from him. + +"Go on!" ordered Schubert. "Beat him!" + +Both the askaris had kibokos. The longest of the two was split at the +nether end into four fingers. The shortest was more than a yard long, +tapering from an inch and a half where the man's fist gripped it to +half an inch thick at the tip. They stood one each side of their +victim and brought the whips down on his naked skin alternately. + +"Slowly!" ordered Schubert. "Slowly, and with all your strength! The +brute doesn't feel it when you beat so fast! Let him wait for the +blow! Don't let him know when it's coming! So--so is better!" + +Not every blow drew blood, for a native's skin is thick and tough, +especially where he sits. But the blows that fell on the back and +thighs all cut the skin, and within two minutes the native's back was a +bloody mass, and there was blood running on the floor, and splashes of +blood on the whitewashed wall cast by the whips as they ascended. + +I made up my mind the man was going to be killed, for Schubert gave no +order and the askaris did not dare stop without one. The victim +writhed, but did not cry out, and the writhing grew less. Even Brown +sobered up for a time at the sight of it. He came and sat between me +and the Jew. + +"It's a shame!" he grumbled. "Up in our country twenty-five lashes is +the masshimum, an' only to be laid on in the presence of a +massishtrate. You beat a black man an' they'll fine you first offense, +jail you second offense, an' third offense God knows what they'll do! +Poor ole Brown o' Lumbwa! They fined me once a'ready. Nessht time +they'll put me in jail! Better get quite drunk an' be blowed to it!" + +He staggered back to his chair by the farther wall, leering at Schubert +as he passed. + +"You're no gentleman!" he asserted aggressively. "You're no better 'n +a black man yourself! You ought-to-be-on-floor 'stead o' him! +Dunno-how-behave-yourself! Take your coat off, an' come outside, an' +fight like a man!" + +Schubert gave the order to stop at last. The askaris stood aside, +panting from the effort. + +"Get up!" ordered Schubert. + +The miserable Nyamwesi struggled to his feet and stood limply before +Schubert, his back running blood and his face drawn with torture. + +"Don't you know how to behave!" demanded Schubert. + +The native made no answer. + +"If you don't salute properly I'll order you thrown down and thrashed +again!" + +The native saluted in a sort of imitation of the German military manner. + +"Now, will you lie in wait for the bwana makubwa to trouble him with +your pig's affairs again?" + +"No." + +"Will you go back home?" + +"Yes." + +"You've learned a lesson, eh?" + +"Yes. + +"Then say thank you!" + +"Thank you!" + +"Rrruksa!"* [*Ruksa, you have leave to go.] + +The poor wretch turned and went, staggering rather than walking, to the +door and disappearing into outer darkness without a backward glance. + +"Now for some more songs and a round of drinks!" Schubert shouted. + +But Fred was no longer in mood to make music, or even to be civil. He +shut the concertina up, and asked the Jew how much he owed. The +sergeants went on singing without music, and while we waited for the +Jew to reckon up Fred's score Schubert came over to us, sat down +between me and Fred, and proceeded to deal with the new situation in +proper German military manner, by direct assault. + +"Always you English criticize!" he began. "Can you never travel +without applying your cursed standards to everything you behold? I +tell you, we Germans know how to rule these black people! We +understand! We employ no sickly sentiment! We give orders--they obey, +or else suffer terribly and swiftly! In that manner we arrive at +knowing where we are!" + +"Are you well loved by the people?" Fred asked him politely. + +"Bah! Sie wollen wohl beliebt werden!* Not I! Not we! Of what value +is the love of such people? Their fear is what we cultivate! Having +made them afraid of us, we successfully make them work our will! But +why should I trouble to explain? In a few years there will only be one +government of Africa! One, I tell you, and that German! You English +are not fit to govern colonies! You are mawkishly sentimental! You +think more of the feelings of a black man and of the rights of his +women than of progress--advancement--kultur! Bah! I tell you they +have no feelings a real man need consider! They are only fit for +furthering the aims of us Germans! And their women have no rights! +None whatever! You know, I suppose, that it is the policy of the +German government to encourage the spread of Muhammedanism in Africa? +Well, under the Muhammedan law as given in the Koran women have no +souls! That is good! That is as it should be! No women have souls!" + +------------ +*You want to be popular, don't you! +------------ + +"How about your own mother?" Fred suggested. + +"She was a good Prussian! She was a super-woman! Not to be mentioned +in the same breath with women of any other race! Yet even she--the +good Prussian mother--could not hold a candle to a man! Her business +was to raise sons for Prussia, and she did it! I have eight brothers, +all in the army, and only one sister; she has four sons already!" + +"Strange that your nation should breed like that!" said Fred. + +"Not strange at all!" answered Schubert. "We are needed to conquer the +world! Think, for instance, when we have conquered the Congo Free +State, and taken away East and South Africa from England--to say +nothing of Egypt and India!--how many Prussian sergeant-majors we shall +want! Donnerwetter! Do you think we Germans will long be satisfied +with this miserable section of East Africa that was all the English +left to us on this coast? We use this for a foothold, that is all! We +use this to gain time and get ready! You think perhaps I do not know, +eh? I am only feldwebel--non-commissioned officer, you call it. Well +and good. I tell you our officers talk all the time of nothing else! +And they don't care who hears them!" + +The Jew gave Fred his bill, scrawled on a piece of wrapping paper. +Schubert snatched it away and crumpled it into a ball. + +"Kreutzblitzen! You are my guests to-night! I invited you!" + +"Thanks" Fred answered, "but we don't care to be your guests. Here," +he said, turning to the Jew, "take your money!" + +Schubert said nothing, but eyed the Jew with a perfectly blank face, as +if he watched to see whether the man would damn himself or not. + +"Take your money!" repeated Fred. But the Jew turned his back and +busied himself with bottles at the side-table. + +"He knows better!" Schubert laughed. "He understands by this time our +German hospitality!" + +"All right," answered Fred. "We'll go out without paying!" + +"Not at all," retorted Schubert. "The mess shall pay bill in full! +You stay here until I have said what I have to say to you! The rest of +your party may go, but you stay! You can explain to the others +afterward." + +He leaned forward, reached a bottle of beer off the table, knocked off +the neck, and emptied the contents down his throat at a draught. +Behind his back we exchanged glances. + +"I'll listen," said Fred. + +"You alone?" + +"No, we all stay. All or none!" + +Schubert made a contemptuous gesture with his thumb toward Brown, who +had fallen dead drunk on the floor. + +"Will that one stay, too?" + +"He is not of our party really," Fred answered. "He knows nothing of +our affairs." + +"You men are in trouble--worse trouble than you guess!" + +Schubert looked with his cruel blue eyes into each of ours in turn, +then stared straight in front of him and waited. + +"I don't believe it," Fred answered. "We have done nothing to merit +trouble." + +"Merit in this world is another name for chance!" said Schubert. + +"What are we supposed to have done?" demanded Fred. + +Schubert at once assumed what was intended to be a sly look, of +uncommunicable knowledge. + +"None of my business to tell what my officers know," he answered. "As +for that, time will no doubt disclose much. The point is--trouble can +be forestalled." + +"Aw--show your hand!" cut in Will, leaning in front of Fred. "I've +seen you Heinies fishing for graft too often in the States not to +recognize symptoms! Spill the bait can! There's no other way to tell +if we'll bite! Tell us what you're driving at!" + +"Ivory!" said Schubert savagely and simply, shutting his jaws after the +word like a snap with a steel spring. It would have broken the teeth +of an ordinary human. + +"What ivory?" + +We all did our best to look blank. + +"You know! Tippoo Tib's ivory! It belongs to the German government! +Emin Pasha, whom that adventurer Stanley rescued against his will, +agreed to sell the secret to us, but we never agreed on a price and he +died without telling. Gott! He would have told had I had the +interviewing of him! It was known in Zanzibar that you and a certain +English lord shared the secret. You have been watched. You are known +to be in search of the stuff." + +"The deuce you say!" Fred murmured, with a glance to left and right at +us. + +"If you were to go to the office to-morrow, and tell our commandant +what you know," said Schubert, "you might be suitably compensated. You +would certainly be given facilities for leaving the country in comfort +at your leisure." + +"Who told you to promise us that?" Fred demanded, turning on him. + +The feldwebel did not answer, but sat with his legs straight out in +front of him, his heels together, and the palms of his hands touching +between his knees. The sergeants were all singing, smoking and +drinking. The Jew was back at his old post, watching every one with +gimlet eyes. + +"Think it over!" said Schubert, getting up. "There is time until +morning. There is time until you leave this building. After that--" +He shrugged his square shoulders brutally. + +There was no sense in going out at once, as we had intended, with that +combination of threat and promise hanging over us. + +"Why not do what we said--admit that we know what we don't know--and +put 'em on the wrong scent?" Will whispered. + +"I wish to God Monty were here!" groaned Fred. + +"Rot!" Will answered. "Monty is all you ever said of him and then +some; but we're able to handle this ourselves all right without him. +Tell 'em a bull yarn, I say!" + +Fred relapsed into a sort of black gloom intended to attract the Muse +of Strategy. He was always better at swift action in the open and +optimism in the face of visible danger, than at matching wits against +something he could not see beginning or end of. + +"Tell 'em it's in German East!" urged Will. "Offer to lead them to it +on certain conditions. Think up controversial proposals! Play for +time!" + +Fred shook his head. + +"What if it turns out true? Monty's in Europe. Suppose he should +learn while he's there that the stuff is really in German East--we'd +have spoiled his game!" + +"If the stuff should really be in German East," Will argued, "we've no +chance in the world of getting even a broker's share of it, Monty or no +Monty! Take my advice and tell 'em what they want to know!" + +Meanwhile an argument of another kind had started across the room. +Schubert had related with grim amusement to Sergeant Sachse, who was +sitting next him, our disapproval of the flogging of the father of the +commandant's abandoned woman. + +"At what were they shocked?" wondered Sachse. "At the flogging, or the +intercourse, or because he sent the female packing when she proposed to +have a child? Do they not know that to have children about the +premises would be subversive of military excellence?" + +"They were shocked at all three things," grinned Schubert, "but +chiefly, I think, at the flogging." + +"Bah! Such a tickling of a native's hide doesn't hurt him to speak of! +Wait until they see our court in the morning!" + +It was that that raised the clamor. Even Schubert, who might be +supposed to have won promotion because he could stay sober longer than +the others, was beginning to grow noisy in his speech and to laugh +without apparent reason. The rest were all already frankly drunk, and +any excuse for dispute was a good one. They one and all, including +Schubert, denied Sachse's contention that a flogging did not hurt +enough to matter. + +"I bet I could take one without winking!" Sachse announced. + +Schubert's little bright pig-eyes gleamed through the smoke at that. + +"Kurtz und gut!" he laughed. "There is a case of champagne unopened. +I bet you that case of champagne that you lie! That you can not take a +flogging!" + +There was an united yelp of delight. The sergeants rose and gathered +round Sachse. Schubert cursed them and drove them to the chairs again. + +"Open that case of champagne!" he roared, and the Jew obeyed, setting +the bottles on the table in two rows. + +"I bet you those twelve bottles you dare not take a regular flogging, +and that you can not endure it if you dare try!" + +"I can stand as much as you!" hedged Sachse. + +"Good! We will see! We will both take a flogging--stroke for stroke! +Whoever squeals first shall pay for the champagne!" + +Sachse could not back out. His cheeks grew whiter, but he staggered to +his feet, swearing. + +"I will show you of what material a German sergeant is made!" he +boasted. "It is not only Prussians who are men of metal! How +shall it be arranged?" + +The arrangement was easy enough. Schubert shouted for an askari, and +the corporal who was doing police duty outside in the street came +running. He had a kiboko in his hand almost a yard and a half long, +and Schubert examined it with approval. + +"How would you like to flog white men?" he demanded. + +"I would not dare!" grinned the corporal. + +"Not dare, eh? Would you not obey an order?" + +"Always I obey!" the man answered, saluting. + +"Good. I shall lie here. This other bwana shall lie there beside me. +You shall stand between. First you shall strike one, then the +other--turn and turn about until I give the order to cease! And +listen! If you fail once--just one little time!--to flog with all your +might, you shall have two hundred lashes yourself; and they shall be +good ones, because I will lay them on! Is it understood?" + +"Yes," said the corporal, the whites of his eyes betraying doubt, fear +and wonder. But he grinned with his lips, lest the feldwebel should +suspect him of unwillingness. + +"Are the terms understood?" demanded Schubert, and the sergeants yelped +in the affirmative. + +"Then choose a referee!" + +One of the sergeants volunteered for the post. Schubert lay down on +the floor, and Sachse beside him about four feet away. The corporal +took his stand between. He was an enormous Nubian, broad of chest, +with the big sloping shoulder muscles that betray double the strength +that tailors try to suggest with jackets padded to look square. + +"Nun--recht feste schlagen!"* ordered Schubert. Then he took the sleeve +of his tunic between his teeth and hid his face. [*Now, hit good and +hard!] + +"One!" said the referee. Down came the heavy black whip with a crack +like a gun going off. Schubert neither winced nor murmured, but the +blood welled into the seat of his pants and spread like red ink on +blotting-paper. + +"'One!" said the referee again. The corporal faced about, and raised +his weapon, standing on tiptoe to get more swing. Sachse flinched at +the sound of the whip going up, and the other sergeants roared delight. +But he was still when it descended, and the crack of the blow drew +neither murmur nor movement from him either. Like the feldwebel, he +had his sleeve between his teeth. + +"Two!" said the referee, and the black whip rose again. It descended +with a crack and a splash on the very spot whence the blood flowed, +this time cutting the pants open, but Schubert took no more notice of +it than if a fly had settled on him. There was a chorus of applause. + +"Two!" said the referee. Again the corporal faced about and balanced +himself on tiptoe. Sachse was much the more nervous of the two. He +flinched again while waiting for the blow, but met it when it did come +without a tremor of any kind. He was much the softer. Blood flowed +from him more freely, but his pants seemed to be of sterner stuff, for +they did not split until the eight-and-twentieth lash, or thereabouts. + +From first to last, although the raw flesh lay open to the lash, and +the corporal, urged to it by the united threats and praise of all the +other sergeants, wrought his utmost, Schubert lay like a man asleep. +He might have been dead, except for the even rise and fall of his +breathing, that never checked or quickened once. Nine-and-forty +strokes he took without a sign of yielding. At the eight-and-fortieth +Sachse moaned a little, and the referee gave the match against him. +Schubert rose to his feet unaided, grinning, red in the face, but +without any tortured look. + +"Now you can say forever that you have flogged two white men!" he told +the askari. + +"Who will believe me?" the man answered. + +Sachse had to be helped to his feet. He was pale and demanded brandy. + +"What did I tell you?" laughed Schubert. "A Prussian is better than +any man! Look at him, and then at me!" + +He shouted for his servant, who had to be fetched from the boma--a +smug-faced little rascal, obviously in love with the glory reflected on +the sergeant-major's servant. He was made to produce a basin and cold +water--he discovered them somewhere in the dim recesses of the +store--and sponge his master's raw posterior before us all. Then he +was sent for clean white pants and presently Schubert, only refusing to +sit down, was quite himself again. + +Sachse on the other hand refused the ministrations of the boy--was +annoyed by the chaff of the other sergeants--refused to drink any of +the sweet champagne he would now have to pay for--and went away in +great dudgeon, murmuring about the madness that takes hold of men in +Africa. + +Meanwhile, while Schubert strutted and swaggered, making jokes more raw +and beastly than his own flogged hide, the Jew came and poured more +cool water on my hot bandages, touching them with deft fingers that +looked like the hairy legs of a huge spider--his touch more +gentle--more fugitive than any woman's. + +"You should not tell zat dam feldwebel nozink!" he advised in nasal +English. "Nefer mind vat you tell heem he is all ze same not your +frien. He only obey hees officers. Zey say to cut your troat--he cut +it! Zey say to tell you a lot o' lies--he tell! He iss not a t'inker, +but a doer: and hees faforite spectacle iss ze blood of innocence! Do +not effer say I did not tell you! On ze ozzer hand, tell no one zat I +did tell! Zese are dangerous people!" + +He resumed business with his account book, and I whispered to Fred and +Will what advice he had given. Seeing us with our heads together, +Schubert crossed the room, beginning to get very drunk now that the +shock of the flogging had had time to reinforce the alcohol. (The +blows had sobered him at first.) + +"What have you decided?" he asked, standing before us with his legs +apart and his hands behind him in his favorite attitude--swaying gently +back and forward because of the drink, and showing all his teeth in a +grin. + +"Nothing," Fred answered. "We'll think it over." + +"Too late in the morning!" he answered, continuing to sway. "I can do +nothing for you in the morning." + +"What can you do to-night?" Fred asked. + +He shrugged his shoulders. "I can report. The report will go in at +dawn." + +"You may tell your superiors," Fred answered, rising, "that if they +care to make us a reasonable offer, I don't say we won't do business!" + +Schubert leered. + +"To-morrow will be too late!" he repeated. + +It was Fred's turn to shrug shoulders, and he did it inimitably, +turning his back on Schubert and helping Will support me to the door. +The feldwebel stood grinning while I held to the doorpost and they +dragged Brown to his feet. He made no offer to help us in any way at +all, nor did any of the sergeants. + +There was no getting action from Brown. He was as dead to the world as +a piece of wood, and there being no other obvious solution of the +problem, Will hoisted him upon his back and carried him, he snoring, +all the way home to camp. Fred hoisted and carried me, for the pain of +my wound when I tried to walk was unbearable. + +We reached camp abreast and were challenged by the sentries, who made a +great show of standing guard. They took Brown and threw him on the bed +in his own tent--accepted Fred's offer of silver money--and departed, +marching up-street in their heavy, iron-bound military boots with the +swing and swagger only the Nubian in all the world knows just how to +get away with. + +I lay on the bed in Fred's tent, and then Kazimoto came to us, hugely +troubled about something, stirring the embers of the fire before the +tent and arranging the lantern so that its rays would betray any +eavesdropper. He searched all the shadows thoroughly, prodding into +them with a stick, before he unburdened his mind. + +"Those askaris were not put here to guard our tents," he told us. (The +really good native servant when speaking of his master's property +always says our, and never your.) "As soon as you were gone the Greeks +and the Goa came. They and the askaris questioned me. It was a trick! +You were drawn away on purpose! One by one--two by two--they +questioned us all, but particularly me." + +"What about?" Fred demanded. + +"About our business. Why are we here. What will we do. What do we +know. What do I know about you. What do you know about me. Why do I +serve you. How did I come to take service with you. To what place +will we travel next, and when. How much money have we with us. Have +we friends or acquaintances in Muanza. Do you, bwana, carry any +letters in your pockets. Of what do you speak when you suppose no man +is listening. Bwana, my heart is very sad in me! Those Greeks tell +lies, and the Germans stir trouble in a big pot like the witches! I +know the Germans! I am Nyamwezi. I was born not far from here, and +ran away as soon as I was old enough because the Germans shot my father +and let my mother and brothers starve to death. I did not starve, +because one of them took me for a servant; but I ran away from him. +My heart is very sad to be in this place! They ask what of a hoard of +ivory. I tell them I do not know, and they threaten to beat me! This +place is bad! Let us go away to-night!" + +There was no sleep that night for any of us. My wound hurt too much. +The others were too worried. By the light of the lantern in Fred's +tent we cooked up a story to tell that we hoped would induce the +Germans to let us wander where we chose. + +"Sure, they'll watch us!" Will admitted. "But as our only real reason +for coming down here--leaving Brown's cattle out of the reckoning--was +to throw people off the scent, in what way are we worse off? The lake +is big enough to lose ourselves in! What is it--two hundred and fifty +miles long by as many broad? D'you mean we can't give their sleuths +the slip? We can't beat that for a plan: let 'em keep on thinking we +know where Tippoo hid the stuff. If we succeed in losing 'em they'll +think we're at large in German East and keep on hunting for us--whereas +we'll really be up in British East. Let's send a telegram in code to +Monty!" + +Then Fred thought of an idea that in the end solved our biggest +problem, although we did not think much of it at the time. + +"They may refuse to take a telegram in code," he said. "It's likely +they'll open letters. (We can try the code, of course. They'll +probably take our money, and put their experts on deciphering the +message. They'll say it was lost if there are any inquiries +afterward.) I propose we send a straight-out cablegram advising Monty +of our whereabouts (they'll let that go through) and warning him to ask +for letters at the Bank in Mombasa before he does anything else." + +"Yes, but--" Will objected. + +"Wait!" said Fred. "I haven't finished. Then write two letters: one +full of any old nonsense, to be sent in the regular way by mail. +They'll open that. The other to go by runner. Kazimoto can find us a +runner. He knows these Wan-yamwezi. He can pick a man who'll get +through without fail." + +We could think of nothing to say against the plan. The argument that +the German government would scarcely stoop to opening private mail did +not seem to hold water when we examined it, so we wrote as Fred +suggested--one letter telling Monty that we hoped to make some +arrangement with the Germans, and at all events to wait in German East +until he could join us--and the other telling him the real facts at +great length, laboriously set out in the code we had agreed +upon. + +We sealed the second letter in several wrappers, and sewed it up +finally in a piece of waterproof silk. Then we sent for Kazimoto and +ordered him to find the sort of messenger we needed. + +"Send me!" he urged. "I will start now, before it is light! I will +hide by day and travel by night until I reach the British border! Give +me only enough cooked food and my pay and I will take the letter +without fail!" + +We refused, for he was too useful to us. He begged again and again to +be sent with the letter, promising faithfully to wait for us afterward +on the British side of the border at any place we should name. But we +upbraided him for cowardice, ordered him to find another messenger, and +promised him he need have no fear of Germans as long as he remained our +servant. + +Before high noon we would each have given many years of Kazimoto's pay +if only we could have recalled that decision and have known that he was +speeding away from Muanza toward a border where white men knew the use +of mercy. + +Just as the first peep of dawn began to color the sky Schubert came +swaggering down-street to us, wiping his mouth with the back of his +hand. + +"How have you slept?" he asked us, laughing. + +We answered something or other. + +"I did not trouble to sleep! I stayed and finished the drinks. I have +just swallowed the last of the beer! Whoever wants a morning drink +must wait for it now until the overland safari comes!" + +We displayed no interest. Brown, the only one likely to yearn for +alcohol before breakfast, snored in his still. + +"What of it now? I go drill my troops. Parade is sharp! There remain +twenty minutes. Come with me tell your secret at the boma now, before +it is too late!" + +"Explain why it would be too late after breakfast!" demanded Fred. + +"All right," said Schubert. "I will tell you this much. There will +come a launch this morning from Kisumu in British East. There will be +people on that launch, one of whom has authority that overrides that of +the commandant of this place. The commandant desires to know your +information--and get the credit for it--before that individual, whose +authority is higher, comes. Is that clear?" + +"Perfectly," Fred answered. + +"See if this is clear, too!" cut in Will. "You go and ask your +commandant what price he offers for the secret! Nothing for nothing! +Tell him we're not afraid of him!" + +"It is none of my business to tell him anything," sneered Schubert, +spitting and turning on his heel. He swaggered out of the +camping-ground and up-street again, leaving the clear impression behind +him that he washed his hands of us for good and all. + +"Let's watch him drill his men," said I. "I'll wait on the hospital +steps until they open the place." + +So we ate a scratch breakfast and Fred and Will helped me up-street, +past where the Jew stood blinking in the morning sun on the steps of +the D.O.A.G. He seemed to be saying prayers, but beckoned to us. + +"Trouble!" he said. "Trouble! If you have any frien's fetch +them--send for them!" + +"Can yon send a letter for us to British East?" Fred asked him. + +"God forbid!" He jumped at the very thought, and shrugged himself like +a man standing under a water-spout. "What would they do to me if I +were found out?" + +"What is the nature of the trouble?" Fred asked him. + +"Ali, who should tell! Trouble, I tell you, trouble! Zat cursed +Schubert sat here drinking until dawn. I heard heem say many t'ings! +Send for your friens!" + +He turned his back on us and ran in. There was a lieutenant arrayed in +spotless white with a saber in glittering scabbard watching us all from +the boma gate. A little later that morning we knew better why the Jew +fled indoors at sight of him. + +Schubert was standing in mid-square with a hundred askaris lined up +two-deep in front of him. There were no other Germans on parade. The +corporals were Nubians, and the rest of the rank and file either Nubian +or some sort of Sudanese. He was haranguing them in a bastard mixture +of Swahili, Arabic, and German, they standing rigidly at attention, +their rifles at the present. + +Not content with the effect of his words, he strode up presently to a +front-rank man and hit him in the face with clenched fist. In the +effort to recover his balance the man let his rifle get out of +alignment. Schubert wrenched it from him. It fell to the ground. He +struck the man, and when he stooped to pick the rifle up kicked him in +the face. Then he strode down the line and beat two other men for +grinning. All this the lieutenant watched without a sign of +disapproval, or even much interest. + +Meanwhile the chain-gang emerged from the boma gate, going full-pelt, +fastened neck to neck, the chain taut and each man carrying a +water-jar. The minute they had crossed the square Schubert commenced +with company drill, and for two hours after that, with but one interval +of less than five minutes for rest, he kept them pounding the gravel in +evolution after evolution--manual exercise at the double--skirmishing +exercise--setting up drill--goose-step, and all the mechanical, +merciless precision drill with which the Germans make machines of men. + +His debauch did not seem in the least to have affected him, unless to +make his temper more violently critical. By seven o'clock the sun was +beating down on him and dazzling his eyes from over the boma wall. The +dust rose off the square. The words of command came bellowing in swift +succession from a throat that ought to have been hard put to it to +whisper. If anything, he grew more active and exacting as the askaris +wearied, and by the time the two hours were up they were ready to a man +to drop. + +But not so he. He dismissed them, and swaggered over to the +marketplace to hector and bully the natives who were piling their wares +in the shade of the great grass roof. Then he went into the boma to +breakfast just as a sergeant in khaki came over and unlocked the +hospital door. I followed the sergeant in, but he ordered me out again. + +"I have come to see the doctor," I said. "I need attention." + +He was not one of the sergeants who had been drunk in the D.O.A.G. the +night before, but a man of a higher mental type, although no less surly. + +"It will be for the doctor to say what you need when he has seen you!" +he answered, turning his back and busying himself about the room. Will +translated, and I limped out again. + +By and by the doctor came, and passed me sitting on the steps amid a +throng of natives who seemed to have all the imaginable kinds of sores. +He took no notice of me, but sent out the sergeant to inquire why I +had not stood up as he passed. I did not answer, and the sergeant went +in again. + +Fred by that time was simply blasphemous, alternately threatening to go +in and kick the doctor, and condemning Will's determination to do the +same thing. Finally we decided to see the matter through patiently, +and all sat together on the steps watching the activity of the square. +There was a lot going on--bartering of skins and hides--counting of +crocodile eggs, brought in by natives for sake of the bounty of a few +copper coins the hundred--a cock-fight in one corner--the carrying to +and fro of bunches of bananas, meat, and grain in baskets; and in and +out among it all full pelt in the hot sun marched the chain-gang, doing +the township dirty work. + +By and by Schubert emerged from the boma gate followed by natives +carrying a table and a soap-box. He set these under a limb of the +great baobab that faced the boma gate not far from the middle of the +square. I noticed then for the first time that a short hempen rope +hung suspended from the largest branch, with a noose in the end. The +noose was not more than two feet below the branch. + +Schubert's consideration of the table's exact position, and the placing +of the soap-box on the table, was interrupted by the arrival of +Coutlass, his Greek companion and the Goanese arm in arm, followed +closely by two askaris who shouted angrily and made a great show of +trying to prevent them. One of the askaris aimed his rifle absurdly at +Coutlass, both Greeks and the Goanese daring him gleefully to pull the +trigger. + +They purposely came close to us, not that we showed signs of meaning to +befriend them. They were simply unable to understand that there are +degrees of disgrace. To Coutlass all victims of government outrage +ought surely to be more than friendly with any one in conflict with the +law. Personal quarrels should go for nothing in face of the common +wrong. + +"There is going to be a hanging!" Coutlass shouted to us. "They +thought we would remain quietly in camp with that going on! Give us +chairs!" he called to Schubert. "Provide us a place in the front row +where we may see!" + +Schubert grinned. He returned to the boma yard and presumably +conferred with an officer, for presently he came out again and gave the +Greeks leave to stand under the tree, provided they would return to +camp afterward. Later yet, Brown came along and joined us on the +steps, looking red-eyed and ridiculous. + +"Goin' to be a hangin," he announced. "I been askin' natives about it. +Black man stole the condemned man's daughter an' refused to pay cows +for her accordin' to custom or anythin'--said he could do what the +white men did an' help himself. Father of the girl took a spear and +settled the thief's hash with it--ran him through--did a clean job. +Serve him right--eh--what? Germans went an' nabbed him, though--tried +him in open court--goin' to hang him this mornin' for murder! How does +it strike you?" + +We were not exactly in mood to talk to Brown--in fact, we wished him +anywhere but with us, but he thought self perfectly welcome, and +rambled on: + +"Up in British East we don't hang black men for murder unless it's what +they call an aggravated case--murder an' robbery--murder an' +arson--murder an' rape. Hang a white man for murderin' a black sure as +you're sitting here, an' shoot a black man for murderin' a white; but +the blacks don't understand, so when they kill one another in such a +case this, why we give 'em a short jail sentence an' a good lo lecture, +an' let 'em go again. These folks have it t'other way round. They +never hang a German, whether he's guilty or not, but hang a poor black +man, what doesn't understand, for half o' nothin'!" + +A great crowd began gathering about the tree, and was presently driven +by askaris with whips into a mass on the far side of the tree from us. +Whether purposely or not, they left a clear view from the hospital +steps of all that should happen. Evidently warning had been sent out +broadcast, for the inhabitants of village after village came trooping +into town to watch, each lot led by its sultani in filthy rags and the +foolish imitation crown his conquerors had supplied him at several +times its proper price. The square was a dense sea of people before +nine o'clock, and the askaris made the front few hundreds lie, and the +next rows squat, in order that the men and women behind might see. + +Then at last out came the victim with his hands tied behind him and a +bright red blanket on his loins. He was a proud-looking fellow. He +halted a moment between his guard of German sergeants and eyed the +crowd, and us, and the tree, and the noose. Then he looked down on the +ground and appeared to take no further interest. + +The sergeants took him by the arms and led him along to the table +between them. Out came the commandant then, in snow-white uniform, +with his saber polished until it shone--all spruced up for the +occasion, and followed by a guard of honor consisting of lieutenant, +two sergeants, and six black askaris. + +There was a chair by the table. At sight of the commandant the +sergeants made their victim use that as a step by which to mount the +table and soap-box, and there he stood eying his oppressors as calmly +as if he were witnessing a play. A murmur arose among the crowd. A +number of natives called to him by name, but he took no notice after +that one first steady gaze. + +"They're sayin' good-by to him," said Brown, breathing in my ear. +"They're telling him they won't forget him!" + +The crack of askaris' whips falling on head and naked shoulders swiftly +reduced the crowd to silence. Then the commandant faced them all, and +made a speech with that ash-can voice of his--first in German, then in +the Nyamwezi tongue. Will translated to us sentence by sentence, the +doctor standing on the top step behind us smiling approval. He seemed +to think we would be benefited by the lecture just as much as the +natives. + +It was awful humbug that the commandant reeled off to his silent +audience--hypocrisy garbed in paternal phrases, and interlarded with +buncombe about Germany's mission to bring happiness to subject peoples. + +"Above all," he repeated again and again, "the law must be enforced +impartially--the good, sound, German law that knows no fear or favor, +but governs all alike!" + +When he had finished he turned to the culprit. + +"Now," he demanded, "do you know why you are to be hanged?" + +There was a moment's utter silence. The crowd drew in its breath, +seeming to know in advance that some brave answer was forthcoming. The +man on the table with his hands behind him surveyed the crowd again +with the gaze of simple dignity, looked down on the commandant, and +raised his voice. It was an unexpected, high, almost falsetto note, +that in the silence carried all across the square. + +"I am to die," he said, "because I did right! My enemy did what German +officers do. He stole my young girl. I killed him, as I hope all you +Germans may be killed! But hope no longer gathers fruit in this land!" + +"Ah-h-h-h!" the crowd sighed in unison. + +"Good man!" exploded Fred, and the doctor tried to kick him from +behind--not hard, but enough to call his attention to the proprieties. +His toe struck me instead, and when I looked up angrily he tried to +pretend he was not aware of what he had done. + +Under the trees the commandant flew into a rage such I have seldom +seen. Each land has a temper of its own, and the white man's anger +varies in inverse ratio with his nearness to the equator. But furor +teutonicus transplanted is the least controllable, least dignified, +least admirable that there is. And that man's passion was the apex of +its kind. + +His beard spread, as a peacock spreads its tail. His eyes blazed. His +eyebrows disappeared under the brim of his white helmet, and his +clenched fists burst the white cotton gloves. He half-drew his +saber--thought better of that, and returned it. There was an askari +standing near with kiboko in hand to drive back the crowd should any +press too closely. He snatched the whip and struck the condemned man +with it, as high up as he could reach, making a great welt across his +bare stomach. The man neither winced nor complained. + +"For those words," the commandant screamed at him in German, "you shall +not die in comfort! For that insolence, mere hanging is too good!" + +Then he calmed himself a little, and repeated the words in the native +tongue, explaining to the crowd that German dignity should be upheld at +all costs. + +"Fetch him down from there," he ordered. + +Schubert sprang on the table and knocked the condemned man off it with +a blow of his fist. With hands bound behind him the poor fellow had no +power of balance, and though he jumped clear he fell face-downward, +skinning his cheek on the gravel. The commandant promptly put a foot +on his neck and pinned him down. + +"Flog him!" he ordered. "Two hundred lashes!" + +It was done in silence, except for the corporal's labored breathing and +the commandant's incessant sharp commands to beat +harder--harder--harder. A sergeant stood by counting. The crack of +the whip divided up the silence into periods of agony. + +When the count was done the victim was still conscious. Schubert and a +sergeant dragged him to his feet, and hauled him to the table. Four +other men--two sergeants and two natives--passed a rope round the table +legs. Schubert lifted the victim by the elbows so that his head could +pass through the noose, and when that was accomplished the man had to +stand on tiptoe on the soap-box in order to breathe at all. + +"All ready!" announced Schubert, and jumped off with a laugh, his white +tunic bloody from contact with the victim's tortured back. + +"Los!" roared the commandant + +The men hauled on the rope. Table and soap-box came tumbling away, and +the victim spun in the air on nothing, spinning round, and round, and +round--slower and slower and slower--then back the other way round +faster and faster. + +They say hanging is a merciful death--that the pressure of rope on two +arteries produces anesthesia, but few are reported to have come back to +tell of the experience. At any rate, as is not the case with shooting, +it is easy to know when the victim is really dead. + +For seconds that seemed minutes--for minutes that seemed hours the poor +wretch spun, his elbows out, his knees up, his tongue out, his face +wrinkled into tortured shapes, and his toes pointed upward so sharply +that they almost touched his shins. Then suddenly the toes turned +downward and the knees relapsed. The corpse hung limp, and the crowd +sighed miserably, to the last man, woman and child, turning its back on +what to them must have symbolized German rule. + +They left the corpse hanging there. It was to be there until evening, +some one said, for an example to frequenters of the market-place. The +crowd trailed away, none glancing back. The pattering of feet ceased. +The market-place across the square resumed its hum and activity. Then +a native orderly came down the steps and touched me on the elbow. I +struggled to my feet and limped after him up the steps. + +Practically at the mercy of the doctor, I made up my mind to be civil +to him whether that suited me or not. I rather expected he would come +to meet me, perhaps help me to chair, and I wondered how, in my +ignorance of German, I should contrive to answer his questions. + +But I need not have worried. I did not even see him. He had left by +the back door, and the orderly washed the wound and changed my +bandages. That was all. There was no charge for the bandages, and the +orderly was gentle now that his master's back was turned. + +"Didn't he leave word when he would see me?" I asked. + +"Habandh!" he answered--meaning, "He did not--there is not--there is +nothing doing!" + + + + +CHAPTER EIGHT + +IPSOS CUSTODES + + We were an ignorant people. Out of a gloom we came + Hungering, striving, feasting--vanishing into the same. + Came to us your foreloopers, told us the gloom was bad, + Spoke of the Light that might be--simply it could be had-- + Knowledge and wealth and freedom, plenty and peace and play, + And at all the price of obedience. "Listen and learn and obey," + We were told, "and the gloom shall be lifted. Ignorance surely + is shame." + We listened to your foreloopersy till presently Cadis* came. + + We were an ignorant people. Our law was "an eye for an eye," + And he who wronged should right the wrong, and he who stole should die-- + Bad law the Cadis told us, based on the fall of man; + And they set us to building law-courts on the Pangermanic plan-- + Courts where the gloom of ages should be pierced, said they, with Light + And scientific theory displace wrong views of Right. + The Cadis' law was writ in books that only they could read, + But what should we know of the strings to that? 'Twas gloom when + we agreed. + + We were an ignorant people. The Offizieren came + To lend to law eye, tooth, and claw and so enforce the same. + Now nought are the tribal customs; free speech is under ban; + Displaced are misconceptions that were based on fallen man, + And our gloom has gone in darkness of the risen German's night, + Nor is there salt of mercy lest it sap the hold of Might. + They strike--we may not answer, nor dare we ask them why. + We sold ourselves to supermen. If we rebel, we die. + +----------------- +* Cadi--judge. +----------------- + + +I sat down once more on the hospital steps, and listened while Fred and +Will relieved themselves of their opinions about German manners. +Nothing seemed likely to relieve me. I had marched a hundred miles, +endured the sickening pain, and waited an extra night at the end of it +all simply on the strength of anticipation. Now that the surgeon would +not see me, hope seemed gone. I could think of nothing but to go and +hide somewhere, like a wounded animal. + +But there were two more swift shocks in store, and no hiding-place. +The path to the water-front led past us directly along the southern +boma wall. Before Fred and Will had come to an end of swearing they +saw something that struck them silent so suddenly that I looked up and +saw, too. Not that I cared very much. To me it seemed merely one last +super-added piece of evidence that life was not worth while. + +Plainly the launch had come from British East, of which Schubert had +spoken. Hand in hand from the water-front, followed by the obsequious +Schubert, all smiles and long black whip (for the chain-gang trailed +after with the luggage, and needed to be overawed), walked Professor +Schillingschen and Lady Isobel Saffren Waldon. They seemed in love--or +at any rate the professor did, for he ogled and smirked like a bearded +gargoyle; and she made such play of being charmed by his grimaces that +the Syrian maid fell behind to hide her face. + +None of us spoke. We watched them. Personally I did not mind the +feeling that the worst had happened at last. I was incapable of +sounding further depths of gloom--too full of pain bodily to suffer +mentally from threats of what might yet be. But the other two looked +miserable--more so because Fred's bearded chin perked up so bravely, +and Will set his jaw like a rock. + +Not one of us had said a word when the biggest askari we had seen yet +strode up to us--saluted--and gave Fred a sealed envelope. It was +written in English, addressed to us three by name (although our names +were wrongly spelled). We were required to present ourselves at the +court-house at once, reason not given. The letter was signed +"Liebenkrantz,--Lieutenant." + +The askari waited for us. I suppose it would not be correct to say we +were under arrest, but the enormous black man made it sufficiently +obvious that he did not intend returning to the court without us. The +court-house was not more than two hundred yards away. As we turned +toward it we saw Lady Saffren Waldon being helped into the commandant's +litter, borne by four men, the commandant himself superintending the +ceremony with a vast deal of bowing and chatter, and Professor +Schillingschen looking on with an air of owning litter, porters, +township, boma, and all. As we turned our backs on them they started +off toward the neat white dwelling on the hill. + +The court was a round, grass-roofed affair, with white-washed walls of +sun-dried brick. For about four-fifths of the circumference the wall +was barely breast-high, the roof being supported on wooden pillars +bricked into the wall, as well as by the huge pole that propped it up +umbrella-wise in the center. + +The remaining fifth of the wall continued up as high as the roof, +forming a back to the platform. Facing the platform was the entrance, +and on either side benches arranged in rows followed the curve of the +wall. There was a long table on the platform, at which sat the +lieutenant who had summoned us, with a sergeant seated on either hand. +The sergeants were acting as court clerks, scribbling busily on sheets +of blue paper, and in books. + +Behind the lieutenant, in a great gilt frame on the white-washed wall, +was a full-length portrait of the Kaiser in general's uniform. The +Kaiser was depicted scowling, his gloved hands resting on a saber +almost as ferocious-looking as the one the lieutenant kept winding his +leg around. + +All the benches were crowded with spectators, prisoners, witnesses, and +litigants. Outside, at least two hundred Arabs, Indians, and natives +leaned with elbows on the wall and gazed at the scene within. The +lieutenant glared, but otherwise took no notice of our entry; he gave +no order, but one of the two sergeants came down from the platform and +kicked half a dozen natives off the front bench to make room for us. + +We were mistaken in supposing our case would be called first, or even +among the first. The floor in the midst of the court was clear except +for a long single line of natives and six askari corporals, each with a +whip in his hand. It was evident at once that these natives were all +ahead of us, even if those on the benches were not to be heard and +dealt with before our turn came. + +"Look at the far end of the line!" whispered Fred. + +Lo and behold Kazimoto, looking rather drawn and gray, but standing +bravely, looking neither to the right nor left. I judged he knew we +were in court--he could hardly have failed to notice our coming in--but +he sturdily refused to turn his head and see us. + +"What has he done?" I wondered. + +"Nothing more than told some Heinie to go to hell--you can bet your +boots!" said Will. + +The lieutenant was in no hurry to enlighten us. Our boy stood at the +wrong end of the line to be taken first. The lieutenant called a name, +and two great askaris pounced on the trembling native at the other end +and dragged him forward, leaving him standing alone before the desk. + +"Silence!" the lieutenant shouted, and the court became still as death. + +He had a voice as mean as a hyena's--a voice that matched his face. +The insolent, upturned twist of his fair mustache showed both corners +of a thin-lipped mouth. He had the Prussian head, shaped square +whichever way you viewed it. There was strength in the +jaw-bones--strength in the deep-set bright eyes--strength in the +shoulders that were square as box-corners without any padding--strength +in the lean lithe figure; but it was always brute strength. There was +no moral strength whatever in the restless fidgeting--the savage +winding and unwinding of his left foot around the saber scabbard, or +the attitude, leaning forward over the table, of petulant pugnacity. +And the cruel voice was as weak as the hand was strong with which he +rapped on the table. + +He questioned the boy in front of him sharply--told him he stood +charged with theft--and demanded an answer. + +"With theft of what thing, and whose thing?" + +The answer was bold. The trembling had ceased. Now that he faced +nemesis the strength of native fatalism came to his rescue, bolstering +up the pride that every uncontaminated Nyamwezi owns. He was not more +than seventeen years old, but he stood there at last like a veteran at +bay. + +"Put him down and beat him!" ordered the lieutenant. + +"Impudent answers to this court shall always be soundly punished! Call +the next case while that one is being taught good manners." + +A woman was stood in front of the line, fidgety with fear, in doubt +whether to lay her suckling baby on the bench before she faced military +justice. She laid it on the floor at her feet, hesitated, and then +picked it up again and wrapped it in a corner of the red blanket that +constituted her only dress. + +"Take that brat away from her!" the lieutenant ordered. "She must pay +attention to me. With that in her arms she will only think of +mothering!" + +An askari seized the baby by the arm and leg and gave it with a laugh +to another woman to hold, its mother whimpering with fright until she +saw it safely nestled. + +"Quick, now! What about this one?" + +It seemed there was no charge against her. The two sergeants searched +through the piles of blue sheets in vain. + +"Then what the devil is she here for? What do you want, you?" + +The trembling woman pointed to her baby, but was dumb. It needed +courage to answer that lieutenant, and the crack--crack--crack of a +thick kiboko descending at measured intervals on the naked back of the +boy who had answered boldly was no help toward reassurance. + +"Speak!" the lieutenant ordered, "or I shall have you compelled to +speak!" + +She burst into sudden volubility. The dam once down, she poured forth +a catalogue of wrongs that seemed endless, switching off from one +dialect to another and at intervals inserting, apropos apparently of +nothing, the few words of German she had picked up. The lieutenant +yelled for an interpreter, and a Nyamwezi who knew German rose from the +front bench and came and stood beside her. + +"That baby is a white man's," he explained. + +"What does she want?" + +"She says the white man is the bwana dakitari (the doctor!)." + +"Oh! Then I am glad she came here. It is time these loose women were +taught a lesson! They tell the same tale. They say a white man passed +through the village, gave their father a present, and carried them off. +Is that her tale, too?" + +"Yes." + +"Well--what of it? The father agreed at the time when he accepted the +present, didn't he? The consequence is a baby--not for the first time! +Instead of going back to her village, she comes here and tries to +blackmail the officer! She is young. It's the first time she has been +in this court. This time I will be lenient. One hundred lashes!" + +The interpreter translated, and the woman screamed. An askari seized +her by the shoulders. She clung to him, but he threw her to the +ground, and another one tore off the blanket that would have deadened +the blows to some extent. She begged, and clung to their feet, but the +blows began to rain on her, and presently she lay still, her breasts +flattened against the earth floor, her mouth full of dust, and her +naked body paralyzed by fear of the descending lash. + +"Now bring up number one again!" the lieutenant ordered. + +The askaris ceased from flogging him. One of them kicked him to his +feet, and he resumed his stand in front of the lieutenant, looking up +at him as proudly as ever, for all that his back was bruised and bloody. + +"Did you steal or did you not?" asked the lieutenant. + +"Steal what from whom?" + +"Oh, go on beating him! Next case!" + +The next man escaped the whip, but his witnesses were less +fortunate. He brought two men and a woman with him to prove an alibi +on a charge of attempted theft, and the glibness of their answers +convinced the lieutenant they were lying. In the absence of all +evidence for the prosecution except the unsupported word of a police +askari who admitted a personal grudge against the defendant, the +lieutenant resorted to the whip to change the witnesses' convictions, +but without avail. + +The woman yelled under the lash like a demented thing, but, far from +withdrawing her statements, tried to spit in the lieutenant's face when +jerked to her feet and stood again before him--an impossible feat +because the platform on which he sat at the table was too high. He had +her beaten a second time for spitting. + +The next man was a fat Baganda from British territory, charged with +trading without a license. He pleaded ignorance of the law, and denied +having traded. He was flogged for telling lies in court, and changed +his testimony under the lash, whereat he was promptly sentenced to a +hundred and fifty lashes and a month on the chain-gang. Under the lash +a second time, he recanted--swore that his first statements had been +true and that he had done no trading--a mistake in tactics that only +caused the tale of lashes to be increased by fifty and the term on the +chain-gang to be doubled. + +"You must learn that the methods taught you on British territory are of +no use here!" remarked the lieutenant. + +By the time Kazimoto was called and stood out alone in front of him the +lieutenant was in a boiling rage, and the floor of the court was +actually crowded by prone natives being beaten. Extra askaris had been +sent for in order that proceedings might not be delayed, and the +audience could scarcely hear the evidence and sentences because of the +crack of whips and the moans of victims. (Not that they all moaned by +any means. By far the most of them submitted to the torture in grim +proud silence: but the few who did make a noise--especially the +women--made lots of it.) + +As Kazimoto faced the lieutenant he turned once and looked at us. His +eyes sought Fred's. + +"Oh, bwana!" he said--and now for the first time we learned why he had +chosen Fred to be his particular master. "I have been faithful! +Stroke, then, that beard of yours as Bwana Courtney, my former master, +used to stroke his. Then we shall both know what to do!" + +Fred stroked his beard promptly, for the man needed comfort, not +ridicule: but the concession to his superstition did none of us any +good. + +"Face this way!" the lieutenant shouted at him. "You are charged with +being a deserter from German service. Also with giving information to +foreigners. Also with serving foreigners in their effort to exploit +the country, and with refusing to give proper answers when questioned +by those in authority. Do you understand?" + +"No," said Kazimoto in the most melancholy tone I ever heard from him. + +"Are you a Nyamwezi? Now don't dare to lie to me!" + +"Yes." + +"You were born in this country?" + +"Yes." + +"Then you belong in this country!" + +"I belong where my master takes me. My spirit is good. I am a true +man," Kazimoto answered. + +"Your spirit is rotten! You are a traitor! What do you mean by +talking to me of your master, you reptile! Your master is the German +government, of which His Majesty the Kaiser is supreme overlord! There +is a picture of your master!" He pointed with a thumb over his +shoulder to the full-length atrocity in oils behind him. "Salute it!" + +The boy obeyed. + +"Answer now! Who is your master?" + +Kazimoto hesitated. + +"Answer, I order you!" + +He turned and pointed a finger at Fred, who nodded. + +"That English bwana is my master," he said stoutly. It was a forlorn +hope, though. He did not seem to believe that the statement of fact +would do him any good. + +Fred jumped to his feet. + +"That is perfectly correct," he said in English. "The boy is my +servant, engaged on British territory, under a contract for wages to be +paid in English money. He is to be paid off in British East at the end +of my journey." + +"Who asked you to speak?" demanded the lieutenant angrily, sitting up +like a startled scorpion. "Do you not know this is a court?" + +"It looks like a shambles!" Fred answered, glancing to right and left +and indicating the victims of the whip writhing in the name of German +justice. + +"Shut up, you fool!" counseled Will in a stage whisper, but either Fred +did not hear him, or was too worked up to care. + +"Silence! Sit down!" + +"I warn you!" Fred answered. "That boy has claimed British protection. +I shall see he has it!" + +Then he sat down. The lieutenant glared at Kazimoto, the glare +changing to a cold grin as he realized how fully we were all at his +mercy for the moment. + +"You are sentenced," he said, "to two hundred lashes for making +impudent answers to the court, and to six months on the chain-gang for +deserting from this country and entering foreign service. Further +evidence against you will be assembled in the meanwhile, and other +charges against you will be tried on completion of the chain-gang +sentence!" + +"I protest!" shouted Fred, jumping up again. "I give notice of appeal +to whatever higher court there is. I am ready to give bonds!" + +"What does this delay mean?" snapped the lieutenant. "Put him down at +once and lay the lashes on!" + +The unfortunate Kazimoto was pounced on by two askaris and thrown +face-downward on the floor. One of them tore off his clothes, ripping +up his good English jacket. + +"Did you hear my protest?" shouted Fred. "Did you hear my notice of +appeal?" + +"I did," said the lieutenant. "Appeals are heard at the coast. You +must give notice by mail, and receive an acknowledgment from the higher +military court before I grant stay of execution. Lay on the lashes!" + +"I will hold you personally liable for this outrage," Fred told him, +"if it costs me all my money and all the rest of my years! I defy you +to continue!" + +"You have yourself to blame!" the lieutenant grinned. "But for your +uninvited interruption the Nyamwezi would have had a better hearing! +Lay those lashes on harder and more slowly!" + +Kazimoto was taking his gruel like a man. Two askaris were beating +him. The blows fell at random anywhere below the neck and above the +heels, raising a great welt where they did not actually cut the skin. +He had buried his face in his forearms, and Will had gone to stand near +him, stooping down to encourage him with any words at all that might +seem to serve. + +"Stick it out, Kazi! We'll stand by! We won't leave you down here! +Remember you've got friends who won't desert you!" + +Probably in his agony Kazimoto did not understand a word of it, but the +lieutenant did,--and swiftly took steps to interfere. + +"Call the Europeans' cases next!" he shouted, and promptly the German +sergeants stepped down from the platform to marshal us in line. The +lieutenant went through the form of studying the blue papers, and +called out our names. That of Brown was included, but Brown was not in +court and we were kept standing there until he had been fetched from +his tent. He had retired immediately after the hanging to sleep off +the effects of his debauch, and being now deprived of that luxury +arrived between two askaris in a volcanic temper. He insulted the +lieutenant to begin with. + +"A diet o' beer an' sausage don't seem to have filled you full o' good +manners, do it?" + +The lieutenant scowled, but for the moment chose to ignore the +pleasantry. + +"You people are charged," he said, "with entering German territory +otherwise than by a regular road and without reporting at a customs +station. Further, with intending to defraud the customs--with carrying +and possessing arms without a license--with being in possession of +ammunition without a permit--with shooting game without a license--with +filibustering--with intentional homicide, in that you shot and killed +certain men of the Masai tribe within German territory--with wandering +at large without permits and with felonious intent; and last, and this +is the most serious charge, with being spies within the military +meaning of that term. Do you plead guilty or not guilty?" + +We were dumb. Even the crack of the heavy whips on poor Kazimoto's +skin ceased to make impression on us. Suffering already from my wound +to the point of nausea, I actually reeled before this new deluge of +trouble, and had to hold on to Fred and Will. They each put an arm +under mine. It was Brown who spoke and stole from our sails what +little wind there might have been. + +"Decline to plead!" he shouted boisterously. "You're no judge, you're +a pirate! You're not fit to try natives, let alone white men! You're +a disgrace, that's what you are! All you're fit for is to make a +decent fellow glad he needn't know you!" + +"Silence!" roared the lieutenant, banging on the table with his open +palm--then with his fist--then with a mallet. + +"Silence yourself!" retorted Brown as soon as the hammering ceased. +"You ought to be ashamed o' yourself! Your court's a bally disgrace, +an' you're the worst thing in it! You and your Kaiser can go to hell, +and be damned to both of you!" + +"One month in jail for contempt of court and Majestaets-beleidigung!" +snapped the lieutenant. "Take him away!" + +Quite clearly that was not the first time that a white man had been +imprisoned in Muanza. There was no hesitation about the way in which +an askari seized Brown's wrists or a sergeant snapped the handcuffs. +He was hustled out expostulating, kicked on the shins by the sergeant +when he faced about to argue, and shoved into a run by both sergeant +and askari. + +"You others would better be careful what you say!" said the lieutenant. + +"I've a mind to share Brown's cell!" said Will, but the lieutenant +affected not to hear that. + +"Since you refuse to plead in this court, you shall be held until the +arrival of Major Schunck from the coast. Your arms and ammunition are +to be handed over to the askaris, who will be sent to the rest-camp to +receive them. The askaris will search your belongings thoroughly to +make sure they have all your weapons. You are ordered confined within +the limits of this township, and if you are detected making any attempt +to trespass outside township limits you will be confined as the Greeks +are within the rest-camp under observation. The porters you brought +into the country are all to be paid their full wages by you until Major +Schunck shall have dealt with you; the porters are refused permission +to leave Muanza, being needed as witnesses. Next case!" + +He scrawled his signature at the foot of each sheet of blue paper, and +made a motion with his arm that we should leave court. But we sat down +and waited until the two Nubian giants had finished flogging Kazimoto, +and when they dragged him to his feet Will and Fred walked over to give +him a few words of comfort. That act of ordinary kindness threw the +lieutenant into another fury. + +"Bring the Nyamwezi here!" he ordered, and the askaris hustled him up +in front of the table. + +"What do you do? Have you no manners? Return proper thanks for the +lesson you have received!" + +Kazimoto stood silent. + +"For God's sake--" Will began. + +"Say 'Thank you' to him, Kazimoto!" Fred whispered. + +There is no native word for "Thank you"--only a bastard thing +introduced by tyrants from Europe who never understood the African +contention that the giver rewards himself if his gift is worth anything +at all. + +"Asente," said Kazimoto meekly. + +"Why don't you salute? Don't you know where you are?" + +"For the love of God salute him!" Will almost shouted. + +Kazimoto obeyed. + +"Take him and put him on the chain-gang!" ordered the lieutenant. "You +Europeans leave the court!" + +"I'm no European!" Will shouted back. "Thank the Lord I was born in a +country you'll never set foot in!" + +"Take them away before I have to make an example of them!" the +lieutenant ordered. + +Obediently the askaris gathered about us and hustled us out into the +open, poking at my bandaged wound to get swifter action, and going as +far as to threaten us with their hippo-hide whips. I trod on the naked +toe of one of them with sufficient suddenness and weight to deprive him +of the use of it for all time, and luckily for me he did not see who +did it. The askari next to him had boots on, and got the blame. + +The black men who were to search our belongings tried to induce us to +hurry, but we insisted on seeing the iron ring riveted to Kazimoto's +neck. The ring had a shackle on it, and through that they passed the +long chain that held him prisoner in the midst of a gang of forty men. +Nobody washed the wounds on his back. We bought water from a woman who +was passing with a great jar on her head, and did that much for him. +He was naked. His clothes that the askaris had torn from him had been +thrown outside the court, and some one had stolen them. Later they +gave him a piece of cheap calico to bind round his waist, but during +all that hot afternoon he had nothing to keep the sun from his tortured +back; nor would they permit us to give him anything. + +The mortification of having one's private belongings gone through by +black men in uniform was made more exasperating still by the fact that +Coutlass and the other Greek and the Goanese were spectators, amusing +themselves with comments that came nearer to causing murder than they +guessed. + +The real motive of the search was evident within two minutes from the +commencement. The askaris could not read, but they showed a most +remarkable affinity for paper that had been written on. They took the +guns and ammunition first, but after that they emptied everything from +our bags and boxes on to the sand, and confiscated every scrap of +paper, shaking our books to make sure nothing was left between the +leaves. + +They even took away our writing material in their zeal to find +information likely to prove useful to their masters. But they forgot +to search our pockets, so that they overlooked the letter we had +written in code to Monty and had not yet sent away by messenger. + +That letter became our most besetting problem. How to find a runner +who would take it to British East and mail it for us up there without +betraying us first to the Germans was something we could not guess. +Even Fred grew gloomy when we realized there was probably not a native +on the whole countryside with sufficient manhood left in him to dare +make the attempt. The first overture we might make would almost +certainly be reported to the commandant at once. + +"What fools we were not to send Kazimoto with it when he begged us to!" + +"What worse than fools!" + +"What brutes! Think what we might have saved him!" + +We were unanimous as to that, but unanimity brought no comfort, until +we all together hit on a notion that did ease our feelings a trifle. +Coutlass and his two friends were sitting on camp-stools in the open +where they could have a full view of our doings. Assuming the +camping-ground to be equally divided between their party and ours, they +were well within our portion. We decided their curiosity was insolent, +declared inexorable war, and there and then felt better. + +Fred went out with a tent-peg and scored in the sand a deep line to +denote our boundary, the Greeks watching, all eyes and guesswork. + +"Over the other side with you!" Fred ordered when he had finished. + +They refused. He charged at them, and they ran. + +"Whichever of you, man or servant, sets foot on our side of that line +shall be a dead-sure hospital case!" Fred announced. "We'll +reciprocate by leaving your side of the camp to you!" + +"Who made you men rulers of this rest-camp?" Coutlass demanded. + +"We did," Fred answered. "We've lost our rifles just as you have. +We'll fight you with bare hands and skin you alive if you trespass!" + +"Gassharamminy!" shouted Coutlass. "By hell and Waterloo, you mistake +me for a weakling! Wait and see!" + +We had to wait a very long and weary time, but we did see. In the days +that followed, when my wound festered and I grew too ill to drag myself +about, Fred and Will were able to leave me alone in the camp without +any fear of a visit from the Greeks. It was not that there was much +left worth stealing, but a mere visit from them might have had +consequences we could never have offset. Alone, unable to rise, I +could not have forced them to leave, and their lingering would surely +have been interpreted by the guard, who always watched them from the +corner of the road, as evidence of collusion of some sort between them +and us. + +Just at that time Coutlass, as it happened, would have liked nothing +better in the world than the chance to persuade the Germans that he was +in our councils. Fred's mere irritable determination to divide the +camp in halves saved us in all human probability from a trap out of +which there would have been no escape. + + + + +CHAPTER NINE + + +"SPEAK YE, AND SO DO" + + Ok Thou, who gavest English speech + To both our Anglo-Saxon breeds, + And didst adown all ages teach + That Art of crowning words with deeds, + May we, who use the speech, be blest + With bravery, that when shall come + In thy full time our hour of test-- + That promised hour of Christendom, + We may be found, whate'er our need, + How grim soe'er our circumstance, + Unwilling to be fed or freed, + Or fame or fortune to enhance + By flinching from the good begun, + By broken word or serpent plan, + Or cruelty in malice done + To helpless beast or subject man. + Amen + + +There was method, of course, behind the difference in treatment +extended to us and to the Greeks. The motive for making Coutlass sell +his mules and stay within the miserable confines of the rest-camp was +to make sure he had money enough to feed himself, and to cut off all +opportunity for swift escape. Not for a second were the Germans +sufficiently unwary to admit collusion with him. + +The real ownership of the three mules was left in little doubt when +they were sold at public auction and bought in by Schillingschen. Fred +and Will attended the auction the day following our scene in court, and +extracted a lot of amusement from bidding against Schillinschen, +compelling him finally to pay a good sum more than the mules were worth. + +Coutlass was in a strange predicament. The looting of Brown's cattle +had been a bid for fortune on his own account. Yet by causing us to +give chase he had brought us into the German net more handily than ever +they had hoped. So it was reasonable on his part to suppose that if he +could betray us more completely still, he might get rewarded instead of +treated as a broken tool. + +Yet he did not dare to approach our camp, for fear lest Fred should +carry out his threat and fight. The fight would certainly be reported +by the askari on watch at the crossroads, and that would destroy his +chance of making believe to be in our confidence. So he kept sending +notes to me when the others were absent, even the native boy who +brought them--not daring to enter our camp, but fastening the message +to a stone and throwing it in through the tent door. + +They were strange, illiterate messages, childishly conceived, varying +between straight-out offers to help us escape and dark insinuations +that he knew of something it would pay us well to investigate. + +It was an English missionary spending three days in Muanza on his way +to Lake Tanganika, who came to see what he could do for my wound and +cleared up the mystery quite a little by reporting what he had heard in +the non-commissioned mess, where he had been invited to eat a meal. + +"The Greek," he said, "is trying to curry favor by pretending he knows +your plans. If he succeeds in worming into your confidence and +persuading you to make plans to escape with him, they will feel +justified in putting you in jail--and that, I understand, is where they +want you." + +"Will you do me a favor?" I asked. + +He hesitated. It was kindness that had sent him down to ease my pain, +if possible, not anti-Germanism; it was part of German policy to pose +as the friend of all missionaries, and if anything he was prejudiced +against us--particularly against Brown, whom he had visited in jail, +and who assured him the only hymn he ever sang was "Beer, glorious +beer!" + +"That depends," he answered. + +"We are quite sure any letters we write will be opened," I said. + +He answered that he could hardly believe that. + +"If we could send a letter unopened to British East it would solve our +worst problem," I told him. "If you know of a dependable messenger who +would carry our letter, I would contribute fifty pounds out of my own +pocket to the funds of your mission." + +I made a mistake there, and realized it the next moment. + +"What kind of letter is worth fifty pounds?" he asked me. "Isn't it +something illegal that you fear might get you into worse trouble if +opened and read?" + +I argued in vain, and only made my case worse by citing as an instance +of German official turpitude the staff surgeon's neglect of me. + +"But he tells me you refuse to be treated by him!" he answered. "He +says you enter his hospital and are insolent if he happens to be too +busy to attend to you at once. He says you refuse to let a native +orderly dress your wound!" + +He had been entertained to one meal at the commandant's house on the +hill, and regaled by awful accounts of our ferocity. I did not succeed +in inserting as much as the thin end of a different view until he asked +me how a man's name could be professor Schillingschen and his wife's +Lady Isobel Saffren Waldon. + +"I don't understand about titles," he said. "Shouldn't she take his +name, or else he hers, or something?" + +I assured him that marriage had never as much as entered the head of +either of them. + +"They're simply living together," I said. "He's a cynical brute. She's +a designing female!" + +The missionary mind recoiled and refused to believe me. But after he +had thought the matter over and seen the probability, he swung over to +a sort of lame admission that a few more of my statements might perhaps +be true. + +"I will take your letter and guarantee its delivery in British East, +provided I may read it and do not disapprove of its contents." he +volunteered. + +"That's not unreasonable," I said, "but the letter is in code." + +"I should have to see it decoded." + +I told him to find Fred and Will. He came on them sitting smoking +under the great rock near the waterfront that had been inset with a +bronze medallion of Bismarck, and startled them almost into committing +an assault on him, by saying that he wanted our secret code at once. +They had been trying to get tobacco to Brown, and sweetmeats to +Kazimoto, had failed in both efforts and were short-tempered. He +explained after they had insulted him sufficiently, and they walked +down to the camp one on either hand, apologizing all the way. I +imagine they had criticized missions of all denominations pretty +thoroughly. + +In the end he decided not to read the letter at all. + +"I have reached the conclusion you three men are gentlemen," he said, +"and would not take advantage of me. I will take your letter to Ujiji, +and send it to the south end of Lake Tanganika, to be put in the +British mail bag for Mombasa by way of Durban. It will take a long +time to reach its destination--perhaps two months; but I will have it +registered, and it will undoubtedly get there." + +That he kept his word and better we had ample proof later on, but I did +not bless him particularly fervidly at the time, for he went straight +to the doctor and repeated my complaints. He left for Ujiji the next +day, and the net result of his friendly interference was that the +doctor refused me any sort of attention at all--even a change of +bandages. + +Fred and Will did their best for me, but it was little. I read in +their faces, and in their studied cheerfulness when speaking in my +presence, that they had made up their minds I was going to lose the +number of my mess. They went to the commandant and the lieutenant +besides the doctor in efforts to secure for me some sort of +consideration, but without result; and they wrote at least six letters +to the British East African Protectorate government that we ascertained +afterward never reached their destination. They tried to register one +letter, but registration was refused. + +"Why don't they jail us simply, and have done with it?"--Will kept +wondering aloud. + +"They will when it suits their books," said I. "For the present they +scarcely dare. Word might reach the British government. They're +breaking no international law by holding us here and keeping tabs on +us." + +Before many days I grew unable to leave the hard cork mattress on the +camp-bed in Fred's tent. They went again to the commandant, this time +determined to force the issue. + +"I will send some one," he told them, and they came away delighted that +strong language should succeed where politeness formerly had failed. + +But all the commandant did send was an askari twice a day, to lean on +his rifle in the tent door, leer at me, and march away again. + +"He comes to see if I'm dead," said I. "It would be inconvenient to +have me die in jail; there might be inquiries afterward from British +East. After I'm dead and buried they'll jail you two healthy ones, and +keep you until you 'blab'!" + +"Why don't we straight out tell 'em we don't know a thing about the +ivory?" wondered Will. + +"Because they wouldn't believe us!" Fred answered. + +Seven days after the sentry's first call the doctor took to coming in +person to look at me. He never except once stepped inside the tent, +but was satisfied to give me a glance of contempt and go away again, +once or twice taking pains to inspect the Greeks' camp before leaving. +He usually had Schubert trailing in his wake, and gave him stern orders +about sanitation which nobody ever carried out. The sanitary +conditions of that rest-camp were simply non-existent until we came +there, and we had gone to no pains on the Greeks' account. + +But the Greeks did us an unexpected good turn, though it looked like +making more trouble for us at the time. They began to complain of lack +of exercise, and to grow actually sick for want of it. Because of +that, and jealousy, they raised a clamor about our freedom to go +anywhere within township limits as against their strict confinement to +the camp. The commandant came down to the camp in person to hear what +they had to say, and being in a good humor saw fit to yield a point. +Being a military German, though, he could not do it without attaching +ignominious conditions. + +There was a band attached to the local company of Sudanese--an affair +consisting of four native war-drums and two fifes. They knew eight +bars of one tune, and were proud of it, the fifers blowing with beef +and pluck and the drummers thundering native fashion, which means that +the only difference between their noise and a thunder-storm was in the +tempo. + +Day after day, twice a day, whether it rained or shone, it seemed to be +the law that this "band" should patrol the whole township limits, +playing its only tune, lifting the tops of men's heads with its +infernal drumming, and delighting nobody except the players and the +township urchins, who marched in its wake rejoicing. + +The Greeks and the Goanese were given leave to march with the band +twice a day for the sake of exercise. They refused indignantly. The +commandant flew into the rage that is the birthright of all German +officials, but suddenly checked himself; he had a brilliant idea. + +He withdrew the permission and changed it to an order that Coutlass and +his two friends should march with the band twice daily for the sake of +their health, on pain of imprisonment should they refuse. + +"And I will prove to you," he said, "that the good German rule is +impartial. All aliens awaiting trial and confined within the township +limits shall march with the band if they are able!" As an afterthought +he added magnanimously: "Those in the jail, too, provided they have +not been sentenced for serious crimes!" + +So Coutlass, his Greek friend, the Goanese, Fred, Will, and Brown of +Lumbwa marched about the town twice daily, at seven in the morning and +three in the afternoon, a journey of five miles, Fred and Will making +no objection because it gave them a chance to talk with Brown. There +were strict orders against talking, and four askaris armed with rifles +marched behind to enforce the rule as well as keep guard over Brown. +But the drums were so thunderous and the shrill fifes so lusty that the +askaris could not hear conversation pitched in low tones. + +"Brown says," said Fred, returning from the first march, "that he +sleeps with only a sheet of corrugated iron between him and the ward +where the chain-gang lies. He can talk with Kazimoto when he happens +to be at that end of the chain. They've nothing but planks to lie on, +any of them. He says Kazimoto seems determined to kill the lieutenant +who sentenced him, and as soon as he's off the chain we'd better grab +him and hurry him out of the country." + +"Six months!" said I. "Splendid advice! How many of us will be alive +or at liberty six months from now? Not I, at any rate!" + +"How d'you suppose they discipline the chain-gang?" Fred asked, +ignoring my growing hopelessness. + +"With the lash," said I. "I've seen!" + +"That's by day," said Fred. "They've better ways at night. One plan +is no supper or breakfast; but the champion scheme is the doctor's. +On complaint by the askaris that a man on the chain has shirked his +work, or answered back, or been obstreperous, the doctor serves him out +a handful of strong pills and sees him swallow them. They don't +unchain them at night. D'you get the idea?" + +"Not yet." + +"Every time the man has to go outside he must wake the whole gang and +take them with him! They're weary after working twelve hours at a +stretch. After the second or third time up they begin to object pretty +strenuously. After the third or fourth time he's so unpopular that +he'd almost rather die than wake them. Imagine the result, and what he +suffers!" + +Despondency began to have hold of me, and I no longer wished to live. +The doctor's momentary daily visits increased my loathing for the crew +who tyrannized there in the name of Progress, and I could see no way of +retaliating. I became seized with a sort of delirious conviction that +if only I could die and be out of the way my friends would be far +better able to contrive without me. There is no convalescence in a +mood of that sort, and each morning found me nearer death than the +last. Then malaria developed, to give me the finishing touch, and +although strangely enough I grew less instead of more delirious, Fred +and Will at last made no secret of their belief that I was doomed. + +I myself was as sure of death as they were of dinner, and had better +appetite for my fate than they for the meal, when one morning the +doctor came earlier than usual. He had Schubert with him, and they +both peered through the tent door. I was alone, for Fred and Will were +in the other tent. The doctor stepped inside and examined me closely, +drawing up the mosquito net to see my face. I did not trouble to speak +to him, or even to open my eyes after the first glimpse. He spoke to +Schubert in German, let the net fall again, and went away. Schubert +spat and rubbed his hands, and swung along after him. + +Then I heard Will and Fred arguing. + +"Don't be a fool!" That was Fred's voice. + +"I tell you I'll tell him!" + +"Fine thing to tell a poor devil that's dying! Let him die in peace!" + +"No. He has guts, for I've seen him use 'em. I shall tell him. You +wait here!" + +But they both came in, and sat one on either side of my bed. + +"Did you hear what that doctor person said to the sergeant-major?" +asked Will. + +"I don't talk his beastly language," I answered. + +"He said you'll be dead by this evening! He told Schubert to go and +get the chain-gang and have them dig your grave at noon instead of +laying off for dinner. He added they'll have you buried and out of the +way by four or five o'clock. Then Schubert asked him--" + +"No need to tell him that!" Fred objected. But Will was watching my +face keenly, and went on. + +"Schubert asked him who was to say whether you are dead or not. What +d'you suppose the answer was?" + +Fred objected again, but Will waved him aside. + +"The answer he gave Schubert was: 'Once he is covered with two meters +of earth, I shall not hesitate to sign a certificate!'--So now you know +what to expect!" + +Will smiled as he watched me. His face was as keen and calm as Fred's +was troubled. + +"Take more than his guesswork to put you where he'd like to have +you--eh?" he laughed. And I sat up. + +Fred began to grin too. "You were right, Will!" he admitted. + +It was not anger that swept over me and gave me new strength. Anger, I +think, would have hastened the end. It was sudden recognition of my +own superiority to the devils who knew so little mercy. It was simple +inability in the last recourse to admit myself able to be their victim. +Even my leg felt better. I demanded food; and by the time they +returned from their morning march around the township I had made my boy +dress me and was sitting up. + +We dated the turn of the tide of our fortunes from that hour. +Certainly from that day we began to prosper--at first gradually, but +after a while in the old swift way that had made all our ventures with +Monty such amazingly amusing work. + +We saw the chain-gang--Kazimoto last, with a shovel over his +shoulder--march away at noon to dig me a grave in the sand close to +where they burned the township refuse. Fred and Will went and watched +them a while, contriving to slip a paper of snuff into Kazimoto's hand +while he rested and let the pick-men labor. (Snuff to a Nyamwezi is as +comforting as an old sweet pipe to nine white men out of ten.) + +When Schubert came that evening at five with an old sack to put my body +in, and plenty of askaris to help decide disputes, I was standing up. +He could not very well make even himself believe that a man who could +speak and walk was dead, but he could be immensely enraged by what he +was pleased to call my schweinspiel.* He cursed me in every language he +knew, including several native ones, and ended by threatening to make +sure of me before going to so much trouble a second time. [*Literally, +pig-play.] + +We enraged him still further by laughing at him, and Fred got out his +concertina that for many days past had lain idle. The first few notes +of it made me realize more than any other thing could have done what +depths of despondency we must have plumbed, for hitherto, for as long +as I had known Fred, he had always been able with that weird instrument +of his to rouse his own spirits and so stir the rest of us. He resumed +old habits now, and gloom departed. + +That evening I went to bed like a new man, and for the first night for +long weeks slept until dawn, awaking hungry. My leg began to mend. We +all saw the absurdity, if nothing else, of the treatment meted out to +us, based on no better grounds than our supposed possession of a +secret. Laughter brought good hope. Hope gave us courage, and courage +set Fred and Will hunting for a means of escape. We decided there and +then that to wait for this Major Schunck to come from the coast and +pass judgment on us was a ridiculous waste of time as well as highly +dangerous. + +The first discovery Fred and Will made was that there were footholds +cut in the great granite rock in which the Bismarck medallion was set. +They climbed it, and discovered that from the summit they could see all +Muanza harbor from the shore line to the island in the distance. +Sitting up there, they presently spotted a native dhow drawn up with +bow to the beach with the indefinable, yet unescapable air of rather +long disuse. + +Resisting the first temptation to hurry along the shore and examine it, +they returned to camp to tell me of the find, and sent Simba, +Kazimoto's understudy, to find out whose the dhow was and why it lay +there. They explained it was a fairly big dhow, and might be laid up +there on account of leakiness. + +But Simba came back grinning with the news that the dhow belonged to an +Indian from British East who had been jailed for smuggling. The dhow +had been sold to pay his court fine, and was now owned by a Punjabi who +had bought it as a speculation and repented already of his bargain, +because the Germans would grant him no license to use it and nobody +else would buy. + +They went off again to have another distant view of it and to try and +invent some means of inspecting it closely without betraying their +purpose. I was already able to walk with the aid of a stick, although +not fast enough to keep up with them, and curiosity taking hold of me I +called two of our servants to give me a supporting arm and limped off +to see the grave the chain-gang had recently dug for me. + +It was a struggle to get there, but it seemed to me the trip was worth +it. I found the grave about a foot too short, but otherwise +commensurate, and sat down on a stone beside it to consider a number of +things. A convalescent man sitting beside his own grave may be +forgiven for amusing himself with a lot of near-philosophy, and if I +trespassed over the borders of common sense on that occasion I claim it +was not without excuse. + +My meditations were disturbed by the arrival on the scene of the very +last man I expected. We had been told that Professor Schillingschen +had gone out on a journey, leaving his "wife" in the care of the +commandant; yet I looked up suddenly to see him standing on the other +side of the grave with both hands in the pockets of his knickerbockers +and a grin of malevolent amusement showing through the tangled mass of +hair that hid his lower face. + +"Yours?" he asked. + +I nodded. + +"A close call! I have seen closer! I have stood so close to the brink +of death that the width of an eyelash would have damned me!" + +"Piffle!" I answered rudely. "How can the already damned be damned +again?" + +He laughed. + +"You are sick still. You are petulant. Never mind. I was coming to +call on you. I watched you leave the camp from the top of that hill +behind you, and followed. It is better. We can talk here without +being overheard. Send those natives away!" + +"Certainly not!" I answered, but I reckoned without the professor and +the fear his hairy presence instilled in them. + +"Go!" he said simply in the native tongue; and although I ordered them +at once to stay by me they ran back to the camp as fast as their legs +could carry them. + +"How do you feel now?" the professor asked. + +I stared at him, wondering just what he meant. + +"I mean, without a pistol!" + +I saw the point. The rest-camp was not far away, but as far as I could +judge we were quite out of sight from it, and unless there should +happen to be some one hiding among the rocks at the foot of the hill +behind me we were quite alone, unless, as was probable, he had placed +one or two of his own hangers-on in hiding within call. + +"This grave should be a lesson to you!" he grinned. + +"It has been," I answered. + +"An illustration," he suggested. + +"A period," said I. + +"To your youth?" he asked maliciously. "To the age of folly?" + +"To the time," I said, "when any man could blackmail me. I would go +into that grave ten times rather than tell you what you want to know!" + +"There are worse places than the grave!" he said, beginning to leer +savagely. His eyes glittered. He could scarcely find patience for +argument. The thin veneer of his first mock-friendliness was gone +utterly. + +"I imagine that German colonial life is far worse than death," said I. + +"German will be the only rule in Africa," he answered. "You fools of +English have set your hopes on the Christian missionary. No +weaker-backed camel could exist! The German Michael is wiser! Islam +is the key to the native mind--Islam and the lash--they understand +that! In a few years there will be nothing in Africa that is not +German from core to epidermis! As to whether you shall live to see +that day or not depends on yourself, my young friend!" + +Being quite sure that he had a plan in mind that nothing would prevent +him from unfolding, I did not waste effort or words on prompting him, +but sat still. My silence and apparent lack of curiosity disturbed +him; there is nothing your bully likes better than to force his victim +into a war of words. + +"I will be short and blunt with you!" he began again. "I know your +history! You were in Portuguese Africa with Lord Montdidier. There he +came in possession of the secret of Tippoo Tib's ivory; how, I do not +yet know, but you shall tell me that presently! You and your friends +came with him to Zanzibar, where you made certain inquiries--sufficient +to set the Sultan of Zanzibar by the ears. You left Zanzibar for +Mombasa, and for some reason that you shall also tell me presently, +Lord Montdidier did not leave the ship at Mombasa but continued the +voyage toward London. Certain individuals decided that it would be +better not to permit Lord Montdidier to reach Europe alive. There were +agents charged with the duty of attending to that. It was considered +safest to throw him overboard into the Mediterranean; men were ordered +by cable to board the ship at Suez. Yet when the ship reached Suez +nobody knew anything about him! Tell me where he left the ship, and +why!" + +He glared with eyes accustomed to extorting facts from savages, +depending on physical weakness so to undermine my will that I would +give my secret away, perhaps without knowing it. + +I lowered my eyes, not being minded to match the strength of my +eye-muscles against his. The news that Monty had not reached Suez as a +matter of fact made me feel physically sick. If it were true, it meant +most likely that he had been the victim of foul play, for that steamer +was not scheduled to stop anywhere before reaching the Suez Canal. As +for the people on the ship knowing nothing about him they no doubt +preferred not to talk to strangers. That sort of news is easily kept +under cover for a while. Schillingschen grew angry at my silence, and +changed his tactics. + +"Where did he leave the ship?" he shouted--suddenly--savagely. + +I did not answer. He came round to my side of the grave, and laid a +heavy clenched fist on my shoulder. It seemed to weigh like lead in +the weak condition I was in. + +"You shall tell me what Lord Montdidier is doing now, or that grave +shall resemble in your imagination a bed of roses!" + +He seized my neck in a grasp like iron, and squeezed it. I rose +suddenly and struck him in the stomach with my elbow. Strength had +returned more swiftly than I had guessed, or perhaps it was indignation +at the touch of his fingers. At any rate he staggered clear of me, and +I thought he would assault me now in real earnest; but perhaps he +suspected me of having weapons concealed somewhere. Instead of rushing +at me like an angry bull he calmed himself and laughed. + +"You are strong for a man they thought of burying!"' he said. "Never +mind! You shall see reason presently! It is well understood that you +and your friends know where Tippoo Tib's ivory is hidden. You imagine +you can keep the secret. If you keep it, you shall never make use of +it, my young friend! If you choose to tell, you shall be suitably +rewarded! Come now--I thought you were going to look for it down in +these parts. I admit you fooled me. You simply made a false move to +draw attention off from Lord Montdidier. Tell me where he is and what +he does--and--or--" + +"And what? Or what?" I demanded, as insolently as I knew how. I saw +no sense in answering him gently. + +"I will show you!" + +I had begun to feel weak again, but he offered me an arm, and since he +seemed in no hurry I was able to struggle along beside him. We took to +the main road and when we reached the D.O.A.G. he called for a hammock +and some porters. Being carried in that way was sheer luxury after the +walk in my weak state, and I lay back feeling like a tripper on +vacation. I saw Fred and Will climbing down from their observation +post on top of the Bismarck monument, but he did not notice them. + +Every German sergeant, and every askari we passed saluted us with about +twice as much respect as I had ever seen them show the commandant; and +Schillingschen returned salutes much less carefully than he, merely by +a curt nod, or one raised finger. Apparently the military feared him, +for when we passed the commandant, who was personally superintending +the flogging of two natives in the market-place for not saluting +himself, he took several paces forward to make sure Schillingschen +should see his act of homage. The professor merely nodded in return, +and I began to I wonder whether there was a rift in the lute of +Muanza's official good relations. Surely I hoped so. Anything +calculated to set the Germans' garrison life at odds looked to me like +the gift of heaven! + +Schillingschen, striding beside the hammock, directed our course along +the shore-front under palm-trees, planted in stately rows with +meticulous precision. He kept far enough to one side to avoid the +charge of being seen walking with me, but from time to time tossed me +remarks calculated to keep my nerves on edge. + +"What I shall show you is by way of warning!" was a remark he repeated +two or three times. Then: "A native can always be made to talk by +flogging him. Some white men need sterner measures!" + +We left the commandant's house on the hill far behind and followed the +curve of the lake shore, toward a rocky promontory with a clump of +thick jungle behind it. Fear began to get its work in, until the +thought came that what he most desired was to make me afraid; then I +managed to summon sufficient contempt for him and his tribe to regain +my nerve and once more almost enjoy the promenade. + +He halted the hammock bearers at a spot about three hundred yards away +from the promontory and, leaving them standing there, turned inland +with a hand on my arm to give me support and direction. We followed a +path that was fairly well marked out and trodden, but rough, and +several times I should have fallen but for his help. My legs still +refused any sort of strenuous duty. + +"The staff surgeon at this station is a man of ideas," he announced as +we rounded a big rock and passed down a narrow glade in the jungle. +"He is original. He is not like some of our official fools. He +studies." + +I refused to seem curious, and walked beside him in silence. + +"He studies sleeping sickness. If he can find the key to the solution +of that scourge it will mean promotion for him. He has noticed that +the sleeping sickness is always at its worst beside the lake, and +putting two and two together like a sensible man has reached the +conclusion that the disease may be propagated in some way in the blood +of these things." + +We emerged into a clearing in which a pool more than a hundred yards +long and nearly as many wide was formed naturally by a hollow in the +surface of a great sheet of granite. The pool was fed by a trickle of +water from a jumble of rocks at one end. At the other end the bottom +of the pond sloped upward gradually, so that a ramp of smooth rock was +formed, emerging out of shallow water. A stone wall had been built +about three feet high to enclose that end of the pond, and all the way +along both sides the granite had been broken and chipped until the +edges were sheer and unclimbable. + +"Look!" he said, pointing. + +I looked and grew sick. On the ramp, half in the water and half out +lay about a hundred crocodiles basking in the sun, their yellow eyes +all open. They were aware of us, for they began to move slowly higher +out of water as if they expected something. + +"You see that post?" asked Schillingschen. + +The stump of a dead tree that he referred to stood up nearly straight +out of a crack in the rock, and a few yards above water level. The +crocodiles all lay nose toward it, some of them twelve or fourteen feet +long, some smaller, and some very small indeed, all interested to +distraction in the dead tree-trunk. + +"That is where he feeds them," Schillingschen announced. "He has +tested them for hearing, smell, and eyesight. By making fast a living +animal to that post be has been able to convince himself that from +about nine in the morning until five in the afternoon their senses are +limited. Only occasionally do they come and take the bait between +those hours. They are hungriest in the early morning just before +daylight. Recently a large ape tied to the post at midday was not +killed and eaten until four next morning, and that is about the usual +thing, although not the rule. Now my proposal is--" + +He stepped back and eyed me with the coldest look of appraisal I ever +sickened under. I blenched at last--visibly suffered under his eye, +and he liked it. + +"--that you tell your secret or be fastened to that post from noon, +say, until the crocodiles make an end of you!" + +He stepped back a pace farther, perhaps to gloat over my discomfort, +perhaps from fear of some concealed weapon. + +"You have not much time to arrive at your decision!" + +He took another pace backward. It occurred to me then that he was +looking for some one he expected. Nobody turning up, he began to +gather loose stones and throw them at the reptiles, driving them down +into deep water, first in ones and twos and then by dozens. Most of +them swam away to the far side of the pool, and hid themselves where it +was deep. + +Then, panting with having run, there came a native who looked like a +Zulu, for he had enormous thighs and the straight up and down carriage, +as well as facial characteristics. + +"You are late!" shouted Schillingschen in German "Warum? What d'ye +mean by it?" + +The man opened his mouth wide and made grimaces. He had no tongue. +Schillingschen laughed. + +"This is a servant who does no tattling in the market-place!" he said, +turning again toward me. "He and I can tie you to that post easily. +What do you say?" + +There was nothing whatever to say, or to do except wonder how to +circumvent him, and nothing in sight that could possibly turn into a +friend--except a little tuft of faded brown that out of the corner of +my eye I detected zigzagging toward me in the direction from which we +had come. A moment later I knew it really was a friend. "Crinkle," a +mongrel dog that Fred had adopted the day after our arrival, breasted +the low rise, saw me, gave a yelp of delight and came scampering. + +The dog sniffed my knee to make sure of me, and then trotted over to +sniff Schillingschen. The professor stooped down to pat him, rubbed +his ear a moment to get the dog's confidence, and then seized him +suddenly by both hind legs. I saw what he intended too late. + +"Stop, or I'll kill you!" I shouted, and made a rush at him. But he +swung the yelping dog and hurled him far out into the pool. + +A second later my fist crashed into his face and he staggered backward. +A second later yet the dumb Zulu pinned my elbows from behind and set +his knee into the small of my back with such terrific force that I +yelled with pain. Then Schillingschen approached me and began to try +to drive my teeth in with unaccustomed fists. He loosened my front +teeth, but cut his own knuckles, so began looking about for a stick. + +Strangely enough my own attention was less fixed on Schillingschen than +on the wretched "Crinkle" swimming frantically for shore. Dog-like he +was making straight for me, and there was no possibility whatever of +his being able to scramble up the steep side. I shouted to call his +attention, and tried to motion to him to swim toward shallow water, but +the Zulu would not let my arms free, and the dog only thought I was +urging him to hurry. + +Schillingschen found a stick and came back to give me a hammering with +it just at the moment when a crocodile saw "Crinkle." A blow landed on +my head, cut my forehead, and sent the blood down into my eyes at the +same moment that I heard the dog's yelp of agony; and next time I +looked at the pond there was a tiny whirlpool on the surface, slightly +tinged with red. + +"You swine!" I shouted at Schillingschen, trying to break loose and +attack him. For answer he raised his cudgel in both hands and stood on +tiptoe to get leverage. If that blow had landed it must have broken +something, for he was strong as a gorilla; but somebody shouted--I +recognized Fred's voice, and in another second he and Will charged down +on us. Schillingschen turned about to strike Fred instead of me, but +Will's fist hit him on the ear and split it. The professor staggered +backward, and a moment later Fred had felled the Zulu. I reeled from +weakness and excitement, and nearly fell down. + +"Throw him to the crocks, you men!" I urged madly. "He threw Crinkle +in. Throw him! Nobody'll ever know! He'd have dared throw me in! +Nobody comes here! Throw him in and trust the crocks to leave no +trace!" + +"Shut up, you fool!" growled Fred. + +"Did you see him throw that dog in?" I retorted. + +"No," he answered, "but I saw him strike you. That's enough! I'll +deal with him!" + +I suppose Fred intended to knock the professor down and belabor him +with the same stick he had used on me, but the plan died stillborn. +Schillingschen bethought him of his hip-pocket, produced a repeating +pistol, and leveled it. + +"Any nonsense, and I shoot you all!" he announced. + +That ended the battle as far as we were concerned. We had no firearms. +Schillingschen wasted no time on explanations, but beckoned his Zulu +and walked off, striding at a great pace and only looking back over his +shoulder once or twice to make sure we were not in pursuit. + +Fred and Will lent me an arm apiece and we followed slowly, I +recounting as fast as I could all that had happened, and they trying to +chaff me back into a sensible frame of mind. + +"That was a decent dog!" I insisted. "He slept on my bed those nights +when I had fever!" + +"I know it," Fred answered. "Will and I lay and scratched, while you +rested, with proper flea-food for protection! Don't worry, we'll find +you another dog!" + +Schillingschen's consideration for my wound had vanished with the +chance of making use of me. As we emerged into the open we saw him in +the distance lolling in the hammock he had brought me in. + +"Never mind!" grinned Will. "I'll bet the brute has an earache!" + +"And teeth-ache!" added Fred. + +"And I'll bet he has gone to prepare us a hot reception!" said I. "He +owns this town!" + +But nothing happened immediately on our return into the town. Actually +Fred and Will had been outside township limits and could be arrested; +suspecting foul play as soon as they saw me with Schillingschen, they +had followed at once. They were as mystified as I when no swift +vengeance lit on them. We saw Schillingschen carried in the hammock up +the steep path leading to the commandant's house; but no one came down +again. After we got back to camp we spent all the rest of the day +waiting for the vengeance we felt sure was overdue, but none came. +Toward evening we even began to grow hopeful again and to talk about +the dhow. Fred and Will had examined it through field-glasses from the +top of the rock, and were optimistic 'regarding its size and general +condition. + +"Even if it leaks rather badly," said Will, "we could reach some +island, and beach it there, and caulk it." + +"How about that launch, that brought the professor and Lady Saffren +Waldon?" I asked. + +"What about it?" + +"Couldn't they follow us with that?" + +"You bet they could!" said Will. "We've either got to spike the +launch's boilers, or give them the complete slip on a dark night!" + +"We might steal the launch!" suggested Fred, but that was too wild a +proposal to be taken seriously. The launch was the apple of the German +governmental eye, and the engine crew slept on it always. + +The prospect was unpromising as ever, yet I went to bed and listened to +the strains of Fred's concertina in the next tent with less foreboding +than at any time since reaching Muanza, and fell asleep to the tune of +Silver Hairs among the Gold, a melancholy piece that Will liked to sing +when hope or courage stirred him. + +I was awakened near midnight of a moonless black night by a hand on my +bedclothes and the light of a lantern in my eyes. + +"Hus-s-s-h!" said some one. "Don't speak yet! Listen!" + +It was a woman's voice, and it puzzled me indescribably, for a sick +man's wits don't work swiftly as a rule when he lies between sleeping +and waking. + +"Listen!" said the voice again. "I must come to terms with you three +men! You are the only hope left me! I have no friends in Muanza--and +none whom I trust! Those Greeks and that Goanese would sell me to the +first bidder, and these Germans are worse than dogs!" + +"But who are you?" I asked stupidly. + +For answer she held the lantern so that I could see her face. Her hand +trembled, and the unsteady light threw baffling shadows, but even so I +could see she looked drawn and aged. + +"Where is your maid, then, Lady Waldon?" I asked, for it seemed to me +that was one friend who had served her through thick and thin. + +"Ask the commandant!" she answered. "The poor fool thinks he will +marry her! Little she knows of the German method! I am alone! I have +not even a servant any longer! I have walked through the shadows from +the commandant's house, only lighting this lantern after I was inside +the hedge. Nobody knows I am here. One watchman was asleep; the +others did not see me. All you need fear is those Greeks. As long as +they don't suspect I am here we can talk safely." + +I tumbled out of bed on the far side, and went to waken the other two. +After a hurried consultation we decided my tent was the best for the +interview, because of the light that had burned in it nearly always +while I was so deathly ill. We wrapped ourselves in blankets, and Fred +went and shook Simba awake. + +"Watch those Greeks!" he ordered him. "If they show signs of life, +come and give the alarm!" + +Then we set Lady Waldon's lantern on the ground in the back of my tent, +closed the tent up, and foregathered. There was one chair. We three +sat on the bed. + +"Before we begin," said Fred, "we'd like some kind of proof, Lady +Waldon, that your overture is honest! I've no need to labor the point. +Until now you have been our implacable enemy. Why should we believe +you are our friend to-night?" + +She sighed. "I don't expect friendship," she answered. "You and I are +in deep water, and must find a straw that may float us all! If I can +help you to escape out of the country I will. If you can help me, you +must! If you don't escape there are worse things in store for you than +you imagine! If you tell your secret now, they intend to prevent your +telling it to any one else afterward! And unless you tell they intend +to take terrible steps to compel you! As for me--they have discovered +that after all I know nothing, and am of no further use to them! They +have not said so, but it is very clear to me how the land lies. +Professor Schillingschen is drunk to-night; he came home with his car +and mouth bleeding, and has plied the whisky bottle freely ever since +until he fell asleep an hour and a half ago. He boasted over his cups. +They are simply using this long wait for Major Schunk, who is supposed +to be coming from the coast, to gather additional evidence against you. +They have men out following your trail back by the way you came, and +if they can find no genuine evidence they will invent what they need; +the purpose is to get you legally behind the bars; and if you ever +come out again alive that would not be their fault!" + +"What do you propose?" asked Fred. + +"Escape!" she answered excitedly. Then another thought made her clench +her fists. "Is it possible you told Professor Schillingschen your +secret to-day? Did one of you tell him? Is that why he is drunk?" + +She saw by our faces that that fear was groundless, but a greater one, +that she might not be able to convince us, seized her next and she made +such an excited gesture that the shawl she wore over her head and +shoulders fell away and her long hair came tumbling down like a witch's. + +"Listen! There is nothing that you men from your point of view +could say too bad about me! I know! I have been in the pay of Germany +for many years, but what you don't know is how they got me in the toils +and kept me in, dragging me down from one degradation to another! They +have dragged me down so far at last that I am not much more use to +them. If we were in British territory they would simply expose me to +the British government and save themselves the trouble of ending my +career. They did that to Mrs. Winstin Willoughby, and Lord James Rait, +and fifty others; it was so easy to put incriminating evidence against +them in the hands of the public prosecutor. Lord James Rait died in +Dartmoor Prison--a common felon. I shall not! But believe me--I am +certain as I sit here that they only wait for my return to British +East! To have me murdered here might start inconvenient rumors that +would lead to unanswerable questions! It was proposed to me to-day +that I should return to British East on the launch!" + +"Then why talk about escaping?" Fred wondered. "Why not go?" + +"Because," she hissed emphatically, "don't you see, you stupid!--if +they send me back it will be to my doom! My one chance is to escape +from their clutches--get into touch with British officials--and save +the situation by telling my own tale first!" + +Fred was in no hurry to be convinced. I was already for accepting her +story and helping her out; but that was perhaps because I was a sick +man, too recently recovered from the gates of death to care to be hard +on any one. + +"I still don't see your danger," Fred told her. "In all my life I fail +to recall a single instance of the British courts passing a severe +sentence on a spy. If you'll excuse my saying so, your story about +Lord James Rait is incorrect. I recall the case well. He got a +twenty-year sentence for forgery." + +"True!" she answered. "And Mrs. Winstin Willoughby was sentenced to +fifteen years for theft! Lord James did forge--in the way of business +for the German government! Jane Winstin Willoughby did steal--for the +same blackguard masters! Do you think they will expose me as a spy? +That would be too clumsy, even for such bullies as they are! Do you +suppose they could have dragged me down to this without some sword held +over me? They can prove that I committed a crime in England several +years ago. Oh, yes, I am a criminal! I raised a check. It was a +check on a German bank, given to me by a German on behalf of a +countryman of his. I needed money desperately, and the man who brought +the check to me suggested I should raise it! Since then I have tried +to repay that money with interest a dozen times, but they have always +laughed and told me they preferred to leave matters as they are." + +"What would be the use of returning to British territory, then?" asked +Fred. "If they hold that over you, they can denounce you at any time." + +"Not they!" she answered. "Not if I get there first! I know too much! +I can tell too much! I can prove too much! If I were once arrested +on the charge of raising that check, no government in the world would +listen to me. But if I can tell my story first, and confess about the +check, and explain why the charge is likely to be brought against me, +then there will be Downing Street officials who know how to whisper to +the German Embassy words that will frighten them into silence! I can +prove too much against the German government, if only I can tell my +tale before they crush me!" + +"Why not write it?" asked Fred, and it seemed to me there was humor in +his eye, but she only detected stubbornness, and laughed scornfully. + +"My own maid even gave them the letters written to me by my sister! If +I should be suspected of writing they would never rest until they had +the letter!" + +"Give me your letter to mail!" suggested Fred maliciously. + +"Deluded man!" she sneered. "All the letters you have written since you +came to Muanza lie in a drawer in the commandant's desk! I myself have +read them!" + +In the dark, with shifting shadows thrown by the cheap trade lantern, +it was difficult to judge what was going on behind that beard of +Fred's. I had begun to suspect he was coming over to my way of +thinking and would yield to her presently, but he returned to the +attack--very directly and abruptly. + +"What is it you know against the German government?" he demanded, and +sat with his jaw in the palm of his hand waiting for her answer. + +"Why should I tell you? Why should I put myself completely in your +power?" + +"Why not?" asked Fred. + +"What would prevent you from stealing my thunder, and telling my story +as your own--leaving me at the Germans' mercy?" + +"Something very potent that I think you would not understand if I +talked of it," Fred answered. "Listen to me now a minute. I haven't +conferred with my friends here, as you know. Whatever I tell you is +subject to their agreeing with me. The only condition on which I, for +one, would consent to taking part with you in anything--after all our +experience of you!--would be that you should put yourself so completely +in our power that we could feel we had your safekeeping. On those +terms I would be willing to do my best to help you out." + +"I agree to that like a shot!" said Will; and I nodded. + +"You mean--?" + +"All or nothing!" Fred insisted. + +"You mean that you also, just like these Germans, must have a sword to +hold over me?" + +"I thought you wouldn't understand!" Fred answered. "What we demand, +Lady Saffren Walden, is proof that you really do give us your +confidence. Without that we have nothing to say to you, and nothing to +do with you!" + +She broke down then and cried a little, tearing herself with sobs she +hated to release. Suddenly she raised her head and glared at us +wildly, dry-eyed; not a tear had accompanied the sobbing. + +"If I tell you--if you fail me after that--I shall kill myself in such +way that you shall know--my blood is on your heads!" + +Fred laughed. It was no doubt the best thing to do, but I wondered how +he managed it. + +"Suppose you begin by telling us," he said. "We can discuss the +blood-stains afterward!" + +Then she suddenly burst into her tale, as if she had rehearsed it a +hundred times in readiness to pour into the ears of the first British +official who had power enough to shield her. She told it dramatically, +in few words, wasting no breath on side-issues, and without once +pausing to explain, letting her words smash down the barriers of +unbelief and pave their own way for explanations afterward. + +"Germany is planning to conquer the world!--not now, but ten or a dozen +years from now! She is getting ready ceaselessly! Part of the plan is +to undermine British rule in Africa by means of a religious influence +among the natives. That is the special duty of Professor +Schillinschen. As soon as possible a great native army is to be +trained, and thoroughly schooled in the fanatical precepts of Islam. +But the German people are too heavily taxed already, and refuse to vote +money for this miserable colony, where the great beginning must be made +because it is only here that they can work unsuspected. So funds must +be found in some other way!" + +She paused for breath. No woman pleading at the bar of justice could +have seemed more in earnest. Of one thing I was quite sure: she had +found it worth her while to convince us if that were possible. She was +playing no half-hearted game. + +"Do you begin to see now why the Germans are so set on finding Tippoo +Tib's hoard of ivory? Do you begin to understand why they are +determined, not only to prevent your finding it, but to learn your +secret? If rumor is one-half true, the Arab buried somewhere enough +ivory to finance this plan of theirs! They have been going about the +search systematically, and sooner or later they feel they must stumble +on it. They will not let you forestall them!" + +She paused again. Her very earnestness exhausted her more than the +walk through the dark in danger had done. + +"Take your time," Fred advised her. "We're all listening!" + +"When I told you in Nairobi that Lord Montdidier had been murdered, I +believed I was so near the truth that you would never know the +difference. I knew the order had been given to have him killed on +board ship--given by men who are accustomed to be obeyed--who do not +excuse failure on any ground. They feared he might be going to divulge +the secret of the ivory to his government in London. Oh, I tell you +they stop at nothing! To-day London is the ivory market of the world, +but they have their arrangements made for transferring that center of +trade to Hamburg! They mean first to crush competitors, and then +monopolize! They hope the ivory is in this country. In that case +their task will be easy. But if it should be found in British East, +they are all ready with the necessary men of influence to apply for a +mining or agricultural concession, and they will fence that place off +so thoroughly that no one will ever be the wiser until they have +carried the ivory out of the country!" + +"They could never get it out of British East without the government +knowing," objected Fred; but she laughed at him. + +"If worse came to the worst, they are ready with an offer to exchange +ten times the territory elsewhere for just that small section of the +country. They would give up German New Guinea, or Southwest +Africa--anything! They have fooled the French and Russian governments +until they are ready to bring pressure to bear on England +diplomatically to induce her to make almost any bargain of that kind +that the Germans want. They are even willing to concede to England the +whole of Abyssinia, which nobody owns yet, and to back her up against +the claims of France and Italy! Why should they not be willing to make +temporary concessions, when all Africa is to be theirs in ten years' +time! They will give to-day, and with the help of the money that ivory +will bring they will create an army that shall take away to-morrow!" + +"But how can you prove all this?" Fred asked her. + +"How? I know the names of the men who are preaching Germany's sermons +all through British East! I know all Schillingschen's secrets! Why +should I not? I have suffered enough! He is a drunken brute nearly +always after the sun goes down, and his caresses are disgusting; I +have endured them until I know all he knows! Now he realizes that I +know his secrets and have none of my own to tell, so he hopes to send +me to my doom at the hands of the government I have betrayed too many +times! What is the use of my pretending to be better than I am? I am +a spy--a traitress--a divorced woman with worse than no reputation! I +am not a person likely to be shown much mercy! I never would have +recanted unless the end of my rope had come! Now I know I must buy my +pardon--I must earn it--I must pay for it with solid value! Luckily I +can do that! I do not ask you men for mercy. I know what is in store +for you if you do not escape! I offer to help you to escape, in +exchange for helping me!" + +"Better be more precise!" suggested Fred. "Exactly what is in store +for us?" + +She pointed her finger at me. "You went out of bounds to-day with +Schillingschen! Well and good; he was with you. But you, and you--" +She pointed at Fred and Will. "--went without permission. Why do you +suppose they over-looked such a splendid chance of jailing you legally? +Schillingschen came up to the commandant's house in a towering +passion, demanding the immediate arrest and close confinement of all +three of you. He was only persuaded to wait a few days longer because +a runner has come in with word that the bodies of several Masai whom +you shot on this side of the German border have been found! The +bones--the bullets found among the bones--and cartridge cases that will +fit your rifles are being brought to Muanza! After that--the deluge, +my friends! That is why Professor Schillingschen gets drunk and sings +himself to sleep in spite of your being still at liberty! Either +escape before that evidence reaches Muanza, or make up your minds for +the worst! It is growing late--answer me--do you agree?" + +Fred glanced once at each of us. We both nodded. + +"We agree with reservations," he said. + +"What are they? Man--don't be a fool! Don't fritter the lives of all +of us away!" + +"They're simple. We've a friend in the jail here. His name's Brown." + +"That drunkard? Leave him! He's worthless!" + +"We've a servant on the chain-gang. His name is Kazimoto." + +"A nigger? You'd risk another day in this place for a nigger? How +absurd! They're never grateful. They don't see things from the white +man's standpoint. They don't expect ideal treatment. Leave him his +wages and tell him to follow when they let him off the chain!" + +"And we have a string of porters," Fred continued. "We will not leave +Muanza without the porters, our man Kazimoto, and Mr. Brown of Lumbwa!" + +"You are mad! You are crazy!" + +"We are the men you have invited to trust you," Fred answered kindly. +"Those are our conditions. We will not 'bate one iota! Take +'em or leave 'em, Lady Waldon!" + + + + +CHAPTER TEN + + +IN HOC SIGNO VADE + + Lean, loveless, hungry lanes are these! + The longest has an end. + Ill luck tasted to the bitter lees + Soonest shall mend. + From out the foe's ranks if Heaven please + Shall come your friend. + + +We came to no fixed decision that night, although we knew there was no +alternative. She held out, in the vain hope of making us agree to +leave Kazimoto and Brown behind. The porters, she agreed, might come +in very handy, although it was at least doubtful that we should be able +to slip out of Muanza by land. The Germans had taken latterly to +counting our porters every morning, to supplying them with ration money +once every day, and to sending the bill to us by an askari, who waited +for the cash. At any rate, she conceded the porters, provided we would +leave the two others behind. And of course we were adamant. + +She left us an hour and a half before dawn, we letting her return alone +because of the greater danger of detection if we had tried to escort +her. It was after she had gone, while we sat listening for the sound +of a challenge that would have ruined all her hopes, if not ours, that +Will conceived the bright idea which finally saved us. + +"The Heinies don't know that we're wise to their game," he said +cheerfully. His ears were sticking out from his head and he had the +naughty boy look that always presaged wisdom. "Why don't we play that +card for all it's worth?" + +"We need five cards to make even a poker hand," Fred objected. + +"Will a full house suit you--aces and queens?" he answered. "I've +named you one ace already. Ace number two is the fact that these +German officials are brutes pure and simple--brutes who don't +understand how to be anything else, with brutal low cunning and no +other cleverness." + +"That sounds like the joker!" said Fred. + +"It's ace number two, I tell you! The third is the fact that Brown of +Lumbwa can talk with Kazimoto in the night through that corrugated iron +partition! Three aces--count 'em--one, two, three! Queens? One of +'em left a few minutes ago! The other's the dhow! We'll call that +blessed boat the Queen of Sheba for luck! The Queen of Sheba got to +her journey's end, and found more than she expected, and by the lights +of little old Broadway, so shall we! I've dealt the cards--is it up to +me to play them?" + +"Your hand, America! Talk it over first, though! There's an awful lot +hangs on the game!" said Fred. + +I fell asleep while they argued over the points of Will's strategy. +Africa is a land of sudden death and swift recoveries, but for a +convalescent man I had been through a strenuous day and had right to be +tired out. It was broad daylight when I awoke, and breakfast was +ready. Fred and Will had returned from their march around the township +with the native band, and to my surprise the commandant was standing in +front of their tent, talking with them. I threw on a jacket and joined +them at table. + +"I don't understand you," said the commandant. "Either talk German or +speak more slowly!" + +Will took a purchase on his stock of patience and began again. + +"If our porters run away, you'll blame us. We don't care to be blamed +for what is none of our fault. So if you don't put 'em all on a chain +and lock 'em up nights, we're going to discontinue paying for their +keep. That's flat! You can work 'em if you like. Let 'em help keep +the township clean. We'll pay their board and wages as long as you're +responsible for their not escaping! And say! If you want to get real +work out of 'em I'll give you a tip. There never was a savage like +that Kazimoto of ours for getting results out of that gang. Put him on +the same chain with the lot of 'em, and we'll all be satisfied! I +don't presume to be running your jail, but I'm telling you facts +that'll hurt nobody. Those porters 'ud be a darn sight better off with +plenty of exercise." + +"Do I understand you to ask that your porters be made prisoners?" asked +the commandant. + +"You get me exactly!" said Will. + +The commandant grunted, nodded, waited for us to get up and salute him, +grunted again with disgust when we did nothing of the sort, turned on +his heel, and walked off. We spent an hour on tenterhooks, and I began +to believe the German had simply become more suspicious than ever and +would keep closer watch on us without troubling at all about the men. +But at the end of an hour we saw the porters rounded up, and a chain +fetched out that was long enough to hold them all. They disappeared +within the boma wall. Ten minutes later suddenly Will pointed toward +the southward. + +"Look! See what happens when the roofs of shanty-town take fire!" + +Flames went up from the dry grass roof of one of the rectangular +Swahili huts. Within thirty seconds the askaris on guard at the boma +began firing their rifles in the air as fast as they could pull the +trigger and reload. Within two minutes the chain-gang was headed for +jail, where it was locked behind doors, in order that every askari in +Muanza might be free to pile arms and hurry to the fire. +It was not only askaris; the whole township turned out as to the +circus, with Schubert and his long kiboko ruling the riot. The other +sergeants were in evidence, but quiet, imperturbable men compared to +their feldwebel, plying their kibokos without wasting words, stirring +the whole world within their reach into action--if not orderly and +purposeful, action, at least. + +Schubert climbed on a roof well to windward and safe from the sparks, +and directed proceedings in a voice that out-thundered the mob's roar +and crackling flames. To illustrate his meaning he seized handsful of +the thatch on which he stood and tore them out, to the huge discontent +of the owner. The crowd saw what he wanted and began at once tearing +off roofs in a wide circle around the fire so as to isolate it, +Schubert demonstrating until scarcely a handful of thatch remained on +the roof he honored and he had to stand awkwardly on the crisscross +poles, while the owner and his women wept. + +Within ten minutes after the commencement of the fire there was under +way a regular orgy of roof pulling. Whoever had an enemy ran and tore +his roof off, and there were several instances of reciprocity, two +families tearing off each other's roofs, each believing the other to be +at the fire. + +Muanza was a furious place--a riot--a home of din and tumult while the +fire lasted, and when it was put out it took another hour to stop the +fights between victims of the flames and unofficial salvage-men. + +"D'ye get the idea of it?" asked Will. "D'ye see the Achilles heel?" + +In that second, I believe, Fred Oakes and I betrayed ourselves genuine +adventurers. Any fool could have talked glibly about setting the town +on fire; any coward could have yelped about the danger of it, and +improbability of success. It needed adventurers to size up instantly +all the odds against the idea, recognize the one infinitesimal chance, +and plump for it. And we were there! + +"It's the only chance we've got!" agreed Fred. "I'm for it! Lead on +America!" + +"I believe we can pull it off!" said I. "I'm game!" + +After that it seemed like waste of time to talk, yet every single +detail of our plan had to be thought out beforehand and mentally +rehearsed, if we hoped to have even the one slim chance we built on. +Luckily Professor Schillingschen continued drunk, which meant that he +would sleep early and give Lady Waldon another chance to pay us a +nocturnal visit. One of our boys told us that according to market +gossips the commandant was drinking with him and the two of them were +watching a sort of prolonged native nautch they had staged in seclusion +on the hill. + +The next day we learned there was to be a murder trial of no less than +nine men--an event likely to keep the whole garrison's attention drawn +away from us. And after the trial would come the hanging (it would +have been impossible to convince any one, German or native, that the +verdict and sentence were not foregone conclusions). The stars in +their courses appeared to be on our side. For several nights to come +the worst the moon could do would be to show a sliver of silver +crescent for an hour or two. + +Lady Waldon came earlier that night. When we outlined our plan to her +roughly she argued against it at first--and it was impossible +far-fetched--ridiculous. She insisted again on our simply sneaking +away by night with her. But Fred wasted no time on argument, and took +the upper hand. + +"Take us or leave us, Lady Waldon, as we are! We've an unwritten rule +that none of us has ever thought of breaking, that binds us to obey the +member of the party whose plan we have adopted. On this occasion we +have agreed to Mr. Yerkes' plan, and you've got to obey him implicitly +if you want to have part with us! We will not leave our men or Brown +of Lumbwa behind, and we will not change the plan by a hair's breadth! +Will you or won't you obey?" + +She yielded then very quickly. It seemed a relief to her at last to +subject her views to those of men whose purpose was merely honest. +Will took up the reins at once. + +"We've talked over buying the boat," he said, "but that's hopeless. +The more we paid for it the louder the owner would brag. The Germans +would be 'on' in a minute. We've simply got to steal it. It's up to +you to find out the man's proper name and address, and we'll send him +the money from the first British post-office we reach." + +"Don Quixote de la Mancha!" she said critically. "Well--we steal the +boat and you pay for it afterward. The owner will think you are crazy, +and if the Germans ever discover it they will take the money away from +him by some legal process. But go on!" + +"We've plenty of money," said Will, "so there's no need to worry about +too many supplies to begin with. But we'll need scant rations for +ourselves and all our men until we reach some place where more are to +be bought. And we've got to get them on board the dhow secretly. The +first question is, how to do that." + +She told us at once of a path going round by the back of the hill +behind us, that would make the trip to the dhow in the dark a matter of +over two miles, but that avoided all sentries and habitations. We +agreed that all three of us should climb to the top of the hill, which +was not out of bounds--and study the track next morning. On the +fateful night we must take our chance, just as she had done, of +avoiding the sleepy-eyed sentry who kept watch over the Greeks. + +"We'll talk to Brown of Lumbwa on the morning and afternoon march +around the township," Will went on. "Brown must whisper to Kazimoto +through the corrugated iron partition in the jail at night, and have +them all ready to break loose at the signal and bring him along with +them. We must be careful to show Brown just where the dhow is. He has +been sober quite a while. Maybe he'll remember if we direct him +carefully." + +"What is to be the signal?" she asked. + +"Just what I'm coming to," said Will. "A fire-alarm on the first windy +night! The next question is, who is to start the fire? We'll need a +good one! Yet if we do it, we're likely to be caught by the crowd +coming running to deal with it." + +"Coutlass!" she answered suddenly. "Coutlass and his two friends!" + +"You'll perhaps pardon me," Fred answered, "but none of us would trust +those Greeks as far as a hen could swim in alcohol!" + +"Yet you must! Leave them to me! They don't know that the sand in my +glass has run down. Let me go to them presently, pretending that I +went direct to them and am afraid of being seen by you. I will tell +them that the Germans want a good excuse for putting you three men in +jail and that they will be sent away free as a reward if they will +start a fire and charge you afterward with arson! I will tell them to +choose the first windy night, so as to have a really spectacular blaze +worth committing perjury about!" + +"Better arrange a signal," Will advised. "They might otherwise fire +before we were ready!" + +"Very well. You men give me the word at midday of the day of the +start, and I will spread red, white and blue laundry on the roof of the +commandant's house for the Greeks to see." + +"Good enough!" agreed Will. "Now one more stunt! We simply must have +firearms. The Germans have taken ours away and locked them up. At a +pinch I suppose we could manage with one rifle, provided we had lots of +ammunition. We would rather have one each. In fact, the more the +merrier. One we must have! What about it?" + +She thought for several minutes. At last she told us that one of the +commandant's rifles and one of Schillingschen's stood leaning in a +corner of the living-room beside a book-case. Whether she could make +away with one or both of those without detection she did not know, and +she would have to use her wits regarding ammunition. It was always +kept locked up. + +"Why not kill an askari and take his rifle and cartridges?" she asked. +"The sentry on duty watching the Greeks will be in the way. Knock him +on the head from behind!" + +"Thank you!" grinned Will, exchanging glances with us. "We shall have +about enough on our consciences setting fire to half the township. +We'll not kill except in self-defense." + +"But you won't set the town on fire! The Greeks will do that!" + +"Don't let's argue ethics!" Fred interrupted, for Will's ears were +getting red. "Can you tell us for certain, Lady Waldon, whether all +the askaris and German sergeants really run to a fire? Or do a certain +number remain in the boma?" + +"Oh, I know about that," she answered. "Until the prisoners are all +locked in--that is to say, in case of fire in the daytime--six or eight +askaris remain inside the boma. The minute they are locked in, if the +fire is serious, and in case of fire by night, they all go except two, +who stand on the eastern boma wall, one at each corner. From there +they are supposed to be able to see on every side except the +water-front. Nobody guards the water-front; I don't know why, unless +it is that the gate on that side is kept locked almost always and the +wall runs along the water's edge." + +"As a matter of fact," said I, "those two sentries on the wall will be +too busy staring at the fire, if the Greeks really make a big one, to +see anything else unless we march by under their noses with a brass +band." + +"Bah!" sneered Lady Waldon. "If I get that rifle I would dare shoot +them both for you myself!" + +"If you overstep one detail of Will's plan, I guarantee to put you +ashore on the first barren island we come to!" said Fred. "Leave +shooting to us!" + +The next problem was to draw away from the Greeks the attention of the +askari at the cross-roads. We could not see him, for it was one of +those black African nights when the stars look like tiny pin-pricks and +there are no shadows because all is dark. To go out and look what he +was doing would have been to arouse his suspicion. Yet there was +always a chance that he might be patrolling down near the Greek camp; +doubtless acting on orders, he had a trick of approaching their tents +very closely once in a while. + +So when Lady Waldon had slipped out into the darkness we lit half a +dozen lamps and started a concert, Fred playing and we singing the sort +of tunes that black men love. He took the bait, hook, sinker, and all; +in the silence at the end of the first song we heard his butt ground +on the gravel just beyond the cactus hedge in front of us; and there +he stayed, we entertaining him for an hour. By that time we were quite +sure that Lady Waldon had passed along the road behind him; so Fred +went out and gave him tobacco. + +"It's time you went and looked at those Greeks again!" he advised him. +"You would be in trouble if they slipped away in the night!" + +Now that a plan of campaign was finally decided on, there seemed much +less to do than we had feared. Mapping out in our minds the way round +the back of the hill to the dhow was perfectly simple; we went and +smoked on the hilltop, and within an hour after breakfast had every +turn and twist memorized. Fred drew a chart of the track for safety's +sake. + +Persuading Brown of Lumbwa proved unexpectedly to be much the most +difficult task. Added to the fact that the askaris who marched behind +and the Greeks who marched in front were unusually inquisitive, Brown +himself was afraid. + +"We'll all be shot in the dark!" he objected. + +"Would you rather," Will asked, "be shot in the dark with a run for +your money, or fed to the crocks in the doctor's pond?" And he told +him about the crocodiles to encourage him. + +"They'll have to let me out of jail at the end of the month," Brown +argued. + +"Don't you believe it! In less than a week from now we'll all be in on +one and the same charge of filibustering! They'll not let you go back +to British East to tell tales about their treatment of the rest of us," +Will assured him. + +But Brown proved tinged with a little streak of yellow somewhere. It +was not until the afternoon march that Fred and Will, one on either +side of him, by appeals to his racial instinct and recalling the +methods of the military court, induced him to do his part. Once having +promised he vowed he would see the thing through to the end; but he +was the weak link; he was afraid; and he disbelieved in the wisdom of +the attempt. + +It was Kazimoto in the end who kept Brown up to the mark, and shamed +him into action by superior courage. Fred found a chance to speak to +him as the long string rested al noon under the narrow shade of a +cactus hedge, and warned him in about fifty words of what was intended. +(The askaris, almost as leg-weary as the gang, were sprawling at the +far end of the line, gambling at pitch-and-toss.) + +"Be sure you sleep as near to the partition as you can. Get details of +the plan from Mr. Brown, and then drill the porters one by one! Don't +let them tell one another. You tell each one of them yourself!" + +Then he walked down the line and ordered the porters in a loud voice to +obey the askaris implicitly, and to work harder in return for the good +food and care they were getting, winking at the same time very +emphatically, with the eye the askaris could not see. + +The night work was the hardest, because, although we were quite sure +about direction, even in the dark, it was another matter to feel our +way and carry unaccustomed loads. By day we decided what to take and +what to leave behind, and we cut down what to take with us to the +irreducible, dangerous minimum. Then we broke that up into thirty- or +forty-pound packages, so that when we all three made the trip to the +dhow the most we took at one time was about a hundred pounds' weight. +In the condition I was in I could take not more than one trip to the +others' two; after the first it was agreed that I would better stay +behind and keep an eye on the askari. The minute he showed symptoms of +becoming inquisitive I was to invent some way of keeping his attention; +so all unsuspected by him I lay in the sand by the roadside within +three yards of him, while the ants crawled over me and he dozed leaning +on his rifle. Once a long snake crawled over my wrist and my very +marrow curdled with fear and loathing; but except for mosquitoes, who +were legion and sucked their fill, there was no other contretemps. I +don't know what I would have done if the askari had taken alarm and set +off to investigate. I trusted to intuition should that happen. + +The work of arranging the stuff in the dhow was the most difficult of +all, because we dared not light a lantern, yet we also dared not stow +things carelessly for fear of confusion when the hour of action came. +The space was ridiculously small for ourselves and all those men, and +every inch had to be economized. In addition to that the dhow had to +be worked backward off the mud far enough to be shoved off easily, and +then made fast by a rope to the bushes in such way as not to be +noticeable. Most of the ropes turned out to be rather rotten, and we +could only guess at the condition of the sails; the feel of them in +the dark gave us small assurance. But fortunately we had a couple of +hundred feet of good half-inch manila in camp with us, and that Fred +and Will took out and stowed in the hold the night following. + +We bought such things at the D.O.A.G. as we could without arousing +suspicion, as, for instance, a quantity of German dried pea-soup--not +that the porters would take to it kindly, but it would go a long way +among them at a pinch. Live stock we did not dare buy, for fear of the +noise it would make; but we laid in some eggs and bananas. Most of +the thirty-pound loads were rice. + +It troubled us sorely to leave our good tents, beds, and equipment +behind, yet all we could take was the blankets and one gladstone bag +packed with clothes for us all. Kettles and pots and pans were a noisy +nuisance, yet we had to have them, and blankets for all those porters, +who would escape from jail practically naked, were an essential; but +fortunately we had a sixty-pound bale of trade-blankets among our loads. + +Not one word did we exchange all this while with Coutlass and his +friends. Not one overture did we make to them, or they to us. But +there was no doubt of their intention to do their worst. They gloated +over us--eyed us with lofty disdain and scornful superior knowledge. +They were so full of the notion of having us jailed for their misdeed +that they positively ached to come and jeer at us, and I believe were +only saved from doing that by the shortness of the time. + +At last, three days after decision had been reached, we threw our +blankets with a red one uppermost over the top of both tents in the +sun; and within thirty minutes after that Lady Saffren Waldon had +spread on the commandant's roof a blue cotton dress, a white petticoat, +and a blazing red piece of silken stuff. There and then the Greeks and +the Goanese pledged one another out in the open with copious draughts +in turn from the neck of one whisky bottle, and we began to pray they +might not get too drunk before night. Judging by their meaning glances +at us, they considered us their mortal and cruel enemies whom it would +be an act of sublime virtue to bring to book. + +The trial of the natives for murder had taken place, accompanied by the +usual amount of thrashing of witnesses and the usual stir throughout +the countryside. These were charged with having murdered an askari +near their village--a big bully sent to arrest a man, who had taken +leave to help himself to more than rations, and had made a lot too free +with the village women. So German military honor had to be upheld +exemplarily. Condign vengeance was sure and swift. The execution was +to take place on the drill-ground on the day we chose for our departure. + +There was no risk of investigations that day. Had we known it, we +could have gone away in all likelihood in broad daylight, so busy was +the garrison in marshaling into place and policing the swarms of +villagers brought in from as far as sixty miles away to witness German +justice. Even the customary parade of the band was canceled for that +occasion, and that was our only real ground for uneasiness, for it +prevented our having a last talk with Brown of Lumbwa and assuring +ourselves that courage would not fail him in the pinch. + +We worried in plenty without cause, as it seems that humans must do on +the eve of putting plans, however well laid, to the test. We had a +thousand scares--a thousand doubts--and overlooked at least a thousand +evidences that fortune favored us. Toward the end our hearts turned to +water at the thought that Kazimoto would probably fail to do his part, +although why we should have doubted him after his faithful record, and +knowing his hatred of German rule, we would have found it hard to say. + +Several times that morning we showed ourselves about the town, with the +purpose of allaying any possible suspicion and saving the authorities +the trouble of asking what we were up to. With the same end in view we +attended the execution in the afternoon, and sincerely wished before it +was over that we had stayed away. + +On this occasion even the chain-gangs were included among the +spectators, in the front row, on the ground that, being proved +criminals, they needed the lesson more than the hempen-noose-food not +yet caught and tried and brought to book. + +The same sort of sermon, only this time more fiery and full of ranting +humbug about German righteousness, was preached by the commandant. The +miserable victims had received a simple death sentence, but he +explained that in virtue of his superior office he had seen fit to add +to it. "Death" he explained, "would certainly rid the German +protectorate of such conscienceless scalawags as these, but might not +be enough to discourage the bad element that disliked German rule. +Natives must be taught that the very name of all that is German must be +reverenced, and that German punishment is as terrible and sure as the +German arm is long! And be sure of this!" he continued. "The ear of +the German government is as far-reaching as its arm! In your +villages--in your homes--in your families--there is always an agent of +the government listening! Your own brother--your wife--your child may +be that agent of the government! Now, watch carefully and see what +happens to men with bad hearts--aye, and to women with bad hearts, who +conspire against German rule!" + +What followed was more impressive because of the determination we had +heard of to bring all Africa under the German yoke. In vain should the +wretched natives in after years escape by the hundreds northward in the +hope of living under British government. The fools--the "easy +people"--the "folk who gave without a price"--the "truth tellers"--the +"men who wish to forget"--the unwise, cocksure, cleaner-living, +unbelievably credulous, foolishly honest British officials would be all +gone. The pikelhaube and the lash, blackmail and coercion would take +the place of generosity. Africa would better be back under the Arabs +again, for the Arabs had no system to speak of and were inefficient. +Some Arabs have a heart--some a very soft heart. + +The crowd grew bright-eyed, little children straining forward between +their elders in the bull-fight frenzy--that same intoxication of the +senses that held the Roman freemen spellbound at the sight of suffering. + +One at a time, that the last might see the torture of the first, the +victims were noosed by the heel (one heel)--thrown with a jerk--hauled +heel-first to the overhanging branch--and flogged into unconsciousness +with slow blows, the lieutenant standing by to reprove the askaris if +they struck too fast, for that would have been merciful. Not until the +victims ceased to struggle were they lowered and thrown on the ground, +to lie bleeding, awaiting their turn to be hanged. + +The last two--supposed to have been the culprits who actually held the +spear that pierced the marauding askari's heart--were hauled up +heel-to-heel together, and hanged presently in the same noose, the +commandant laughing at their struggles and Professor Schillingschen +studying their agony with strictly scientific interest. + +When the last had ceased struggling Schillingschen permitted himself +one more pleasure. He strolled over to us and blocked Fred's way, +standing with hands behind him and out-thrust chin. + +"You flatter yourself, don't you!" he sneered. He was just drunk +enough to be boastful, while thoroughly sure of what he was saying. +"You expect to tell a fine tale! I know the psychology of the English! + I know it like a book! Let me tell you two things: First, your +English would not believe you. They are such supremely cocksure fools +that they can not be made to believe that another so-called civilized +nation would act as they, in their egoism, would be ashamed to act! +Civilization! That is a fine word, full of false meanings! +Civilization is prudery--sham--false pride--veneer! Only the Germans +are truly civilized, because they alone are not afraid to face naked +animalism without its mask! The British dare not! They hide from +it--shut their eyes! The fools! If you could tell them their story +they would never listen! + +"Second: You will never tell the story! Being English, you were such +dull-witted fools that you did not even hide the cartridge cases, or +the bones of the Masai you shot! Bah-ha-ha-ha-hah! You can escape +hanging yet by telling your secret. Jail you can not escape! Try it +if you don't believe me! Try to escape--go on!" + +He turned on his heel and left us, striding heavily with the strength +of an ox and about the alertness of a traction engine, turning his head +every once in a while to enjoy the spectacle of our discomfort. + +We judged it best to appear concerned, as if that was indeed our first +realization of the extent of the case against us and the nature of the +evidence. But we did not find it difficult. We were all three +startled by the fear that in some way he had got wind of our plans, and +that he meant to play with us cat-and-mouse fashion. + +That night it stormed--not rain, but wind from east to west, blowing +such clouds of dust that one could scarcely see across the narrow +streets. Every element favored us. Even the askari at the +cross-roads, supposed to be watching the Greeks, turned his back to the +wind, and what with rubbing sand in and out of smarting eyes and +fingering it out of his ears, heard and saw nothing. It was scarcely +sunset when we saw both Greeks and the Goanese sneak out of the camping +place in Indian file with their pockets full of cotton waste. They had +soaked the stuff in kerosene right under our eye that afternoon. + +There ought to have been a sliver of moon, but the wind and dust hid +it. Fifteen minutes after sundown the only light was from the lamps in +windows and the cooking fires glowing in the open here and there. +Thirty minutes later there began to be a red glow in three directions. +Less than one second after we saw the first indications of the +holocaust a regular volley of shots broke out from the boma as the +sentries on duty gave the general alarm. Less than five minutes after +that the whole of the southern, grass-roofed section of the town was +going up in flames, and every living man, black, white, gray, mulatto, +brown and mixed, was running full pelt to the scene of action. + +We waited ten minutes longer, rather expecting the Greeks to double +back and begin denouncing us at once. In that case we intended to +stretch them out with the first weapons handy. I sat feeling the +weight of an ax, and wondering just how hard I could hit a Greek's head +with the back of it without killing him. Fred had a long tent-peg. +Will chose a wooden mallet that our porters carried to help in pitching +tents. + +But the Greeks did not come, and there streamed such a perfect screen +of crimson dust, sparkling in the reflected blaze and more beautiful +than all the fireworks ever loosed off at a coronation, that it was +folly to linger. We each seized the load left for that last trip +(Fred's included the hammer, pincers, and cold chisel for striking off +the porters' chain) and started off quietly round the hill, not +beginning to hurry until the hill lay between us and the burning town. + +There was not much need for caution. The roar of flames, the shouting, +the excitement would have protected us, whatever noise we made, however +openly we ran. Over and above the tumult we could hear Schubert's +bull-throated bellowing, and then the echo to him as the sergeants took +up the shout all together, ordering "Off with the grass roofs! Off +with the roofs!" + +The white officials were more than interested, and had no time for +anything but thought for the blaze. As we crossed the shoulder of the +far side of the hill we could see them standing on the drill-ground all +together, clearly defined against the crimson flare. Schillingschen +was with them. + +There was no sign of what had happened at the boma. The gang would +have to emerge from a little-used gate at the northern end, provided +they could break the lock or secure the key to it; otherwise their +only chance was to climb the wall by the cook-house roof and jump +twenty feet on the far side. I was for running to the little gate and +bursting it in from the outside, but Fred damned me for a mutineer +between his panting for breath, and Will, who was longer-winded, agreed +with him. + +"Have to leave their end of the plan to them! Let's do our part right!" + +As it turned out, we were last at the rendezvous. We heard the chain +clanking in the dark just ahead of us, and try how we might, could not +catch up. Then, near the boat bow, Kazimoto suddenly recognized Fred +and nearly throttled him in a fierce embrace, releasing all his pent-up +rage, agony, resentment, misery, fear in one paroxysm of affection for +the man who cared enough to run risks for the sake of rescuing him. +Fred had to pry him off by main force. + +"Into the boat with you!" Will ordered them. "Chain-gang first! Get +down below, and lie down! The first head that shows shall be hit with +a club! Quickly now!" + +Clanking their infernal chain like all the ghosts from all the haunted +granges of the Old World, they climbed overside and disappeared. There +were more figures left on shore then than we expected. Brown we could +make out dimly in the dark: he was chattering nervously, and admitted +that but for Kazimoto he would not be there. The faithful fellow had +broken down the corrugated iron partition and had dragged him out by +main force. He was rather resentful than grateful. + +"Hauled here by a nigger--think of it!" + +We ordered Brown on board and below, pretty peremptorily. Lady Saffren +Waldon stepped out of the darkness next, holding a rifle and two +bandoliers so full of cartridges that she could hardly raise her arms. +We took the load from her, and helped her overside. Fred took the +rifle and succumbed to the hunter's habit of opening the breach first +thing. It was a German sporting Mauser, with a hair trigger attachment +and magazine, as handy and useful a weapon as the heart of man could +wish. He had scarcely snapped the breach to again when a voice we all +recognized made the hair rise on my neck. Fred jumped and raised the +rifle. Will swore softly--endlessly. + +"Gassharrrrammminy! You men took us for damned fools, didn't you? You +thought to get away and leave us! By hell, no! We go or you stay! +Birds of a feather fly together! One of you is American--I am +American! Two of you are English--I am English, and can prove it! My +friends come with me!" + +Fred leveled the rifle at him. + +"About face! Off back to town with you!" he barked. + +"Not on your tin-type!" Coutlass yelled. "I'm no man's popinjay! +Shoot if you dare, and I'll spoil the whole game! Help! He-e-e-lp! +He-e-e-e-lp!" + +The other Greek and the Goanese joined in the shout, the dark man +setting up such an ululating screech that the very storm dwindled into +second place in comparison. It was true, the unearthly yelling was +carried out over the water, and very likely not a sound of it reached +twenty yards inland; but it rattled our nerves, nevertheless. The +skin grew prickly all up and down my backbone, and the men on the +chain-gang inside the hull began shouting to know what the matter was. + +Will remembered then that he was captain for the day, and made virtue +of necessity. + +"In with you!" he ordered. "Quick!" + +With a grin that was half-triumph, half-cunning, and wholly glad, +Coutlass helped his companions over the bow, and had the civility to +stand there with hand outstretched to help us in after him. We sent +him below with his friends, but he came up again and insisted on +leaning his weight on the poles with which we began shoving off into +deeper water. It was hard work, for with her human cargo and several +hundred gallons of water that had leaked through her gaping seams, the +dhow was down several inches. Her hull had just begun to feel the wind +and to rise and fall freely, when a white figure ran screaming down +toward the water's edge and stood there waving to us frantically. + +"Leave her!" said Lady Waldon excitedly, clutching my arm. I was up on +the bow, just about to lay the pole along the deck and haul on the +halyards. She spoke very slowly right in my ear. "That, is my maid +Rebecca. The faithless slut--" + +Coutlass began to shout, trying to pole the dhow back to land +single-handed. + +"We can't leave that woman behind there!" Fred shouted, hardly making +himself heard against the wind. + +"Can't we!" shouted Lady Waldon. "Give me that rifle, and I'll solve +the problem for you!" + +But Coutlass solved it in another way by jumping overboard, over his +head in deep water, taking our hempen warp with him (I had made one end +of it fast to the bitts, meaning to be able to find it in the dark). + +There was quite a sea running, even as close inshore as that, and for a +moment I doubted whether the Greek would make it. By that time it was +all we could do to see the woman's white figure, still gesticulating, +and screaming like a mad thing. Presently, however, the warp +tightened, and then by the strain on it I knew that Coutlass was trying +to haul us back inshore. Failing to do that, for the strength of the +wind was increasing, he seized the Syrian woman by the waist and +plunged into the water with her. I saw them disappear and hauled on +the warp hand-over-hand with all my might, Lady Waldon leaning over to +strike at my hands until I shouted to Fred to come and hold her. Then +she begged Fred again for the rifle, promising to kill the two of them +and reduce our problem to that extent if we would only let her. + +Will and I hauled the dripping pair on board, and Coutlass carried the +maid to the stern. She had fainted, either from fright or from being +half-drowned, there was no guessing which. Then in pitch blackness +with Will's help I got the ship beam to the wind and began to make sail. + +Now danger was only just beginning! I was the only one of them all who +knew anything whatever about sails and sailing. I was too weak to get +the sail up single-handed, had no compass, knew nothing whatever of the +rocks and shoals, except by rumor that there were plenty of both. +There appeared to be no way of reefing the lateen sail, which was made +of no better material than calico, and I was entirely unfamiliar with +the rigging. + +Behind us, as we payed before the gaining wind, was brilliant blaze +that showed where Muanza was. Against the blaze stood out the lakeward +boma wall. I stood due east away from it, and discovered presently +that by easing on the halyard so as to lower the long spar I could +obtain something the effect of reefing. + +I set Fred and Will to making a sea-anchor of buckets and spars in case +the sail or rotten rigging should carry away, leaving us at the mercy +of the short steep waves that fresh-water lakes and the North Sea only +know. The big curved spar, now that it was hanging low, bucked and +swung and the dhow steered like an omnibus on slippery pavement. +Luckily, I had living ballast and could trim the ship how I chose. +They all began to grow seasick, but I gave them something to think +about by making them shift backward and forward and from side to side +until I found which way the dhow rode easiest. + +When Fred had finished the sea-anchor he got out the tools and began +striking off the iron rings on the porters' necks through which the +chain passed. The job took him two hours, but at the end of it we +owned a good serviceable chain, and a crew that could be drilled to +take the brute hard labor off our shoulders. + +Coutlass meanwhile was busy on the seat in the stern beside me making +Hellenic inflammatory love to Lady Waldon's maid, whom he had wrapped +in his own blanket and held shivering in his arms. Lady Waldon herself +sat on the other side of me, affecting not to be aware of the existence +of either of them. The other Greek and the Goanese had been driven +below, where they started to smoke until I saw the glow of their pipes +and shouted to Will to stop that foolishness. He snatched both pipes +and threw them overboard. The thought of being seen from shore was +almost incitement enough for murder. They refused to turn a hand to +anything that night, but sat sulking below the sloping roof of reeds +and tarpaulin that did duty for a deck, wedged alongside of seasick +Wanyamwezi. + +It was Kazimoto who chose the least disheartened of the gang, beat them +and stung them into liveliness, and set them to bailing. There was a +trough running thwartwise of the ship into which the water had to be +lifted from the midship well. It took the gang of eight men, working +in relays, until nearly dawn to get the water out of her; and to keep +her bottom reasonably dry after that two men working constantly. + +I knew vaguely that the great island of Ukerewe lay to the +northwestward of us. Between that and the mainland, running roughly +north, was a passage that narrowed in more than one place to less than +a hundred yards. That would have been the obvious course to take had +we not been afraid of pursuit, had we dared get away by daylight, and +provided I had known the way. As it was I intended to add another +hundred miles to the distance between us and the northern shore of the +lake, by sailing well clear of and around Ukerewe, trusting to the less +frequented water and the wilder islands to make escape easier. + +I judged it likely that the moment we were missed, the launch would be +sent off in search of us, and that the Germans would search the narrow +passage first. They would expect us to take the narrow passage, as the +shortest, and depend on their ability to steam a dozen miles an hour to +overhaul us, even should we get a long start on the outside course. + +With gaining wind, a following sea, a little ship crowded to +suffocation, and a sail that might blow to shreds at any minute, it was +not long before I began to pray for the lee of Ukerewe, and to stand in +closer toward where I judged the end of the island ought to be than +perhaps I should have done. It was lucky, though, that I did. + +In making calculations I had overlooked the obvious fact that, steaming +three miles to our one, the launch could very well afford to take the +outside course to start with. Then they could take a good look for us +in the open water next morning, and, failing to find us, steam all +around Ukerewe, come back down the inside passage, and catch us between +two banks. + +It was Lady Saffren Waldon on my left hand, looking anywhere but at her +maid and sweeping the dark waste of water with eyes as restless as the +waves themselves, who gave the first alarm. + +"What is that light?" she asked me. + +Following the direction of her hand I saw a red glow on the water to +our left, not more than a mile behind. + +"Reflection from the burning town," I answered, but I had no sooner +said it than I knew the answer was foolish. It was the glow that rides +above hot steamer funnels in the night. + +"Fred!" I shouted, for fear took hold of the very roots of my heart, +"for the love of God make every one keep silence! Show no lights! +Don't speak above a whisper! Keep all heads below the gunwale! That +cursed German launch is after us!" + +We were in double danger. I could hear surf pounding on rocks to +starboard. I did not dare to come up into the wind because nobody but +I knew how the spar would have to be passed around the mast, and in any +case the noise and the fluttering sail might attract attention. + +"Look out for breakers ahead!" I ordered. "I'm going to hold this +course and hope they pass us in the dark!" + + + + +CHAPTER ELEVEN + +"DAVID PREVAILED" + (I. Sam. 17:50) + + Be glad if ye know the accursed thing + And know it accurst, for the Gift is yours + Of Sight where the prophets of blindness sing + By the brink of death. And the Gift endures; + Ye shall see the last of the sharpened lies + That rivet privilege's gripe. + Be still, then, ye with the opened eyes, + Come away from the thing till the time is ripe. + + Be glad that ye loathe the accursed thing, + It is given to you to foreknow the end. + But they who the unwise challenge fling + Shall startle foe at the risk of friend + As yet unready to endure-- + And can ye fend Goliath's swipe? + The slowly grinding mills are sure, + Let terror alone till the time is ripe. + + Be glad when the shout for the spoils, and the glee, + The hoofs and the wheels of the prophets of wrong, + Out thunder the warning of what shall be; + Be still, for the tumult is not for long. + The Finger that wrote, from a polished wall + As surely the closed account shall wipe; + The accursed thing ye feared shall fall + To a boy with a sling when the time is ripe. + + +If the dhow had been seaworthy; if the crew had understood the rigging +and the long unwieldy spar; if we had had any chart, or had known +anything whatever of the coast; if nobody had been afraid; and, above +all, if that incessant din of surf pounding on rocks not far away to +starboard had not threatened disaster even greater than the Germans in +the steam launch, our problem might have been simple enough. + +But every one was afraid, including me who held the tiller (and the +lives of all the party) in my right hand. Lady Saffren Waldon +disguised fear under an acid temper and some villainously bad advice. + +"Steer toward them!" she kept shouting in my ear. "Steer toward them! +Ram them! Sink them!" + +Coutlass, on my other hand, made feverish haste with his love-affair, +fearful lest discovery by the Germans should postpone forever the +assuaging of his hungry heart's desire. + +"Steer toward shore!" he urged me. "Who cares if we run on rocks? +Can't we swim? Gassharamminy! Take to the land and give them a run +for it!" + +He seized the tiller to reinforce the argument, and wrenched at it +until I hit him, and Fred threatened him with the only rifle. + +"Get up forward!" Fred ordered; but Georges Coutlass would not go. + +"Gassharamminy!" he snarled. "You want my girl! I will fight the whole +damned crew before I let her out of the hollow of my arm. + +"All right, touch that tiller again and I'll kill you!" Fred warned him. + +"Touch my girl, and you kill me or get out and swim!" Coutlass retorted. + +Will was up forward with Brown, looking out for breakers through the +spray that swept over us continually. I watched the glow that rode +above the launch's funnel, marveling, when I found time for it, at the +mystery of why the cotton sail should hold. The firm, somewhere in +Connecticut, who made that export calico, should be praised by name, +only that the dye they used was much less perfect than the stuff and +workmanship; their trademark was all washed out. + +Suddenly Will dodged under the bellying sail, throwing up both hands, +and he and Brown screamed at me: "To your left! Go to your left! +Rocks to the right!" + +The Germans had passed us, but not by much, for the short steep seas +were tossing their propeller out of the water half the time. Because +of the course I had taken the wind was setting slightly from us toward +them, and I could have sworn they heard Will's voice. Yet there was +nothing for it but to put the helm over, and as I laid her nearly +broadside to the wind a great wave swept us. At that the Greek, the +Goanese, and all the natives in the hold set up a yell together that +ought to have announced our presence to the Seven Sleepers. + +I held the helm up, and let her reel and wallow in the trough. Now I +could see the fangs of rock myself and the white waves raging around +them. See? I could have spat on them! There was a current there that +set strongly toward the rocks, for a backwash of some sort helped the +helm and we won clear, about a third full of water, with the crew too +panicky to bail. + +"Hold her so!" yelled Fred in my ear. "Don't ease up yet! If we get +too close and they see us, I've the rifle! They haven't seen us yet!" + +"Rocks ahead again!" yelled Will. "To the left again!" + +We were in the gaping jaws of a sort of pocket, and it was too late to +steer clear. + +"Throw the anchor over!" I roared, "and let go everything." + +Will attended to the anchor. Fred was too anxious for the safety of +the only rifle to trust it out of hand, and he hesitated. Georges +Coutlass saved the day by letting go the shivering Syrian maid and +slashing at the halyard with his knife. Down came the great spar with +a crash, and as the dhow swung round in answer to anchor and helm, +Fred, Will and Brown, between them, contrived to save the sail, Brown +complaining that we were the first sailors he ever heard of who did not +have rum served them for working overtime in dirty weather. + +So we lay, then, wallowing in the jaws of a crescent granite reef, and +watched the red glow above the German launch move farther and farther +away from us. We waited there, wet and hungry, until dawn dimmed the +flame from the burning roofs of Muanza, Lady Isobel Saffren Waldon +loudly accusing us all at intervals of being rank incompetents unfit to +be trusted with the lives of fish, and Coutlass afraid of nothing but +interruption. The things he said to the maid, in English--the only +language that they had apparently in common--would have scandalized a +Goanese harbor "guide" or a Rock Scorpion from the lower streets of +Gib. He did not mention marriage to her, beyond admitting that he had +half a dozen wives already, and had been too bored by convention ever +to submit to the yoke again. The maid seemed enraptured--delirious in +the bight of his lawless arm, forgetful of her wetting, and only afraid +when he left her for a minute. + +We dared not try to cook anything, even supposing that had been +possible. Forward was a box full of sand to serve as hearthstone, but +the little scraps of fuel we had brought with us were drenched and +unburnable, even if the risk of being seen were not too great. Lady +Saffren Waldon told us we were "toe-rag contrivers." In fact, now that +she was out of reach of the men she feared and hated most, she reverted +to type and tried to domineer over us all by the simple old +recipe--audacious arrogance. Luckily, she slept for an hour or two. + +A little before dawn, when it began to be light enough to let us see +the outline of the shore, we sent Kazimoto aloft to reeve our hemp rope +through the hole that did duty for block, and by the time the sun had +pushed the uppermost arc of his rim above the sky-line we once more had +the sail set. + +The wind was still blowing a gale; the seamanlike precaution would +have been to lie where we were at anchor until fairer weather; but +daring is forced on the fearfullest, and there was nothing for it but +to study out the method by which the unwieldy spar should be made to +pass the mast when tacking, drill Fred, Will, Brown and Kazimoto, and +then haul up the anchor and sail away before people on shore could see +us. + +We had to tack toward Muanza for a quarter of a mile with fear in our +arms to make them clumsy before I dared believe we were clear of the +reefs; but when I put the helm down at last there was neither launch +in sight nor any other boat that might contain an enemy. The southern +spur of Ukerewe stuck out like a wedge into boiling water not many +miles ahead, and once around that we should be sheltered. The only fly +in the ointment then was the probability that the launch would be +waiting for us just around the spur, or else under the lee of another +smaller island in the offing to our left, but what we could not see in +that hour could not upset us much. + +Every one clamored for food. The porters, already forgetful of the +chain that had galled them, and the whips that had flayed them day and +night, demanded to be set ashore to build a fire and eat. Lady Saffren +Waldon awoke to fresh bad temper, and Coutlass, too, grew villainously +impatient. His Greek friend, from under the shelter of the leaky +reed-and-tarpaulin deck, offered him Greek advice, and was cursed for +his trouble. One curse led to another, and then they both had to be +beaten into subjection with the first thing handy, because when they +fought Lady Saffren Waldon egged them on and the maid tried to savage +the other Greek with a brooch-pin, which brought out the Goanese to the +rescue. That crowded dhow was no place for pitched battles, plunging +and rolling between the frying-pan of Muanza and the fire of unknown +things ahead. + +"One more outbreak from you, and I shoot!" Fred announced, patting the +rifle. But, he did not mean it, and Coutlass knew he did not. The +English temperament does not turn readily on even the most rascally +fellow beings in distress. Besides, it was an indubitable fact that we +all much preferred Coutlass, with his daring record, and now a most +outrageous love-affair on hand, to the other Greek or the Goanese, who +were now disposed to bid for our friendship by abusing him. Georges +Coutlass was no drawing-room darling, or worthy citizen of any land, +but he had courage of a kind, and a sort of splendid fire that made men +forget his turpitude. + +We were a seasick, cold and sorry company that rounded the point at +last and came to anchor in a calm shallow bay where fuel grew close +down to the water's edge. Having no small boat, we had to wade ashore +and carry the women, Coutlass attending to his own inamorata. Lady +Saffren Waldon's picric acid rage exploded by being dropped between two +porters waist-deep into the water. It was her fault. She insisted one +was not enough, yet refused to explain how two should do the work of +one. Sitting on their two shoulders, holding on by their hair, she +frightened the left-hand man by losing her balance and clutching his +nose and eyes. She insisted on having both men flogged for having +dropped her, and Fred's refusal was the signal for new war, our rescue +of her being flung at once on to the scrap heap of her memory. + +She counted with cold cynicism on our unwillingness to leave her again +at the mercy of the Germans, and had no more consideration of our +rights or feelings than the cuckoo has for the owner of the nest in +which she lays her eggs. + +"Beat those fools!" she ordered. "Beat them blue and give them no +breakfast!" + +"Do you see that rock over there, Lady Waldon?" Fred answered. "Go and +spread your clothes to dry. When we've cooked food we'll send Rebecca +to you with your share." + +"If you send that slut to me I will kill her!" she answered, flying +into a new fury. + +"Whom do you call slut?" demanded Coutlass (and he had no compunctions +of any kind--particularly none about women, and calling names. He was +simply feeling gallant after his own fashion, and alert for a chance to +show off.) Lady Waldon backed away from him. + +"Of course," she sneered, "if you loose your bully at me, I am no match +at all!" + +Fred promptly kicked Coutlass until he ran limping out of range, to sit +and nurse his bruises with polyglot profanity. The Syrian Rebecca went +over to comfort him, and eying the two of them with either malice or +else calculation (it was impossible to judge which) Lady Waldon +retreated toward the rock that Fred had pointed out. + +We cooked a miserable meal, neither daring to make too great inroad +into our stores before making sure we could replenish them, nor caring +to make more smoke than we could help. We hoped to escape being seen +even by natives, but Lady Waldon upset that part of our plan by setting +up such a scream when she saw three islanders crossing a ridge three +hundred yards away, that they could not help hearing her, and came to +investigate. She was forced to dress faster than ever in her life +before, and came running to demand that we flog all three "to teach +them manners." She had perfectly absorbed the German attitude toward +all black men. + +From the natives we learned that there was no telegraph wire along +that coast, and that the only German settlements were semi-permanent +camps where they were cutting wood, for fuel for their own launch and +for the steamers the British were building to serve the lake ports, +Muanza included. + +With that good news for encouragement we made the three natives a small +present in the vain hope that they might be induced not to talk about +us, and put to sea again. The weather was fairer and growing +intolerably hot. Even before the sun grew high the dhow was a +comfortless indecent thing, more crowded than anything Noah can have +had to tolerate: and we lacked Noah's faith in omniscient guidance, in +addition to sailing in a hotter latitude, and having more fleas on +board than the pair he is reported to have carried. + +As we crept up-coast, leaning to this or that side when the gusts of +wind varied, the only enviable ones were the three in the bow, posted +there to keep a look-out for the launch or any other enemy. They had +room enough to sit without touching one another, and air to breathe +that mostly had not been tasted half a dozen times. Fred, Will and +Brown took turns commanding the foredeck look-out, keeping it awake and +its units from quarreling. The rest of us found no joy in life, and +not too much hope even when Fred's concertina lifted the refrain of +missionary hymn-tunes that even the porters knew, and most of us sang, +the porters humming wordless melancholy through their noses. (When +that happened Lady Saffren Waldon's scorn was something the +arch-priests of Babylon would have paid to see.) + +There was never room on the tiny after-deck for more than six people +sitting elbow to elbow and back to back or knee to knee. Lady Waldon +simply refused to yield her corner seat on any account at any time to +any one. Coutlass refused to leave his new sweetheart, for the +freely-voiced reason that then Brown might make love to her; and we +did not care to send both of them below for obvious reasons. That +reduced open-air accommodation to a minimum, because the +reed-and-tarpaulin deck was scarcely strong enough to bear the weight +of two men at a time, and we did not care to throw the whole deck +overboard for fear of rain. + +And by-and-by the rain came--out of season, but no less violent because +of that. It rained three days and nights on end--three windless days +and starless nights, during which we had to linger alongshore close to +the papyrus. In order to keep mosquitoes out we had to light a smudge +in the sand-box below. The smudge added to the heat, and the heat +drove men to the open air to gasp a few minutes in the rain for breath +and go down again to make room for the next in turn. + +Sleep on shore was impossible, for thereabouts were crocodile and snake +swamps, fuller of insect life than dictionaries are of letters. Poling +was next to impossible, because the soft mud bottom gave no purchase. +And the oars we made out of poles were clumsy affairs; there was not +room for more than two boys to try to use them at a time, even if the +deck would have stood the strain of more feet, which it certainly would +not have done. + +Lady Waldon slept seated in her corner, with her head wrapped in a veil +over which the mosquitoes prospected in gangs. Coutlass and his +lady-love endured rain and insects in the open, too, but suffered less, +because of mutual distraction. The rest of us took turns with the +natives below, lying packed between them, much as sardines nestle in a +can, wondering whether the famous Black Hole of Calcutta was really +such a record-breaker as they say. Brown was of the opinion that the +Black Hole was a nosegay compared to our lot--"Besides which, they +probably had rum with 'em!" he added. + +Some of the porters grew sick under the strain of heat, fear, +excitement and inactivity. The native suffers as much from +unaccustomed inconvenience as the white man, and more from close +confinement. The third night out the man next me began coughing, +shaking my frame as much as his own as he racked himself, for we were +wedged together with only the thickness of his blanket and mine between +us, and I was jammed tight against the ship's side. Toward morning he +grew quiet--grew colder, too. When dawn came we found that he had +coughed up the most of his lungs on my white English blanket. + +I gave them the blanket to bury him in, and we poled the Queen of Sheba +inshore to find a place to dig a hole, leaving the body stretched on +some tree-roots while we prospected. We should have known enough by +that time to leave four or five men on guard close by; as it was, when +the men still on board the dhow began kicking up a babel, Fred and I +came running and jumping back through the marsh just in time to see a +crocodile wriggle off into the water, with the corpse in his jaws feet +first. Fred fired a shotted salute, but missed, and that ended that +funeral. + +By day we passed villages on higher ground, where we might have +procured more food if we had dared run the risk of meeting Germans. It +was likely enough the villagers were so used to dhows that they would +not trouble to report having seen us in the distance; but it was +perfectly certain that if we paid them a visit they would pass word +along from mouth to mouth with that astonishing, undiscoverable ease +that is at once the blessing and bane of governments. + +So Fred wasted hot hours with the only rifle, trying to hunt meat on a +shore where all the four-legged game had been ran down by the natives, +or butchered by the German machine-guns long ago (for to teach Sudanese +mercenaries the art of rapid fire in action their officers marched them +out to practise on herds of antelope. There was game in plenty away +from the lake, but none where the German officer could conveniently +practise his profession.) + +We tried to shoot ducks and geese; but a rifle at long range is not +the best weapon for that sport. We shot very few, and then only to +discover the invincible repugnance natives have to eating "dagi" as +they call all birds. We kept ourselves alive, but did not solve the +problem of the ever-diminishing supplies of rice for our men. + +Somebody thought of fishing. We found hooks in a crevice in the Queen +of Sheba's bow, and made lines from a frayed rope. But although the +shore was lined with traps in which the inhabitants no doubt took fish +in proper season, all that we caught was one miserable finny specimen, +all head and mouth and tail, that the natives said would poison any one +who ate it. The truth was, of course, that they preferred rice to +anything, and, African native-like, would eat nothing else as long as +rice was to be had, having no earthly notions of economy. When the +rice was all gone on the fifth day out of Muanza they raided a banana +plantation before we knew what they were up to, and came back gorged, +with bunches enough to feed them for two or three more days. + +The fat was in the fire then, of course. We paid the owners +handsomely, giving them their choice of money or blankets when they +bore down on us in long canoes demanding vengeance. They voted for +blankets and money, but vowed they would far rather have the bananas, +because now their own people would be on short commons to make up for +the surfeit of ours. + +We left them never doubting that they would send word to the nearest +German officer. (They told us there was a wood-cutting station within a +"few hours," and we prayed he might be only a non-commissioned man in +charge of it, but knew that prayer was too sweetly reasonable to be +answered where the German Gott makes war on foreigners.) Kazimoto +assured us he heard them telling one another they would make complaint +against us within the day. + +It remained, then, only to guess where that steam launch might be. We +were approaching the northern end of Ukerewe, not a day's sail, if the +light wind held, from the narrow mouth of the channel between Ukerewe +and the mainland. That was the likeliest place for the launch to lie +in wait; it was where we would have waited had we been pursuers and +they the pursued. So we decided after a council of war to put the helm +over and sail almost due westward, hoping to meet with an island where +we might stop for a few days, catch fish and dry them, and caulk the +leaky dhow, without the risk of letting the Germans know our +whereabouts. (It is a peculiar fact that whatever the native secret +system of transferring messages may be, it does not work across water.) + +Not all the little gods of Africa were fighting for the Germans, +although it began to seem so. An hour after putting up the helm we +sighted a school of hippopotami--fifty at least, and for half a day we +chased them, Fred trying to shoot one until Will and I objected to +further waste of ammunition. A dead hippo would have provided us with +meat enough for a month for the whole ship's company. We could have +towed the carcass ashore somewhere and dried the meat in slabs. But +the glare on the water made shooting very nearly impossible (Fred's +eyes were sore from it); and if we should meet the Germans those +remaining cartridges would be our only hope. But the diversion took us +out of sight of land, and that stood us in better stead presently than +tons of fresh meat. + +Whether the Germans heard us, or were merely quartering that part of +the lake in wait, we never knew. Probably they heard the shooting in +the distance and gave chase. At any rate, within ten minutes of Fred's +last wasted shot Coutlass caught sight of smoke and announced the fact +with his favorite oath. + +"Gassharamminy! The launch!" + +At first we were all in a stew because there was no land near, where we +might have beached the dhow and scattered. It was an hour before our +advantage of position dawned on us, and all the while the launch +approached us leisurely. She had plenty of fuel; the wood was piled +high above her gunwale in a stack toward the stern; but those on board +her seemed to take more pleasure in contemplation of our +defenselessness than in speed. She steamed twice around us slowly +before closing in; and then we made out Schillingschen's hairy shape, +leaning against the cord-wood with a rifle between his hands. + +"Shoot him! Shoot him, by Jiminy!" urged Coutlass, but Fred was not so +previous as that. We were not yet on the defensive. We counted five +rifles, in addition to Schillingschen's protruding above the launch's +side, and we all took cover in the hope either that they might decide +we were not the dhow they waited for, or else that they might come very +close out of curiosity. For Fred had a plan of his own. Rifle in +hand, he crawled under the hot tarpaulin and lay flat on the reed deck, +Will crawling after him to snatch the rifle in case Fred should be hit. + +"Steer straight toward 'em!" Fred called to me, as soon as it was +evident that the launch did not intend to pass us by. "Keep headed +toward them!" + +That was not easy in the light wind, until Schillingschen tired of +staring at us and gave an order to the engineer. Then they laid the +launch broadside on to our bow at about two hundred yards' range, and +without a word of warning opened fire on us from all six rifles, +Schillingschen devoting his first attention to myself at the helm. + +Our lone rifle cracked in reply, but they could not see Fred and did +not guess where to shoot in order to search him out. They came no +nearer, but circled slowly around us, only Schillingschen's bullets +appearing to come anywhere near the target, until a yell from below +showed what their real plan was and I understood why the sail was not +ripped and no bullets whistled overhead. They were shooting +through the planking of the dhow, endeavoring to massacre the helpless +crowd below, and no doubt to sink her and drown us as soon as she was +full enough of holes. + +A wounded Nyamwezi came scrambling on deck, spouting blood from his +neck and crazed with fear. He jumped overboard and tried to swim +toward the launch, but one of the Germans hit him in the head at the +third shot and he disappeared. Then one of Schillingschen's elephant +bullets slit my sleeve, and the next one pierced my helmet. + +"Put one into Schillingschen, Fred!" I shouted, but Fred did not +answer. He kept up a very steady succession of shots that were doing +no good at all that I could see. + +Another German bullet found its mark below deck in the thigh of the +Goanese. He might have known enough to lie quiet, having some alleged +white blood in him, but instead he, too, came struggling to the +after-deck, bellowing like a mad-man. Coutlass knocked him back below +with a blow on the chin, and he there and then threw the whole crowd +into a panic by screaming and kicking. They all began to try to swarm +together through the narrow opening, and those in the rear tore at the +reed deck. + +Into that pandemonium went Coutlass, armed with nothing but Hellenic +fury, thoughtful of nothing but his lady-love--surely reckless of his +own skin. He beat, kicked, bit, scragged, banged their foolish heads +together, cursed, spat, gouged, and strangled as surely no catamount +ever did. Brown leaped in to lend a hand, and into the midst of that +inferno three more bullets penetrated, each wounding a man. Lady +Waldon, mad with some idiotic strategy of her own sudden devising, +seized the tiller and tried to wrench it from my hand. The Syrian +Rebecca, imagining new treachery and fearful for her Greek lover, tried +to prevent her with teeth and nails. The Germans raised a war-whoop of +wild enjoyment. And just at the height of all that, Fred's +three-and-twentieth shot went home. + +There was a loud report, followed by instant nothing except stampede on +the part of the Germans to get out of reach of something. Then the +something grew denser; invisible hot vapor became a pall of steam that +bid the launch from view, three more shots from Fred's rifle finding +the proper mark by sheer accident, for there was another explosion; +the cloud increased and the launch stopped dead. + +"That gray sheet of metal wasn't her boiler at all!" Fred shouted back +to me. "The first shot pierced the boiler when I found out where to +aim! I think three of them are scalded badly--hope so!--high pressure +steam--superheated--did you see? Now leave 'em to find their own way +home!" + +"See if you can't get Schillingschen!" said I. + +But Schillingschen was invisible in the white cloud, and Fred refused +to waste one of the half-dozen cartridges remaining. The light wind +that bore us away from the launch also spread the screen of steam +between us and them. A shot or two from Schillingschens rifle proved +him to be still alive, and still determined, but missed us by so much +that we began to dare to sit upright. Then Fred went below to sort out +wounded men, plug holes in the dhow, and stop the panic, and we all +prayed for wind with a fervor they never exceeded in Nelson's fleet. + +When Will had gone below to help Fred, the panic had ceased, two dead +men had been thrown overboard, and six of the crew had been set to work +bailing in deadly earnest to keep ahead of the new leaks, there was +time to consider the position and to realize how hugely better off we +were than if the launch had caught us somewhere close inshore. Now we +could sail safely northward, every puff of wind carrying us nearer to +British water and safety, whereas unless they could mend that +high-pressure boiler, they would have to lie there for a week, or a +month--die unless some one came in search of them. Had we holed their +boiler near the shore they would have been able to take to the land +until they found canoes. Good canoes, well manned, could have +overhauled us hand over fist like terriers after a rat. + +It was fifteen minutes yet before we were out of rifle range, and +Schillingschen tried to make the most of them when the steam thinned, +exposing his beefy carcass recklessly. But by the time it had thinned +down sufficiently to let him really see us we were too far away to make +sure shooting. He slit the sail, giving us half a night's work to mend +it, and made three more holes in our planking, but hurt nobody. + +That was the only launch the German government had on the lake in those +days, an almost perfect toy with an aluminum hull and more up-to-date +gadgets on her machinery than a battleship's engineer could have +explained the purpose of in a watch. They had lavished a whole +appropriation on one show. From the minute we were out of range of +Schillingschen's big-bore elephant gun we ran risk of starvation, and +perhaps surprise, but no longer of pursuit, and we headed the Queen of +Sheba as nearly as we could guess for British East with feelings that +even Lady Waldon shared, for she grew distantly polite again, and +complimented Fred on his cool nerve and accurate shooting. + +We should have suspected treachery, for she made no attempt to +retaliate on Rebecca for scratching her face. Unnatural inaction +should have put us on our guard. She even went so far as to compliment +the maid on "finding such a great, strong, brave man as Coutlass to +cherish her." The Greek simply cooed at that--threw out his great +chest and rearranged with his fingers the whiskers that had almost +totally disguised him. + +(There was not one of us but looked like a pirate by that time. The +natives of that part of Africa shave every particle of hair from their +bodies whenever they get the chance, and prefer their heads as shiny +and naked as any other part of them. But the German prison system, +devised to break the spirit of whoever came within its clutches, +included prohibition of shaving, so that we had the woolliest crowd of +passengers imaginable.) + +We found it impossible to help being sorry for Lady Waldon, or even for +the maid, who suffered in spite of Coutlass's kisses and strong arms. +The obvious fact that the dhow was no place for a woman made us +overlook the conduct of both of them over and over again, shutting eyes +and ears to Lady Waldon's meanness and the maid's increasing impudence. + +Lady Waldon actually began to set her own cap at Coutlass, encouraging +him to boast to the porters, and pretending to admire the gift with +which he told them tales in Kiswahili that would have made even her +blush if she had understood the half of them. At intervals the maid +grew jealous, and had to be kissed back to serenity by Coutlass, who +was no less in love with her because of any mere addition to the number +of his interests. He could have made hot love to six women, and have +enjoyed it. There were times when he really flattered himself that +Lady Waldon admired his looks and fine physique. + +Food was now the chief concern. We trailed a fishing line behind us, +but caught nothing. Brown said there were too many crocodiles for fish +to be plentiful, but on the other hand, Kazimoto, who surely should +have known, swore that the water was full of big fish, and that the +islanders lived on little else. Whatever the truth of it, we caught +nothing; and when we reached an island whose shore was lined with +fish-traps made of stakes and basket-work we searched all the traps in +vain. The natives we saw in the distance all ran away from us, and +there were no crops that we could see of any kind, which rather bore +out Kazimoto's story. + +"Crocks' eggs are what those savages eat, I tell you!" Brown insisted. +"They're wholesome and don't taste worse than a rotten hen's egg." We +offered him his own price if he would eat one himself in the presence +of us all; but hungry though we were all beginning to be, he refused, +and we needed his example. + +After that first island we began to sail among a regular archipelago, +most of them scarcely better than granite rocks on which the crocodiles +could crawl to sun themselves, but some of them a half-mile long, or +longer. Nearly all of them were barren, but at last, when we judged +ourselves well inside the British portion of the lake, we came on a +very large one that had a mountain in the middle of it, and contained a +fair-sized village hidden among trees. + +It was dark, and we were all famished when we reached it, so when we +had poled the dhow into a little bay between granite boulders big +enough to hide her, mast and all, we went ashore, made fires, and +served out the last handfuls of rice, skimping our own allowance to +increase those of the porters, whose larger stomachs afforded vaster +yearning power. They were pitiably meager rations--a mere jest--an +insult to hungry men; but we found before we had cooked and finished +them that we had witnesses who thought us fortunate. + +They came so silently that even the porters did not notice them at +first--gaunt black shadows flitting in the deeper shadows, and coming +presently to squat outside the edge of the circle of firelight, until a +tribe, men, women and little children, were all gathered around us +burning up the darkness with their eyes. + +They were hungrier than we! Our food, that looked so scant to us, to +them was a very feast of the gods! They all had pieces of leather or +plaited grass drawn tight around their middles to lessen the pangs of +hunger, and the chief, who sat rather apart from the rest, gnawed at a +piece of bark. + +None of them wore any clothes. Those that had goat-skin aprons had +them on behind, and they were as free from self-consciousness as the +trees in winter. Some of them had spears, and they all had knives, yet +none offered violence, or as much as begged. There were three or four +hundred of them, at the lowest reckoning, yet they allowed us to finish +our meal in the dark in peace. + +There was nothing to say when we had finished. We knew what the matter +was, and they knew we knew. We had nothing to share with them, and +they knew that, for they could see the empty rice bags that the porters +had shaken and beaten to get out the very dust. We did not know their +language; even Kazimoto professed himself ignorant of any dozen words +that could unlock their understanding. + +Presently, under the eyes of all of them, Fred got out the rifle from +its wrappings and proceeded to clean and oil it carefully, as every +genuine hunter should before he sleeps. + +Then it was evident at once that new hope for some reason had been born +among that silent crowd. The chief, uninvited, drew nearer and watched +every detail of Fred's husbandry with glittering eye. + +"Give him the oily rag to suck!" suggested Brown, but that proved not +to be the key to his interest, for he thrust the rag back into Fred's +hand and motioned to him to continue cleaning. + +Finally Fred examined the last handful of cartridges carefully one by +one, and filled the magazine. Then, after making sure the sights were +in order, he began to wrap the rifle again. + +But at that the chief held out a lean long arm and stopped him. +Coutlass sprang to his feet in a hurry, imagining that was a signal to +attack at last, but Fred ordered him to sit down, and Lady Waldon, who +seemed possessed for the once by uncanny calmness, asked him to give +her an arm to the dhow, where she proposed to try to sleep. Coutlass +felt flattered, and obeyed. The maid got up and followed them both in +a fury of jealousy, and they three were lost to view in a moment among +the shadows cast by our four flickering fires. The other Greek got up +and followed them, leaving the Goanese already snoozing by the fire. + +Then, just as the half of a brilliantly pale moon rose above the +papyrus, the chief came a pace nearer and touched Fred's hand. Then he +beckoned. Then he touched the hand again and retreated backward. +Glancing around I saw the shadows that were his tribe leaning toward us +in strained attention, with eyes for nothing but their chief and Fred. +Understanding there was something that the chief desired him to go and +do, Fred passed the rifle to Will and rose to his feet. + +With patience that was simply pathetic the chief shook his head and +tried to explain something in weary-motioned pantomime. Fred took the +rifle back from Will. The chief nodded. Fred started to follow him, +and then the whole tribe sighed, with a sound like the evening wind +rustling through the papyrus. + +It being clear now that he was to shoot something, Fred took the +wrappings off the rifle, threw them to me, and walked into the dark, +the chief trotting ahead like a phantom and glancing back to beckon +about once a minute. Not caring to miss the play, we followed in +Indian file, I bringing up the rear. + +The whole tribe rose at once and flitted along beside us on our +landward side. We could not hear a footfall, or a breath. They passed +through dry grass without rustling, neither stumbling nor crowding one +another, but all so governed by one all-absorbing thought that they +acted in absolute unison. That the thought was food did not, even in +their starving state, make them forget the crowning need for silence. +We with our leather boots made more noise than all they together. + +We passed along the lake shore for half a mile, until suddenly the +chief, looking tall as a stripped tree in the pale uncertain light, +threw up an arm and waved it in a circle. Instantly the whole tribe +vanished. It was as if a puff of wind had blown them; or as if they +had been figures thrown on a screen by a magic lantern and suddenly +switched off at the performer's whim. Then the chief continued forward, +we marching more carefully. + +Now he turned to the half-right and followed a narrow track across a +neck of land that jutted out into the lake. We approached a low rise, +and as he drew near the top of that he went down on hands and knees, +crawling up the last few yards so cautiously that I had to stare hard +to be sure he was there at all. + +As soon as Fred came near he made frantic signals to him to get down +and crawl too; so we all knelt down and crawled behind Fred, striving +to make no noise and filling the unhappy chief so full of fury at the +noise we did make that he writhed in nervous torment. + +On top of the rise Fred stopped and in imitation of the chief thrust +his head forward very gradually. One by one we followed suit until, +lying prone in line along the ridge within thirty paces of the water, +we saw at last what we were after. + +Bathed in the moonlight, head and shoulders clear of the mirror-like +water, a great bull hippopotamus surveyed the scenery, drinking in +contentment through his little placid eyes. Out there nothing troubled +him, as for instance the mosquitoes troubled us. He had eaten his +fill, for some sort of green stuff hung from his jaws; and he was +beginning to feel sleepy, for he opened his enormous mouth and yawned +straight toward us--three tons of meat on the hoof, less than a hundred +yards away, stock-still, and unsuspicious! + +The chief began whispering unintelligible warnings in a voice so low +that it sounded like the drone of insects. Fred thrust the rifle +forward inch by inch and, taking his time about it, settled himself +comfortably for the shot. It was no easy shot in that uncertain light +at a downward angle. The glare of the sun on the lake had troubled his +eyes during the last few days. The shimmer of the moonlight was +deceptive now. I wished he would pass the rifle to Will, or even to +Brown of Lumbwa, who was digging his fingers into the earth beside me +in almost uncontrollable excitement. But Fred was unperturbed, and the +chief, who was nervous enough to detect the slightest sign of +nervousness in Fred, did not seem to mistrust him for one second. + +Three times I saw Fred breathe deeply, as if about to squeeze the +trigger, but each time he was only "makkin' sikkar," and eased his +lungs again. The target a hippo offers to a Mauser rifle bullet is not +much more than half the size of a man's hand, including only the ear +and eye and the narrow space between them. By daylight at a hundred +yards that is nothing for a cool shot to complain about, but in +half-moonlight, at that angle, it is none too much. I swore silently, +wishing again and again that Fred would pass the rifle to Will, or to +Brown--or to me! Yet if he had passed it to me I should have trembled +worse than any one. + +Visions began to haunt me of what would happen if Fred should miss! +What would the effect be on wild folk tortured by hunger and keyed to +the pitch of frenzy by suspense? Then, even while we watched, another +problem added itself. Over on the water there began to come a wind, +driving ripples and little waves in front of it. The moment those came +near the hippo he would vanish from view, for they only care for +moonlight when they can see it mirrored on a perfectly still surface. + +I cursed Fred between set teeth, almost loud enough for him to hear me; +for the hippo did move. His head was a foot nearer water-level; he +had seen or heard something that alarmed him. He was in the act of +sinking under water when Fred made sure of the sights at last and the +rifle spoke, ringing out into the still night like the crack of +Judgment Day, more startling because we had waited so long for it in +such suspense. + +Instantly the amazing happened. A yell burst out behind us that split +the night apart. Where stilly blackness had been, now four or five +hundred crazy shadows leaped and danced, murdering the silence with +marrow-curdling noises intended to express joy. + +Out on the water the stricken hippo pitched head downward and plunged +like a mountain of meat gone mad, thrashing up great waves that were +darkened with his life-blood. A whole herd, several hundred strong, +emerged shoulder-high from the water to take one swift look at him and +flee. The arriving wind overswept the little whirlpools they all made +in the moonlight, as they dived to seek seclusion somewhere and no +doubt to choose themselves a new bully after terrific fighting. + +Our quarry plunged a last time, and stayed under. Now was new anxiety. +In twenty minutes or half an hour he should rise to the surface again, +but no man could guess where, and the wind and currents would very +swiftly hide his great carcass somewhere amid the acres of papyrus +unless sharp eyes were alert. + +But the papyrus was friend as well as foe. In a space of time to be +measured by seconds the yelling young men of the tribe had uncovered +three canoes, hidden from marauding enemies among the +more-than-man-high reeds, and the rest of the tribe--men, women and +young ones--scattered along the shore to watch from between the stalks. + +In less than fifteen minutes some one yelled, and even the very old +men, who had stayed beside us to gape at Fred's rifle and our clothes +and boots, began running like hares toward the sound. In twenty +minutes after that, with the aid of grass ropes and leather thongs, +they had hauled the huge carcass to the shore and rolled it out of the +water, where it lay glistening in moonlight, stumpy, foolish, legs +uppermost. + +The butcher's work----the feast--did not begin yet. There was +time-honored custom to obey, which Kazimoto knew all about even if +those ignorant wachenzie* would have fallen to without ceremony. He +drove them off. A white man had slain that animal; therefore the +white man's choice of meat was first, and he very leisurely and +skillfully cut out the enormous tongue for us and fifty pounds of meat +for our following before he would let them as much as touch the carcass +with a dagger. [* Plural of machenzie, "man from 'way back,'" +"rube," "simp."] + +Then, though, the tribe fell to, naked, with little naked +knives--tearing off the thick hide in foot-wide strips, and hacking the +red flesh into lumps that they ate, raw and quivering, while they +worked. The little bits of children, each chewing raw bloody meat, +brought baskets for the overflow, dragging them to wherever they could +find a space between the legs of struggling men, the women emptying the +baskets almost as fast as the children filled them, and chewing until +their jaws ran blood. + +Nothing was wasted. The blood was caught in pools in part of the hide, +spread like an apron on the earth, and lapped up by whoever could get +to it. The very guts were gathered up in baskets to be cooked. And +where the last little soft iron dagger had done its work, the blood had +been drunk, and the last scrap of hide bad been cut into strips, to be +chewed when the meat and its memory were things of the past, the +enormous ribs lay glistening in the moonlight like those of an +abandoned wreck, picked as clean as if the kites had done it. + +"Have we done a commendable thing?" laughed Fred, looking at the +crowd's distended paunches. "There's a good bull hippo the less. +We've saved the lives for a time of several hundred gluttons. They +know neither grace nor gratitude." + +But he was wrong. They did. They brought Fred a woman--their fattest, +ugliest; which means she was skin and bone and uglier than Want, also +she was more afraid of Fred than Satan is said to be of shriving. The +chief led her by the hand, she hanging back and hiding her face under +one arm (which left the rest of her nakedness unprotected). He seized +Fred's hand and put the woman's in it. + +"Now you're spliced!" Brown explained. "Married to the gal forever in +presence of legal witnesses!" + +Kazimoto confirmed the fearful news. + +"Married in regular form an' accord with tribal custom!" Brown +continued, nodding solemnly. + +"Divorce me--soon and swiftly, somebody!" Fred demanded. + +We appealed to Kazimoto for information, but only threw him into a +quandary, and he proceeded to add to ours. The usual price for a +woman, it seemed, was cows--many or few according as she was lovely or +her father rich. In case of divorce, custom decreed that the cows with +their offspring should be given back. The objection to any other +property than cows changing hands to bind or loose in wedlock was that +food, for instance, when eaten was not returnable. + +"Married to the gal for good an! all!"' Brown grinned, nudging Will and +me to note Fred's consternation. "You'd better stay here an' take the +chief's job when he kicks the bucket--possibly you can speed the day by +overfeedin' him!" + +"Some men's luck," Will murmured, but stopped in mid-sentence, for +interruption came in the form of a weird figure, gesticulating like a +windmill, stumbling and careening through the gloom, shouting as it +came. Not until it was thirty yards away did an intelligible sound +explain at least who the apparition was. + +"Gassharamminy! Give me that gun!" + +Coutlass burst in among us so out of breath that he could not force +through his teeth another rational syllable, but he made his intentions +partly clear by snatching at Fred's rifle, persisting until Will and I +pulled him off. + +"The dhow's gone!" he panted at last. "Give me that rifle, or come +yourself! Hurry! There's a wind! You'll be too late!" + +"You're dreaming or drunk!" Fred answered, but Coutlass refused to be +disbelieved, and in another moment we were all running as fast as we +dared through the darkness toward the camp-fires, where we had left the +Goanese snoozing and the dhow snugly moored among the rocks. + +The chief and his followers far outdistanced us in spite of their +gorged condition--all except the woman, who jogged dutifully, although +unhappily, behind Fred. When we reached the campfires they were +standing gazing out on the lake, where we could just make out the +bellying sail of the Queen of Sheba leaning like a phantom away from +the gaining wind. The distance was not to be judged in that weak +uncertain light. We all shouted together, but there came no answer and +we could not tell whether the sound carried as far as the dhow or not. + +"Gassharamminy!--why don't you shoot!" shouted Coutlass, dancing up and +down the bank in frenzy. "Give me that rifle! I'll show you! I'll +teach them!" + +I believe I would have fired if the rifle had been in my hands. Brown, +last to arrive and most out of breath, joined with Coutlass in angry +shouts for vengeance. Will offered no argument against sending them a +parting shot. Fred set the butt of the rifle down with a determined +snort, walked over toward the fire, stirred the embers, threw on more +fuel, and looked about him when the dry wood blazed. + +"If she has left as much as one blanket among the lot of us, I don't +see it anywhere!" he said, taking his seat on a rock. + +"A blanket?" sneered Coutlass. "She has even your money! Worse than +that--she has my woman! You were a gum-gasted galoot not to shoot at +her!" + +Fred patted the bulging pocket of his shooting jacket. + +"Most of the money is here," he said quietly, and we all sighed with +relief. + +"Take canoes and chase them!" shouted Coutlass, beginning to dance up +and down again. + +"There's time enough" Fred answered. "We know the winds of these parts +well enough by this time. This will blow until midnight. Then calm +until dawn. After dawn a little more wind for an hour or two, then +doldrums again until late afternoon. They'll run on a rock in all +likelihood. If they do we can catch them at our leisure, supposing we +can get these islanders to paddle. If it should blow hard, then we +can't catch them anyhow. Sit down and tell us what happened, Coutlass!" + +The Greek cursed and swore and pranced, but all in vain. Fred was +inexorable. We others grew calmer when the problem of who should +paddle the canoes solved itself suddenly with the arrival of fourteen +of our own men. Discovering themselves left behind, they had run along +the bank in vain hope of catching the dhow somehow--perchance of +swimming through the crocodile-infested water, and returned now +disconsolate, to leap and laugh with new hope at sight of us and of the +red meat that Kazimoto had thrown on the ground near the fire. They +came near in a cluster. Will hacked off a lump of meat for them, and +they forthwith forgot their troubles, as instantly as the birds forget +when a sparrow-hawk has done murder down a hedge-row and swooped away. + +Not everything was gone after all. Kazimoto found the pots we had +cooked the rice in, and started to boil the hippo's tongue for us. + +"Come, Coutlass--sit down before we eat and tell us what happened," +Fred suggested. + +The Greek paced up and down another time or two, and at last calmed +himself sufficiently to laugh at Fred's woman, who had squatted down +patiently in the shadow behind him. + +"Easy for you!" he grinned savagely, squatting on the far side of the +fire. "You have a woman! Mine is God knows where! She said to +me--that hell-damned Lady Saffren Waldon said to me--we sat all three +together in the stern of the dhow, I with my arm around Rebecca, and +she said to me--" + +"I'll see if I can't make a dicker for the chief's canoes," Will +interrupted. "We can hear the Greek's tale any old time." + +"Trade my woman for them!" Fred suggested cheerfully. "Go on, +Coutlass!" + +The Greek gritted his teeth savagely. "She said--that hell-damned Lady +Saffren Waldon said, as we sat there in the dhow, 'How about the +kicking Fred Oakes gave you on the island, Mr. Coutlass? Where is your +Greek honor?'--Do you see? She worked on my bodily bruises and my +spiritual courage at the same time--the cunning hussy! 'That Fred +Oakes will win this Rebecca away from you very soon!' she went on. 'I +have watched him."' + +Fred smiled about as comfortably as a martyr on the grid. The presence +of the dusky damsel, confirmed by her smell behind him, made him touchy +on the subject of sex. + +"Presently she said to me, 'I have my own affairs that will adjust +themselves all the better for their absence when I get to British East. +As for you, they will simply report you to the authorities for raiding +those cattle of Brown's. Can you imagine that creature Brown forgiving +you? He will have you thrown in jail! Why wait? But we must not +leave the Goanese or the other porters, and we must hurry! You go,' +she said, 'and send the Goanese and the rest of the porters on board!' + +"So I did go. I kicked de Sousa awake, and he cursed me, because my +toe landed once or twice on his thigh where the bullet wounded him. I +drove him on board, and she put him to work with Kamarajes getting up +the sail. Then I went off to get those cursed porters. I could not +find them! The dogs had gone to the village, to find women I don't +doubt! I tell you what I would do to them if they were mine!" + +"Never mind that!" Fred cut in. We could all guess what form the +punishment would take. "Get on with the tale! You couldn't find the +porters. What next?" + +"I decided to leave the dogs behind, and serve them right! I went back +to the dhow in a great hurry. She was gone! Vanished! Disappeared as +if the lake had opened up and swallowed her! I could just see the sail +in the distance. I shouted! No answer! I shouted again. I heard +Rebecca call to me! Then I heard laughter--Lady Isobel Saffren +Waldon's laughter! Gassharamminy! I will run red-hot skewers into +that woman when I catch her! Do you see how she has vengeance on +Rebecca? Do you see now why she took sides between me and Kamarajes +and de Sousa? Do you see how she has plotted? What will she do now? +What Will she do?" + +He began to pace up and down again furiously, shaking both fists at the +unresponsive stars. + +"She will do Rebecca an injury! She will give that girl to de Sousa or +to that old Kamarajes! We shall never catch them! Gassharamminy! Oh, +Absalom! You should have fired when I told you! That she-dog has a +trick of some kind up her sleeve yet! How shall we catch her? Why do +we wait? Give me that rifle! I will take a canoe and go after them +alone! You do not know what Greek spirit is! I am American +sometimes--English when it suits me--always Greek when I am wronged!" + +"You certainly have been put upon" Fred answered. "Tell us how your +Greek spirit justified deserting us." + +"Why not?" snarled Coutlass. "Do you love me? What would you do to me +if you could get me to British East in your power? You would hand me +over as a cattle thief!" + +"You bet I will!" admitted Brown of Lumbwa. "You dog, you've ruined +me!" + +"What did I tell you?" demanded Coutlass. "Why, then, should I not +look out for myself?" + +"I think we'd better leave you on this island," Fred told him quietly. +"We can't trust you out of sight. The only way to prevent you from +stealing this rifle and murdering us all would be to lie awake in +turns." + +"Bah!" grinned the Greek, striding back toward the fire. "How many +cartridges have you left? Five, eh? After I had murdered all of you, +how many would remain?" + +"You'll have to think of a better argument than that," smiled Fred, and +for the first time I suspected he was speaking in deadly earnest. +Coutlass suspected it, too, and grew still. The sweat burst out on his +face, and his eyes bulged from their sockets. + +"You will leave me here?" he stammered. + +Fred nodded, smiling up at him. + +"You see, you're such on all-in scoundrel!" Brown assured him. + +"You! You poor drunkard!" Coutlass turned his back on Brown, and faced +Fred squarely. "You are a man, Mr. Oakes! I can speak to you as to my +brother." + +Fred smiled blandly. + +"I will speak to you God's truth!" + +Fred grinned. + +"I will tell you where the ivory is!" + +Fred threw his head back and laughed outright. + +"I speak to you on my honor! That mother of misery, Lady Saffren +Waldon, stole a map from Shillingschen. Before I would agree to set +the town on fire I made her give me that for a hostage, lest she should +prove treacherous and leave me behind after all! I have it now! It is +marked with a circle to show where Schillingschen believes the stuff +must be, because he has searched everywhere else!" + +"If that map is worth anything," Fred countered, "how did Lady Saffren +Waldon care to leave you behind with it?" + +"The harridan forgot it!" answered Coutlass. "She was so delighted to +get vengeance on Rebecca by taking her away from me that she did not +care for anything else! She hates you! She hates me! She hates +Rebecca! Those who hate--as I can hate!--would rather have revenge +than all the riches of Africa! Do you think I would hesitate between +money and revenge on her?" + +"All right," Fred answered. "The map, then--what about it?" + +"Take me with you and the map is yours!" + +"Show it to me, then!" + +"I must have a share of the ivory!" + +"Show me the map first!" + +Coutlass searched inside his flannel shirt--swiftly--more +swiftly--angrily. His jaw dropped. Even between the fire-light and +the moonlight one could judge that his color changed--and changed again. + +"Show me the map before we bargain!" Fred insisted. "Hurry, man! +There's Mr. Yerkes with the canoe. We can't wait here all night!" + +"It is gone!" admitted Coutlass. "Some one stole it!" + +"I could have told you that in the first place," Fred informed him, +rising to his feet. "I have the map in my pocket." + +"You stole it?" Coutlass gasped. + +"Certainly not. Rebecca stole it while she was supposed to be sleeping +in your arms!" + +"Gassharamminy! I might have known it! Those Syrians--she meant to +give us all the slip and find the ivory herself!" + +"Nothing of the Sort!" said Fred. "She stole it from you, to give it +to Lady Saffren Waldon! Kazimoto saw her do it--saw where Lady Waldon +hid it--and stole it from her while she slept to give to me, believing +it to be something of mine. Here it is!" + +Fred let the end of a folded map protrude from his inner pocket just +far enough for Coutlass to recognize it by the fire-light. The Greek +turned on his heel. + +"All right!" he said ruefully, swinging suddenly round again. "If you +were alone I would fight you, my knife against your rifle! I can not +fight all four of you! Go away then, and be damned! I have nothing to +offer. There is nothing I can do. Leave me, and I will look after +myself!" + +"Now you're talking like a man." said Fred. + +"Leave me that woman of yours, and go to hell, all of you!" laughed the +Greek. + +Fred seemed suddenly possessed of a bright idea. He turned to the +woman and beckoned her to rise. Then in unmistakable pantomime he went +through the motions of presenting her to Coutlass. The woman +gasped--stammered something that was positively not consent--stared +with frightened eyes at Coutlass--shook her shaven head violently--and +ran away into the darkness, pursued by roars of laughter that speeded +her on her way. + +"A clear case of desertion!" announced Fred judicially. "You men are +witnesses!" Then he turned once more to Coutlass. "I don't think +we'll leave you to raise Cain on this island. It depends on you +whether we find you a lonelier island--turn you loose or hand you over +to the authorities in British East!" + +"Good!" Coutlass shouted. "By Jingo, you are a gentleman! You are the +best man in the world! I will treat you as my brother!" + +"Thanks!" said Fred dryly. + +"Aren't you men ever coming?" asked Will, striding out of the shadows. +"I've made the dicker--found a man who'd been on the mainland and knows +Swahili. The chief's agreeable to loan us two canoes in place of +deeding you the woman. I took your name in vain, Fred, and consented +to that while your back was turned--kick all you like--the deed is +done! Four of his savages come with us as far as we want to go, we +feeding 'em meat and paying 'em money. It's agreed they're to eat just +as often as we do. They paddle the canoes back home when we're through +with them. Are you all ready? Then all aboard! Let's hurry!" + + + + +CHAPTER TWELVE + +"MANY THAT ARE FIRST SHALL BE LAST; AND THE LAST FIRST--" + + When the last of the luck has deserted and the least of the chances + has waned, + When there's nowhere to run to and even the pluck in the smile + that you carry is feigned; + When grimmer than yesterday's horror to-morrow dawns hungry and cold, + And your faith in the coming unknown is denied in regret for the + known and the old, + Then you're facing, my son, what the Fathers from Abraham down to to-day + Have looked on alone, and stood up to alone, and each in his several way + O'ercame (or he shouldn't be Father). So ye shall o'ercome: while + ye live, + Though ye've nothing but breath and good-will to your name ye must + stand to it naked, and give! + + Ye shall learn in that hour that the plunder ye won by profession is + nought-- + And false was the aim ye aspired with--and dross was the glamour + ye sought-- + The codes and the creeds that ye cherished were shadows of clouds + in the wind, + (And ye can not recall for their counsel lost leaders ye dallied + behind!) + Ye shall stand in that hour and discover by agony's guttering flame + How the fruits of self-will, and the lees of ambition and + bitterness all are the same, + Until, stripped of desire, ye shall know that was death. Then the + proof that ye live + Shall be knowledge new-born that the naked--the fools and the felons, + can give! + + Then the suns and the stars in their courses shall speedily swing + to your aid, + And nothing shall hinder you further, and nothing shall make you afraid, + For the veriest edges of evil shall challenge your joy, and no more, + And room for the right shall shine clear in your vision where wrong + was before. + Then the stones in the road shall be restful that used to be traps + for your feet, + Then the crowd shall be kind that was cruel before, and your + solitude sweet + That was want to be gloomy aforetime and gray--when the proof that ye + live + Is no longer the pain of desire, but the will--and the wit--and + the vision, to give! + + +The canoes were the usual crazy affairs, longer and rather wider than +the average. The bottom portion of each was made from a tree-trunk, +hollowed out by burning, and chipped very roughly into shape. The +sides were laboriously hewn planks, stitched into place with thread +made from papyrus. + +Some of the men left behind were our personal servants. Counting them +and Kazimoto, there were twenty natives remaining with us, making, with +the four men lent us by the chief, an allowance of twelve to each +canoe. If we had had loads as well it would have been a problem how to +get the whole party away; but as Lady Saffren Waldon had left us +nothing but three cooking-pots, we just contrived to crowd the last man +in without passing the danger point, Fred taking charge of the first +canoe with Brown of Lumbwa and Kazimoto, and leaving Coutlass with the +other canoe to Will and me. We agreed it was most convenient to keep +the Greek and the rifle separated by a stretch of water. + +There is one inevitable, invariable way of starting on a journey by +canoe in Africa. Somebody pushes off. The naked paddlers, seated at +intervals down either side, strain their toes against a thwart or a +rib. The leading paddler yells, and off you go with a swing and a +rhythmic thunder as they all bring their paddles hard against the +boat's side at the end of each stroke. Fifty--sixty--seventy--perhaps a +hundred strokes they take at top speed, and the passenger settles down +to enjoy himself, for there is no more captivating motion in the world. +Then suddenly they stop, and all begin arguing at top of their lungs. +Unless the passenger is a man of swift decision and firm purpose there +is frequently a fight at that stage, likely to end in overturned canoes +and an adventure among the crocodiles. + +Our voyage broke no precedents. We started off in fine style, feeling +like old-time emperors traveling in state; and within ten minutes we +were using paddles ourselves to poke and beat our men into +understanding of the laws of balance, they abusing one another while +the canoes rocked and took in water through the loosely laid on planks. + +The fiber stitching began to give out very soon after that, because +when not in use the canoes were always hauled out somewhere and the +dried-out fiber cracked and broke. We had all to sit to one side while +some one restitched the planking. Later, when a wind came up and the +quick short sea arose peculiar to lakes, we were very glad we had done +that job so early. + +It was only the first mile that as much as suggested enjoyment. Never +accustomed to much paddling in any case, our own men had suffered from +hunger and confinement in the reeking hot dhow. Then, hippo meat needs +hours of cooking to be wholesome (our own share of it was still in the +pot, waiting to be boiled more thoroughly at the next halting place). +They had merely toasted their tough lumps in the camp-fire embers and +gobbled it. The result was a craving for sleep, noisily seconded by +the chief's four men, who had eaten the stuff without cooking at all, +and in enormous quantities. + +We began with a keen determination to overhaul the dhow, that dwindled +as we had time to think the matter over; wondering what we should do +with two such women in case we should capture them, and how we should +prevent Coutlass in that case from acting like a savage. + +"Why don't we leave 'em to make their own explanations?" I proposed at +last. "We can claim our few belongings at any time if we see fit." +But the suggestion took time to recommend itself. + +That night until nearly morning we fretted at every rest the paddlers +took--drove them unmercifully--ran risks of overturning on the slippery +shoulders of partly submerged rocks--took long turns ourselves to +relieve the weary men, Coutlass working harder than the rest of us. It +would have been a bad night's work if we had overhauled the dhow and +loosed him to do his will. + +"Think of the baggage!" he kept shouting to the night at large. "Lying +in the arms of Georges Coutlass, kissing and being kissed, simply to +rob him--Coutlass--me! Think of it! Only think of it. She lay in the +hook of my right arm and only thought of how to win back the favor of +the other she-hellion! And I was deceived by such a cabbage! Wait +though! Nobody ever turned a trick on Georges Coutlass more than once! +Wait till we catch them! See what I do to them! I don't forget +Kamarajes either, or that bastard de Sousa, also pretending they were +friends of mine! Heiah! Hurry! Drive the paddles in, you lazy black +men!" + +It was more his hunger for revenge than any other one thing that tipped +the scales of indecision and called us off the chase. A little before +morning, at about that darkest hour, when the stars have seen the +coming sun but the world is not yet aware of it, Fred called to us to +turn in toward a barren-looking hill of granite that rose almost sheer +out of the water but at one corner offered a shelving landing place. +There we all clambered out to stretch cramped muscles and make a fire +to cook the hippo's tongue, Coutlass cursing us for letting what he +called idleness come between us and revenge. + +Kazimoto had scarcely more than gathered an armful of wood, thrown it +down, and gone to hunt for more; one of the other boys had struck a +match, and the first little flicker of crimson fire and purple smoke +was starting to curl skyward, when Fred jumped on it and stamped it out. + +"Silence!" he ordered. "Keep still every one!" and repeated it twice +in Kiswahili for the natives' benefit. + +We could not see at first which way he was staring through the +darkness. It was more than two minutes before I knew what had alarmed +him, and then it was sound, not sight that gave me the first clue. +There came a purring from the lake; and when I had searched for a +minute for the source of it I saw the glow we had watched from the dhow +in the storm the first night out--the telltale crimson stain on the +dark that rides above a steamer's funnel, and at intervals a stream of +sparks to prove they were burning wood and driving her at top speed. + +"It can't be the German launch," said I. + +"Why not?" demanded Fred irritably. He knew I knew it was the German +launch as certainly as he did. + +"How can they have patched her boiler?" I asked. + +"How many beans make five? They've done it, and there she goes! No +other launch on the lake can make that speed! I've heard the British +railway people have a launch or two, but they're small enough to have +traveled down the line on ordinary trucks. That's the German launch +and Schillingschen as surely as we stand here!" + +We waited there until dawn, arguing at intervals, not daring to light a +fire, nor caring to sleep, Coutlass sitting apart and laughing every +now and then like a hyena. + +"If the men weren't so dead beat I'd be for carrying on, said Fred. + +"What's the use?" argued Brown. "We can't catch the bally launch, can +we? Soon as it's daylight they'd see us, like as not. I hope to get +drunk once more before I die! Schillingschen 'ud run us down, an' +good-by us!" + +"I'd say follow them if the men could make it," Will agreed. "But +what's the odds? It's us they're after. They'll dare do nothing to +the women on the dhow--in British waters." + +"That's so," I agreed, not believing a word of it, any more than they. +One had to calm one's feelings somehow; the men were too weary to +drive the canoes another mile at anything like speed. Coutlass, who +had heard every word of the argument, burst out into such yells of +laughter that Fred threw a rock at him. "Curse you, you ghoul!" + +Coutlass changed his tone from demoniacal delight to quieter, grim +amusement. + +"They will do nothing, eh? It is I, Georges Coutlass, who need do +nothing! I have my revenge by proxy! Wait and see!" + +Fred threw a second rock, and hit him squarely. + +"Gassharamminy!" swore the Greek. "Do you know that rock is harder +than a man's head?" + +Fred let the boys light a fire when the sun had risen high enough to +make the little blaze not noticeable. Most of the men were asleep, but +though our eyes ached with the long vigil we could not have copied +them. About three hours after daylight we breakfasted off slices of +hot boiled hippo tongue and cold lake water, without salt or condiments +of any kind, and with discontent increased by that unpleasing feast we +aroused the boys and drove them into the canoes. + +We forced the pace again, and picked up smoke on the sky-line an hour +before noon, but it was not from a steamer's funnel. It was lazy, +flat-flowing, spreading smoke with a look of iniquity about it that +sent our hearts to our mouths. We paddled toward it with frenzied +energy, and long before any of us could make out details Coutlass, +standing balancing himself amidships, told us what we knew was true and +flatly refused to believe. + +"It's the Queen of Sheba burning to the water-line!" + +"Sit down, you fool, or you'll upset us!" + +"She's gutted already--the flame is about finished! nothing now but +smoke!" + +"Sit down, you lying idiot, and hold your tongue!" + +"I can see the smoke of the German launch now! Don't you all see it? +Straight ahead beyond the smoke of the dhow! They've burned the dhow +and steamed away! I'll bet you a million pounds they've killed +everybody--shot 'em, or burned 'em alive, or drowned 'em!" + +"Did you hear me tell you to sit down? I'll tip you overboard and make +you swim for shore--d'ye see those crocodiles? Ugh! Look at the +brutes! In you go among the crocks if you don't sit down at once!" + +Coutlass took no notice of the threat, but rocked the canoe recklessly +as he stood on tiptoe. + +"Think of their gall! By Bacchus, they're steaming for British East! +I bet you five million pounds to a kick they think they've drowned the +lot of us! They're going to steam in and report the accident!" + +We got him to sit down at last by ordering the paddlers nearest him to +throw him overboard, but nothing would stop his evil croaking any more +than flat refusal to admit the truth of what he gloated over lessened +our real conviction. + +Long before we reached the dhow there was no room left for unbelief. +The stern planks were charred, but stood erect, unburned yet, and the +blue and white paint smeared on them was surely that of the Queen of +Sheba. When we came within fifty yards the water was full of loathsome +reptiles; our paddles actually struck them as they swarmed after the +prey, snapping at one another and at our canoes--long, slimy-looking +monsters, as able to smell carrion in the distance as kites are to see. + +There were garments on the water--blankets--and one soaked, torn, lacy +thing that certainly had been a woman's. More than a dozen crocodiles +fought around that. We tried to go close enough to see whether there +were dead bodies in the dhow's charred hull, but as if the very ripple +from our paddles were the last straw, the wreck dipped suddenly ten +feet from us and plunged, the crocodiles following it down into deep +water with lashing tails--swifter than fish. + +We paddled about for an hour in the blistering sun, searching stupidly +for what we knew we could never find; crocodiles remove traces of +identity more swiftly than kites and crows. + +"I'll bet you they thought we were on board!" gleed Coutlass. "I'll +bet you they opened fire, and when we didn't answer came to the +conclusion we had no ammunition. Then they steamed close enough to +throw kerosene on board and light it! I bet you they steamed round and +round and watched the people jump as the flames drove them overboard! +Or d'you think they shot them all, and then threw them overboard and +fired the dhow? No--then they'd have known we weren't on the dhow; +they'd have steamed back then to find us; they thought we were in the +dhow! They thought we were hiding below deck! They're going to +British East to take their Bible oaths they saw us burn and drown! +Isn't that a joke! Isn't that a good one! Gassharamminy! But I'd +give my hope of heaven to know whether they shot the women first or +watched them jump among the crocodiles when the heat grew fierce!" + +We paddled to another rocky island--one that had trees on it, and +rested through the heat of the day when we had killed all the snakes +that had forestalled us in the shade. There, after again eating +hippo-tongue unseasoned and ungarnished, we held a council of war, and +Fred produced the map that Rebecca stole from Coutlass. + +"If we make for a township now--Kisumu is the nearest--about five and +twenty miles away," said Fred, "we can give ourselves the pleasure of +surprising Schillingschen, and of course we can get a square meal and +some clothes and soap and so on--incidentally perhaps some rifles and +ammunition. But we can't prove a thing against Schillingschen, and he +has enough pull with British officials to make things deuced unpleasant +for us, for a time at least. Consider the other side of it. Suppose +we don't make for a station. Schillingschen reports us dead. Nobody +looks for us--unless perhaps out on the lake for a hat or some scrap of +clothing by way of corroborative evidence. Suppose we paddle out of +this gulf and take to shore somewhere along the north end of the lake. +We've no food, no tents, only one gun, next to no ammunition, nothing +but money and a purpose. We don't know what chance we have of getting +supplies, and particularly rifles, without letting any one know where +we are, but we do know we've a clear field and a straight mark for +Elgon, where rumor says--and Courtney said--and Schillingschen +thinks--and this map says the ivory ought to be! The odds are against +us--climate--starvation--wild beasts--savages--last and not least, the +government, if they ever get wind of our being beyond bounds. Are we +willing to take the chance, or are we not?" + +We talked it over for an hour, Coutlass listening all ears to most of +what we said, although we drove him to the farthest limit of the shade +trees. We were in two minds whether or not it mattered if he listened, +and made the usual two-minds hash of it. Finally we put it to a vote, +letting Brown have a voice with the rest of us. He was in favor of +anything that offered prospect of a gamble; and we remembered the +letter in code we had given the missionary to mail to Monty. We had +told him in that that we should make tracks for Elgon, and we all voted +the same way. + +"In other words" grinned Fred, "we're perfect idiots, and ready and +willing to prove it! Good! If you fellows had voted the other way I'd +have gone forward to Elgon alone!" + +It was then that Georges Coutlass took a hand in the game again. He +came striding through the trees with something of his old swagger, and +sat down among us with an air. + +"Count me in!" he demanded. + +"D'you mean in the lake?" suggested Fred. + +"In on the trip to Mount Elgon!" + +"We've had nearly enough of you!" Fred answered. "I know what's +coming! If you don't come with us you'll tell tales? Blackmail, eh? +Well, it won't work! We'll set you ashore on the mainland, and if you +dare show yourself to Schillingschen or any British official, we'll run +that risk cheerfully!" + +But Coutlass was imperturbable for once. He laid a hand on Fred's +knee, and changed his tone to one of gentle persuasion between friend +and friend. + +"Ah! Mr. Oakes, I know you now too well! You are not the man to leave +me in the lurch! These others perhaps! You never! You know me, too. +You have seen me under all conditions. You are able to judge my +character. You know how firm a friend I can be, as well as how savage +an enemy! You know I would never be false to a friend such as you--to +a man whom I admire as I do you!" + +Will Yerkes, who had tried to keep a straight face, now went off into +peals of laughter, rolling over on his back and rocking his legs in the +air--a performance that did not appear to discourage Coutlass in the +least. Brown was far from amused. He advised throwing the Greek into +the lake. + +"Remember those cattle o' mine!" he insisted. + +"Yes!" agreed Coutlass. "Remember those cattle! Consider what a man +of quick decision and courage I am! How useful I can be! What a +forager! What a guide! What a fighting man! What a hunter! What a +liar on behalf of my friends! What a danger for my friends' enemies! +What are the cattle of a drunkard like Brown--the poor unhappy +sot!--compared to the momentary needs of a gentleman! Ah! By the +ordeal! I am a gentleman, and that is the secret of it all! You, Mr. +Oakes, as one brave gentleman, can not despise the right hand of +friendship of Georges Coutlass, another gentleman! I know you can not! +You haven't it in you! You were born under another star than that! I +have confidence! I sit contented!" + +"You good-for-nothing villain!" Fred grinned. "I'll take you at your +word!" and Brown of Lumbwa gasped, the very hairs of his red beard +bristling. + +"I knew you would!" said Coutlass calmly. "These others are not +gentlemen. They do not understand." + +"If your word is good for anything," Fred continued. + +"My word is my bond!" said the Greek. + +"And you really want to prove yourself my friend--" + +"I would go to hell for you and bring you back the devil's favorite +wife!" + +"I will set you on the mainland, to go and recover those cattle of Mr. +Brown's from the Masai who raided them! Return them to Lumbwa, and +I'll guarantee Brown shall shake hands with you!" + +"Pah! Brown! That drunkard!" + +"See here!" said Brown, getting up and peeling off his coat. "I've had +enough of being called drunkard by you. Put up your dukes!" + +But a fight between Brown and the Greek with bare fists would have been +little short of murder. Brown was in no condition to thrash that wiry +customer, and we in no mood to see Coutlass get the better of him. + +"Don't be a fool, Brown! Sit down!" ordered Fred, and having saved his +face Brown condescended readily enough. + +"What you said's right," he admitted. "Let him get my cattle back +afore he's fit to fight a gentleman!" + +And so the matter was left for the present, with Georges Coutlass under +sentence of abandonment to his own devices as soon as we could do that +without entailing his starvation. We had no right to have pity for the +rascal; he had no claim whatever on our generosity; yet I think even +Brown would not have consented to deserting him on any of those barren +islands, whatever the risk of his spoiling our plans as soon as we +should let him out of sight. + +From then until we beached the canoes at last in a gap in the papyrus +on the lake's northern shore, we pressed forward like hunted men. For +one thing, the very thought of boiled meat without bread, salt, or +vegetables grew detestable even to the natives after the second or +third meal, although hippo tongue is good food. We tried green stuff +gathered on the islands, but it proved either bitter or else +nauseating, and although our boys gathered bark and roots that they +said were fit for food, it was noticeable that they did not eat much of +it themselves. The simplest course was to race for the shore with as +little rest and as little sleep as the men could do with. + +However, we were not noticeably better off when we first set foot on +shore. There was nothing but short grass growing on the thin soil that +only partly hid the volcanic rock and manganese iron ore. Victoria +Nyanza is the crater of a once enormous, long ago extinct volcano, and +we stood on a shelf of rock about a thousand feet below what had been +the upper rim--a chain of mountains leading away toward the north +higher and higher, until they culminated in Mount Elgon, another +extinct volcano fourteen thousand feet above sea level. + +It was not unexplored land where we stood, but it was so little known +that the existence of white men was said to be a matter of some doubt +among natives a mile or two to either side of the old safari route that +passed from east to west. We could see no villages, although we +marched for hours, the loaned canoe-men tagging along behind us, +hungrier than we, until at last over the back of a long low spur we +spied the tops of growing kaffir corn. + +At sight of that we broke into a run and burst on the field of grain +like a pack of the dog-baboons that swoop from the hills and make +havoc. We seized the heads of grain, rubbed them between our hands, +and had munched our fill before we were seen by the jealous owners. A +small boy herding hump-backed cattle down in the valley watched us for +a minute, and then deserted his charge to report to the village hidden +behind a clump of trees. Ten minutes after that we were surrounded by +naked black giants, all armed with spears and a personal smell that +outstank one's notions of Gehenna. + +We had nothing to offer them, except money, for which they obviously +had not the slightest use. None of us knew their language. From their +point of view we were thieves taken in the act, all but one of us +unarmed as far as they knew, to be judged by the tribal standard that +for more centuries than men remember has decreed that the thief shall +die. They were most incensed at the four unhappy islanders, probably +on the same principle that dogs pick on the weakest, and fight most +readily with dogs of a more or less similar breed. + +It was Coutlass who saved that situation. He instantly went crazy, or +the next thing to it, wrinkling up his black-whiskered face into a +caricature, yelling a Greek monologue in a refrain consisting of five +notes repeated over and over, and dancing around in a wide ring with +one leg shorter than the other and his arms executing symbols of +witchcraft. + +The chief was the biggest man--not an inch less than seven feet--black +as ebony, from the curly hair, into which his patient wives had plaited +fiber to hang in a greasy lump over his neck, all down his naked body +to the soles of his enormous feet. Each time he came in front of that +individual Coutlass paused and executed special finger movements, like +the trills of a super-pianist, ending invariably in a punctuation point +that made the savage shiver. + +The fifth time round, to avoid the accusing fingers, the giant dodged +behind a smaller man, who dodged behind a woman, who promptly turned +and ran, swinging in the wind behind her a bustle like a horse's tail +that was her only garment. Her flight was the touch that settled the +decision in our favor. We all began to do a mumbo-jumbo dance around +Coutlass, and in five seconds more the whole armed party was in full +retreat, holding their spears behind them as some sort of protection +against magic. + +"After that," said Coutlass proudly, "will you still dismiss me from +your party, gentlemen?" + +"You've got to go and find Brown's cattle and return them to him!" Fred +answered firmly. But we none of us felt like sending him packing until +he was better fed and some provision could be made for his safety on +the road. It was wonderful, the number of excuses that flocked through +my mind for befriending the ruffian, and later on I found it was the +same with Fred and Will. Brown, on the other hand, affected +indignation at his being allowed to go with us another yard. + +"Make a rope o' grass an' hang the swine!" he grumbled. + +We decided to march on the village, retreat being obviously far too +dangerous, and the only likely safe course being to follow up the +chance success. Sleep another night in the open among the mosquitoes +and wild beasts, besides making us wretched at the mere suggestion, was +likely to bring us all down with fever. We preferred the thought of +fever to the loneliness; for man is unlike all other nomads, and that +is why the dog takes kindly to him; he must have a home of his own--a +portable one, if you will--a tub like Diogenes--a Bedouin's tent--a +cave, or a hole in the ground--something, so be he may rent it or own +it or know for a fact he may sleep there when night comes. Life in the +open is only good fun when there is cover to take to at will. + +All the way along the winding foot-track leading in every imaginable +direction except toward the village, and only turning suddenly toward +it when we had grown disgusted and decided to leave it and try to find +another, Brown kept pointing out trees with suitable overhanging arms +to which we might hang Coutlass. The Greek, with eyes for nothing but +the fat, hump-backed village cattle in the distance, seemed to think +only of them, until Will commented on the fact, and Fred saw fit to +drop a hint. + +"Steal as much as a young calf, Coutlass, and we'll let Brown choose +the tree! Try it on if you don't believe me!" + +The villagers closed their gate against us by dragging great piles of +thorn across the gap in the rough palisade, but, as Coutlass pointed +out, they would have to open it up again to let the cattle in before +dark, so we sat down and ate the remaining fragments of the hippo +tongue--no ambrosia by that time; it had to be eaten, to save it from +utter waste! + +Then Coutlass once more did a first-class devil dance backward and +forward this time before the gate, putting genius into it and fear into +the hearts of the defenders. Kazimoto helped even more than he by +discovering a native within the palisade who could speak a common +tongue. + +Their villagers held a very noisy council on their side of the thorn +obstruction, under the apparent impression that it was sound- and +bullet-proof. It was beginning to be pretty obvious that a man who +advised volleying through the crevices with spears was winning the +argument when Kazimoto detected familiar accents and raised his voice. +After that the barricade was dragged aside within ten minutes and we +entered, if not in honor, at least in temporary safety. + +Luxury is a question of contrast. That evening in a hut assigned to us +by the chief, squatting on the trodden cow-dung floor, leaning against +the dried-mud sides, with a little fire of sticks in the midst to give +us light and keep mosquitoes at a distance at the expense of almost +unbearable heat, we ate porridge made from mtama as they call their +kaffir corn, and washed it down with milk--good rich cows' milk, milked +by Kazimoto into our own metal pot instead of their unwashed gourds. +Lucullus never dined better. + +The feast was only rather spoiled by two things: we all had chiggers +in our feet--the minute fleas that haunt the dust of native villages +and insert themselves under toe-nails to grow great and lay their eggs. +(Nearly every native in the village had more than one toe missing.) +And the chief felt obliged to insert his smelly presence among us and +ask innumerable idiotic questions through the medium of his interpreter +and Kazimoto. He received some astonishing answers, but would not have +been satisfied with anything more reasonable. We wanted him satisfied, +and gave our interpreter free rein. + +The main trouble was we had nothing of value to offer him. Money was +something he had no knowledge of. He wanted beads of a certain size +and color; for two handfuls of them he expressed himself willing to be +our friend for life. We had to educate him about money, and Kazimoto +assured him that the silver rupees Fred produced from a bag were so +precious that governments went to war to get them away from other +governments. + +But the impression still prevailed that we were wasikini--poor men; +and that is a fatal qualification in the savage mind. + +"Why have you only one gun?" + +In vain Kazimoto assured him that we had dozens of guns "at home"--that +Fred's landed possessions were so vast that two hundred strong men +walking for a month would be unable to march across them--that Fred's +wives (Fred seemed to live under a cloud of sexual scandal in those +days) were so many in number they had to be counted twice a day to make +sure none was missing. + +The chief had eighteen wives of his own to show. He could prove his +matrimonial felicity. Why had Fred left his behind? How did he dare? +Who looked after them? Had he left the guns behind to guard the women? +Why did such a rich man travel without food for his men? The chief +had seen us with his own eyes devour porridge as if we were starving. + +To have told him the truth would have been worse than useless. To have +mentioned such a thing as shipwreck would only have stirred the savage +instinct to prey off all unfortunates. Failing evidence of wealth in +our possession, the only feasible plan was to claim so much that he +might believe some of it, and it was Coutlass, drawing a bow at a +venture, who ordered Kazimoto to tell him that we expected a party in a +few days bringing tents, provisions and more guns. + +"There will be blue-and-white beads of the sort you long for among +those loads," added Kazimoto on his own account; and that eased the +chief's mind for the night. Fred gave him a half-rupee, and promised +him to exchange it when the loads should come for as many of the beads +as he could seize in his two fists. The chief went out to brag to the +village, opening and closing his fists to see how huge their compass +was; and later that night his wives had to be beaten for fighting. +They were jealous because the fattest and the youngest new one had both +been promised double shares. + +There was another fight because our porters emerged from their hut and +demanded that a barren cow out of the village herd be butchered. They +made their meaning perfectly clear by taking the cow by the horns and +tail and throwing her on her back. Fred decided that argument with a +thick stick about four feet long. + +The unusual spectacle of some one taking sides against his own men, +whatever the rights or wrongs of it, so affected the chief that he +entered our hut next morning disposed to hold us up for double promises +of beads. It was evident we had to deal with a born extortioner. He +would increase his demands with every fresh concession. + +"Oh, what's the odds!" laughed Coutlass. "Promise him anything! The +only loads likely to come along this way for a year or two are +Schillingschen's!" + +Fred told the chief he would think the matter over, and chased him out +of the hut. Coutlass had given us all a new idea in an instant, and he +was the only one who did not see its point--he, the only one who did +not give a snap of the fingers for the laws of any land! + +"D'you suppose--" + +"Too good to hope for!" + +"If he thinks we're dead--?" + +"And if he believes in that map--" + +"He'll not need the map. He'll have memorized it. There's only a +circle drawn on it to mark the Elgon district. All the old pencil +marks have been rubbed out as he searched the other likely places and +drew them all blank." + +"He'll travel without military escort?" + +"Sure! He won't want witnesses! He'll make believe it's a scientific +trip. Remember, he's a professor of ethnology. That's how he puts it +all over the British and goes where he pleases without as much as +by-your-leave." + +"Say, fellows! It's a moral cinch that when we broke away from Muanza +he made up his mind in a flash to return to British East and destroy us +on the way. He thinks he made a clean job of that. I'll bet he loaded +the launch down with stuff for a long safari, and thinks now he has a +clear run and can take his time!" + +"If that's how the cards lie, the game's ours!" + +Coutlass saw the point at last and offered himself on the altar of +forgiveness and friendship. + +"Make me your partner, gentlemen, and if he travels within a hundred +miles of this I will crawl into that Schillingschen's tent in the night +and slit his throat! I would murder him as willingly as I eat when I +am hungry!" + +"Your job has been assigned you!" answered Fred. "When Mr. Brown's +cattle are back in Lumbwa perhaps we'll give you something else to do!" + +Nevertheless, Coutlass had outlined in a flash the limits of the plan. +We would draw the line at murdering even Schillingschen, but must help +ourselves to his outfit as our only chance of re-outfitting without +betraying our presence in British East. But the plan was not without +rat-holes in it that a fool could see. + +"Schillingschen's boys will escape and run to the nearest British +official with the story!" + +"And the British official will be so full of the importance of +Schillingschen and the need of protecting his beastly carcass--to say +nothing of the everlasting disgrace of letting him be scoughed on +British territory--and the official reprimand from home that's sure to +follow--that he'll come hot-foot to investigate!" + +"We'll have to provide against that," said Fred, and we all laughed, +including Coutlass. Talk of provisions is easy when you have no means +out of which to provide. It did not occur to include Coutlass in the +calculations, or to dismiss him from them; but without exchanging any +remarks on the subject it was clear enough to all of us that no such +plan could hope to succeed with the Greek at large, at liberty to spoil +it. We saw we should have to keep him in our party for the present. + +"Don't forget," said Coutlass, more accustomed than we to seizing the +strategic points of desperate situations, "that Schillingschen will +have his own boys with him from German East." + +"I didn't see any with him on the launch," I objected. + +"He would never have come without them" Coutlass insisted. "He made +them lie below the water-line out of reach of bullets at the only time +when you might have seen them! He wouldn't trust himself to British +porters. My word, no! That devil knows natives! He knows some of +them might be British government spies! He'll have his own boys,--if +they can't carry all his loads he'll buy donkeys at Mumias; there are +always donkeys to be bought at that place, brought down from Turkana by +the Arab ivory traders. Do donkeys talk?" + +At any rate, we talked, and made no bones at all about including +Georges Coutlass in the conversation. It was his suggestion that we +should send natives to look out for Schillingschen, and Fred's +amendment that reduced the messengers to one, and that one Kazimoto. +Any of the others might decide to desert, once out of sight, and we +could scarcely have blamed them, for their path had not lain among +roses in our company. + +Kazimoto had a million objections to offer against going alone on that +errand, as, for instance, that the chigger fleas would invade our +toe-nails disastrously without his cunning fingers to hunt them out +again. He also prophesied that without him to interpret there would +swiftly be trouble between us and the chief; but we saw the other side +of that medal and rather looked forward to an interval when the chief +should not be able to talk to us at all. + +At last, on the second morning after our arrival at the village, +Kazimoto wrapped an enormous mound of cold mtama pudding in a cloth and +went his way, prophesying darkly of murder and sudden death lurking +behind rocks and trees, as unwishful to be alone as a terrier without a +master, but much too faithful to refuse duty. + +The chief saw a side of the medal that we had not guessed existed. He +came and sat beside us like an evil-smelling shadow, satisfied that now +we could not dismiss him, he being under no obligation to understand +gestures. Curiosity was the impelling motive, but he was not without +suspicion. Fred said he reminded him of a Bloomsbury landlady whose +lodgers had not paid their board and rooming in advance. + +Will solved that problem by taking the rifle, and one cartridge that +Fred doled out grudgingly, and after a long day's stalking among +mosquitoes in the papyrus at the edge of the lake five miles away, at +imminent risk of crocodiles and an even worse horror we had not yet +suspected, shooting a hippopotamus. Forthwith the whole village, chief +included, went to cut up and carry off the meat, and there followed +revelry by night, the chiefs wives brewing beer from the mtama, and all +getting drunk as well as gorged. Coutlass and Brown got more drunk +than any one. + +Will came back with flies on his coat--three large things like +horse-flies, that crossed their wings in repose, resembling in all +other respects the common tetse fly. He said the reeds by the +lake-side were full of them. + +Remembering tales about sleeping sickness, and suspicion of conveying +it said to rest on a tetse fly that crossed its wings, I went out the +following day and walked many miles east-ward, taking with me the only +two sober villagers I could find. They came willingly enough for five +miles, thinking, I suppose, that I intended to follow Will's example +and kill some more meat (although, as I did not take the rifle with me, +they were not guilty of much dead-weight reasoning). + +At the bank of the fifth stream we came to they stopped, and refused to +go another yard. Thinking they were merely lusting after the meat and +beer in the village, I took a stick to drive them across the stream in +front of me, but they dodged in terror and ran back home as if the +devil had been after them. + +I crossed the stream and continued forward alone about another mile +toward a fairly large village visible between great blue boulders with +cactus dotted all about. There was the usual herd of cattle grazing +near at hand, but the place had an unaccountable forlorn look, and the +small boy standing on an ant-hill to watch the cattle seemed too +listless to be curious, and too indifferent to run away. The big brown +tetse flies, that crossed their wings when resting, were everywhere, +making no noise at all, but announcing themselves every once in a while +by a bite on the back of the hand that stung like a whip-lash. They +seemed to have special liking for coat-sleeves, and a dozen of them +were generally riding on each side of me. One could drive them off, +but they came back at once, as horse-flies do when poked off with a +whip. + +When I drew near the village nobody came out to look at me, which was +suspicious in itself. Nobody shouted. Nobody blocked the way, or +dragged thorn-bushes across the gateway. There were black men and +women there, sitting in the shadows of the eaves, who looked up and +stared at me--men and women too intent on sitting still to care whether +their skins were glossy--unoiled, unwashed, unfed, by the look of +them--skeletons clothed in leather and dust, desiring death, but +cruelly denied it. + +One man, thin as a wisp of smoke, rushed at me from the shadow of a hut +door and tried to bite my leg. The merest push sent him rolling over, +and there he lay, too overcome by inertia to move another inch, his arm +uplifted in the act of self-defense. Nobody else in the village +stirred. There were more huts than people, more kites on the roofs +than huts. Some of the littlest children played in the hut doors, but +nearly all of them were listless like the grown folk. The only sign of +normal activity was the big black earthen jars that witnessed that the +women performed part at least of their daily round by bringing water +from the lake. + +I returned late that afternoon, walking, as it were, out of a belt of +tetse flies. On one side of a narrow stream they were thick together; +to the west of it there were scarcely any, although the wind blew from +east to west. + +"There's no fear of news about us reaching any government official," I +announced. "There's a curtain of death between us and the government +that even suspicion couldn't penetrate!" + + + + +CHAPTER THIRTEEN + +THE SLEEP THAT IS NO SLEEP* + + Ten were the plagues that Israel fled, and leaving left no cure, + Whose progeny self-multiplied a million-fold remain, + The cloak of each one ignorance, idolatry its lure, + And death the goal till, clarion-called, lost Israel come again. + Till then that loaded lash that bade the tale of bricks increase + (Eye for an eye, and limb for limb!) shall fail not though + ye weep; + The conqueror's heel for Africa!--The fear that shall not cease!-- + Desire, distrust, the alien law!--The sleep that is no sleep! + +------------------ +* It is a characteristic of the so-called Sleeping Sickness that is +decimating the tribes around Victoria Nyanza that the victim, although +he goes into a coma, never actually sleeps from the time of taking the +disease until the end, usually more than a year later. The natives, a +tribe that came originally down from Egypt, themselves say that the +dreaded sickness is a "visitation" by way of revenge on them for former +sins, although what sins, and whose vengeance, they are at a total loss +to explain. +------------------ + + +Kazimoto was gone five days, and then came preceded by proof of the +news he brought. He came in the evening. In the morning, +unaccountably from the northward, instead of from the westward where +Uganda lay,--avoiding the regular safari route and the belt of sleeping +sickness villages, came a genial, sleek, shiny Baganda, arrayed in +khaki coat, red fez, and bordered loin-cloth, gifted with tongues, and +self-confident beyond belief. + +He knew nothing of us at first, for we sat in our hut with a smudge +going, nervous about flies, even Coutlass, reckless as a rule of +anything he could not see, and perfectly indifferent to death for +others, now fidgety and afraid to swagger forth. + +One of our Nyamwezi porters suddenly made a great shout of "Hodi!"* and +came stooping through the low door, standing erect again inside to +await our pleasure. We could hear others outside, listening under the +eaves. When we had kept him waiting sufficiently long to prevent his +getting too much notion of his own importance, Fred nodded to him to +speak. [* Hodi! Equivalent to "May I come In!"] + +"Is it true, bwana," he asked, "that the Germans will come soon and +conquer this part of Africa?" + +"Certainly not!" said Fred. + +"There is one out here, a Baganda, who says they will surely come. He +says the religion of Islam will be preached from end to end of +everywhere, and that the Germans are the true priests of Islam. They +will come, says he, when the time is ripe, and call on all the converts +of Islam to rise and slay all other people, including all white folk, +like the English, who do not accept that creed. If that is true, +bwana, whither shall we go, and whither shall you go, to escape such +terrible things?" + +"Does the Baganda know there are white men in this village?" Fred asked. + +"Not yet, bwana." + +"Don't tell him, then, but bring him in here. Tell him there are folk +in here who say he is a liar." + +The Nyamwezi backed out, and we heard whispering outside. There is +precious little performance in Africa without a deal of talk. At the +end of about ten minutes the porter again shouted "Hodi!" and this time +was followed in by the stranger, seven other of our own men, uninvited, +bringing up the rear. + +"Jambo!"* said the Baganda, with a great effort at bravado, when his +eyes had grown accustomed to the gloom and the first severe surprise of +seeing white men had worn off. He was a very cool customer indeed. [* +Jambo! Kiswahili equivalent of "How d'you do?"] + +"Whose pimp are you?" demanded Fred, without answering the salutation. + +The man fell back on insolence at once. There is no native in Africa +who takes more keenly to that weapon than the mission-schooled Baganda. + +"I am employed by a gentleman of superior position," he answered in +perfectly good English. + +"In what capacity?" demanded Fred. + +"I am not employed to tell his secrets to the first strangers who ask +me!" + +"Do you obey him implicitly?" + +"I do. I am honorable person. I receive his pay and do his bidding." + +"Is his name Schillingschen?" + +The Baganda hesitated. + +"All right," said Fred. "I know his name is Schillingschen. You have +boasted that you do what he orders you. These men tell me you have +said that the Germans are coming to conquer the country and destroy all +people, including the English, who have not accepted Islam!" + +The man hesitated again, glancing over his shoulder to discover his +retreat cut off by our porters, and eying Fred with malignity that +reminded one of a cornered beast of prey. He could control his face, +but not his eyes. + +"Oh, no, sir!" he answered after swallowing a time or two. "How could +they tell such lies against me! I am a person born in Uganda, now a +British protectorate and enjoying all blessings of British rule. I am +educated at the mission college at Entebbe. How should I tell such a +tale against my benefactors?" + +"That is what you are here to explain!" Fred answered. "No! You can't +escape, you hellion! Squat down and answer!" + +"All this stuff is pretty familiar," Will interrupted. "In the States +there are always people going the rounds among our darkies preaching +some form of treason. Over there we can afford to treat it as a +joke--now and then an ugly one, and on the darkies!" + +"This is an ugly joke on a darkie, too!" grinned Fred. + +The Baganda made a sudden dive and a determined struggle to get through +the door, but our porters were too quick and strong for him. + +"Confession is your one chance!" said Fred. + +"Put hot irons to his feet!" advised Coutlass. (The native beer had +left him villainously evil-tempered.) "Gassharamminy! Leave me alone +with that fat Baganda for half an hour, and I will make him tell me +what is on the far side of the moon, as well as what his mother said +and did before she bore him!" + +"Shall I hand you over to this Greek gentleman?" suggested Fred. + +"Oh, my God, no!" the Baganda answered, trembling. "Hand me over to +the bwana collector! He will put me in jail. I am not afraid of +British jail! It will not be for long! The English do not punish as +the Germans do! You dare not assault me! You dare not torture me! +You must hand me over to the bwana collector to be tried in court of +law. Nothing else is permissible! I shall receive short sentence, +that is all, with reprieve after two-thirds time on account of good +conduct!" + +"Make him prisoner in the sleeping sickness village you told us about!" +advised Coutlass, lolling at ease on his elbow to watch the man's +increasing fear. + +"Oh, no, no! Oh, gentlemen! That is not how white Englishmen behave! +You must either let me go, or--" + +He made another terrific dive for liberty, biting and kicking at his +captors, and finally lying on his back to scream as if the hot irons +Coutlass had recommended were being applied in earnest. + +"What shall we do with the beast?" asked Fred. The hut was so full of +his infernal screaming that we could talk without his hearing us. + +"Tie him up," I said. "If we let him go he'll run straight to +Schillingschen." + +"Leave him here with Coutlass and me!" urged Brown. (He and Coutlass +had grown almost friendly since getting drunk together on the native +beer.) + +"I recommend," said Will, "that we take the law in our own hands--" + +The Baganda ceased screaming and listened. For some reason he suspected +Will of being the deciding factor in our councils--perhaps because Will +had said least. + +"--take the law in our own hands, and thrash him soundly. Later on we +can report what we have done to the British government, and ask for +condonation under the circumstances or pay whatever piffling fine they +care to impose for the sake of appearances. The point is, there's no +court of law in these parts to hand him over to, and he needs +punishing." + +"I agree," said Fred. "Let's thrash him to begin with." + +"Let's thrash him," went on Will, "as thoroughly as we've seen his +friends the Germans do the job!" + +"Both sides!" agreed Brown. + +"Oh, no, no, no! You can not do that, gentlemen!" + +"Lay him out!" ordered Fred. "Let's begin on him. Who shall beat him +first?" + +At a nod from Fred our porters stretched him face downward on the dry +dung floor, and knelt on his arms and legs. One of them staffed a good +handful of the dry dung into his mouth to stop his yelling. + +"Of course," said Will, rather slowly and distinctly, "if he told us +about Schillingschen, we'd have to let him off. Let's hope he holds +his tongue, for I never wanted to flog a man so much in all my life!" + +The most palpable absurdity at the moment was that there was nothing in +the hut to beat him with. There were dozens of strips of the recently +shot hippo hide hanging in the sun outside to dry, with stones tied to +the end of each, to keep them taut and straight, but nobody made a move +to bring one in. + +"Take off his loin-cloth!" ordered Fred. "It won't hurt him enough +with that thing on!" + +The Baganda spat the cow-dung from his mouth and struggled violently. + +"Oh, no, no!" he shouted. "I will tell! I will tell everything!" + +"Too late now!" said Will jubilantly. + +"No, gentlemen, no! Not too late! I tell all--I tell quickly! Only +listen! Bwana Schillingschen will shoot me if he knows! He is very +bad man--very kali--very fierce--and oh, too clever! You must protect +me!" + +He could hardly get the words out, for the knees of our porters pinned +him down, and his chin was pressed hard on the floor. + +"I ordered that loin-cloth removed!" was all Fred commented. One of +the porters attended to the task, and the Baganda hurried with his +tale, drawing in breath in noisy gasps like a man with asthma because +of the weight of his captors on him and the strained position of his +neck. + +"Bwana Schillingschen is sending me and many other men--not all +Baganda, but of many tribes--to go through all parts and say Islam is +the only good religion--all Germans are high-priests of Islam--soon the +Germans are coming with great armies to destroy the British and all +other foolish people who have not accepted Islam as their creed! All +are to get ready to receive the Germans." + +"Where is Schillingschen now?" demanded Fred. + +"Beyond Mumias." + +"How far beyond Mumias?" + +"Who knows? He is marching." + +"In which direction? What for?" + +"To Mount Elgon. I do not know what for." + +"How do you know he is going to Mount Elgon?" + +"He told me to go there and find him after my work is done." + +"How long were you to continue at what you call your work?" + +"A month or five weeks." + +"So he expects to stay a long time up there?" + +"Yes." + +"Why?" + +"I do not know." + +"Has he many loads with him?" + +"Very many provisions for a long time." + +"Guns?" + +"Several. I do not know how many. He gives guns to some of his men +when he gets to where the government will not know about it." + +"How many men has he?" + +"Not many. Ten, I think." + +"How can they carry all those loads?" + +"He brought a hundred porters from Kisumu to Mumias, and there bought +more than forty donkeys, sending the porters back again." + +"Then are the men he has with him his own?" + +"Yes." + +"From German East?" + +"Yes." + +"What orders did he give you besides to tell these lies about German +conquest?" + +"None. + +"Pass me that whip!" ordered Fred. There was no whip, but the Baganda +could not know that. + +"He gave the same order to all of us," he yelled. "We are to stay out +a month or five weeks unless we meet white men. If we meet white men +we are to discover the white men's plans by talking with their +servants, and then hurry to him and report." + +"Ah! How many other spies has he out in this direction?" + +"None." + +"Why don't you pass me that whip when I ask for it?" demanded Fred. + +"None! None! None, bwana! I am the only man in this direction! He +has sent them north, south, east and west, but I am the only one down +here." + +"He has a lot more to tell yet," said Coutlass. "Let me put hot irons +on his feet!" + +Fred demurred. "He couldn't march with us if we did that!" he said +with a perfectly straight face. + +"Who cares whether or not he marches!" answered Coutlass. "To tell all +he knows is his business! Wait while I heat the iron!" + +The Baganda began to scream again, babbling that he knew no more. He +assured us that Schillingschen had set the closest watch along the old +caravan route, and toward his own rear in the direction of Kisumu, +whence officials might come on chance errands. + +"All right," said Fred. "Truss him up tight and keep him prisoner +among our men in their hut." + +"Our men are likely to get drunk tonight," warned Will. + +"Let me watch him!" urged Coutlass. "Leave me with him alone!" + +To the Greek's disgust we decided to trust the prisoner with our own +men, and to keep very careful watch on them, threatening them with loss +of all their pay if they dared get drunk and lose him--a threat they +accepted at its full face value, but resented because of Brown's and +the Greek's behavior the night before. They begged to get a little +drunk--to get half as drunk as Brown had been--half as drunk as +Coutlass had been--not drunk at all, but just to drink a little. We +were adamant, and Brown added to their resentment by preaching them a +sermon in their own tongue on the importance of being respectful toward +white folk. + +Kazimoto came in toward dark, foot-weary, but primed with news, and +most of what he had to say confirmed the Baganda's story. +Schillingschen, he said, was making for Mount Elgon in very leisurely +stages, letting his loaded donkeys graze their way along, and spending +hours of his time in questioning natives along the way on every subject +under the sun. + +Besides the fact of his leisurely progress, which was sufficiently +important in itself, we learned from Kazimoto that Schillingschen's own +ten boys were unable to speak the language of the country beyond a few +of the commonest words--that they all slept in a tent together at +night, usually quite a little distance apart from Schillingschen's--and +that the donkeys were usually picketed between the two tents in a long +line. He also told us the ten men had five Mauser rifles between them, +in addition to the German's own battery of three guns, one of which he +carried all day and kept beside his bed at night; the other two were +carried behind him in the daytime by a gun-bearer. + +That was good news on the whole. Coutlass went out on the strength of +it and began to drink beer from the big earthenware crock in which the +women had just brewed a fresh supply. Brown joined him within five +minutes, and at the end of an hour, they were swearing everlasting +friendship, Coutlass promising Brown his cattle back, and Brown +assuring him that Greece and the Greeks had always held his warmest +possible regards. + +"Thermopylae, y'know, old boy, an' Marathon, an' all that kind o' +thing! How many miles in a day could a Greek run in them days? Gosh!" + +They two drank themselves to sleep among the gentle cattle in the +circular enclosure in the midst of the village, and we--going out in +turns at intervals to make sure our own boys were not drinking--matured +our plans in peace. + +We were too few to dare undertake the task in front of us without the +aid of Brown and the Greek. It was a case of who was not against us +must be for us, and the end must justify both men and means. We tried +to work out ways of managing without them, but when we thought of our +Baganda prisoner, and the almost certainty that both he and Coutlass +would race to give our game away to Schillingschen if let out of sight +for a minute, the necessity of making the best, not the worst, of the +Greek seemed overwhelming. + +Early next morning, before the village had awakened from its glut of +beer and hippo meat, we shook Coutlass and Brown to their feet none too +gently, and, with the Baganda firmly secured by the wrists between two +of our men, started off, Fred leading. + +The village awoke as if by magic before we had dragged away the thorns +from the gate, and the chief leaped to the realization that the beads +he had promised his women were about as concrete as his drunken dreams. +He and a swarm of his younger men followed us, begging and +arguing--mile after mile--growing angrier and more importunate. It was +by my advice that we crossed the stream into the sleeping sickness zone +and left them shuddering on their own side. Our own men did not know +so much about the ravages of that plague, and in any case were willing +to dare whatever risks we despised. But we took a long bend back and +crossed the stream again higher up as soon as the chief and his beggars +were out of sight. It was a pity not to keep exact faith and give them +the promised beads, if only for the sake of other white men who might +camp there in the future; but more than two tons of hippo meat was not +bad pay for their hospitality. + +We wished we had as good price to offer at the villages on our way, for +sleep under cover we must, if we hoped to escape the ravages of fever; +and the primitive savage, at least in those parts, had the principle +down fine of nothing whatever for nothing. Yet as it turned out, the +very man whose company we looked on as a nuisance proved to be a key to +all gates. We marched along the track the Baganda had taken. The +chiefs of all villages knew him again; and the men who dared take such +a prophet of evil prisoner were looked upon as high government +officials at least. + +We accepted that description of ourselves, letting it go by silent +assent, and explained our lack of tents and almost every other thing +the white man generally travels with as due to haste. Heaven only knew +what lies Kazimoto told those credulous folk, to the perfectly worthy +end of making our lot bearable, but we were fed after a fashion, and +lodged after a worse one all along our road. And who should send in +reports about us--and to whom? Obviously white men with a prisoner, +marching in such a hurry toward the north, were government officials. +Who should report officials to their government? As for the tale about +our having left our loads behind--are not all white people crazy? Who +shall explain their craziness? + +From being a nuisance the Baganda became a joke. When it dawned on +his fat intellect that we were hurrying toward Schillingschen with only +one rifle among us and no baggage at all, he jumped at once to the +conclusion we must be Schillingschen's friends; and his fear that we +intended to hand him over to that ruthless brute for summary punishment +was more melting to his backbone than the dread of our imaginary whip, +that had caused him to give Schillingschen away. + +He tried to bite through the thongs that held him, but Will twisted for +him handcuffs out of thick iron wire that we begged from a chief, who +had intended to make ornaments with it for his own legs. We did not +dare let the man escape, nor care to prevent our men from using force +when he threw himself on the ground and wept like a spoiled child. + +"I will tell you" he said at last, deciding he might as well be hanged +for mutton as for lamb, "what Bwana Schillingschen is searching for! I +will tell you who knows where to find it! I will tell you where to +find the man who knows! Only let me run away then to my own home in +Uganda, and I will never again leave it! I am afraid! I am afraid!" + +But that was only one more reason for keeping him with us, and no +ground at all for delay. He would not tell unless we loosed his hands +first, so we pressed on, camping late and starting early, until about +noon of the fourth day we caught sight of Schillingschen's tents in the +distance, and gathered our party at once into a little rocky hollow to +discuss the situation. + +Behind us the land sloped gradually for thirty or forty miles toward a +sharp escarpment that overlooked the level land beside the lake. At +times between the hills and trees we could glimpse Nyanza itself, +looking like the vast rim of forever, mysterious and calm. In front of +us the rolling hills, broken out here and there into rocky knolls, +piled up on one another toward the hump of Elgon, on which the blue sky +rested. In every direction were villages of folk who knew so little of +white men that they paid no taxes yet and did no work--marrying and +giving in marriage--fighting and running away--eating and drinking and +watching their women cultivate the corn and beans and sweet +potatoes--without as much as foreboding of the taxes, work for wages, +missionaries, law and commerce soon to come. + +Schillingschen was more than taking his time, he was dawdling, keeping +his donkeys fat, and letting his men wander at pleasure to right and +left gathering reports for him of unusual folk or things. We came very +close to being seen by one of them, who emerged from a village near us +with a pair of chickens he had foraged, followed by the owner of the +luckless birds in a great hurry and fury to get paid for them. + +Schillingschen's tent could fairly easily be stalked from the far side +in broad daylight, and I was for making the attempt. There was the +risk that one of our porters might grow restless and break bounds if we +waited, or that the Baganda might take to yelling. We gagged him as +soon as I talked of the danger of that. + +Coutlass and Brown, however, were the only two who would agree with me. +Like me, they were weary to death of mtama porridge, with or without +milk, and the sight of Schillingschen's distant campfire with a great +pot resting on stones in the midst of it whetted appetite for white +man's food. They and I were for supping as soon as possible from the +German's provender, and sleeping under his canvas roof. + +But Fred and Will insisted on caution, claiming reasonably that +surprise would be infinitely easier after dark. It was unlikely that +Schillingschen would post any sentries, and not much matter if he did. +His knowledge of natives and natural air of authority made him quite +safe among any but the wildest, and these were a comparatively peaceful +folk. In all probability he would sit and read by candle light, with +his boys all snoring a hundred yards away. There was no making Fred +and Will see the virtue of my contention that a sudden attack while his +boys were scattered all about among the villages would be just as +likely to succeed; so we settled down to wait where we were with what +patience we could summon. + +It was a miserable, hungry business, under a blazing hot sky, packed +tightly together among men who objected to our smell as strongly as we +to theirs. It is the fixed opinion of all black people that the white +man smells like "bad water"; and no word seems discoverable that will +quite return the compliment. That afternoon was reminiscent of the +long days on the dhow, when nobody could move without disturbing +everybody else, and we all breathed the same hot mixed stench over and +over. + +We posted two sentries to lie with their eyes on the level of the rim +and guard against surprise. But there was so little to watch, except +kites wheeling overhead everlastingly, that they went to sleep; and we +were so bored, and so sure of our hiding-place and Schillingschen's +unsuspicion that we did not notice them. I myself fell asleep toward +five o'clock, and when I awoke the sun was so low in the west that our +hollow lay in deep gloom. + +Fred was lying on his elbow, sucking an unfilled, unlighted pipe. Will +lay on his side, too, with back toward both of us, ruminating. +Coutlass and Brown were both asleep, but Coutlass awoke as I rolled +over and struck him with my heel. Nearly all the porters were snoring. + +It was a sharp exclamation from the Greek that caused me to sit up and +face due westward. The others lay as they were. It was the gloom in +our hollow--the velvety shadows in which we lay with granite boulders +scattered between us, and no alertness on our part that saved that day, +although Coutlass acted instantly and creditably, once awake. + +Schillingschen stood there looking down on us, with his feet planted +squarely on the rim of the hollow, and Mauser rifle under one arm. His +great splay beard flowed sidewise in the evening wind. One hand he +held over his eyes, trying to make out details in the dark, as stupid +as we were. He stood with his back to the setting sun, exposing +himself without any thought of the risk he ran, his huge, filled-out +head refusing stubbornly to take in the truth of what had happened. +Once convinced, the Prussian mind is not readily unconvinced. He had +assured himself long ago that our party was at the bottom of Victoria +Nyanza. + +The second he did make out details he was swift to act, but that was +already too late, although he did not know it at the moment. He threw +up his rifle and laughed--a great deep guffaw from the stomach, that +awoke every one. + +"So, so!" he gloated. "So Mr. Oakes and his fellow escaped convicts +are alive after all! Ha-ha-ho-ho! So you followed me all this way, +only to forget that kites are curious! A fine comfortless journey you +must have had, too! There were twenty kites wheeling over you. I +counted, and wondered. Curiosity drove me to come and see. The first +man who moves a finger, Mr. Oakes, will die that instant! Let your +rifle lie where it is!" + +It would be no use pretending the man had not courage, at all events of +the sort that glories in the upper hand of a fight. He chuckled, and +reveled in our predicament, taking in, now that his eyes had grown +accustomed to the darkness of our hollow, the utter lack of comforts or +provisions, and enjoying our disappointment. He certainly knew himself +master of the situation. + +"I suspect you have a man of mine down there with you!" he announced +presently. "Is not that my Baganda? Is he gagged? Is he bound? +Loose him, Mr. Oakes, at once! I say at once! Otherwise you die now!" + +He pointed his rifle directly at Fred, and the next second fired it, +but not intentionally. Coutlass sprang from behind him, having crawled +out through a shadow, and hit him so hard with a stone on the back of +the skull that he loosed off the rifle and pitched head-foremost down +among us. The Greek promptly jumped on top of him with a yell like a +maniac's, failing to land with both heels on his backbone by nothing +but luck. As it was, he lost balance and sat down so hard on +Schillingschen's head that there was no need of the energy with which +we all followed suit, piling all over him to pin him down like hounds +that have rolled their quarry over. + +The German was stunned--knocked into utter oblivion--breathing like a +sleeping drunkard, and bleeding freely from the nose. Coutlass jumped +off him and began to execute a war dance up and down, yelling like a +madman until Fred threatened him with the rifle and Will gagged him +from behind. + +"Do you want his armed men down on us, you ass?" + +"Gassharamminy!" he laughed. "I forgot about them! Let us go and eat +their supper!" He spoke as a man who had full right now to be +considered a member in good standing. We all noticed it, and exchanged +glances; but that was no time for argument about men's rights. + +Brown was already over the rim of the hollow and making in the +direction of the tents. We called him back and compelled him to stay +on guard over the prisoners, to his awful disgust, for he suspected +there was whisky among Schillingschen's "chop-boxes." But so did we! +We left all our boys with him except Kazimoto, threatening them with +hitherto unheard of penalties if they dared as much as show a lock of +hair above the rim of the hollow while we were gone. + +Then the rest of us, with Fred leading and Kazimoto last of all, crept +out and sought the lowest level along which to reach the camp. Will +had taken Schillingschen's rifle and went next after Fred. Coutlass +followed so close on my heels that more than once he trod on them, and +once so nearly tripped me that Fred called a halt behind some bushes +and cursed me for clumsiness. + +But it turned out to be easy hunting. The ten boys had tied the +donkeys up to a rope in line and sat crooning while their supper cooked +at a long bright fire. We came up to Schillingschen's tent from +behind, crept around the side of it, and in a moment had three more +good weapons, I taking the big-bore elephant gun that had dealt with us +so savagely on the lake, Coutlass seizing another Mauser, and Kazimoto +adopting the shot-gun. + +The rest was child's play. We marched out of the tent all abreast and +called on the ten boys to surrender, making them put up their hands +until Coutlass had found their five rifles and ammunition. They were +too astonished even to ask questions. Accustomed to Schillingschen's +despotic orders, they obeyed ours silently, showing no symptoms of +trying to bolt, having nowhere to bolt to; but we took precautions. + +Kazimoto ran back to bring our party, and we took a coil of iron wire +from Schillingschen's trade goods and fastened every prisoner's hands +firmly behind his back, including the unconscious German's. That done, +we ate the meat, beans and vegetable supper that the ten had cooked. + +Brown and Coutlass found Schillingschen's whisky after that, and under +its influence again swore ceaseless friendship beneath the +non-committal stars. While they feasted we took Coutlass' rifle away +as a plain precaution. + + + + +CHAPTER FOURTEEN + +PARCERE SUBJECTIS? + + 'When the devil's at bay + Ye may kneel down and pray + For a year and a day + To be spared the distress of dispatching him, + But the longer ye kneel + The more squeamish ye'll feel + 'Cause the louder he'll squeal, + And at brotherly talk there's no matching him. + Discussion's his aim, + And as sure as you're game + To give heed to the same, + You regarding extremes with compunction, + You may bet he'll requite + Your compassion with spite, + Knifing you in the night + With much probonopublico unction. + + +For a while we looked like having trouble with Coutlass. We gave Brown +a rifle, and distributed the other Mausers among Kazimoto and our best +boys, but we did not dare trust the Greek with a weapon he might use +against us, and he resented that bitterly. He had an answer to Fred's +subterfuge that as a white man he would need a license before daring to +carry firearms. "I dare do anything! I care nothing for law!" he +argued, and Fred nodded. + +That night we reveled in luxury, for after the life we had led recently +it took time to reaccustom any of us to the common comforts. +Schillingschen traveled with every provision for his carcass and his +belly; and we plundered him. + +We put the prisoners and our own porters in a hut in the nearest native +village (less than half a mile away) under the watchful eye of Kazimoto +and the shot-gun, dividing Schillingschen's two large tents between +ourselves. The others offered me the camp-bed as a recent invalid, but +I refused, and Will won it by matching coins. We divided the blankets +in the same way, and all the spare underwear. Brown and Coutlass had +to be satisfied with cotton blankets from a bale of trade goods; but +when they had rifled enough to build up good thick mattresses as well +as coverings, there were still two apiece for our boys and all the +porters. + +The chop-boxes were a revelation. The man had with him food enough for +at least a year's traveling, including all the canned delicacies that +hungry men dream about in the wilderness. Before we slept we ate so +enormously of so very many things that it was a wonder that we were +able to sleep at all. + +We all hoped Schillingschen would die, for it was a hard problem what +to do with him. He had no papers in his possession, beyond a diary +written in German schrift that even Will could not make head or tail +of, for all his knowledge of the language; and a very vague map +bearing the imprint of the British government, filled in by himself +with the names of the villages he had passed on his way. There was no +proof that we could find that would have condemned him of nefarious +practises in a British court of law. + +"And believe me," argued Will, sprawling on the plundered bed, blowing +the smoke of a Melachrino through his nose, "your local British judges +would take the word of Professor Schillingschen against all of ours, +backed up by simply overwhelming native evidence! They're so in awe of +Schillingschen's professorial degree, and of his passports, and his +letters of introduction from this and that mogul that they wouldn't +believe him guilty of arson if they caught him in the act!" + +"Something's got to be done with him pretty soon, though," answered +Fred from the floor, lying at ease on a pillow and a folded Jaeger +blanket, smoking a fat cigar. + +Coutlass and Brown were singing songs outside the tent and I sat in a +genuine armchair with my feet on a box full of canned plum pudding. +(Nobody knows, who has not hungered on the high or low veld--who has +not eaten meat without vegetables for days on end, and then porridge +without salt or sugar--how good that common, export, canned plum +Pudding is! To sit with my feet on the case that contained it was the +arrogance of affluence!) + +"We have his stores and his papers," said I. "We have his Baganda; +and as time goes on, and his other spies begin to come in, we shall +have them, too, if we're half careful. Why don't we let him go, to +tell his own tale wherever he likes?" + +"Maybe he'll die yet!" said the optimist on the camp-bed, blowing more +cigarette smoke. + +"Suppose he doesn't. We've done our best to keep him alive. He's quit +bleeding. Suppose we let him go, and he lays a charge against us. +Suppose they send after us and bring us in. We've his diary and his +men--evidence enough," said I. + +"You bally ass!" Fred murmured. + +"Cuckoo!" laughed Will. + +"I don't believe he'd dare approach a British official with his story," +said I. + +"Incredible imbecile!" Fred answered. "He has the gall of a brass +monkey." + +"And magnetism--loads of it," Will added. "He'd make the Pope play +three-card monte." + +"To say nothing," continued Fred, "of the necessity of not letting the +government know we're here! Rather than turn him loose, I'd march him +into Kisumu and hand him over. But, as Will says wisely, our +proconsuls would believe him, and put us under bonds for outraging a +distinguished foreigner." + +"Well, then," said I, "what the devil shall we do with him? Offer +something constructive, you two solons!" + +"Have the four men we borrowed from the island bolted home yet?" +wondered Will. + +"They hadn't this evening," I answered. "I don't believe they'll +venture home until we stop feeding them. They were hungry on their +island. Our shortest commons then seemed affluence. Now they're in +heaven!" + +"Their canoes must be where they left them in the papyrus." + +"Sure. Who'd steal a canoe?" + +"Whoever could find them," Fred answered. "But they're skilfully +hidden. Why don't we put Schillingschen and his ten pet blacks into +those canoes, with a little food and no rifles--and show them the way +to German East?" + +"Because," said I, "they wouldn't go. They'd turn around and paddle +for Kisumu, to file complaint against us." + +"Don't you suppose," suggested Will, "that Schillingschen's own men 'ud +insist on going home? Out on the water, ten to one, without guns or +too much food, they wouldn't have the same fear of him they had +formerly." + +"That chance is too broad and long and deep," said Fred. "Altogether +too bulky to be taken. Let's sleep on it. This cigar's done, and I'm +drowsy. Are you quite sure Schillingschen's hands are fast behind him? +Then good night, all!" + +The problem looked no easier next morning, with Schillingschen +recovered sufficiently to be hungry and sit up. There was a look in +his eye of smoldering courage and assurance that did not bode well for +us, and when we untwisted the iron wire from his wrists to let him wash +himself and eat he looked about him with a sort of quick-fire cunning +that belied his story of headache. + +He was much too astute a customer to be judged superficially. I +whispered to Fred not to shackle him again too soon, and sat near and +watched him, close enough for real safety, yet not so close that he +might not venture to try tricks. He said nothing whatever, but I +noticed that his eye, after roving around the tent, kept returning +again and again to a chop-box that stood near the foot of the bed. + +Now I had unpacked that chop-box and repacked it the previous night. I +knew everything it contained--exactly how many cans of plum pudding. +It was the box I had rested my feet on. I felt perfectly sure he knew +as well as I what the box contained, and to suppose he would sit there +planning to recover canned food, however dainty, was ridiculous. + +Wherefore it was a safe conclusion he was trying to deceive me as to +his real intention. I put my foot on the box again, and he frowned, as +much as to say I had forestalled his only hope. Pretending to watch +the box and him, I examined every detail of the tent, particularly that +side of it opposite the box, away from where it seemed he wanted me to +look. + +The human eye is a highly imperfect piece of mechanism and the human +brain is mostly grayish slush. It was minutes before I detected the +edge of his diary, sticking out from the pocket of Fred's shooting coat +that itself protruded from under the folded blanket on which Fred had +slept. It was nearer to Schillingschen than to me. After watching him +for about fifteen minutes, during which he made a great fuss about his +headache, I was quite sure it was the diary that interested him. + +I stooped and extracted it from the coat pocket. The grimace he made +was certainly not due to headache. + +"Fred!" I called out, and he and Will came striding in together. + +"That diary's the key," I said. "It's important. It holds his +secrets!" + +Will was swift to put that to the test. + +"What will you offer?" he asked Schillingschen. "We want you to go +back direct to German East. Will you go, if we give you back your +diary?" + +Schillingschen blundered into the trap like a buffalo in strange +surroundings. + +"Ja wohl!" he answered. "Give me that, and yon shall never see me +again!" + +At that Fred threw himself full length on his blanket and took one of +Schillingschen's cigars. + +"Of course," he said, "you would give anything for leave to take those +words back! You needn't try to hide the wince--we fully appreciate the +situation! What do you say, you fellows? How about last night's idea? +Who mooted it? Shall we send him back by canoe to German East, with a +guarantee that if he doesn't go we'll hand over diary and him to our +government?" + +"Better send the book to the commissioner at Nairobi, or Mombasa, or +wherever he is," suggested Will. "Then if the 'prof' here doesn't get +a swift move on he's liable to be overtaken by the cops, I should say." + +"Let's make no promises," said I. "I vote we simply give him time to +get away." + +At that the Germain saw the weak side of our case in a flash. + +"If you dared give that diary to your government," he growled, "you +would do so without bargaining with me! Why do you propose to let me +go? Out of love for me? No! But because you dare not appeal to your +government! Give me that diary, and I will go at once to German East, +not otherwise! It is only a diary," he added. "Nothing +important--merely my private jottings and memoranda." + +Fred turned toward me so that Schillingschen could not see his face. + +"Are you willing to start for Kisumu at once with that book?" he asked, +and I nodded. He winked at me so violently that I could not trust +myself to answer aloud and keep a straight face. + +"Very well,"' he said. "Suppose you start with it to-morrow morning. +At the end of a week well turn the professor home to follow his own +nose!" + +Schillingschen shrugged his shoulders and refused to be drawn into +further argument. We gave him a good meal from his own provisions, and +then once more made his hands fast with wire behind him and left him to +sleep off his rage if he cared to in a corner of the tent. + +Later that morning we sent for the Baganda--gave him a view of +Schillingschen trussed and helpless--and questioned him about the man +he boasted he knew, who could tell us what Schillingschen was after. +He was so full of fear by that time that he held back nothing. + +He assured us the German was after buried ivory. There was a man, who +had promised to meet Schillingschen, who knew where to find the ivory +and would lead the way to it. He did not know names or places--knew +only that the man would be found waiting at a certain place, and was +not white. + +"How did you get that information?" Fred demanded. + +"By listening." + +"When? Where?" + +"At night, months ago, in Nairobi, outside the professor's tent. I lay +under the fly among the loads and listened. The man came in the dark, +and went in the dark. I did not see him. I did not hear him called by +name. He must have been an old man. Speaking Kiswahili, he admitted +he knew where the ivory is. He said he saw it buried, and that he +alone survives of all men who buried it. He promised to lead the +professor to the place on condition that the Germans shall release his +brother, and his brother's wife, and two sons whom they keep in prison +on a life-sentence. The professor agreed, but said, 'Wait! There are +first those people who also think they know the secret. Perhaps they +do! Wait until after I have dealt with them. Then you shall take me +to the place! After that your criminal relations shall be pardoned! +Here is money. Go and wait for me at the place we spoke of when we +talked before.'" + +We each cross-examined him in turn, but could not make him change his +story in any essential. He merely exaggerated the parts that he +guessed might please us, and begged to be allowed to run before +Schillingschen could break loose and get after him. + +By noontime, when we gave him his second meal, Schillingschen had made +up his own mind that his case was desperate and called for heroic +remedy. + +"All right," he growled. "I need that diary. Hand it to me and I'll +tell you how to find what you're after!" + +"You mean about the man who's to meet you?" suggested Fred blandly. + +Schillingschen started as if shot. + +"One of your men is an eavesdropper," Fred assured him with a cheerful +nod. "That plug has been pulled already, Professor!" + +"Let's play the cards face up!" Will interrupted impatiently. "Listen, +Schillingschen. You're an all-in scoundrel. You're a spy. You're a +bloody murderer of women and defenseless natives. If we could prove +that we wouldn't argue with you. We know you burned that dhow with the +women in it, but we've got no evidence, that's all. We know the German +government wants that ivory, and we know why. We also want it. Our +only reason for secrecy is that we hope for better terms from the +British government. We've nothing to fear, except possible financial +loss. If you prefer to come with us to Kisumu and have the whole +matter out in court, all you need do is just say so. On the other +hand, if you want to get out of this country before your diary can +reach the hands of the British High Commissioner--you'd just better +slide, that's all!" + +"You've only until dawn to think it over," remarked Fred. "You poor +boob!" continued Will. "You imagine we're criminals because you're one +yourself! The difference between your offer and ours is that you're +bluffing and we know it, whereas we're not bluffing by as much as a +hair, and the quicker you see that the better for you!" + +"Oh, rats! Let's take him in with us to Kisumu!" said I, and at that +Professor Schillingschen capitulated. + +"Very well," he said. "Kurtz und gut. I will leave the country. Permit +me to take only food enough, and my porters, and one gun!" + +"No guns!" said Fred promptly. + +Schillingschen sighed resignedly, and we went out of the tent to talk +over ways and means. In spite of our recent experience of Germany's +colonial government we were still so ignorant of the workings of the +mens germanica that we took his surrender at face value. + +The problem of getting him down to the lake shore safely was none too +simple. I was soft hearted and headed enough to propose that we should +loose his hands, now that he had surrendered, and permit him reasonable +liberty. Will--least inclined of all of us to cruelty--was disposed to +agree with me. We might have overborne Fred's objections if Coutlass +and Brown, returning from walking off their overnight debauch together, +had not shouted and beckoned us in a mysterious sort of way, as if some +new discovery puzzled them. + +We walked about a hundred and fifty yards to where they stood by a row +of low ant-hills. Neither of them was in a sociable frame of mind. It +was obvious from the moment we could see their faces clearly that they +had not called us to enjoy a joke. They stood like two dumb bird-dogs, +pointing, and we had to come about abreast of them before we knew why +we were summoned. + +There lay five clean-picked skeletons, one on each ant-hill. One was a +big bird's; one looked like a dog's; the third was a snake's; the +fourth a young antelope's; and the fifth was certainly that of a +yellow village cur, for some of the hairs from the tip of its tail were +remaining, not yet borne off by the ants. + +The skeletons lay as if the creatures had died writhing. There were +pegs driven into the earth that had evidently held them in position by +the sinews. Most peculiar circumstance of all, there was a camp-chair +standing very near by, with its feet deep in the red earth, as if a +very heavy man had sat in it. + +I went back to the camp and told Kazimoto to bring one of the +professor's men. Kazimoto had to do the talking, for we did not know +the man's language, nor he ours. + +Yes, the professor always did that to animals. He liked to sit and +watch them and keep the kites away. He said it was white man's +knowledge (science?). Yes, the animals were pegged out alive on the +ant-hills, and the professor would sit with his watch in his hand, +counting the minutes until they ceased from writhing. It was part of +the duty of the ten to catch animals and bring them alive to him in +camp for that purpose. No, they did not know why he did it, except +that it was white man's knowledge. No, natives did not do that way, +except now and then to their enemies. The professor always made +threats he would do so to them if they ran away from him, or disobeyed, +or misbehaved. Certainly they believed him! Why should they not +believe him? Did not Germans always keep their word when they talked +of punishment? + +We decided after that to let Schillingschen lie bound, whether or not +the iron wire cut his wrists. We did not trouble to go back to inquire +whether he needed drink, but let him wait for that until supper-time. +The remainder of that afternoon we spent discussing who should have the +disagreeable and not too easy task of taking the professor to the lake +and sending him on his way. We sat with our backs against a rock, with +the firearms beside us and a good view of all the countryside, very +much puzzled as to whether to leave Coutlass behind in camp (with Brown +and the whisky) or send him (with or without Brown) and one or two of +us on the errand. He was a dangerous ally in either case. + +Evening fell, and the good smell of supper came along the wind to find +us still undecided. We returned to the tent thinking that perhaps +something Schillingschen himself might say would help us to decide one +way or the other. + +"Better see if the brute wants a drink," said Fred, and I went in ahead +to offer him water. + +He was gone! Clean gone, without a trace, or a hint as to how he +managed it! I called the others, and we hunted. The sides of the tent +were pegged down tight all around. The front, it is true, was wide +open, but we had sat in full view of it and not so much as a rat could +have crept out without our seeing. There were no signs of burrowing. +He was not under the bed, or behind the boxes, or between the sides of +the tent and the fly. The only cover for more than a hundred yards was +the shallow depression along which we had come to the capture of the +camp, and that was the way he must have taken. But that, too, had been +practically in full view of us all the time. + +We counted heads and called the roll. Coutlass was close by. It did +not look as if he had played traitor this time. Brown was sleeping off +his headache in the shade. Kazimoto and all the boys were accounted +for. The prisoners were safe. No donkeys were missing--no +firearms--and no loads. The earth had simply opened up and swallowed +Schillingschen, and that was all about it! + +He had not made off with his pocket diary. Fred had that. There and +then we packed it in an empty biscuit tin and buried it under a rock, +Will and I keeping watch while Fred did the digging and covering up. +It was too likely that Schillingschen would come back in the night and +try to steal it for any of us to care about keeping it on his person. + +It was too late to look far and wide for him that evening. A hunter +such as he could have lain unseen in the dark with us almost stepping +on him. Gone was all appetite for supper! We nibbled, and swore, and +smoked--locked up the whisky--defied either Brown or Coutlass to try to +break the boxes open--and arranged to take turns on sentry-go all that +night, Will, Fred, and I--declining very pointedly offers by the other +two to have their part in keeping watch. In spite of lack of evidence +we suspected Coutlass; and we knew no particular reason for having +confidence in Brown. + + + + +CHAPTER FIFTEEN + + +THE SONG OF THE DARK-LORDS + + Turn in! Turn in! The jungle lords come forth + Cat-footed, blazing-eyed--the owners of the dark, + What though ye steal the day! We know the worth + Of vain tubes spitting at a phantom mark + With only human eyes to guide the fire! + Tremble, ye hairless ones, who only see by day, + The night is ours! Who challenges our ire? + Urrumph! Urrarrgh! Turn in there! Way! + + Ye come with iron lines and dare to camp + Where we were lords when Daniel stood a test! + Where once the tired safaris used to tramp + On noisy wheels ye loll along at rest! + Tremble, ye long-range lovers of the day, + 'Twas we who shook the circus walls of ancient Rome! + The dark is ours! Take cover! Way there! Way! + Urmmph! Urrarrgh! Take cover! Home! + + +The man who tries to explain away coincidences to men who were the +victims of them is likely to need more sympathy than he will get. The +dictionary defines them clumsily as instances of coinciding, apparently +accidental, but which suggest a casual connection. + +Lions paid us a visit that first night after Schillingschen's +escape--the first lions we had seen or heard since landing on the north +shore of the lake. We prayed they might get Schillingschen, yet they +and he persisted until morning--they roaring and circling never near +enough for the man on guard to get a shot--he also circling the camp, +calling to his ten men, whom we had transferred from the native village +to the second tent under guard of Kazimoto and our own men as a +precaution. + +Our boys slept as if drugged, but not his. He called to them in a +language that even Kazimoto did not understand, and they kept answering +at intervals. Once, when I was listening to locate Schillingschen if I +could, the lions came sniffing and snuffing to the back side of the +tent. I tried to stalk them--a rash, reprehensible, tenderfoot trick. +Luck was with me; they slunk away in the shadows, and I lived to +summon Fred and Will. We tried to save the donkeys, but the lions took +three of them at their leisure, and scared the rest so that they broke +out of the thorn-bush boma we had made the boys build (as a precaution +against leopards, not lions). Next morning out of forty we recovered +twenty-five, and wondered how many of them Schillingschen got. + +Remembering how we ourselves had managed, without ammunition or +supplies, we did not fool ourselves with the belief that +Schillingschen, with his brutal personal magnetism and profound +knowledge of natives, would not do better. The probability was he +would stir up the countryside against us. + +He had been doing missionary work; it might be the natives of that +part were already sufficiently schooled to do murder at his bidding. + +We decided to leave at once for a district where he had not yet done +any of his infernal preaching. + +"You should set a trap and shoot the swine!" Coutlass insisted. Will +was inclined to agree with him, but Fred and I demurred. The British +writ had never really run as far as the slopes of Elgon, and we could +see them ahead of us not very many marches away. If Schillingschen +intended to dog us and watch chances we preferred to have him do that +in a remote wilderness, where our prospect of influencing natives would +likely be as good as his, that was all. + +Part of our strategy was to make an early start and march swiftly, +taking advantage of his physical weariness after a night in the open on +the prowl; but after a few days in camp it is the most difficult thing +imaginable to get a crowd of porters started on the march. It was more +particularly difficult on that occasion because none of our men were +familiar with Schillingschen's loads, and the captured ten, even when +we loosed their hands and treated them friendly, showed no disposition +to be useful. We gave them a load apiece to carry, but to every one we +had to assign two of our own as guards, so that, what with having lost +the fifteen donkeys, we had not a man to spare. + +It was after midday when we got off at last. We had not left the camp +more than half a mile behind when I looked back and saw Schillingschen +where his great tent had stood, cavorting on hands and feet like an +enormous dog-baboon, searching every inch of the ground for anything we +might have left. We three stood and watched him for half an hour, +sweating with fear lest he chance on the place where his diary lay +buried in the tin box. We began to wish we had brought it with us. I +said we had done foolishly to leave it, although I had approved of +Fred's burying it at the time. + +"Suppose," I argued, "he sets the natives of that village to searching! +What's to prevent him? You know the kind of job they'd make of +it--blade by blade of grass--pebble by pebble. Where they found a +trace of loosened dirt they'd dig." + +"Did you bury something, then?" inquired a voice we knew too well. "By +the ace of stinks, those natives can smell out anything a white man +ever touched!" + +We turned and faced Coutlass, whom we had imagined on ahead with the +safari. If he noticed our sour looks, he saw fit to ignore them; but +he took an upperhanded, new, insolent way with us, no doubt due to our +refusal to shoot Schillingschen. He ascribed that to a yellow streak. + +"I was right. Gassharamminy! I could have sworn I saw two of you on +watch while the third man dug among the stones! What did you bury? I +came back to talk about Brown. The poor drunkard wants to head more to +the east. I say straight on. What do you say?" + +We told him to go forward. Then we looked in one another's eyes, and +said nothing. Whether or not the original decision had been wise, +there was no question now what was the proper course. + +Instead of tiring out Schillingschen we made an early camp by a +watercourse, and built a very big protection for the donkeys against +lions--a high thorn enclosure, and an outer one not so high, with a +space between them wide enough for the two tents and half a dozen big +fires. Before dark we had enough fuel stacked up to keep the fires +blazing well all night long. + +Neither Coutlass nor Brown had had a drink of whisky that day, so it +was all the more remarkable that Coutlass lay down early in a corner of +the tent and fell into a sound sleep almost at once. We were +thoroughly glad of it. Our plan was for two of us to creep out of camp +when it was dark enough, and recover the contents of that tin box +before Schillingschen or the blacks could forestall us. + +The lions began roaring again at about sundown, but they love +donkey-meat more than almost any except giraffe, and it was not likely +they would trouble us. We were so sure the task was not particularly +risky that Fred, who would have insisted on the place of greater danger +for himself, consented willingly enough to stay in camp while Will and +I went back. Our original intention was to take Schillingschen's +patent, wind-proof, non-upsettable camp lantern to find the way with +and keep wild beasts at bay; but just as Will went toward the tent to +fetch it (Fred's back was turned, over on the far side where he was +seeing to the camp-fires) we both at once caught sight of Coutlass +creeping on hands and knees along a shadow. We had closed the gap in +the outer wall of thorn, but he dragged aside enough to make an opening +and slipped through, thinking himself unobserved. + +To have followed him with a lantern would have been worse than my crime +of stalking lions in the dark. Will ran to tell Fred what had happened +while I followed the Greek through the gap, and presently Will and I +were both hot on his trail, as close to him as we could keep without +letting him hear us. + +"Fred says," Will whispered, "if we catch him talking with +Schillingschen, shoot 'em both! Fred won't let him into camp again +unless we bring back proof he's not a traitor!" + +We were pursuing a practised hunter, who at first kept stopping to make +sure he was not followed. He took a line across that wild country in +the dark with such assurance, and so swiftly that it was unbelievably +hard to follow him quietly. It was not long before we lost sound of +him. Then we ran more freely, trusting to luck as much as anything to +keep him thinking he had the darkness to himself. + +Our short day's journey seemed to have trebled itself! We were +leg-weary and tired-eyed when at last we reached, and nearly fell into +a hollow we recognized. Will went down and struck a match to get a +look at his watch. + +"There ought to be a moon in about ten minutes," he whispered. "We're +within sight of the place. Suppose we climb a tree and scout about a +bit." + +It was not a very big tree that we selected, but it was the biggest; +it had low branches, and the merit of being easy to climb. + +When the pale latter half of the moon announced itself we could dimly +make out from the upper branches all of the flat ground where the camp +had been. There was no sign of Coutlass. None of Schillingschen. A +lioness and two enormous lions stood facing one another in a triangle, +almost exactly on the spot where the larger tent had stood, not fifty +yards from us. + +"Gee!"' whispered Will excitedly. "We nearly stumbled on 'em!" + +"Shoot!" I whispered. My own position on the branch was so insecure +that I could not have brought my rifle into use without making a +prodigious noise. Will shook his head. + +"I can see Coutlass now! Look at that rock--he's hiding behind +it--see, he's climbing! And look, there's Schillingschen!" + +Neither man was aware of the other's presence, or of ours. They were +out of sight of each other, Coutlass on the very rocks against which we +had leaned to watch the tent the afternoon before, and neither man +really out of reach of anything with claws that cared to go after them +in earnest. + +The arrival of the dim moon seemed to give the lions their cue for +action. The lioness turned half away, as if weary of waiting, and then +lay down full-length to watch as one lion sprang at the other with a +roar like the wrath of warring worlds. They met in mid-air, claw to +claw, and went down together--a roaring, snarling, eight-legged, +two-tailed catastrophe--never apart--not still an instant--tearing, +beating--rolling over and over--emitting bellows of mingled rage and +agony whenever the teeth of one or other brute went home. + +Even as shadows fighting in the shadows they were terrible to watch. +They shook the very earth and air, as if they owned all the primeval +bestial force of all the animals. And the she-lion lay watching them, +her eyes like burning yellow coals, not moving a muscle that we could +see. + +Iron could not have withstood the blows; the thunder of them reached +us in the tree! Steel ropes could not have endured the strain as claws +went home, and the brutes wrenched, ripped, and yelled in titanic +agony. Their fury increased. Wounds did not seem to enfeeble them. +Nothing checked the speed of the fighting an instant, until suddenly +the lioness stood erect, gave a long loud call like a cat's, and turned +and vanished. + +She had seen. She knew. Like a spring loosed from its containing box +one of the lions freed himself in mid-air and hurtled clear, landing on +all-fours and hurrying away after the lioness with a bad limp. The +other lion fell on his side and lay groaning, then roared +half-heartedly and dragged himself away. + +The second lion had hardly gone when Coutlass descended gingerly from +the rock, peering about him, and listening. He evidently had no +suspicion of our presence, for he never once looked in our direction. +It was Schillingschen, not lions, he feared; and Schillingschen, +clambering over the top of another rock, watched him as a night-beast +eyes its prey. Another one-act drama was staged, and it was not time +for us to come down from the tree yet. + +Satisfied he was not followed and that Schillingschen was elsewhere, +Coutlass crept from rock to rock toward the little cluster of small +ones where, by his own confession, he had seen Fred bury the box. +Schillingschen stalked him through the shadows as actively as a great +ape, making no sound, as clearly visible to us as he was invisible to +Coutlass. + +There was not a trace of mist--nothing to obscure the dim pale light, +and as the moon swung higher into space we could see both men's every +movement, like the play of marionettes. + +Down on his knees at last among the small loose rocks, Coutlass began +digging with his fingers--grew weary of that very soon, and drew out +the long knife from his boot--dug with that like a frenzied man until +from our tree we heard the hard point strike on metal. Then +Schillingschen began to close in, and it was time for us to drop down +from the tree. + +We made an abominable lot of noise about it, for the tree creaked, and +our clothing tore on the thorny projections of limbs that seemed to +have grown there since we climbed. To make matters worse, I stepped +off the lowest branch, imagining there was another branch beneath it, +and fell headlong, rifle and all, with a clatter and thump that should +have alarmed the village half a mile away. And Will, not knowing what +I had done but alarmed by the noise I made, jumped down on top of me. + +We picked ourselves up and listened. We could hear the short quick +stabs of the knife as Coutlass loosed and scooped the earth out. Among +the myriad noises of the African night our own, that seemed appalling +to us, had passed unnoticed--or perhaps Schillingschen heard, and +thought it was the injured lion dragging himself away. (Nobody needed +worry about the chance of attack from that particular lion for many a +night to come; he would ask nothing better than to be left to eat mice +and carrion until his awful wounds were healed.) + +Reassured by the sound of digging we crept forward, knowing pretty well +the best path to take from having seen Schillingschen stalking. But it +was more by dint of their obsession than by any skill of ours that we +crept up near without giving them alarm. Coutlass was still on his +knees, throwing out the last few handfuls of loose dirt. +Schillingschen stood almost over him, so close that the thrown dirt +struck against his legs. + +We took up positions in the shadow, one to either side, almost afraid +to breathe, I cursing because the rifle quivered in my two hands like +the proverbial aspen leaf. The prospect of shooting a white man--even +such a thorough-paced blackguard white as Schillingschen--made me as +nervous as a school-girl at a grown-up party. + +At last Coutlass groped down shoulder-deep and drew the box out. + +"Give that to me!" Schillingschen shouted like a thunder-clap, making +me jump as if I were the one intended. + +The moonlight gleamed on the tin box. Coutlass did not drop it but +turned his head to look behind him. Schillingschen swung for his face +with a clenched fist and the whole weight and strength of his ungainly +body. He would have broken the jaw he aimed at had the blow landed; +but the Greek's wit was too swift. + +He kicked like a mule, hard and suddenly, ducking his head, and then +diving backward between the German's legs that were outspread to give +him balance and leverage for the fist-blow. Schillingschen pitched +over him head-forward, landing on both hands with one shoulder in the +hole out of which the box had come. With the other arm he reached for +the knife that Coutlass had laid on the loose earth. Coutlass reached +for it, too, too late, and there followed a fight not at all inferior +in fury to the battle of the lions. Humans are only feebler than the +beasts, not less malicious. + +Will reached for the tin box, opened it, took out the diary, closed it +again, put the diary in his own inner pocket, and returned the box; +but they never saw or heard him. The German, with an arm as strong as +an ape's, thrust again and again at Coutlass, missing his skin by a +bait's breadth as the Greek held off the blows with the utmost strength +of both hands. + +Suddenly Coutlass sprang to his feet, broke loose for a second, landed +a terrific kick in the German's stomach, and closed again. He twisted +Schillingschen's great splay beard into a wisp and wrenched it, forcing +his head back, holding the knife-hand in his own left, and spitting +between the German's parted teeth; then threw all his weight on him +suddenly, and they went down together, Coutlass on top and +Schillingschen stabbing violently in the direction of his ribs. + +Letting go the beard, Coutlass rained blows on the German's face with +his free fist. Made frantic by that assault Schillingschen squirmed +and upset the Greek's balance, rolled him partly over and, blinded by a +very rain of blows, slashed and stabbed half a dozen times. Coutlass +screamed once, and swore twice as the knife got in between his bones. +The German could not wrench it out again. With both hands free now, +the Greek seized him by the throat and began to throttle him, beating +with his forehead on the purple face the while his steel fingers +kneaded, as if the throat were dough. + +We were not at all inclined to stop Coutlass from killing the man. We +came closer, to see the end, and Coutlass caught sight of us at last. + +"Shoot him!" he screamed. "Gassharamminy! Shoot him, can't you, while +I hold him!" + +As he made that appeal the German convulsed his whole body like an +earthquake, wrenched the knife loose at last, and as Coutlass changed +position to guard against a new terrific stab rolled him over, freed +himself and stood with upraised hand to give the finishing blow. Then +suddenly he saw us and his jaw dropped, the beastly mess that had been +his well-kept beard dropping an inch and showing where the Greeks fist +had broken the front teeth. But that was only for a second--a second +that gave Coutlass time to rise to his knees, and dodge the descending +blow. + +I made up my mind then it was time to shoot the German, whatever the +crimes of the Greek might be; but Coutlass had not grown slower of wit +from loss of blood. As he dodged he rolled sidewise and seized my +rifle, jerking it from my hand. He jerked too quickly. The German saw +the move and kicked it, sending it spinning several yards away. We all +made a sudden scramble for it, Schillingschen leading, when the German +turned as suddenly as one of the great apes he so resembled, tripped +Will by the heel, wrenched the rifle from his right hand, pounced on +the empty tin box, and was gone! + +Too late, I remembered my own rifle and fired after him, emptying the +magazine at shadows. + +Will's rage and self-contempt were more distressing than the Greek's +spouting knife-wounds. + +"By blood and knuckle-bones! Give me that gun of yours, will you! I +go after the swine! I cut his liver out! Where is my knife? Ah, +there it is! Stoop and give it me, for my ribs hurt! So! Now I go +after him!" + +We held Coutlass back, making him be still while we tore his shirt in +strips, and then our own, and tried to staunch the blood, Will almost +blubbering with rage while his fingers worked, and the Greek cursing us +both for wasting time. + +"He has the box!" he screamed. "He has the rifle!" + +"He has no ammunition but what's in the magazine," said I; and that +started Will off swearing at himself all over again from the beginning. + +"You damned yegg!" he complained as he knotted two strips of shirt. +"This would never have happened if you hadn't sneaked out to steal the +contents of the box!" + +Suddenly Coutlass screamed again, like a mad stallion smelling battle. + +"There he is! There the swine is! I see him! I hear him! Give me +that--" + +He reached for my rifle, but I was too quick that time and stepped +back out of range of his arm. As I did that the blood burst anew from +his wounds. He put his left hand to his side and scattered the hot +blood up in the air in a sort of votive offering to the gods of Greek +revenge, and, brandishing the long knife, tore away into the dark. + +"I see him!" he yelled. "I see the swine! By Gassharamminy! To-night +his naked feet'll blister on the floor of hell!" + +We followed him, enthralled by mixed motives made of desire and a sort +of half-genuine respect for the courage of this man, who claimed three +countries and disgraced each one at intervals in turn. We did not go +so fast as he. We were not so enamored of the risks the dark contained. + +Suddenly there came out of the blackness just ahead a marrow-curdling +cry--agony, rage, and desperation--that surely no human ever +uttered--roar, yelp of pain, and battle-cry in one. + +"Help!" yelled Coutlass. "Help! Oh-ah! Ah!" + +We raced forward then, I leading with my rifle thrust forward. A +second later I fired; and that was the only time in my life I ever +touched a lion's face with a rifle muzzle before I pulled the trigger! +The brute fell all in a heap, with Coutlass underneath him and the +Greek's long knife stuck in his shoulder to the hilt. The lion must +have died within the minute without my shot to finish him. + +Coutlass lay dead under the defeated beast that had crawled away to +hide and lick his wounds. We dragged his body out from under, and in +proof that Schillingschen, the common enemy, lived, a bullet came +whistling between us. The flash of my shot had given him direction. +Perhaps he could see us, too, against the moon. We ducked, and lay +still, but no more shots came. + +"He's only got four left," Will whispered. "Maybe he'll husband those!" + +"Maybe he knows by now that box is empty!" said I. "He'll stalk us on +the way back!" + +"Us for the tree, then, until morning!" said Will. + +"Sure!" I answered. "And be shot out of it like crows out of a nest!" + +But Will had the right idea for all that. He was merely getting at it +in his own way. After a little whispering we went to work with fevered +fingers, stripping off the bloody bandages we had tied on the Greek's +ribs--stripping off more of his clothes--then more of ours--tying them +all into one--then skinning the mangled lion with the long knife that +had really ended his career, tearing the hide into strips and knotting +them each to each. In twenty minutes we had a slippery, smeary, smelly +rope of sorts. In five more we had dragged the Greek's dead body +underneath the tree. + +Then I went back to the vantage point among the rocks and waited until +Will had thrown the rope with a stone tied to its end over an upper +branch. Presently I saw Coutlass' dead body go clambering ungracefully +up among the branches, looking so much less dead than alive that I +thought at first Will must have tangled the rope in the crotch of the +tree and be clambering up to release it. + +The ruse worked. Georges Coutlass served us dead as well as living. +Out of the darkness to my left there came a flash and a report. I did +not look to see whether the corpse in the tree jerked as the bullet +struck. Before the flash had died--almost before the crack of the +report bad reached my ear-drums I answered with three shots in quick +succession. + +"Did you get him?" called Will. + +"I don't know," I answered. "If I didn't, he's only got three +cartridges left!" + +We left the Greek's body in the tree for Schillingschen to shoot at +further if he saw fit; it was safer there from marauding animals than +if we had laid it on the ground, and as for the rites of the dead, it +was a toss-up which was better, kites and vultures, or jackals and the +ants. We saw no sense that night in laboring with a knife and our +hands to bury a body that the brutes would dig up again within five +minutes of our leaving it. + +"Schillingschen has three cartridges,"' sad Will. "One each for you, me +and Fred Oakes! I'll stay and trick him some more. I'll think up a +new plan. I don't care if he gets me. I'd hate to face Fred without +my rifle, and have to tell him the enemy is laying for him with it +through my carelessness." + +It was my first experience of Will with hysteria, for it amounted to +that. I remembered that to cure a bevy of school-girls of it one +should rap out something sharply, with a cane if need be. Yet Will was +not like a school-girl, and his hysteria took the pseudo-manly form of +refusal to retreat. I yearned for Fred's camp-fires, and Fred's laugh, +hot supper, or breakfast, or whatever the meal would be, and blankets. +Will, with a ruthless murderer stalking him in the dark, yearned only +for self-contentment. All at once I saw the thing to do, and thrust my +rifle in his hands. + +"Take it," I said. "Hunt Schillingschen all night if you want to. I'm +going back to tell Fred I've lost my rifle, and was afraid to face you +for fear you'd laugh at me. Go on--take it! No, you've got to take +it!" + +I let the rifle fall at his feet, and he was forced to pick it up. By +that time I was on my way, and he had to hurry if he hoped to catch me. +I kept him hurrying--cursing, and calling out to wait. And so, hours +later, we arrived in sight of Fred's fires and answered his cheery +challenge: + +"Halt there, or I'll shoot your bally head off!" + +Lions had kept him busy making the boys pile thornwood on the fires. +He had shot two--one inside the enclosure, where the brute had jumped +in a vain effort to reach the frantic donkeys. We stumbled over the +carcass of the other as we made our way toward the gate-gap, and +dragged it in ignominiously by the tail (not such an easy task as the +uninitiated might imagine). + +Once within the enclosure I left Will to tell Fred his story as best +suited him, Fred roaring with laughter as he watched Will's rueful +face, yet turning suddenly on Brown to curse him like a criminal for +laughing, too! + +"Go and fetch that Mauser of yours, Brown, and give it to Mr. Yerkes in +place of what he's lost! Hurry, please!" + +It was touch and go whether Brown would obey. But he happened to be +sober, and realized that he had committed tho unpermissible offense. +Fred might laugh at Will all he chose; so might I; either of us might +laugh Fred out of countenance; or they might howl derisively at me. +But Brown, camp-fellow though he was, and not bad fellow though he was, +was not of our inner-guard. He might laugh with, never at, especially +when catastrophe brought inner feelings to the surface. + +"Take the shot-gun if you care to," Fred told him, as he passed Will +the rifle. "I'll unlock the chop-box presently, and let you have some +whisky!" + +This last was the cruellest cut, but it did Brown good. When Fred kept +his promise and produced a whole bottle from the locked-up store Brown +refused to touch it, instead insulting him like a good man, cursing +him--whisky, whiskers, whims and all, using language that Fred +good-naturedly assured him was very unladylike. + +Before dawn the boys, peering through the gaps between the camp-fires, +to distinguish lions if they could and give the alarm before another +could jump in and do damage, swore they saw Schillingschen, rifle in +hand, stalking among the shadows. Nothing could convince them they had +not seen him. They said he stooped like a man in a dream--that big +beard was matted, and his shirt torn--that he strode out of darkness +into darkness like a man whose mind was gone. We purposely laughed at +their story, to see if we could shake them in it. But they laughed at +our incredulity. + +"My eyes are good eyes" answered Kazimoto. "What I see I see! Why +should I invent lies?" + +It was not pleasant to imagine Schillingschen, mind gone or not, with +or without three cartridges and a rifle, prowling about our camp +awaiting opportunity to do murder. + +"Come to think of it," said Fred, "we've no proof he hasn't a lot more +than three cartridges. It's hardly likely, but he might have cached +some in reserve near where we found his camp pitched. More unlikely +things have happened. But the bally man must go to sleep some time. +He seems to have been awake ever since he escaped. We'll be off at +dawn, and either tire him out or leave him!" + +"I'll bet he's got one or more of those donkeys," I answered. "He'll +not be so easy to tire." + +"Suppose you and Will go and sleep," suggested Fred. "Otherwise we'll +all go crazy, and all get left behind!" + +There did not remain much time for sleeping. The porters, being used +to the tents and their loads now, got away to a good start, heading +straight toward the frowning pile of Elgon that hove its great hump +against a blue sky and domineered over the world to the northward. + +There were plenty of villages, well filled with timid spear-men and +hard-working naked wives. Now that we had trade goods in plenty there +was no difficulty at all about making friends with them. They had two +obsessing fears: that it might not rain in proper season, and "the +people" as they called themselves would "have too much hunger"; and +that the men from the mountain might come and take their babies. + +"Which men, from what mountain?" + +"Bad men, from very high up on that mountain!" They pointed toward +Elgon, shuddered, and looked away. + +"Why should they take your babies?" + +"They eat them!" + +"What makes you think that?" + +"We know it! They come! Once in so often they come and fight with us, +and take away, and kill and eat our fat babies!" + +All the inhabitants of all the villages agreed. None of them had ever +ventured on the mountain; but all agreed that very bad black men came +raiding from the upper slopes at uncertain intervals. There was no +variation of the tale. + +One thing puzzled us much more than the cannibal story. We heard +shooting a long way off behind us to our right--two shots, followed by +the unmistakable ringing echo among growing trees. Had Schillingschen +decided to desert us? And if so, how did he dare squander two of his +three cartridges at once--supposing he were not now mad, as our boys, +and his, all vowed he was? His own ten men began to beg to be +protected from him, and the captured Baganda recommended in best +missionary English that we seek the services of the first witch doctor +we could find. + + + + +CHAPTER SIXTEEN + + +THE SONG OF THE ELEPHANTS + + Who is as heavy as we, or as strong? + Ho! but we trample the shambas down! + Saw ye a swath where the trash lay long + And tall trees flat like a harvest mown? + That was the path we shore in haste + (Judge, is it easy to find, and wide!) + Ripping the branch and bough to waste + Like rocks shot loose from a mountain side! + Therefore hear us: + +(All together, stamping steadily In time.) + + 'Twas we who lonely echoes woke + To copy the crash of the trees we broke! + Goad, nor whip, nor wheel, nor yoke + Shall humble the will of the Ivory Folk! + + Once we were monarchs from sky to sky, + Many were we and the men were few; + Then we would go to the Place to die-- + Elephant tombs* that the oldest knew,-- + Old as the trees when the prime is past, + Lords unchallenged of vale and plain, + Grazing aloof and alone at last + To lie where the oldest had always lain. + So we sing of it: + +----------------------------- +* The legendary place that every Ivory hunter hopes some day to stumble +on, where elephants are said to have gone away to die of old age, and +where there should therefore be almost unimaginable wealth of ivory. +The legend, itself as old as African speech, is probably due to the +rarity of remains of elephants that have died a natural death. +------------------------------ + +(All together, swinging from side to side in time, and tossing trunks.) + + 'Twas we who lonely echoes woke + To copy the crash of the trees we broke! + Goad, nor whip, nor wheel, nor yoke + Shall govern the strength of the Ivory Folk! + + Still we are monarchs! Our strength and weight + Can flatten the huts of the frightened men! + But the glory of smashing is lost of late, + We raid less eagerly now than then, + For pits are staked, and the traps are blind, + The guns be many, the men be more; + We fidget with pickets before and behind, + Who snoozed in the noonday heat of yore. + Yet, hear us sing: + +(All together, ears up and trunks extended.) + + 'Twas we who lonely echoes woke + To copy the crash of the trees we broke! + Goad, nor whip, nor wheel, nor yoke + Have lessened the rage of the Ivory Folk! + + Still we are monarchs of field and stream! + None is as strong or as heavy as we! + We scent--we swerve--we come--we scream-- + And the men are as mud 'neath tusk and knee! + But we go no more to the Place to die, + For the blacks head off and the guns pursue; + Bleaching our scattered rib-bones lie, + And men be many, and we be few. + Nevertheless: + +(All together, trunks up-thrown, ears extended, and stamping in slow +time with the fore-feet.) + + 'Twas we who lonely echoes woke + To copy the crash of the trees we broke! + Goad, nor whip, nor wheel, nor yoke + Shall humble the pride of the Ivory Folk! + + +We had laughed at Fred's suggestion that Schillingschen might have +ammunition cached away. Fred had sneered at my guess that the German +might ride donkey-back and not be so easily left behind. Now the +probability of both suggestions seemed to stiffen into reality. + +Day followed day, and Schillingschen, squandering cartridges not far +away behind us, always had more of them. He seemed, too, to lose +interest in keeping so extremely close to us, as we raced to get away +from him toward the mountain. If he was really crazy, as his trembling +boys maintained, then for a crazy man blazing at everything or nothing +he was shooting remarkably little. On the contrary, if he was sane, +and shooting for the pot, he must have acquired a big following in some +mysterious manner, or else have lost his marksmanship when Coutlass +bruised his eyes. He fired each day, judging by the echo of the shots, +about as many cartridges as we did, who had to feed a fairly long +column of men, and make presents of meat, in addition, to the chiefs of +villages. It began to be a mystery how he carried so much ammunition, +unless he had donkeys or porters. + +Soon we began to pass through a country where elephants bad been. +There was ruin a hundred yards wide, where a herd of more than a +thousand of them must have swept in panic for fifteen miles. There +were villages with roofs not yet re-thatched, whose inhabitants came +and begged us to take vengeance on the monsters, showing us their +trampled enclosures, torn-down huts, and ruined plantations. They +offered to do whatever we told them in the way of taking part, and +several times we marshaled the men of two or three villages together in +an effort to get a line to windward and drive the herd our way. + +But each time, as the plan approached development, ringing shots from +behind us put the brutes to flight. It became uncanny--as if +Schillingschen in his new mad mood was able to divine exactly when his +noise would work most harm. Our fool boys told the local natives that +a madman was on our heels, and after that all offers of help ceased, +even from those who had suffered most from the elephants. We began to +be regarded as mad ourselves. Efforts to get natives to go scouting to +watch Schillingschen, and report to us, were met with point-blank +refusal. Rumor began to precede us, and from one village that had +suffered more than usually badly from passing elephants the inhabitants +all fled at the first sign of Brown, leading our long single column. + +We followed the herd. Its track was wide, and easier than the winding +native foot-paths; and we were willing enough to jettison loads of +trade-goods if only we could replace them with tusks. The chase led up +toward Elgon, over the shoulder of an outlying spur, and upward toward +the mountain's eastern slopes. + +As long as we kept in the wake of the herd the going presented no +difficulties. We knew by the state of the tracks and the dung that the +herd was never far ahead. Frequently we heard them crashing through +trees in front of us. Yet whenever we came so close as to hope for a +view, and a shot at a tusker, invariably a regular fusillade from the +eastward to our rear would start the herd stampeding with a din like +all the avalanches. + +Streams by the dozen flowed down from the mountain's sides, their banks +crushed into bog where the elephants had crossed. Our donkeys grew +used to being tied by the head in line and hauled across (for in common +with all herds of donkeys, there were a few of them that swam readily, +and many that either could not or refused). The flies in the wake of +the elephants were worse than the tetse that haunted the shore of +Nyanza. + +We had no trouble now from our boys. We could even let the Baganda's +hands loose. They feared the cannibals of the higher slopes, but were +much more afraid of the madman to our right rear. Our difficulty lay +in compelling them to keep a course sufficiently to eastward, and in +calling a halt each day before men and animals were too utterly tired +out. Yet for all their hurry, we did not gain on the man who made them +so afraid. + +Elephants, once thoroughly scared, will run away forever. Our boys +openly praised the herd in front for its speed and stamina, hoping it +would continue on its course and oblige us to keep the madman with the +rifle at a safe distance to our rear. But it seemed he had an easier +line than we, or else his frenzy gave him seven-league boots, for he +even began to gain on us, keeping along our right flank at a distance +of several miles, and driving us nearly mad in the frantic effort to +keep our column from turning and running away to the westward. If we +had relaxed our vigilance for a moment they would have broken line and +fled. + +It was old volcanic country we were marching through, densely wooded, +virgin forest for the most part, with earth so warm at times that it +was not easy to believe the crater of Elgon quite extinct. Even at +that low level we came on blow-holes nearly filled in with dirt and +trash, serving as fine caves for beasts of prey. We went into one for +about three hundred paces before it narrowed into nothing, and would +have camped in it but for the stink. It smelt like a place where the +egg of original sin had turned rotten. Fred said that was sulphur, +with the air of a man who would like it believed that he knew. + +At last the enemy must have made a night march, for he passed us, and +the following dawn we heard him shooting to our right in front. That +morning it was simply impossible to make the boys break camp. They +swore that the ghost of Schillingschen had gone in league with the +elephants to destroy us, and they preferred to be shot by us rather +than murdered by witchcraft. + +Beyond doubt they would have bolted and left us had that camp not been +an almost perfect one, on rising ground with two great wings of rock +almost enclosing it, and a singing brook galloping through the midst. +There was only one gap by which elephant or man could enter (unless +they should fall from the sky), and they closed that by rolling rocks +and dragging up trunks of trees. + +After a useless argument, during which we all lost our tempers and they +were reduced to the verge of panic, we decided to leave them there in +charge of Brown and those porters, except Kazimoto, who had rifles. +The armed men promised faithfully to die beside Brown in the only place +of exit rather than permit a man to pass out; and the rest all agreed +it would be right to shoot them if they attempted to desert; but we +left the camp together--Fred, Will, I, and Kazimoto, with Will's +personal servant and mine bringing up the rear--wondering whether we +should ever see any member or part of the outfit again. It felt like +going to a funeral--or rather from it--more than likely Brown's. + +Kazimoto and the other two should have been carrying spare rifles; but +Brown had refused to remain behind unless we left him all but the one +apiece we absolutely needed. We took the boys more from habit than for +any use they were likely to be; and my boy and Will's bolted back to +the camp almost before we were out of sight of it, Kazimoto begging us +to shoot them in the back for cowards. + +"Huh!" he grunted. "They are afraid of death. Teach them what death +is!" + +We heard Brown challenge them as they approached the camp, and hoped he +thrashed them soundly. But it turned out he did not. He himself had +grown afraid; for the fear of a crowd is contagious, and spreads +nearly as readily from black to white as from white to black. He broke +open a chop-box and consoled himself with whisky. + +Forcing our way through vegetation that crowded around a spur of +volcanic rock, it soon became evident that the whole of the huge herd +was breakfasting not far in front of us, tearing off limbs of trees, +and crashing about as if noise were the only object. We climbed and +attempted to look down on them, only to discover that the part of the +forest where we were consisted of a narrow belt, with a mile-wide open +space beyond it between us and the elephants. The wind was from them +toward us, but that did not wholly account for the amount of noise that +reached us. It was the fact that the herd was twice as big as we +imagined. There were elephants in every direction. We could see and +hear branches breaking with reports like cannon-fire. + +Kazimoto was as steady as an old soldier, a great grin spreading across +his ugly honest face, and his eyes alight with enthusiasm. This was +the profession he had followed when he was Courtney's gun-bearer, and +he kept close to Fred with a handful of cartridges ready to pass to +him, whispering wise counsel. + +"Get close to them, bwana! Go close! Go close! Wind coming our +way--smell coming our way--noise coming our way--elephant very busy +eating--no hurry! No long shooting! Go right up close!" + +It was easier said than done. The elephants had spread broadcast +through the forest, and there was no longer one well-defined swath to +follow, but a very great number of twisting narrow alleys through +elastic undergrowth between great unyielding trees. We had to +separate, to gain any advantage from our number, so that we emerged +into the open more than a hundred yards apart, with Fred at the far +left and Will in the center. Fred, with Kazimoto close at his heels, +was more than fifty yards in front of either of us. + +And crossing that mile of open land was no simple business. It was a +mass of rocks and tree-roots, burned over in some swift-running forest +fire and not yet reseeded, nor yet rotted down. There were winding +ways all across it by the dozen that the elephants, with their greater +height and better woodcraft, could follow on the run, but great stumps +and rocks higher than a man's head (that from a distance had looked +like level land) blocked all vision and made progress mostly guesswork. + +However, the latter half-mile was more like level going--I emerged from +between two boulders, wondering whether I could ever find my way back +again, and envied Fred, who had found a better track and had the lead +of me now by several hundred yards. Will was as far behind him as I, +but had gone over more to the left, leaving me--feeling remarkably +lonely--away in the rear to the right. + +Kazimoto followed Fred so closely, stooping low behind him, that the +two looked like some strange four-legged beast. They were headed for +the forest in front of them at a great pace, increasing their lead from +Will, who, like me, was more or less winded. I stooped at a pool to +scoop up water and splash my face and neck. When I looked up a moment +later I could see none of them. + +At that instant, when I could actually smell the great brutes crashing +in the forest, unseen within a hundred yards of me, and would have +given all I had or hoped for just to have a friend within speaking +distance, a shot rang out in the forest ahead, and rattled from tree to +tree like the echo of a skirmish. It was not from Fred's gun, or +Will's. It was the phantom rifleman at work again. +Schillingschen--Schillingschen's ghost--or whoever he was, he could not +have timed his fusillade better for our undoing. The first shot was +followed by six more in swift succession. And then chaos broke loose. + +Toward where I stood, from every angle to my front, the whole herd +stampeded. No human being could have guessed their number. The forest +awoke with a battle-din of falling trees and crashing undergrowth, +split apart by the trumpeting of angry bulls and the screams of cows +summoning their young ones. The earth shook under the weight of their +tremendous rout. I heard Fred's rifle ring out three times far to my +left--then Will's a rifle nearer to me; and at that the herd swung +toward its own left, and the whole lot of them came full-pelt, blind, +screaming, frantic, straight for me. + +There was no turning them now. None but the very farthest on the flank +could have turned, given sense enough left to do it. It was a flood of +maddened monsters, crazed with fear, pent by their own numbers, forced +forward by the crowd behind, that invited me to dam them if I could! +As they burst into the open, more shots rang out in the forest to lend +their fury wings! + +I glanced behind, to right and left, but there was no escape, I had +come too far into the open to retreat! There were big rocks to the +rear to have scrambled on, but there was no time. There was one big +rock in front of me that divided their course about in halves; to pass +it they must open up, although they would almost surely close again. I +took my stand in line with that, as a man on trial for life takes +refuge behind an unestablishable alibi. + +They talk glibly about men's whole lives passing in review before them +in the instant of a crisis. That may be. That was a crisis, and I saw +elephants--elephants! I remembered some of what Courtney had told +us--some of the mad yarns Coutlass spun when liquor and the camp-fire +made him boastful. All the advice I ever heard; all my previous +imaginings of what I should do when such a time came, seemed to be +condensed into one concrete demand--shoot, shoot, shoot, and keep on +shooting! Yet my finger, bent around the trigger, absolutely would not +act! + +The oncoming gray wave of brutes split apart at the rock, as it must +do, some of them screaming as they crashed into it breast on and were +crushed by the crowd behind. In the van of the right-hand wing, +brushing the rock with his shoulder, charged an enormous bull with +tusks so large that the heavier had weighed down his head to a +permanent rakish angle. He caught sight of me--trumpeted like a siren +in the Channel fog--and came at me with raised ears and trunk +outstretched. I heard shooting to the left, and more shots from the +forest, where the very active ghost or madman was keeping up a battle +of his own. I felt the fear, that turns a man's very heart to ice, +grip hold of me--felt as if nothing mattered--imagined the whole +universe a sea of charging elephants--accepted the inevitable--and +suddenly received my manhood back again! My forefinger acted! I fired +point-blank down the throat of the charging bull. And it seemed to +have no more effect on him than a pea-shooter has on a railroad train! + +I had left Schillingschen's heavy-bored elephant gun behind with Brown, +considering it too cumbersome, and was using a Mauser with flat-nosed +bullets. I fired four shots as fast as I could pump them from the +magazine straight down the monster's hot red throat; and he continued +to come on as if I had not touched him, hard-pressed on either flank by +bulls nearly as big as he. + +Perhaps the reason why my past history did not flash review was that my +time was not yet come! I continued to see elephant--nothing but +elephant!--little bloodshot eyes aflame with frenzy--great tusks +upthrown--a trunk upraised to brain me--huge flat feet that raged to +tread me down and knead me into purple mud! I kept the last shot with +a coolness I believe was really numbness--then felt his hot breath like +a blast on my face, and let him have it, straight down the throat again! + +He screamed--stopped--quivered right over me--toppled from the +knees--and fell like a landslide, pushed forward as he tumbled by the +weight behind, and held from rolling sidewise by the living tide on +either flank. I tried to spring back, but his falling trunk struck me +to earth. On either side of me a huge tusk drove into the ground, and +I lay still between them, as safe as if in bed, while the herd crashed +past to right and left for so many minutes that it seemed all the +universe was elephants--bulls, cows and calves all trumpeting in mad +desire to get away--away--anywhere at all so be it was not where they +then were. + +Blood poured on me from the dead brute's throat--warm, slippery, sticky +stuff; but I lay still. I did not move when the crashing had all gone +by, but lay looking up at the monster that had willed his worst and, +seeking to slay, had saved me. Those are the moments when young men +summon all their calf-philosophy. I wondered what the difference was +between that brute and me, that I should be justified in slaying; that +I should be congratulated; that I should have been pitied, had the +touch-and-go reversed itself and he killed me. I knew there was a +difference that had nothing to do with shape, or weight, or size, but I +could not give it a name or lay my finger on it. + +My reverie, or reaction, or whatever it was, was broken by Fred's +voice, flustered and out of breath, coming nearer at a great pace. + +"I tell you the poor chap's dead as a door-nail! He's under that great +bull, I tell you! He's simply been charged and flattened out! What a +dog I was--what a green-horn--what a careless, fat-headed tomfool to +leave him alone like that! He was the least experienced of all of us, +and we let him take the full brunt of a charging herd! We ought to be +hung, drawn and quartered! I shall never forgive myself! As for you, +Will, it wasn't half as much your fault as mine! You were following +me. You expected me to give the orders, and I ought to have called a +halt away back there until we were all three in touch! I'll never +forgive myself--never!" + +I crawled out then from between the tusks, and shook myself, much more +dazed than I expected, and full of an unaccountable desire to vomit. + +"Damn your soul!" Fred fairly yelled at me. "What the hell d'you mean +by startling me in that way! Why aren't you dead? Look out! What's +the matter with the man? The poor chap's hurt--I knew he was!" + +But that inexplicable desire to empty all I had inside me out on to the +trampled ground could no longer be resisted, that was all. The +aftermath of deadly fear is fear's corollary. Each bears fruit after +its kind. + +To my one tusker Will and Fred had brought down five and six +respectively. That made twenty-three tusks, for one was an enormous +"singleton." We sent Kazimoto back alone to try to persuade some of +our porters to come and chop out the ivory with axes, bidding him +promise them all the hearts, and as many tail-hairs as they chose to +pull out to keep witches away with. Then, since my sickness passed +presently and left me steady on my legs, Fred made a proposal that we +jumped at. + +"Let's go and lay Schillingschen's ghost! If that was Schillingschen +shooting in the forest, we've a little account with him! If it wasn't +I want to know it! Come along!" + +We advanced into the forest and toiled up-hill along the tracks the +stampeding elephants had made, amid flies indescribable, and almost +intolerable heat. The blood on my clothing made me a veritable +feeding-place of flies, until I threw most of it off, and then began to +suffer in addition from bites I could not feel before, and from the +sharp points of beckoning undergrowth. My bare legs began to bleed +from scratches, and the flies swooped anew on those, and clung as if +they grew there. + +Will climbed a huge tree, at imminent risk of pythons and rotten +branches, and descried open country on our right front. We made for +it, I walking last to take advantage of the others' wake, and after +more than an hour of most prodigious effort we emerged on rolling rocky +country under a ledge that overhung a thousand feet sheer above us on +the side of Elgon. To our right was all green grass, sloping away from +us. + +There was a camp half a mile away pitched on the edge of the forest--a +white man's tent--a mule--meat hanging to dry in the wind under a +branch--two tents for natives--and a pile of bags and boxes orderly +arranged. We could see a man sitting under a big tent awning. He was +reading, or writing, or something of that kind. He was certainly not +Schillingschen. We hurried. Fred presently broke into a run; then, +half-ashamed, checked himself and waited for me, who was beyond running. + +When we came quite close we saw that the man was playing chess all by +himself with a folding board open on his knees. He did not look up, +although by that time he surely should have heard us. Fred began to +walk quietly, signaling to the camp hangers-on to say nothing. We +followed him silently in Indian file. As he came near the awning Fred +tip-toed, and I felt like giggling, or yelling--like doing anything +ridiculous. + +He who played chess yawned suddenly, and closed the chess-board with a +snap. He got up lazily, smiled, stretched himself like a great +good-looking cat, faced Fred, and laughed outright. + +"Glad to see you all! Did you get many elephants?" he asked. + +"Monty, you old pirate--I knew it was you!" said Fred, holding a hand +out. + +Monty took it, and forced him into the chair he had just vacated. + +"You damned old liar!" he said, nodding approvingly. + + + + +CHAPTER SEVENTEEN + +THEY TOIL NOT, NEITHER DO THEY SPIN + + Now for opulence and place + And the increment unearned + We will thieve and stab and cover it with perjury, + Contemptuous of grace + And the lesson never learned + That the Rules are not amenable to surgery. + We will steal a neighbor's tools + In the quest for easy cash, + Aye, jump his claim and burrow to the heart of it, + But the innocents and fools + Get all the goods, and we the trash, + And that's the most exasperating part of it! + + +Nobody in camp slept that night. When the tusks had been chopped out, +and our camp carried across and pitched beside Monty's--ivory +weighed--lion-proof boma built--and elephant-heart portioned out to the +men, who gorged themselves on it in order that their own hearts might +grow great and strong; when all the myriad matters had been seen to +that make camping in the tropics such a business, then there were tales +to be told. We demanded Monty's first; he ours; and because his was +likely to be much the shortest we won that argument. + +"Wait one minute, though," he insisted. "Before I begin, have you any +notion who a man with a beard could be--bruised face-broken front +teeth--Mauser rifle--big dark beard cut shovel-shape--enormously +powerful by the look of his shoulders and arms? I came on him three, +no, four days' march back." + +"Schillingschen!" we exclaimed with one voice. + +"Show me Schillingschen!" echoed Brown, who was very drunk by that +time, nearly ready to be put to bed. "Show me Schillingschen, an' I'll +show you a corpse!" + +"He's right," nodded Monty. "The man's dead. Blew his brains out with +his last cartridge. Looked to me to have lost himself. Slept in +trees, I should say. Clothing all torn. Hadn't been dead long when +some of my boys came on him and drove away the jackals. Had he been in +a fight, do you know?" + +But we would not tell him that tale until we had his own. + +"Mine's short and simple," he began. "Some ruffians boarded my ship at +Suez, who made such eyes at me, and so obviously intended to do me +damage at the first opportunity, that I talked it over with the captain +(giving him a hint or two of the possible reason) and he agreed to slip +me off secretly at Ismailia. It was easy--middle of the night, you +know--had the doctor isolate the ruffians on the starboard side while +the ship anchored--some cooked-up excuse about quarantine--and kept 'em +out of sight of what was happening until the ship went on again. Very +simple." + +"Go on, Didums--we'll be all night talking--what did you do with the +King of Belgium?" Fred demanded. + +"Nothing. Didn't go near the King of Belgium. I was quarantined at +Ismailia on wholly imaginary grounds for fourteen days; and who should +come smiling into the same lazaretto on the last day but Frederick +Courtney--a very old friend of mine!" + +"He was to go to Somaliland," I said. + +"So he told me. He's on his way there now. Decided for reasons of his +own to enter the country by way of Abyssinia. Told me of the advice +he'd given you fellows, and assured me he'd seen King Leopold himself +on the very matter scarcely a year before. Of course, he said, I might +succeed where he failed, using influence and all that sort of thing, +but he assured me Leopold was hard to deal with, and difficult to tie +down. His advice was, go back to Elgon, and hunt for the stuff there." + +"That's what he kept advising us," said Will. "But why should he give +away his information free? And if it's good, where did he get it?" + +"Courtney's no dog in the manger," Monty answered. "He told me of this +man Schillingschen. Said he had sent in a report about him to the Home +Government, but couldn't for the life of him get documentary evidence +with which to back up his charges." + +Will whistled, and drew out the diary he had rescued from the tin box. +Fred nodded. Will threw it to Monty, who caught it. + +"He told me this Schillingschen had searched the whole country over for +the stuff--had it straight from Schillingschen's boys--I dare say you +know how Courtney can make a native tell him all he knows. +Schillingschen, he said, had eliminated pretty nearly all the likely +places until Mount Elgon was about all there is left. Courtney said, +too, that there were always so many thousands of elephants near Elgon +that Tippoo Tib probably gathered a harvest there. We discussed +probabilities, and agreed it wasn't likely he would carry the stuff far +in order to hide it. It seemed likely to both of us, too, that if the +quantity the old man hid was anything like what rumor says, then there +were probably half a dozen hiding-places, not one. Most of the stuff +may be in the Congo Free State, and we'll do well to leave that to +Leopold of Belgium and his pet concessionaires. Some of it may be near +here. I stayed in the lazaretto an extra day with Courtney, talking it +over. One other thing he remembered to tell me was that Schillingschen +had hunted high and low for Tippoo Tib's old servants, and had finally +managed to have the relatives of that man Hassan--I remember, Fred, you +called him Johnson in Zanzibar--thrown in jail in German East for some +alleged offense or other." + +Monty stopped to scrape out a faithful pipe, fill it, press down +tobacco with a practised thumb, and reach toward the campfire for a +burning brand. Then he smoked for two minutes reflectively. + +"I offered Courtney a share should we find the stuff. Knew you fellows +would agree." Pause. "Courtney wouldn't hear of it." Pause. "Said +good-by to him, and took a coastwise trading steamer back to Mombasa. +Delightful trip--put in everywhere--saw everything. Saw a lot of the +Galla--fine tribe, the Galla." + +"Suppose you cut the travelogue stuff until later on!" suggested Will. + +"Landed at Mombasa, and learned the first day that you fellows had +managed to make more enemies than friends. Put in a number of days on +heavy social labor--lingered at the club--drank too much of their +infernal gin-and-black-pepper appetizer--but made you fellows right, I +think." + +"We're not interested in the slumming. Go on and tell us what you +did!" urged Fred. + +"That is what I did--and undid. I made friends. Soon I had all the +other junior officials in a state of mind to help me if they could. +Then I began to inquire for Hassan. They drew the dragnet tight, and +discovered him at Nairobi! A young assistant district superintendent +of police, who will rise in the service, I hope, before long, +discovered a woman--who was jealous of a man--who was just then making +love to the dusky damsel particularly favored by Hassan; and in that +roundabout way we discovered that Hassan intended to take a trip very +soon toward Mount Elgon, where, if you please, he was to take part in +Professor Schillingschen's ethnological studies. On condition that he +held his tongue until I gave him leave to talk, I promised that young +policeman--to put him en rapport with Schillingschen's doings as +swiftly as may be. Then I returned to Mombasa, and got your code +letter saying you would head this way. It all fitted in like a game of +chess." + +"How in the world did you get that letter so soon?" demanded Fred. +"The missionary chap was to mail it in Ujiji, via Salisbury, Rhodesia." + +"I suppose he simply didn't do that, that's all," Monty answered. "The +bank manager told me he received it in the mission mail bag--from +Ujiji, yes, but by way of Muanza, Tabora, and Dar es Salaam. It reached +me in the nick of time. I must have been marching nearly parallel with +you chaps for about a week!" + +"If coincidence of evidence means anything," said Will "we're all on a +red-hot scent! That Baganda we have in our outfit is our prisoner. +One of Schillingschen's pet pimps. He swears Hassan--or rather some +old native whose name he doesn't know--was to meet Schillingschen in +these parts and lead him to where he actually helped bury the ivory, +years ago!" + +"We may have difficulty finding him," said I. "Mount Elgon's big!" + +"What about Brown?" asked Monty. "I hope you haven't made him partner? +I agree, of course, if you have, but I hope not!" + +"Nothing doing!" + +"No. Why should we?" + +"Brown's all right, but a present ought to satisfy him." + +We began to tell Monty about Brown's cattle that Coutlass stole, and +the Masai looted from Coutlass and us. + +"Were they branded?" asked Monty. + +"Branded and hoof- and ear-marked," said I. + +"Then they ought to be traceable, even among the huge herds the Masai +have. I think I've influence enough by this time with this government +to have those cattle traced and returned to Brown." + +"They're his only love!" said I. "Do that for him, and he'll never +wait to receive a present!" + +Dawn found us still recounting our adventures and Monty alternately +laughing and frowning. + +"I regret Coutlass" he said, shaking the ashes from his pipe at last +when Kazimoto brought our breakfast. "I regretted having to throw him +out of the hotel in Zanzibar. I wish he could have escaped with his +life--a picturesque scoundrel if ever there was one! I'd rather be +robbed by him than flattered by ten Schillingschens or Lady Saffren +Waldons. I suppose if I'd been with you I'd have killed him. It's +well I wasn't. I might have regretted it all my days!" + +We buried our newly won ivory under a tree, locating the spot exactly +with the aid of Monty's compass, and broke camp, starting sleepless up +the mountain. As Monty said: + +"No use meandering around the mountain. Hassan might be higher up or +lower down. If he is there you may depend on it he's tired of waiting. +He's looking for a safari. Let's climb where we can be seen from +miles away." + +So climb we did, thousand after thousand feet, until the night air grew +so cold that the porters' teeth chattered and they threatened to desert +us. They grew afraid, too, remembering the tales the villagers had +told them down below. + +"Wow! You are not fat babies!" Kazimoto told them. "Who would eat +such stringy meat as you?" + +We came to caves that none of the men dared enter--vast, gloomy tunnels +into the mountain through which the chill wind whistled like a dirge. +Yet the caverns were warmer than the wind, and not bad camping-places +if we could have persuaded the boys to take advantage of them. + +The earth, too, all over the mountain and the range to eastward of it +was warm in spite of the wind. In places there were warm springs +bubbling from the rock, and at night and early morning a blanket of +white mist that was remarkably like steam covered everything. It was a +land of thunderless lightning--lightning from a clear sky, flashing +here and there without warning or excuse. On the high slopes there was +little or no game, and no signs whatever of inhabitants, until late one +afternoon the porters shouted, and we saw an old man racing toward us +along the top of a ridge. + +He held his hands out, and shouted as he ran--a round-faced, +big-bellied man, although not nearly so fat as when we saw him last; +unclean, unkempt, in tattered shirt and crushed-in fez--a man with one +desire expressed all over him--to see, and touch, and talk with other +men. He ran and threw himself at Monty's feet, clasped his legs, and +blubbered. + +"Bwana! Oh, bwana! Oh, bwana!" + +"Get up, Johnson!" Fred took him by the arm and raised him. "Tell us +what's the matter." + +"Men who eat men! Men who eat men! I had three porters to carry my +tent and food. Now I have none. They have eaten them! Now they hunt +me!" + +"Well, you're safe," said Monty. "Calm yourself." + +"But you are not Bwana Schillingschen! I am here to wait for him. +Have you seen him? Where is he?" + +Fred answered him. "Dead!" + +Hassan threw himself on the ground again at Monty's feet. + +"Oh, what shall I do?" he blubbered. "I am an old man. Who shall take +my people out of jail? Who shall go to Dar es Salaam and make Germans +give them up?" + +"If you're willing to show us what you intended to show +Schillingschen," said Monty, "I'll do what I can for your relations." + +"What can you do? Oh, what can you do? No man but a German can make +these Germans cease from punishing!" + +Monty beckoned to the Baganda who had once done Schillingschen's dirty +work. + +"D'you see this man? This is a German spy. The German will be willing +to hand over your relations in exchange for a promise not to make a +fuss about this man. Wait a minute, though! Are your relations +criminals?" + +"No, bwana! No, bwana! My relations honorable folk! Formerly living +in Zanzibar--going to Bagamoyo to serve in German family by invitation +of person attached to German Consulate--no sooner landed than thrown in +jail on charges they know nothing whatever about. Then Schillingschen +he finding me, and say to me, 'You show where is that Tippoo Tib's +ivory, and your relations shall go free!' And Tippoo Tib, he say to +me, 'You take first step to show any man where is that ivory, and you +shall be fed to white ants by my faithful people!' And Schillingschen +he catch two of them faithful people, and feed 'em to white ants when +nobody looking that way! Schillingschen terrible! Tippoo Tib +terrible! What shall do? Tippoo Tib, he one time making me go long +trip with Bwana Coutlass, very bad Greek. Bwana Coutlass wanting +ivory--me pretending showing him--leading him wrong way. Coutlass very +bad man, beating me ngumu sana.* All the same, me more afraid of +Tippoo Tib and Bwana Schillingschen. Not long ago Tippoo Tib sending +me with Bwana Coutlass second time, making bad threats against me if I +not lead him wrong. Then Schillingschen he send for me and making +worse threats! Oh, what shall do! Oh, what shall do!" [* Ngumu sana, +very severely.] + +"You shall show us where that ivory is!" Monty answered him. "Stop +blubbering! Get up! Look here! See this! (Get me that diary, Will.) +If the Germans won't release your relations from jail on account of +this Baganda, this is a written book that will make them do it! In +this book are the names of men who have broken treaties and the law of +nations. When the Germans know the British Government in London has +this book under lock and key, they will think it a little thing to +release your relations for the sake of avoiding trouble!" + +"Promise me, bwana! You promise me!" + +"I promise I will do my best for you." + +"Word of an Englishman--promise!" + +"Word Of an Englishman--I promise to do my best!" + +That was a proud enough moment on the shoulder of a mountain, with +wilderness in every direction farther than the highest eagle in the air +above could see, to have that helpless, hopeless ex-slave, part Arab, +part machenzie, put his whole stock-in-trade--his secret--all he had on +earth to bargain with for those he loved--in the balance on the promise +of an Englishman. It was a tribute to a race that has had its share, +no doubt, of bad men, but has won dominion over half the earth and +pretty much all the sea by keeping faith with men who could not by any +means compel good faith. + +"Then I tell!" said Hassan. "Then I show!" + +But now a new fear seized him, and he clung to Monty, trembling and +jabbering. + +"The men who eat men! The men who eat men!" + +"Pah! Cannibals!" sneered Fred. "They're always cowards!" + +"Tippoo Tib, he afraid of nothing--nobody! He is hiding the ivory +where men who eat men can guard it and none dare come!" + +"Lead on, McDuff!" Fred grinned, shouldering his rifle. + +All of us except Monty had beards by that time that fluttered in the +wind, and looked desperate enough for any venture. Considering the +rifles and our uncouth appearance, Hassan took heart of grace. He +insisted on an armed guard to walk on either side of him, and nearly +drove Kazimoto frantic by ducking behind rocks at intervals, imagining +he saw an enemy; but he did not refuse any longer to show the way. + +It seemed that in expectation of Schillingschen's early arrival he had +camped within a mile of the place where the stuff was hidden, taking +unreasoning courage from the bare fact of having the redoubtable +Schillingschen for friend. But the cannibals (who must have been a +hungry folk, for there were no plantations, and almost no animals on +all those upper slopes) had pounced on his three lean porters, missing +himself by a hair's breadth. + +In hiding, he had watched his three men killed, toasted before a fire +in a cavern-mouth, and eaten. Then he had run for his life, following +the shoulder of the mountain in the hope of meeting Schillingschen, +munching uncooked corn he had in a little bag, hiding and running at +intervals for a day and a night until he chanced on us. For an old man +almost sick with fear he was astonishingly little affected by the +adventure. + +We took longer over the course than he had done, because he wanted to +find cannibals, and teach them, maybe, a needed lesson. Fred's theory +was that we should surprise them and pen them into a cavern, +discovering some means of talking with them when hunger brought them +out to surrender and cringe. + +So we threw out a line of scouts, and pounced on cave-mouths suddenly, +entering great tunnels and following the course of them in ages-old +lava until sometimes we thought ourselves lost in the gloom and spent +hours finding the way out again. + +Time and again we found bones--bones of wild animals, and of birds, and +of fish; now and then bones that perhaps had been monkeys, but that +looked too suspiciously like those of the fat babies mothers mourned +for in the villages below for the benefit of the doubt to be conceded +without something more or less resembling proof. But never a human +being did we see until we rounded the northeastern hump of the mountain +in a bitter wind, and spied half a hundred naked men and women, thinner +than wraiths, who scampered off at sight of us and volleyed ridiculous +arrows from a cave-mouth. The arrows fell about midway between us and +them, but threw Hassan into a paroxysm of fear, out of which it was +difficult to shake him. + +"Those are the people who ate my men! That is the cavern where Tippoo +Tib hid the ivory! That is where my men's bones are! See--they have +torn my tent for clothing for their naked women!" + +We put Hassan under double guard for fear lest he bolt again and leave +us. And all that day, and all the next we hunted for cannibals through +mazy caverns that seemed to extend into the mountain's very womb. +There were times when the stench was so horrible we nearly fainted. We +stumbled on men's bones. We collided with sharp projections in the +gloom--fell down holes that might have been bottomless for aught we +knew in advance--and scrambled over ledges that in places were smooth +with the wear of feet for ages. Everlastingly to right, or left of us, +or up above, or down below we could hear the inhabitants scampering +away. Now and then an arrow would flitter between us; but their +supply of ammunition seemed very scanty. + +At night we camped in the cavern mouth to cut off all escape, and +resumed the hunt at dawn. But the caverns were hot--hotter by contrast +with the biting winds outside; and when in the afternoon of the second +day we all came out to breathe and cool off the running sweat, we saw +the whole tribe--scarcely more than fifty of them--emerge from an +opening above, whose existence we had not guessed, and go scampering +away along a ledge like monkeys. Some of them stopped to throw stones +at us--impotent, aimless stones that fell half-way; and Fred sent +three bullets after them, chipping bits from the ledge, after which +they showed us a turn of speed that was simply incredible, and vanished. + +"Now for the great disillusionment!" laughed Will. "Hassan! Go +forward, and show us where that hoard of ivory ought ta be!" + +We all expected disillusionment. Brown, who was under no delusion as +to his share in the venture, scoffed openly at the idea of finding +anything buried, in a land where every living "crittur," as he put it, +was a thief from birth. But Hassan led on in, fearless now that the +cannibals were gone, and positive as if he led into his own house and +would show his house-hold treasures. + +He stopped before a black-mouthed chasm, two or three hundred yards +along the smallest subdivision of the cavern, and called for lights and +a rope. We lit lanterns, and he showed us men's bones lying everywhere +in grisly confusion. + +"Tippoo Tib his men!" he remarked. "They throwing ivory in here, then +byumby men who eat men kill and eat them. I alone living to tell! +Plenty men who eat men in those days--all mountains full of them!" + +He tied a lantern to a rope and lowered it down what looked like an old +vent-hole in the lava. But the little light was lost in the enormous +blackness, and we could see nothing. + +"Send a man down!" he counseled. + +We leaned over the edge and sniffed. There was a faint smell of what +might be sulphur, but not enough to hurt. + +"Who'll go?" asked Monty, and I thought he was going to volunteer +himself. + +"I go down!" announced Kazimoto cheerfully, and promptly proceeded to +divest himself of every stitch of clothing. + +We made our stoutest line fast under his arm-pits, gave him a lantern +and lowered him over the edge. For fifty or sixty feet he descended +steadily, swinging the lantern and walking downward, held almost +horizontally by the slowly paid-out rope. Then he stopped, and we +heard him whistling. + +"What do you see?" we called down. + +"Pembe!" (Ivory.) + +"Much of it?" + +"Teli!" (Too much!) "Oh, teli, teli! Teli, teli, teli, TELI!" + +His voice ended with the very high-pitched note that natives use when +they want to multiply superlatives. Then he whistled again. Next he +called very excitedly. + +"Very bad smell here, bwana! Pull me out quickly!" + + + + +CHAPTER EIGHTEEN + +L'ENVOI + + The dry death-rattle of the streets + Asserts a joyless goal-- + Re-echoed clang where traffic meets, + And drab monotony repeats + The hour-encumbered role. + Tinsel and glare, twin tawdry shams + Outshine the evening star + Where puppet-show and printed lie, + Victim and trapper and trap, deny + Old truths that always are. + So fare ye, fare ye well, old roofs! + The syren warns the shore, + The flowing tide sings overside + Of far-off beaches where abide + The joys ye know no more! + The salt sea spray shall kiss our lips-- + Kiss clean from the fumes that were, + And gulls shall herald waking days + With news of far-seen water-ways + All warm, and passing fair. + They've cast the shore-lines loose at last + And coiled the wet hemp down-- + Cut picket-ropes of Kedar's tents, + Of time-clock task and square-foot rents! + Good luck to you, old town! + Oh, Africa is calling back + Alluringly and low + And few they be who hear the voice, + But they obey--Lot's wife's the choice, + And we must surely go! + So fare ye, fare ye well, old roofs! + The stars and clouds and trees + In place of you! The heaped thorn fire-- + Delight for the town's two-edged desire-- + For thrice-breathed breath the breeze! + For rumble of wheels the lion's roar, + Glad green for trodden brown + For potted plant and measured lawn + The view of the velvet veld at dawn! + Good-by to you, old town! + + +If all is well that ends well, and only that is well, then this story +fails at the finish, for we never caught the cannibals, so never taught +them the lesson in housekeeping and economics that they needed. But +there is no other shortcoming to record. + +It is no business of any one's what terms we made in the end with the +Protectorate Government; but thanks to Monty's tact and influence, and +to their sense of fair play, we were treated generously. And if, when +the world war at last broke out and the Germans undertook to put in +practise the treachery they had so long planned, there was a secret +fund of hugely welcome money at the disposal of the out-numbered +defenders of British East, its source will no doubt be accounted for, +as well as its expenditures, to the proper people, by the proper +people, at the proper time and place. + +But those who are curious, and are adept at unraveling statistics might +learn more than a little by studying the export figures relating to +ivory during the years that preceded the war. They say statistics +never lie; but those who write them now and then do, and it may be +that camouflage was understood and went by another name before the +great war made the art notorious and popular. + +Some of the ivory in that huge hole was ruined by the heat that still +lives in Elgon's womb. Some of it was splintered by the fall when +yoked slaves tossed it in. Rats had gnawed some of it, to get at the +soft sweet core. + +But the men who keep the keys of the bursting ivory vaults by London +docks could tell how much of it was good, and what huge stores of it +reached them. For some strange reason they are not a very talkative +breed of men. + +We did not haul the ivory out ourselves. That would have been too +public a proceeding. But any one who attempted during the years that +followed nineteen hundred to make a trip to Elgon can truthfully inform +whoever cares to know, how jealously and wakefully the Protectorate +Government guarded those lonely trails. And there are folk who saw the +hundred-man safaris that came down from that way every week or so, +carrying old ivory, said to be acquired in the way of trade. But that +is really all government business, and looks impertinent in print. + +We did not make enough money to establish Monty in the homes of his +ancestors at Montdidier Towers and Kirkudbrightshire Castle; for that +would have been an unbelievable amount; it takes more than mere +affluence to keep up an earldom in the proper style. But we all got +rich. + +Brown received his cattle back after a long wait, as well as a present +of money that set him up handsomely for life. And certain dissatisfied +Masai were fined so many cows and sheep for raiding across the border +that they talked of migrating out of spite to German East--but did not +do it. + +A youthful red-headed assistant district superintendent of police was +unaccountably alert enough to round up and bring into court more than a +dozen natives who had preached sedition. And, being lucky enough to +secure convictions in every case, he was promoted. The last I heard of +him he was fighting in the very heart of German East in command of a +whole brigade. So it is advantageous sometimes to do favors for stray +noblemen, provided you are clever enough, and man enough to make good +when the favors are repaid. + +And while on the subject of favors, the four homesick islanders who had +lent us their canoes and came with us all that journey, were sent back +to their island followed by a launch towing two barges full of +corn--free, gratis, and for nothing--"burre tu," as the natives say, +meaning that the English are certainly crazy and giving away food +without a pull-back to it simply and solely because "the people" have +too much nja. Nja is the nastiest word in all those languages. It +means the one thing everybody dreads--the thing that only the English +seem to know charms against--want--emptiness--HUNGER. + +At our expense, but by the favor of the government, there went to that +island food enough in boxes and strong sacks--and seeds, treated +against insects--and tools with which the wives could chop the soil up +(for you can't expect the owner of a wife to work) to keep that island +and its friendly folk from hunger for many a day. + + +THE END + + + + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Ivory Trail, by Talbot Mundy + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE IVORY TRAIL *** + +***** This file should be named 5194.txt or 5194.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/5/1/9/5194/ + +Produced by Jake Jaqua + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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Do not change or edit the +header without written permission. + +Please read the "legal small print," and other information about the +eBook and Project Gutenberg at the bottom of this file. Included is +important information about your specific rights and restrictions in +how the file may be used. You can also find out about how to make a +donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**eBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!***** + + +Title: The Ivory Trail + +Author: Talbot Mundy + +Release Date: February, 2004 [EBook #5194] +[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule] +[This file was first posted on June 2, 2002] + +Edition: 10 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, THE IVORY TRAIL *** + + + + +This eBook was produced by Jake Jaqua. + + + +THE IVORY TRAIL + By Talbot Mundy + + +Author of +King--of the Khyber Rifles +The Winds of the World +Hira Singh +etc. + + +Chapter One + + +THE NJO HAPA* SONG + +Green, ah greener than emeralds are, tree-tops beckon the + dhows to land, +White, oh whiter than diamonds are, blue waves burst on the + amber sand, +And nothing is fairer than Zanzibar from the Isles o' the West + to the Marquesand. + + I was old when the world was wild with youth + (All love was lawless then!) + Since 'Venture's birth from ends of earth + I ha' called the sons of men, + And their women have wept the ages out + In travail sore to know + What lure of opiate art can leach + Along bare seas from reef to beach + Until from port and river reach + The fever'd captains go. + +Red, oh redder than red lips are, my flowers nod in the blazing + noon, +Blue, oh bluer than maidens' eyes, are the breasts o' my waves + in the young monsoon, +And there are cloves to smell, and musk, and lemon trees, and + cinnamon. + +--------- +*The words "Njo hapa" in the Kiswahili tongue are the equivalent of +"come hither!" +--------- + + +Estimates of ease and affluence vary with the point of view. While his +older brother lived, Monty had continued in his element, a cavalry +officer, his combined income and pay ample for all that the Bombay side +of India might require of an English gentleman. They say that a finer +polo player, a steadier shot on foot at a tiger, or a bolder squadron +leader never lived. + +But to Monty's infinite disgust his brother died childless. It is +divulging no secret that the income that passed with the title varied +between five and seven thousand pounds a year, according as coal was +high, and tenants prosperous or not--a mere miserable pittance, of +course, for the Earl of Montdidier and Kirkudbrightshire; so that all +his ventures, and therefore ours, had one avowed end--shekels enough to +lift the mortgages from his estates. + +Five generations of soldiers had blazed the Montdidier fame on +battle-grounds, to a nation's (and why not the whole earth's) benefit, +without replenishing the family funds, and Monty (himself a confirmed +and convinced bachelor) was minded when his own time should come to +pass the title along to the next in line together with sufficient funds +to support its dignity. + +To us--even to Yerkes, familiar with United States merchant kings--he +seemed with his thirty thousand dollars a year already a gilded +Croesus. He had ample to travel on, and finance prospecting trips. We +never lacked for working capital, but the quest (and, including Yerkes, +we were as keen as he) led us into strange places. + +So behold him--a privy councilor of England if you please--lounging in +the lazaretto of Zanzibar, clothed only in slippers, underwear and a +long blue dressing-gown. We three others were dressed the same, and +because it smacked of official restraint we objected noisily; but +Monty did not seem to mind much. He was rather bored, but unresentful. + +A French steamer had put us ashore in quarantine, with the grim word +cholera against us, and although our tale of suffering and Monty's +rank, insured us a friendly reception, the port health authorities +elected to be strict and we were given a nice long lazy time in which +to cool our heels and order new clothes. (Guns, kit, tents, and all +but what we stood in had gone to the bottom with the German cholera +ship from whose life-boat the French had rescued us.) + +"Keeping us all this time in this place, is sheer tyranny!" grumbled +Yerkes. "If any one wants my opinion, they're afraid we'd talk if they +let us out--more afraid of offending Germans than they are of cholera! +Besides--any fool could know by now we're not sick!" + +"There might be something in that," admitted Monty. + +"I'd send for the U. S. Consul and sing the song out loud, but for +you!" Yerkes added. + +Monty nodded sympathetically. + +"Dashed good of you, Will, and all that sort of thing." + +"You English are so everlastingly afraid of seeming to start trouble, +you'll swallow anything rather than talk!" + +"As a government, perhaps yes," admitted Monty. "As a people, I fancy +not. As a people we vary." + +"You vary in that respect as much as sardines in a can! I traveled +once all the way from London to Glasgow alone in one compartment with +an Englishman. Talk? My, we were garrulous! I offered him a +newspaper, cigarettes, matches, remarks on the weather suited to his +brand of intelligence--(that's your sole national topic of talk between +strangers!)--and all he ever said to me was 'Haw-ah!' I'll bet he was +afraid of seeming to start trouble!" + +"He didn't start any, did he?" asked Monty. + +"Pretty nearly he did! I all but bashed him over the bean with the +newspaper the third time he said 'haw-ah!'" + +Monty laughed. Fred Oakes was busy across the room with his most +amazing gift of tongues, splicing together half-a-dozen of them in +order to talk with the old lazaretto attendant, so he heard nothing; +otherwise there would have been argument. + +"Then it would have been you, not he who started trouble,"' said I, and +Yerkes threw both hands up in a gesture of despair. + +"Even you're afraid of starting something!" He stared at both of us +with an almost startled expression, as if he could not believe his own +verdict, yet could not get away from it. "Else you'd give the +Bundesrath story to the papers! That German skipper's conduct ought to +be bruited round the world! You said you'd do it. You promised us! +You told the man to his face you would!" + +"Now," said Monty, "you've touched on another national habit." + +"Which one?" Yerkes demanded. + +"Dislike of telling tales out of school. The man's dead. His ship's +at the bottom. The tale's ended. What's the use? Besides--?" + +"Ah! You've another reason! Spill it!" + +"As a privy councilor, y'know, and all that sort of thing--?" + +"Same story! Afraid of starting something!" + +"The Germans--'specially their navy men--drink to what they call Der +Tag y'know--the day when they shall dare try to tackle England. We all +know that. They're planning war, twenty years from now perhaps, that +shall give them all our colonies as well as India and Egypt. They're +so keen on it they can't keep from bragging. Great Britain, on the +other hand, hasn't the slightest intention of fighting if war can be +avoided; so why do anything meanwhile to increase the tension? Why +send broadcast a story that would only arouse international hatred? +That's their method. Ours--I mean our government's--is to give hatred +a chance to die down. If our papers got hold of the Bundesrath story +they'd make a deuce of a noise, of course." + +"If your government's so sure Germany is planning war," objected +Yerkes, "why on earth not force war, and feed them full of it before +they're ready" + +"Counsel of perfection," laughed Monty. "Government's responsible to +the Common--Commons to the people--people want peace and plenty. No. +Your guess was good. We are in here while the government at home +squares the newspaper men." + +"You don't mean to tell me your British government controls the press?" + +"Hardly. Seeing 'em--putting it up to 'em straight--asking 'em +politely. They're public-spirited, y'know. Hitting 'em with a club +would be another thing. It's an easy-going nation, but kings have been +sorry they tried force. Did you never hear of a king who used force +against American colonies?" + +"Good God! So they keep you--an earl--a privy councilor--a retired +colonel of regulars in good standing--under lock and key in this +pest-house while they bribe the press not to tell the truth about some +Germans and start trouble?" + +"Not exactly" said Monty. + +"But here you are!" + +"I preferred to remain with my party." + +"You moan they'd have let you out and kept us in?" + +"They'd have phrased it differently, but that's about what it would +have amounted to. I have privileges." + +"Well, I'm jiggered!" + +"I rather suspect it's not so bad as that," said Monty. "You're with +friends in quarantine, Will!" + +For a quarantine station in the tropics it was after all not such a bad +place. We could hear the crooning of lazy rollers on the beach, and +what little sea-breeze moved at all came in to us through iron-barred +windows. The walls were of coral, three feet thick. So was the roof. +The wet red-tiled floor made at least an impression of coolness, and +the fresh green foliage of an enormous mango tree, while it obstructed +most of the view, suggested anything but durance vile. From not very +far away the aromatic smell of a clove warehouse located us, not +disagreeably, at the farther end of one of Sindbad's journeys, and the +birds in the mango branches cried and were colorful with hues and notes +of merry extravagance. Zanzibar is no parson's paradise--nor the +center of much high society. It reeks of unsavory history as well as +of spices. But it has its charms, and the Arabs love it. + +It had Fred Oakes so interested that he had forgotten his +concertina--his one possession saved from shipwreck, for which he had +offered to fight the whole of Zanzibar one-handed rather than have it +burned. + +("Damnation! it has silver reeds--it's an English top-hole one--a +wonder!") + +So the doctors who are kind men in the main disinfected it twice, once +on the French liner that picked us out of the Bundesrath's boat, and +again in Zanzibar; and with the stench of lord-knew-what zealous +chemical upon it he had let it lie unused while he picked up Kiswahili +and talked by the hour to a toothless, wrinkled very black man with a +touch of Arab in his breeding, and a deal of it in his brimstone +vocabulary. + +Presently Fred came over and joined us, dancing across the wide red +floor with the skirts of his gown outspread like a ballet +dancer's--ridiculous and perfectly aware of it. + +"Monty, you're rich! We're all made men! We're all rich! Let's spend +money! Let's send for catalogues and order things!" + +Monty declined to take fire. It was I, latest to join the partnership +and much the least affluent, who bit. + +"If you love the Lord, explain!" said I. + +"This old one-eyed lazaretto attendant is an ex-slave, ex-accomplice of +Tippoo Tib!" + +"And Tippoo Tib?" I asked. + +"Ignorant fo'castle outcast!" (All that because I had made one voyage +as foremast hand, and deserted rather than submit to more of it.) +"Tippoo Tib is the Arab--is, mind you, my son, not was--the Arab who +was made governor of half the Congo by H. M. Stanley and the rest of +'em. Tippoo Tib is the expert who used to bring the slave caravans to +Zanzibar--bring 'em, send 'em, send for 'em--he owned 'em anyway. +Tippoo Tib was the biggest ivory hunter and trader lived since old King +Solomon! Tippoo Tib is here--in Zanzibar--to all intents and purposes +a prisoner on parole--old as the hills--getting ready to die--and proud +as the very ace of hell. So says One-eye!" + +"So we're all rich?" suggested Monty. + +"Of course we are! Listen! The British government took Tippoo's +slaves away and busted his business. Made him come and live in this +place, go to church on Sundays, and be good. Then they asked him what +he'd done with his ivory. Asked him politely after putting him through +that mill! One-eye here says Tippoo had a million tusks--a +million!--safely buried! Government offered him ten per cent. of their +cash value if he'd tell 'em where, and the old sport spat in their +faces! Swears he'll die with the secret! One-eye vows Tippoo is the +only one who knows. There were others, but Tippoo shot or poisoned +'em." + +"So we're rich," smiled Yerkes. + +"Of course we are! Consider this, America, and tell me if Standard Oil +can beat it! One million tusks I I'm told--" + +"By whom?" + +"One-eye says--" + +"You'll say 'Oh!' at me to a different tune, before I've done! One-eye +says it never paid to carry a tusk weighing less than sixty pounds. +Some tusks weigh two hundred--some even more--took four men to carry +some of 'em! Call it an average weight of one hundred pounds and be on +the safe side." + +"Yes, let's play safe," agreed Monty seriously. + +"One hundred million pounds of ivory!" said Fred, with a smack of his +lips and the air of a man who could see the whole of it. "The present +market price of new ivory is over ten shillings a pound on the spot. +That'll all be very old stuff, worth at least double. But let's say +ten shillings a pound and be on the safe side." + +"Yes, let's!" laughed Yerkes. + +"One thousand million--a billion shillings!" Fred announced. "Fifty +million pounds!" + +"Two hundred and fifty million dollars!" Yerkes calculated, beginning +to take serious notice. + +"But how are we to find it?" I objected. + +"That's the point. Government 'ud hog the lot, but has hunted high and +low and can't find it. So the offer stands ten per cent. to any one +who does--ten per cent. of fifty million--lowest reckoning, mind +you!--five million pounds! Half for Monty--two and a half million. A +million for Yerkes, a million for me, and a half a million for you all +according to contract! How d'you like it?" + +"Well enough," I answered. "If its only the hundredth part true, I'm +enthusiastic!" + +"So now suit yourselves!" said Fred, collapsing with a sweep of his +skirts into the nearest chair. "I've told you what One-eye says. +These dusky gents sometimes exaggerate of course--" + +"Now and then," admitted Monty. + +"But where there's smoke you mean there's prob'ly some one smoking +hams?" suggested Yerkes. + +"I mean, let's find that ivory!" said Fred. + +"We might do worse than make an inquiry or two," Monty assented +cautiously. + +"Didums, you damned fool, you're growing old! You're wasting time! +You're trying to damp enthusiasm! You're--you're--" + +"Interested, Fred. I'm interested. Let's--" + +"Let's find that ivory and to hell with caution! Why, man alive, it's +the chance of a million lifetimes!" + +"Well, then," said Monty, "admitting the story's true for the sake of +argument, how do you propose to get on the track of the secret?" + +"Get on it? I am on it! Didn't One-eye say Tippoo Tib is alive and in +Zanzibar? The old rascal! Many a slave he's done to death! Many a +man be's tortured! I propose we catch Tippoo Tib, hide him, and pull +out his toe-nails one by one until be blows the gaff!" + +(To hear Fred talk when there is nothing to do but talk a stranger +might arrive at many false conclusions.) + +"If there's any truth in the story at all," said Monty, "government +will have done everything within the bounds of decency to coax the +facts from Tippoo Tib. I suspect we'd have to take our chance and +simply hunt. But let's hear Juma's story." + +So the old attendant left off sprinkling water from a yellow jar, and +came and stood before us. Fred's proposal of tweaking toe-nails would +not have been practical in his case, for he had none left. His black +legs, visible because he had tucked his one long garment up about his +waist, were a mass of scars. He was lean, angular, yet peculiarly +straight considering his years. As he stood before us he let his +shirt-like garment drop, and the change from scarecrow to deferential +servant was instantaneous. He was so wrinkled, and the wrinkles were +so deep, that one scarcely noticed his sightless eye, almost hidden +among a nest of creases; and in spite of the wrinkles, his polished, +shaven head made him look ridiculously youthful because one expected +gray hair and there was none. + +"Ask him how he lost his toe-nails, Fred," said I. + +But the old man knew enough English to answer for himself. He made a +wry grimace and showed his hands. The finger-nails were gone too. + +"Tell us your story, Juma," said Monty. + +"Tell 'em about the pembe--the ivory--the much ivory--the meengi +pembe," echoed Fred. + +"Let's hear about those nails of his first," said I. + +"One thing'll prob'ly lead to another," Yerkes agreed. "Start him on +the toe-nail story." + +But it did not lead very far. Fred, who had picked up Kiswahili enough +to piece out the old man's broken English, drew him out and clarified +the tale. But it only went to prove that others besides ourselves had +beard of Tippoo Tib's hoard. Some white man--we could not make bead or +tail of the name, but it sounded rather like Somebody belonging to a +man named Carpets--had trapped him a few years before and put him to +torture in the belief that be knew the secret. + +"But me not knowing nothing!" he assured us solemnly, shaking his head +again and again. + +But he was not in the least squeamish about telling us that Tippoo Tib +had surely buried huge quantities of ivory, and had caused to be slain +afterward every one who shared the secret. + +"How long ago?" asked Monty. But natives of that part of the earth are +poor hands at reckoning time. + +"Long time," he assured us. He might have meant six years, or sixty. +It would have been all the same to him. + +"No. Me not liking Tippoo Tib. One time his slave. That bad. Byumby +set free. That good. Now working here. This very good." + +"Where do you think the ivory is?" (This from Yerkes.) + +But the old man shook his head. + +"As I understand it," said Monty, "slaves came mostly from the Congo +side of Lake Victoria Nyanza. Slave and elephant country were +approximately the same as regards general direction, and there were two +routes from the Congo--the southern by way of Ujiji on Tanganyika to +Bagamoyo on what is now the German coast, and the other to the north of +Victoria Nyanza ending at Mombasa. Ask him, Fred, which way the ivory +used to come." + +"Both ways," announced Juma without waiting for Fred to interpret. He +had an uncanny trick of following conversation, his intelligence +seeming to work by fits and starts. + +"That gives us about half Africa for hunting-ground, and a job for +life!" laughed Yerkes. + +"Might have a worse!" Fred answered, resentful of cold water thrown on +his discovery. + +"Were you Tippoo Tib's slave when he buried the ivory?" demanded Monty, +and the old man nodded. + +"Where were you at the time?" + +Juma made a gesture intended to suggest immeasurable distances toward +the West, and the name of the place he mentioned was one we had never +heard of. + +"Can you take us to Tippoo Tib when we leave this place?" I asked, and +be nodded again. + +"How much ivory do you suppose there was?" asked Yerkes. + +"Teli, teli!" he answered, shaking his head. + +"Too much!" Fred translated. + +"Pretty fair to middling vague," said Yerkes, +"but"--judicially--"almost worth investigating!" + +"Investigating?" Fred sprang from his chair. "It's better than all +King Solomon's mines, El Dorado, Golconda, and Sindbad the Sailor's +treasure lands--rolled in one! It's an obviously good thing! All we +need is a bit of luck and the ivory's ours!" + +"I'll sell you my share now for a thousand dollars--come--come across!" +grinned Yerkes. + +There was a rough-house after that. He and Fred nearly pulled the old +attendant in two, each claiming the right to torture him first and +learn the secret. They ended up without a whole rag between them, and +had to send Juma to head-quarters for new blue dressing-gowns. The +doctor came himself--a fat good-natured party with an eye-glass and a +cocktail appetite, acting locum-tenens for the real official who was +home on leave. He brought the ingredients for cocktails with him. + +"Yes," he said, shaking the mixer with a sort of deft solicitude. +"There's more than something in the tale. I've had a try myself to get +details. Tippoo Tib believes in up-to-date physic, and when the old +rascal's sick he sends for me. I offered to mix him an elixir of life +that would make him out-live Methuselah if he'd give me as much as a +hint of the general direction of his cache." + +"He ought to have fallen for that," said Yerkes, but the doctor shook +his head. + +"He's an Arab. They're Shiah Muhammedans. Their Paradise is a +pleasant place from all accounts. He advised me to drink my own +elixir, and have lots and lots of years in which to find the ivory, +without being beholden to him for help. Wily old scaramouch! But I +had a better card up my sleeve. He has taken to discarding ancient +prejudices--doesn't drink or anything like that, but treats his harem +almost humanly. Lets 'em have anything that costs him nothing. Even +sends for a medico when they're sick! Getting lax in his old age! +Sent for me a while ago to attend his favorite wife--sixty years old if +she's a day, and as proud of him as if he were the king of Jerusalem. +Well--I looked her over, judged she was likely to keep her bed, and did +some thinking." + +"You know their religious law? A woman can't go to Paradise without +special intercession, mainly vicarious. I found a mullah--that's a +Muhammedan priest--who'd do anything for half of nothing. They most of +them will. I gave him fifty dibs, and promised him more if the trick +worked. Then I told the old woman she was going to die, but that if +she'd tell me the secret of Tippoo Tib's ivory I had a mullah handy who +would pass her into Paradise ahead of her old man. What did she do? +She called Tippoo Tib, and he turned me out of the house. So I'm fifty +out of pocket, and what's worse, the old girl didn't die--got right up +out of bed and stayed up! My rep's all smashed to pieces among the +Arabs!" + +"D'you suppose the old woman knew the secret?" I asked. + +"Not she! If she'd known it she'd have split! The one ambition she +has left is to be with Tippoo Tib in Paradise. But he can intercede +for her and get her in--provided he feels that way; so she rounded on +me in the hope of winning his special favor! But the old ruffian knows +better! He'll no more pray for her than tell me where the ivory is! +The Koran tells him there are much better houris in Paradise, so why +trouble to take along a toothless favorite from this world?" + +"Has the government any official information?" asked Monty. + +"Quite a bit, I'm told. Official records of vain searches. Between +you and me and these four walls, about the only reason why they didn't +hang the old slave-driving murderer was that they've always hoped he'd +divulge the secret some day. But be hates the men who broke him far +too bitterly to enrich them on any terms! If any man wins the secret +from him it'll be a foreigner. They tell me a German had a hard try +once. One of Karl Peters' men." + +"That'll be Carpets!" said Monty. "Somebody belonging to Carpets--Karl +Peters." + +"The man's serving a life sentence in the jail for torturing our friend +Juma here." + +"Then Juma knows the secret?" + +"So they say. But Juma, too, hopes to go to Paradise and wait on +Tippoo Tib." + +"He told us just now that he dislikes Tippoo Tib," I objected. + +"So he does, but that makes no difference. Tippoo Tib is a big +chief--sultani kubwa--take any one he fancies to Heaven with him!" + +We all looked at Juma with a new respect. + +"I got Juma his job in here," said the doctor. "I've rather the notion +of getting my ten per cent. on the value of that ivory some day!" + +"Are there any people after it just now?" asked Monty. + +"I don't know, I'm sure. There was a German named Schillingschen, who +spent a month in Zanzibar and talked a lot with Tippoo Tib. The old +rascal might tell his secret to any one he thought was England's really +dangerous enemy. Schillingschen crossed over to British East if I +remember rightly. He might be on the track of it." + +"Tell us more about Schillingschen," said Monty. + +"He's one of those orientalists, who profess to know more about Islam +than Christianity--more about Africa and Arabia than Europe--more about +the occult than what's in the open. A man with a shovel +beard--stout--thick-set--talks Kiswahili and Arabic and half a dozen +other languages better than the natives do themselves. Has +money--outfit like a prince's--everything +imaginable--Rifles--microscopes--cigars--wine. He didn't make himself +agreeable here--except to the Arabs. Didn't call at the Residency. +Some of us asked him to dinner one evening, but he pleaded a headache. +We were glad, because afterward we saw him eat at the hotel--has ways +of using his fingers at table, picked up I suppose from the people he +has lived among." + +"Are you nearly ready to let us out of here?" asked Monty. + +"Your quarantine's up," said the doctor. "I'm only waiting for word +from the office." + +We drank three rounds of cocktails with him, after which he grew darkly +friendly and proposed we should all set out together in search of the +hoard. + +"I've no money," he assured us. "Nothing but a knowledge of the +natives and a priceless thirst. I'd have to throw up my practise here. + Of course I'd need some sort of guarantee from you chaps." + +The proposal falling flat, be gathered the nearly empty bottles into +one place and shouted for his boy to come and carry them away. + +"Think it over!" he urged as he got up to leave us. "You might take a +bigger fool than me with you. You'd need a doctor on a trip like that. + I'm an expert on some of these tropical diseases. Think it over!" + +"Fred!" said Monty, as soon as the doctor had left the room, "I'm +tempted by this ivory of yours." + +But Fred, in the new blue dressing-gown the doctor had brought, was in +another world--a land of trope and key and metaphor. For the last ten +minutes he had kept a stub of pencil and a scrap of paper working, and +now the strident tones of his too long neglected concertina stirred the +heavy air and shocked the birds outside to silence. The instrument was +wheezy, for in addition to the sacrilege the port authorities had done +by way of disinfection, the bellows had been wetted when Fred plunged +from the sinking Bundesrath and swam. But he is not what you could +call particular, as long as a good loud noise comes forth that can be +jerked and broken into anything resembling tune. + +"Tempted, are you?" he laughed. He looked like a drunken troubadour en +deshabille, with those up-brushed mustaches and his usually neat brown +beard all spread awry. "Temptation's more fun than plunder!" + +Yerkes threw an orange at him, more by way of recognition than +remonstrance. We had not heard Fred sing since he tried to charm +cholera victims in the Bundesrath's fo'castle, and, like the rest of +us, he had his rights. He sang with legs spread wide in front of him, +and head thrown back, and, each time be came to the chorus, kept on +repeating it until we joined in. + + There's a prize that's full familiar from Zanzibar to +France; + From Tokio to Boston; we are paid it in advance. + It's the wages of adventure, and the wide world knows the + feel + Of the stuff that stirs good huntsmen all and brings the + hounds to heel! + It's the one reward that's gratis and precedes the + toilsome task-- + It's the one thing always better than an optimist can +ask! + It's amusing, it's amazing, and it's never twice the + same; + It's the salt of true adventure and the glamour of the +game! + + CHORUS + It is tem-tem-pitation! + The one sublime sensation! + You may doubt it, but without it + There would be no derring-do! + The reward the temptee cashes + Is too often dust and ashes, + But you'll need no spurs or lashes + When temptation beckons you! + + Oh, it drew the Roman legions to old Britain's distant +isle, + And it beckoned H. M. Stanley to the sources of the Nile; + It's the one and only reason for the bristling guns at +Gib, + For the skeletons at Khartoum, and the crimes of Tippoo + Tib. + The gentlemen adventurers braved torture for its sake, + It beckoned out the galleons, and filled the hulls of +Drake! + Oh, it sets the sails of commerce, and it whets the edge + of war, + It's the sole excuse for churches, and the only cause of + law! + + CHORUS + It is tem-tem-pitation! etc., etc. + No note is there of failure (that's a tune the croakers + sing!) + This song's of youth, and strength, and health, and time + that's on the wing! + Of wealth beyond the hazy blue of far horizons flung-- + But never of the folk returning, disillusioned, stung! + It's a tale of gold and ivory, of plunder out of reach, + Of luck that fell to other men, of treasure on the + beach-- + A compound, cross-reciprocating two-way double spell, + The low, sweet lure to Heaven, and the tallyho to hell! + + CHORUS + It is tem-tem-pitation! + The one sublime sensation! + You may doubt it, but without it + There would be no derring-do! + It's the siren of to-morrow + That knows naught of lack or sorrow, + So you'll sell your bonds and borrow, + When temptation beckons you! + +Once Fred starts there is no stopping him, short of personal violence, +and he ran through his ever lengthening list of songs, not all quite +printable, until the very coral walls ached with the concertina's +wailing, and our throats were hoarse from ridiculous choruses. As +Yerkes put it: + +"When pa says sing, the rest of us sing too or go crazy!" + +I went to the window and tried to get a view of shipping through the +mango branches. Masts and sails--lateen spars particularly--always get +me by the throat and make me happy for a while. But all I could see +was a low wall beyond the little compound, and over the top of it +headgear of nearly all the kinds there are. (Zanzibar is a wonderful +market for second-hand clothes. There was even a tall silk hat of not +very ancient pattern.) + +"Come and look, Monty!" said !, and he and Yerkes came and stood beside +me. Seeing his troubadour charm was broken, Fred snapped the catch on +the concertina and came too. + +"Arabian Nights!" he exclaimed, thumping Monty on the back. + +"Didums, you drunkard, we're dead and in another world! Juma is the +one-eyed Calender! Look--fishermen--houris--how many houris?--seen 'em +grin!--soldiers of fortune--merchants--sailors--by gad, there's Sindbad +himself!--and say! If that isn't the Sultan Haroun-al-Raschid in +disguise I'm willing to eat beans and pie for breakfast to oblige +Yerkes! Look--look at the fat ruffian's stomach and swagger, will you?" + +Yerkes sized up the situation quickest. + +"Sing him another song, Fred. If we want to strike up acquaintance +with half Zanzibar, here's our chance!" + +"Oh, Richard, oh, my king!" hummed Monty. "It's Coeur de Lion and +Blondell over again with the harp reversed." + +If Zanzibar may be said to possess main thoroughfares, that window of +ours commanded as much of one as the tree and wall permitted; and +music--even of a concertina--is the key to the heart of all people +whose hair is crisp and kinky. Perhaps rather owing to the generosity +of their slave law, and Koran teachings, more than to racial depravity, +there are not very many Arabs left in that part of the world with true +semitic features and straight hair, nor many woolly-headed folk who are +quite all-Bantu. There is enough Arab blood in all of them to make +them bold; Bantu enough for syncopated, rag-time music to take them by +the toes and stir them. The crowd in the street grew, and gathered +until a policeman in red fez and khaki knickerbockers came and started +trouble. He had a three-cornered fight on his hands, and no sympathy +from any one, within two minutes. Then the man with the stomach and +swagger--he whom Fred called Haroun-al-Raschid--took a hand in masterly +style. He seized the police-man from behind, flung him out of the +crowd, and nobody was troubled any more by that official. + +"That him Tippoo Tib's nephew!" said a voice, and we all jumped. We +had not noticed Juma come and stand beside us. + +"I suspect nephew is a vague relationship in these parts," said Monty. +"Do you mean Tippoo's brother was that man's father, Juma?" + +"No, bwana.* Tippoo Tib bringing slave long ago f'm Bagamoyo. Him +she-slave having chile. She becoming concubine Tippoo Tib his wife's +brother. That chile Tippoo Tib's nephew. Tea ready, bwana." + +----------------- +* Bwana, Swahili word meaning master. +----------------- + +"What does that man do for a living?" + +"Do for a living?" Juma was bewildered. + +"What does he work at?" + +"Not working." + +"Never?" + +"No. + +"Has he private means, then?" + +"I not understand. Tea ready, bwana!" + +"Has he got mali*?" Fred demanded. + +"Mali? No. Him poor man." + +-------------- +*Mali, Swahili word meaning possession, property. +-------------- + +"Then how does he exist, if he has no mali and doesn't work?" + +"Oh, one wife here, one there, one other place, an' +Tippoo Tib byumby him giving food." + +"How many wives has he?" + +"Tea ready, bwana!" + +"How do they come to be spread all over the place?" (We were shooting +questions at him one after the other, and Juma began to look as if be +would have preferred a repetition of the toe-nail incident.) + +"Oh, he travel much, an' byumby lose all money, then stay here. Tea, +him growing cold." + +There is no persuading the native servant who has lived under the Union +Jack that an Englishman does not need hot tea at frequent intervals, +even after three cocktails in an afternoon. So we trooped to the table +to oblige him, and went through the form of being much refreshed. + +"What is that man's name?" demanded Monty. + +"Hassan." + +"Do you know him?" + +"Everybody know him!" + +"Can you get a message to him?" + +"Yes, bwana." + +"Tell him to come and talk with us at the hotel as soon as he hears we +are out of this." + +We did not know it at the time (for I don't think that Monty guessed it +either) that we had taken the surest way of setting all Zanzibar by the +ears. In that last lingering stronghold of legal slavery,* where the +only stories judged worth listening to are the very sources of the +Thousand Nights and a Night, intrigue is not perhaps the breath of +life, but it is the salt and savory. There is a woolly-headed sultan +who draws a guaranteed, fixed income and has nothing better to do than +regale himself and a harem with western alleged amusement. There are +police, and lights, and municipal regulations. In fact, Zanzibar has +come on miserable times from certain points of view. But there remains +the fun of listening to all the rumors borne by sea. "Play on the +flute in Zanzibar and Africa as far as the lakes will dance!" the Arabs +say, and the gentry who once drove slaves or traded ivory refuse to +believe that the day of lawlessness is gone forever. One rumor then is +worth ten facts. Four white men singing behind the bars of the +lazaretto, desiring to speak with Hassan, "'nephew" of Tippoo Tib, and +offering money for the introduction, were enough to send whispers +sizzling up and down all the mazy streets. + +---------------- +* Slavery was not absolutely and finally abolished in Zanzibar until +1906, during which year even the old slaves, hitherto unwilling to be +set free, had to be pensioned off. +---------------- + +Our release from quarantine took place next day, and we went to the +hotel, where we were besieged at once by tradesmen, each proclaiming +himself the only honest outfitter and "agent for all good export +firms." Monty departed to call on British officialdom (one advantage +of traveling with a nobleman being that he has to do the stilted social +stuff). Yerkes went to call on the United States Consul, the same being +presumably a part of his religion, for he always does it, and almost +always abuses his government afterward. So Fred and I were left to +repel boarders, and it came about that we two received Hassan. + +He entered our room with a great shout of "Hodi!" (and Fred knew enough +to say "Karibu!")--a smart red fez set at an angle on his shaven head, +his henna-stained beard all newly-combed--a garment like a night-shirt +reaching nearly to his heels, a sort of vest of silk embroidery +restraining his stomach's tendency to wobble at will, and a fat smile +decorating the least ashamed, most obviously opportunist face I ever +saw, even on a black man. + +"Jambo, jambo;"* he announced, striding in and observing our lack of +worldly goods with one sweep of the eye. (We had not stocked up yet +with new things, and probably he did not know our old ones were at the +bottom of the sea.) He was a lion-hearted rascal though, at all events +at the first rush, for poverty on the surface did not trouble him. + +--------------- +* Jambo, good day. +--------------- + +"You send for me? You want a good guide?" + +The Haroun-al-Raschid look had disappeared. Now he was the +jack-of-all-trades, wondering which end of the jack to push in first. + +"When I need a guide I'll get a licensed one," said Fred, sitting down +and turning partly away from him. (It never pays to let those gentry +think they have impressed you.) "What is your business, Johnson?" + +"My name Hassan, sah. You send for me? You want a headman. I'm +formerly headman for Tippoo Tib, knowing all roads, and how to manage +wapagazi,* safari,** all things!" + +--------------- +* Wapagazi, plural of pagazi, porter. +** Safari, journey, and, by inference, outfit for a journey. +--------------- + +"Any papers to prove it?" asked Fred. + +"No, sir. Reference to Tippoo Tib himself sufficient! He my +part-uncle." + +"Ready to tell any kind of a lie for you, eh?" + +"No, sir, always telling truth! You got a cook yet?" + +"Can you cook?" Fred answered guardedly. + +"Yes, sah. Was cook formerly for Master Stanley, go with him on +expedition. Later his boy. Later his headman. You want to go on +expedition, I getting you good cook. Where you want to go?" + +"Are you looking for a job?" asked Fred. + +"What you after? Ivory?" + +"Maybe." + +"I know all about ivory--I shoot, trade ivory along o' Tippoo Tib an' +Stanley. You engage my services, all very well." + +"Go and tell Tippoo Tib we want to see him. If he confirms what you +say, perhaps we'll take you on," said Fred. + +"Tell Tippoo Tib? Ha-ha! You want to find his buried ivory--that it? +All white men wanting that! All right, I go tell him! I come again!" + +"Come back here, you fat rascal!" ordered Fred. "What do you mean +about buried ivory? What buried ivory?" + +Hassan's face lost some of its transcendent cheek. Even the dyed beard +seemed to wilt. + +"What you wanting?" he asked. "Hunt, trade, travel--what your +business?" + +"Fish!" Fred answered genially. + +"Samaki?" + +"Yes--samaki--fish!" + +Having no experience of Arabs, and part-Arabs, I wondered what on earth +Fred could be driving at. But Hassan wondered still more, and that was +the whole point. He stood agape, looking from one to the other of us, +his fat good-natured face an interrogation mark. + +"I go an' tell bwana Tippoo Tib!" he announced, and departed swiftly. + +"What's the idea of fish, Fred?" I asked. + +"Oh, just curiosity. The way of getting information out of colored +folk is to get them so frantically curious they've no time to think up +lies. Tobacco would have done as well--anything unexpected. A bird +flying, and a black man lying,--are both of 'em easy to catch or +confuse unless they know which way they're heading. Let's go and look +at the bazaar." + +But in order to look one had to reach. We left the great heavy-beamed +hotel that had once been Tippoo Tib's residence, but were stopped in +the outer doorway by a crowd of native boys, each with a brass plate on +his arm. + +"Guide, sah!--Guide, sah!--My name 'McPhairson, sah!--My name Jones, +sah!--My name Johnson, sah! Guide to all the sights, sah!" + +They were as persistent and evilly intentioned as a swarm of flies, and +bold enough to strike back when anybody kicked them. While we wrestled +and swore, but made no headway, we were accosted by a Greek, who seemed +from long experience able to pass through them without striking or +being struck. We were not left in doubt another second as to whether +our friend Hassan had dallied on the way, and held his tongue or not. + +"Good day, gentlemen! I hear you are after fish! Hah! That is a good +story to tell to Arabs! You mean fishing for information, eh? Ha-hah!" + +He turned on the swarm of boys, who still yelled and struggled about +our legs. + +"Imshi!* Voetsak!** Enenda zako!*** Kuma nina, wewe!**** In a minute +he had them all scattering, for only innocence and inexperience attract +the preying youth of Zanzibar. "Now, gentlemen, my name is +Coutlass--Georges Coutlass. Have a drink with me, and let me tell you +something." + +----------------- +* Imshi (Arabic), get to hell out of here! +** Voetsak (Cape Dutch), ditto. +*** Enenda zako (Kiswahill), ditto. +**** Kuma nina (Kiswahill). An opprobrious, and perhaps the commonest +expletive In the language, amounting to a request for details of the +objurgee's female ancestry. By no means for use in drawing-rooms. +------------------ + +He was tall, dark skinned, athletic, and roguish-looking even for the +brand of Greek one meets with south of the Levant--dressed in khaki, +with an American cowboy hat--his fingers nearly black with cigarette +juice --his hands unusually horny for that climate--and his hair +clipped so short that it showed the bumps of avarice and other things, +said to reside below the hat-band to the rear. Yet a plausible, +companionable-seeming man. And Zanzibar confers democratic privilege, +as well as fevers; impartiality hovers in the atmosphere as well as +smells, and we neither of us dreamed of hesitating, but followed him +back into the bar--a wide, low-ceilinged room whose beams were two feet +thick of blackened, polished hard wood. There we sat one each side of +him in cane armchairs. He ordered the drinks, and paid for them. + +"First I will tell you who I am," he said, when be had swallowed a +foot-long whisky peg and wiped his lips with his coat sleeve. "I never +boast. I don't need to! I am Georges Coutlass! I learned that you +have an English lord among your party, and said I to myself 'Aha! +There is a man who will appreciate me, who am a citizen of three +lands!' Which of you gentlemen is the lord?" + +"How can you be a citizen of three countries?" Fred countered. + +"Of Greece, for I was born in Greece. I have fought Turks. Ah! I +have bled for Greece. I have spilt my blood in many lands, but the +best was for my motherland!--Of England, for I became naturalized. By +bloody-hell-and-Waterloo, but I admire the English! They have guts, +those English, and I am one of them! By the great horn spoon, yes, I +became an Englishman at Bow Street one Monday morning, price Five +Pounds. I was lined up with the drunks and pick-pockets, and by Jumbo +the magistrate mistook me for a thief! He would have given me six +months without the option in another minute, but I had the good luck to +remember how much money I had paid my witnesses. The thought of paying +that for nothing--worse than nothing, for six months in jail!--in an +English jail!--pick oakum!--eat skilly!--that thought brought me to my +senses. 'By Gassharamminy,' I said, 'I may be mad, but I'm sober! If +it's a crime to desire to be English, then punish me, but let me first +commit the offense!' So he laughed, and didn't question my witnesses +very carefully--one was a Jew, the other an ex-German, and either of +them would swear to anything at half price for a quantity--and they +kissed the Book and committed perjury--and lo and behold, I was English +as you are--English without troubling a midwife or the parson! Five +pounds for the 'beak' at Bow Street--fifty for the +witnesses--fifty-five all told--and cheap at the price! I had money in +those days. It was after our short war with Turkey. We Greeks got +beaten, but the Turks did not get all the loot! By prison and gallows, +no! When our men ran before a battle, I did not run--not I! I +remained, and by Croesus I grew richer in an hour than I have ever been +since!" + +"That's two countries," said I. "Which is the third that has the honor +to claim your allegiance?" + +"Honor is right!" he answered with a proud smile. I, Georges Coutlass, +have honored three flags! I am a credit to all three countries! The +third is America--the U. S. A. You might say that is the corollary of +being English--the natural, logical, correct sequence! The U. S. laws +are strict, but their politics were devised for--what is it the +preachers call it--ah, yes, for straining out gnats and swallowing +camels. By George Washington they would swallow a house on fire! +There was a federal election shortly due. One of the +parties--Democratic--Republican--I forget which--maybe both!--needed +new voters. The law says it takes five years to become a citizen. +Politics said fifteen minutes! The politicians paid the fees too! I +was a citizen--a voter--an elector of presidents before I had been +ashore three months, and I had sold my vote three times over within a +month of that! They had me registered under three names in three +separate wards! I didn't need the money--I had plenty in those days--I +gave the six dollars I received for my votes to the Holy Church, and +voted the other way to save my conscience; but the fun of the thing +appealed! By Gassharamminy! I can't take life the way the copy-books +lay down! I have to break laws or else break heads! But I love +America! I fought and bled for America! By Abraham Lincoln, I fought +those Spaniards until I don't doubt they wished I had stayed in Greece! + Yes, I left that middle finger in Cuba--shot through the left hand by +a Don, think of it, a Don! When I came out of hospital--and I never +saw anything worse than that hot hell!--I got myself attached to the +commissariat, and the pickings were none so bad. Had to hand over too +much, though. That is the worst of America, there is no genuine +liberty. You have to steal for the man higher up. If you keep more +than ten per cent., he squeals. He has to pass most of it on again to +some one else, and so on, and they all land in jail in course of time! +Give me a country where a man can keep what he finds! There was talk +about congressional inquiries. Then a friend of mine--a Greek--who had +been out here told me of Tippoo Tib's ivory, and it looked all right to +me to change scenes for a while. I had citizenship papers--U. S., and +English, and a Greek passport in case of accident. Traveling looked +good to me." + +"If you traveled on a Greek passport you couldn't use citizenship +papers of any other country," Fred objected. + +"Who said I traveled on a Greek passport? Do you take me for such a +fool? Who listens to a Greek consul? He may protest, and accept fees, +but Greece is a little country and no one listens to her consuls. I +carry a Greek passport in case I should find somewhere someday a Greek +consul with influence or a Greek whom I wish to convince. I traveled +to South Africa as an American. I went to Cape Town with the idea of +going to Salisbury, and working my way up from there as a trader into +the Congo. I reached Johannesburg, and there I did a little I. D. B. +and one thing and another until the Boer War came. Then I fought for +the Boers. Yes, I have bled for the Boer cause. It was a damned bad +cause! They robbed me of nearly all my money! They left me to die +when I was wounded! It was only by the grace of God, and the intrigues +of a woman that I made my way to Lourenco Marquez. No, the war was not +over, but what did I care? I, Georges Coutlass, had had enough of it! +I recompensed myself en route. I do not fight for a bunch of thieves +for nothing! I sailed from Lourenco Marquez to Mombasa. I hunted +elephant in British East Africa until they posted a reward for me on +the telegraph poles. The law says not more than two elephants in one +year. I shot two hundred! I sold the ivory to an Indian, bought +cattle, and went down into German East Africa. The Masai attacked me, +stole some of the cattle, and killed others. The Germans, damn and +blast them, took the rest! They accused me of crimes--me, Georges +Coutlass!--and imposed fines calculated carefully to skin me of all I +had! Roup and rotten livers! but I will knock them head-over-halleluja +one fine day! Not for nothing shall they flim-flam Georges Coutlass! +Which of you gentlemen is the lord?" + +We bought him another drink, and watched it disappear with one +uninterrupted gurgle down its appointed course. + +"What did you do next?" Fred asked him before be had recovered breath +enough to question us. "I suppose the Germans had you at a loose end?" + +"Do you think that? Sacred history of hell! It takes more than a +lousy military German to get Georges Coutlass at a loose end! They +must get me dead before that can happen! And then, by Blitzen, as +those devils say, a dead Georges Coutlass will be better than a +thousand dead Germans! In hell I will use them to clean my boots on! +At a loose end, was I? I met this bloody rogue Hassan--the fat +blackguard who told me you have come to Zanzibar for fish--and made an +agreement with him to look for Tippoo Tib's buried ivory. Yes, sir! I +showed him papers. He thought they were money drafts. He thought me a +man of means whom he could bleed. I had guns and ammunition, he none. +He pretended to know where some of Tippoo Tib's ivory is buried." + +"Some of it, eh?" said Fred. + +"Some of it, d'you say?" said I. + +"Some of it, yes. A million tusks. Some say two million! Some say +three! Thunder!--you take a hundred good tusks and bury them; you'll +see the hill you've made from five miles off! A hundred thousand tusks +would make a mountain! If any one buried a million tusks in one spot +they'd mark the place on maps as a watershed! They must be buried +here, there, everywhere along the trail of Tippoo Tib--perhaps a +thousand in one place at the most. Which of you two gentlemen is the +lord?" + +"Did Hassan lead you to any of it?" Fred inquired. + +"Not he! The jelly-belly! The Arab pig! He led me to Ujiji--that's +on Lake Tanganika--the old slave market where he himself was once sold +for ten cents. I don't doubt a piece of betel nut and a pair of +worn-out shoes had to be thrown in with him at the price! There he +tried to make me pay the expenses in advance of a trip to Usumbora at +the head of the lake. God knows what it would have cost, the way he +wanted me to do it! Are you the lord, sir?" + +"What did you do?" asked Fred. + +"Do? I parted company! I had made him drunk once. (The Arabs aren't +supposed to drink, so when they do they get talkative and lively!) And +I knew Arabic before ever I crossed the Atlantic--learned it in +Egypt--ran away from a sponge-fishing boat when I was a boy. No, they +don't fish sponges off the Nile Delta, but you can smuggle in a sponge +boat better than in most ships. Anyhow, I learned Arabic. So I +understood what that pig Hassan said when he talked in the dark with +his brother swine. He knew no more than I where the ivory was! He +suspected most of it was in a country called Ruanda that runs pretty +much parallel with the Congo border to the west of Victoria Nyanza in +German East Africa, and he was counting on finding natives who could +tell him this and that that might put him on the trail of it! I could +beat that game! I could cross-examine fool natives twice as well as +any fat rascal of an ex-slave! Seeing he had paid all expenses so far, +however, I was not much to the bad, so I picked a quarrel with him and +we parted company. Wouldn't you have done the same, my lord?" + +But Fred did not walk into the trap. "What did you do next?" he asked. + +"Next? I got a job with the agent of an Italian firm to go north and +buy skins. He made me a good advance of trade goods--melikani,* beads, +iron and brass wire, kangas,** and all that sort of thing, and I did +well. Made money on that trip. Traveled north until I reached +Ruanda--went on until I could see the Fire Mountains in the distance, +and the country all smothered in lava. Reached a cannibal country, +where the devils had eaten all the surrounding tribes until they had to +take to vegetarianism at last." + +----------------- +* Melikani, the unbleached calico made in America that is the most +useful trade goods from sea to sea of Central Africa. +** Kanga, cotton piece goods. +----------------- + +"But did you find the ivory?" Fred insisted. + +"No, or by Jiminy, I wouldn't be here! If I'd found it I'd have +settled down with a wife in Greece long ago. I'd be keeping an inn, +and growing wine, and living like a gentleman! But I found out enough +to know there's a system that goes with the ivory Tippoo Tib buried. +If you found one lot, that would lead you to the next, and so on. I +got a suspicion where one lot is, although I couldn't prove it. And I +made up my mind that the German government knows darned well where a +lot of it is!" + +"Then why don't the Germans dig it up?" demanded Fred. + +"Aha!" laughed Coutlass. "If I know, why should I tell! If they know, +why should they tell? Suppose that some of it were in Congo territory, +and some in British East Africa? Suppose they should want to get the +lot? What then? If they uncovered their bit in German East Africa +mightn't that put the Congo and the British on the trail?" + +"If they know where it is," said I, "they'll certainly guard it." + +"Which of you is the lord?" demanded Coutlass earnestly. + +"What do you suppose Hassan is doing, then, here in Zanzibar?" asked +Fred. + +"Rum and eggs! I know what he is doing! When I snapped my thumb under +his fat nose and told him about the habits of his female ancestors be +went to the Germans and informed against me! The sneak-thief! The +turn-coat! The maggot! I shall not forget! I, Georges Coutlass, +forget nothing! He informed against me, and they set askaris* on my +trail who prevented me from making further search. I had to sit idle +in Usumbura or Ujiji, or else come away; and idleness ill suits my +blood! I came here, and Hassan followed me. The Germans made a +regular, salaried spy of him--the semi-Arab rat! The one-tenth Arab, +nine-tenths mud-rat! Here he stays in Zanzibar and spies on Tippoo +Tib, on me, on the British government, and on every stranger who comes +here. His information goes to the Germans. I know, for I intercepted +some of it! He writes it out in Arabic, and provided no woman goes +through the folds of his clothes or feels under that silken belly-piece +be wears, the Germans get it. But if a woman does, and she's a friend +of mine, that's different! Are you the lord, sir?" + +------------------ +* Askari, native soldier. +------------------ + +"What do you propose?" asked Fred. + +"Help me find that ivory!" said Coutlass. "I have very little money +left, but I have guns, and courage! I know where to look, and I am not +afraid! No German can scare me! I am English-American-Greek!--better +than any hundred Germans! Let us find the ivory, and share it! Let us +get it out through British territory, or the Congo, so that no German +sausage can interfere with us or take away one tusk! Gee-rusalem, how +I hate the swine. Let us put one over on them! Let us get the ivory +to Europe, and then flaunt the deed under their noses! Let us send one +little tip of a female tusk to the Kaiser for a souvenir--female in +proof it is all illegitimate, illegal, outlawed! Let us send him a +piece of ivory and a letter telling him all about it, and what we think +of him and his swine-officials! His lieutenants and his captains! Let +us smuggle the ivory out through the Congo--it can be done! It can be +done! I, Georges Coutlass, will find the ivory, and find the way!" + +"No need to smuggle it out," said Fred. "The British government will +give us ten per cent., or so I understand, of the value of all of it we +find in British East." + +Georges Coutlass threw back his head and roared with laughter, slapped +his thighs, held his sides--then coughed for two or three minutes, and +spat blood. + +"You are the lord, all right!" he gasped as soon as he could get +breath. "No need to smuggle it! Ha-ha! May I be damned! Ten per +cent. they'll give us! Ha-ha! Generous! By whip and wheel! they're +lucky if we give them five per cent.! I'd like to see any government +take away from Georges Coutlass ninety per cent. of anything without a +fight! No, gentlemen! No, my Lord! The Belgian Congo government is +corrupt. Let us spend twenty-five per cent.--even thirty-forty-fifty +per cent. of the value of it to bribe the Congo officials. Hand over +ninety per cent. to the Germans or the British without a fight?--Never! + Never while my name is Georges Coutlass! I have fought too often! I +have been robbed by governments too often! This last time I will put +it over all the governments, and be rich at last, and go home to Greece +to live like a gentleman! Believe me!" + +He patted himself on the breast, and if flashing eye and frothing lip +went for anything, then all the governments were as good as defeated +already. + +"You are the lord, are you not?" he demanded, looking straight at Fred. + +"My name is Oakes," Fred answered. + +"Oh, then you? I beg pardon!" He looked at me with surprise that he +made no attempt to conceal. Fred could pass for a king with that +pointed beard of his (provided he were behaving himself seemly at the +time) but for all my staid demeanor I have never been mistaken for any +kind of personage. I disillusioned Coutlass promptly. + +"Then you are neither of you lords?" + +"Pish! We're obviously ladies!" answered Fred. + +"Then you have fooled me?" The Greek rose to his feet. "You have +deceived me? You have accepted my hospitality and confidence under +false pretense?" + +I think there would have been a fight, for Fred was never the man to +accept brow-beating from chance-met strangers, and the Greek's fiery +eye was rolling in fine frenzy; but just at that moment Yerkes +strolled in, cheerful and brisk. + +"Hullo, fellers! This is some thirsty burg. Do they sell soft drinks +in this joint?" he inquired. + +"By Brooklyn Bridge!" exclaimed Coutlass. "An American! I, too, am an +American! Fellow-citizen, these men have treated me badly! They have +tricked me!" + +"You must be dead easy!" said Yerkes genially. "If those two wanted to +live at the con game, they'd have to practise on the junior +kindergarten grades. They're the mildest men I know. I let that one +with the beard hold my shirt and pants when I go swimming! Tricked +you, have they? Say--have you got any money left?" + +"Oh, have a drink!" laughed the Greek. "Have one on me! It's good to +hear you talk!" + +"What have my friends done to you?" asked Yerkes. + +"I was looking for a lord. They pretended to be lords." + +"What? Both of 'em?" + +"No, it is one lord I am looking for." + +"One lord, one faith, one baptism!" said Yerkes profanely. +"And you found two? What's your worry? I'll pretend to be a third if +that'll help you any!" + +"Gentlemen," said the Greek, rising to his full height and letting his +rage begin to gather again, "you play with me. That is not well! You +waste my time. That is not wise! I come in all innocence, looking for +a certain lord--a real genuine lord--the Earl of Montdidier and +Kirscrubbrightshaw--my God, what a name!" + +"I'm Mundidier," said a level voice, and the Greek faced about like a +man attacked. Monty had entered the barroom and stood listening with +calm amusement, that for some strange reason exasperated the Greek less +than our attitude had done, at least for the moment. When the first +flush of surprise had died he grinned and grew gallant. + +"My own name is Georges Coutlass, my Lord!" He made a sweeping bow, +almost touching the floor with the brim of his cowboy hat, and then +crossing his breast with it. + +"What can I do for you?" asked Monty. + +"Listen to me!" + +"Very well. I can spare fifteen minutes." + +We all took seats together in a far corner of the dingy room, where the +Syrian barkeeper could not overhear us. + +"My Lord, I am an Englishman!" Coutlass began. "I am a God-fearing, +law-abiding gentleman! I know where to look for the ivory that the +Arab villain Tippoo Tib has buried! I know how to smuggle it out of +Africa without paying a penny of duty--" + +"Did you say law-abiding?" Monty asked. + +"Surely! Always! I never break the law! As for instance--in Greece, +where I had the honor to be born, the law says no man shall carry a +knife or wear one in his belt. So, since I was a little boy I carry +none! I have none in my hand--none at my belt. I keep it here!" + +He stooped, raised his right trousers leg, and drew from his Wellington +boot a two-edged, pointed thing almost long enough to merit the name of +rapier. He tossed it in the air, let it spin six or seven times end +over end, caught it deftly by the point, and returned it to its +hiding-place. + +"I am a law-abiding man," he said, "but where the law leaves off, I +know where to begin! I am no fool!" + +Monty made up his mind there and then that this man's game would not be +worth the candle. + +"No, Mr. Coutlass, I can't oblige you," he said. + +The Greek half-arose and then sat down again. + +"You can not find it without my assistance!" he said, wrinkling his +face for emphasis. + +"I'm not looking for assistance," said Monty. + +"Aha! You play with words! You are not--but you will! I am no fool, +my Lord! I understand! Not for nothing did I make a friend again of +that pig Hassan! Not for nothing have I waited all these months in +this stinking Zanzibar until a man should come in search of that ivory +whom I could trust! Not for nothing did Juma, the lazaretto attendant +tell Hassan you desired to see him! You seek the ivory, but you wish +to keep it all! To share none of it with me!" He stood up, and made +another bow, much curter than his former one. "I am Georges Coutlass! +My courage is known! No man can rob me and get away with it!" + +"My good man," drawled Monty, raising his eyebrows in the comfortless +way he has when there seems need of facing an inferior antagonist. (He +hates to "lord it" as thoroughly as he loves to risk his neck.) "I +would not rob you if you owned the earth! If you have valuable +information I'll pay for it cheerfully after it's tested." + +"Ah! Now you talk!" + +"Observe--I said after it's tested!" + +"I don't think he knows anything," said Fred. "I think he guessed a +lot, and wants to look, and can't afford to pay his own expenses. +Isn't that it?" + +"What do you mean?" demanded Coutlass. + +"I can't talk Greek," said Fred. "Shall I say it again in English?" + +"You may name any reasonable price," said Monty, "for real information. + Put it in writing. When we're agreed on the price, put that in +writing too. Then, if we find the information is even approximately +right, why, we'll pay for it." + +"Ah-h-h! You intend to play a trick on me! You use my information! +You find the ivory! You go out by the Congo River and the other coast, +and I kiss myself good-by to you and ivory and money! I am to be what +d'you call it?--a milk-pigeon!" + +"Being that must be some sensation!" nodded Yerkes. + +"I warn you I can not be tampered with!" snarled the Greek, putting on +his hat with a flourish. "I leave you, for you to think it over! But +I tell you this--I promise you--I swear! Any expedition in search of +that ivory that does not include Georges Coutlass on his own terms is a +delusion--a busted flush--smashed--exploded--pfff !--so--evanesced +before the start! My address is Zanzibar! Every street child knows +me! When you wish to know my terms, tell the first man or child you +meet to lead you to the house where Georges Coutlass lives! Good +morning, Lord Skirtsshubrish! We will no doubt meet again!" + +He turned his back on us and strode from the room--a man out of the +middle ages, soldierly of bearing, unquestionably bold, and not one bit +more venial or lawless than ninety per cent. of history's gallants, if +the truth were told. + +"Let's hope that's the last of him!" said Monty. "Can't say I like +him, but I'd hate to have to spoil his chances." + +"Last of him be sugared!" said Yerkes. "That's only the first of him! +He'll find seven devils worse than himself and camp on our trail, if I +know anything of Greeks--that's to say, if our trail leads after that +ivory. Does it?" + +"Depends," said Monty. "Let's talk upstairs. That Syrian has long +ears." + +So we trooped to Monty's room, where the very cobwebs reeked of Arab +history and lawless plans. He sat on the black iron bed, and we +grouped ourselves about on chairs that had very likely covered the +known world between them. One was obviously jetsam from a steamship; +one was a Chinese thing, carved with staggering dragons; the other was +made of iron-hard wood that Yerkes swore came from South America. + +"Shoot when you're ready!" grinned Yerkes. + +I was too excited to sit still. So was Fred. + +"Get a move on, Didums, for God's sake!" he growled. + +"Well," said Monty, "there seems something in this ivory business. Our +chance ought to be as good as anybody's. But there are one or two +stiff hurdles. In the first place, the story is common property. +Every one knows it--Arabs--Swahili--Greeks--Germans--English. To be +suspected of looking for it would spell failure, for the simple reason +that every adventurer on the coast would trail us, and if we did find +it we shouldn't be able to keep the secret for five minutes. If we +found it anywhere except on British territory it 'ud be taken away from +us before we'd time to turn round. And it isn't buried on British +territory! I've found out that much." + +"Good God, Didums! D'you mean you know where the stuff is?" + +Fred sat forward like a man at a play. + +"I know where it isn't," said Monty. "They told me at the Residency +that in all human probability it's buried part in German East, and by +far the greater part in the Congo." + +"Then that ten per cent. offer by the British is a bluff?" asked Yerkes. + +"Out of date," said Monty. "The other governments offer nothing. The +German government might make terms with a German or a Greek--not with +an Englishman. The Congo government is an unknown quantity, but would +probably see reason if approached the proper way." + +"The U. S. Consul tells me," said Yerkes, "that the Congo government is +the rottenest aggregate of cutthroats, horse-thieves, thugs, yeggs, +common-or-ordinary hold-ups, and sleight-of-hand professors that the +world ever saw in one God-forsaken country. He says they're of every +nationality, but without squeam of any kind--hang or shoot you as soon +as look at you! He says if there's any ivory buried in those parts +they've either got it and sold it, or else they buried it themselves +and spread the story for a trap to fetch greenhorns over the border!" + +"That man's after the stuff himself!" said Fred. "All he wanted to do +was stall you off!" + +"That man Schillingschen the doctor told us about," said Monty, "is +suspected of knowing where to look for some of the Congo hoard. He'll +bear watching. He's in British East Africa at present--said to be +combing Nairobi and other places for a certain native. He is known to +stand high in the favor of the German government, but poses as a +professor of ethnology." + +"He shall study deathnology," said Fred, "if he gets in my way!" + +"The Congo people," said Monty, "would have dug up the stuff, of +course, if they'd known where to look for it. Our people believe that +the Germans do know whereabouts to look for it, but dread putting the +Congo crowd on the scent. If we're after it we've got to do two things +besides agreeing between ourselves." + +"Deal me in, Monty!" said Yerkes. + +"Nil desperandum, Didums duce, then!" said Fred. "I propose Monty for +leader. Those against the motion take their shirts off, and see if +they can lick me! Nobody pugnacious? The ayes have it! Talk along, +Didums!" + +For all Fred's playfulness, Yerkes and I came in of our free and +considered will, and Monty understood that. + +"We've got to separate," he said, "and I've got to interview the King +of Belgium." + +"If that were my job," grinned Yerkes, "I'd prob'ly tell him things!" + +"I don't pretend to like him," said Monty. "But it seems to me I can +serve our best interests by going to Brussels. He can't very well +refuse me a private audience. I should get a contract with the Congo +government satisfactory to all concerned. He's rapacious--but I think +not ninety per cent. rapacious." + +"Good," said I, "but why separate?" + +"If we traveled toward the Congo from this place in a bunch," said +Monty, "we should give the game away completely and have all the +rag-tag and bob-tail on our heels. As it is, our only chance of +shaking all of them would be to go round by sea and enter the Congo +from the other side; but that would destroy our chance of picking up +the trail in German East Africa. So I'll go to Brussels, and get back +to British East as fast as possible. Fred must go to British East and +watch Schillingschen. You two fellows may as well go by way of British +East Africa to Muanza on Victoria Nyanza, and on from there to the +Congo border by way of Ujiji. Yerkes is an American, and they'll +suspect him less than any of us (they'd nail me, of course, in a +minute!) So let Yerkes make a great show of looking for land to settle +on. We'll all four meet on the Congo border, at some other place to be +decided later. We'll have to agree on a code, and keep in touch by +telegraph as often as possible. Now, is all that clear?" + +"We two'll have all the Greeks of Zanzibar trailing us all the way!" +objected Yerkes. + +"That'll be better than having them trail the lot of us," said Monty. +"You'll be able to shake them somewhere on the way. We'll count on +your ingenuity, Will." + +"But what am I to do to Schillingschen?" asked Fred. + +"Keep an eye on him." + +"Do you see me Sherlock-Holmesing him across the high veld? Piffle! +Give America that job! I'll go through German East and keep ahead of +the Greeks!" + +But Monty was firm. "Yerkes has a plausible excuse, Fred. They may +wonder why an American should look for land in German East Africa, but +they'll let him do it, and perhaps not spy on him to any extent. It's +me they've their eye on. I'll try to keep 'em dazzled. You go to +British East and dazzle Schillingschen! Now, are we agreed?" + +We were. But we talked, nevertheless, long into the afternoon, and in +the end there was not one of us really satisfied. Over and over we +tried to persuade Monty to omit the Brussels part of the plan. We +wanted him with us. But he stuck to his point, and had his way, as he +always did when we were quite sure he really wanted it. + + + + +CHAPTER TWO + + +THE NJO HAPA SONG + +Gleam, oh brighter than jewels! gleam my swinging stars in + the opal dark, +Mirrored along wi' the fire-fly dance of 'longshore light and + off-shore mark, +The roof-lamps and the riding lights, and phosphor wake of + ship and shark. + + I was old when the fires of Arab ships + (All seas were lawless then!) + Abode the tide where liners ride + To-day, and Malays then,-- + Old when the bold da Gama came + With culverin and creed + To trade where Solomon's men fought, + And plunder where the banyans bought, + I sighed when the first o' the slaves were brought, + And laughed when the last were freed. + +Deep, oh deeper than anchors drop, the bones o' the outbound + sailors lie, +Far, oh farther than breath o' wind the rumors o' fabled + fortune fly, +And the 'venturers yearn from the ends of earth, for none o' + the isles is as fair as I! + + +The enormous map of Africa loses no lure or mystery from the fact of +nearness to the continent itself. Rather it increases. In the hot +upper room that night, between the wreathing smoke of oil lamps, we +pored over the large scale map Monty had saved from the wreck along +with our money drafts and papers. + +The atmosphere was one of bygone piracy. The great black ceiling +beams, heavy-legged table of two-inch planks, floor laid like a dhow's +deck--making utmost use of odd lengths of timber, but strong enough to +stand up under hurricanes and overloads of plunder, or to batten down +rebellious slaves--murmurings from rooms below, where men of every race +that haunts those shark-infested seas were drinking and telling tales +that would make Munchhausen's reputation--steaminess, outer darkness, +spicy equatorial smells and, above all, knowledge of the nature of the +coming quest united to veil the map in fascination. + +No man gifted with imagination better than a hot-cross bun's could be +in Zanzibar and not be conscious of the lure that made adventurers of +men before the first tales were written. Old King Solomon's traders +must have made it their headquarters, just as it was Sindbad the +Sailor's rendezvous and that of pirates before he or Solomon were born +or thought of. Vasco da Gama, stout Portuguese gentleman adventurer, +conquered it, and no doubt looted the godowns to a lively tune. Wave +after wave of Arabs sailed to it (as they do today) from that other +land of mystery, Arabia; and there isn't a yard of coral beach, +cocoanut-fringed shore, clove orchard, or vanilla patch--not a lemon +tree nor a thousand-year-old baobab but could tell of battle and +intrigue; not a creek where the dhows lie peacefully today but could +whisper of cargoes run by night--black cargoes, groaning fretfully and +smelling of the 'tween-deck lawlessness. + +"There are two things that have stuck in my memory that Lord Salisbury +used to say when I was an Eton boy, spending a holiday at Hatfield +House," said Monty. "One was, Never talk fight unless you mean fight; +then fight, don't talk. The other was, Always study the largest maps." + +"Who's talking fight?" demanded Fred. + +Monty ignored him. "Even this map isn't big enough to give a real idea +of distances, but it helps. You see, there's no railway beyond +Victoria Nyanza. Anything at all might happen in those great spaces +beyond Uganda. Borderlands are quarrel-grounds. I should say the +junction of British, Belgian, and German territory where Arab loot lies +buried is the last place to dally in unarmed. You fellows 'ud better +scour Zanzibar in the morning for the best guns to be had here." + +So I went to bed at midnight with that added stuff for building dreams. + He who has bought guns remembers with a thrill; he who has not, has +in store for him the most delightful hours of life. May he fall, as +our lot was, on a gunsmith who has mended hammerlocks for Arabs, and +who loves rifles as some greater rascals love a woman or a horse. + +We all four strolled next morning, clad in the khaki reachmedowns that +a Goanese "universal provider" told us were the "latest thing," into a +den between a camel stable and an even mustier-smelling home of gloom, +where oxen tied nose-to-tail went round and round, grinding out semsem +everlastingly while a lean Swahili sang to them. When he ceased, they +stopped. When he sang, they all began again. + +In a bottle-shaped room at the end of a passage squeezed between those +two centers of commerce sat the owner of the gun-store, part Arab, part +Italian, part Englishman, apparently older than sin itself, toothless, +except for one yellow fang that lay like an ornament over his lower +lip, and able to smile more winningly than any siren of the sidewalk. +Evidently he shaved at intervals, for white stubble stood out a third +of an inch all over his wrinkled face. The upper part of his head was +utterly bald, slippery, shiny, smooth, and adorned by an absurd, round +Indian cap, too small, that would not stay in place and had to be +hitched at intervals. + +He said his name was Captain Thomas Cook, and the license to sell +firearms framed on the mud-brick wall bore him witness. (May he live +forever under any name he chooses!) + +"Goons?" he said. "Goons? You gentlemen want goons? I have the goon +what settled the hash of Sayed bin Mohammed--here it be. This other +one's the rifle--see the nicks on her butt!--that Kamarajes the Greek +used. See 'em--Arab goons--slaver goons--smooth-bore elephant +goons--fours, eights, twelves--Martinis--them's the lot that was +reekin' red-hot, days on end, in the last Arab war on the Congo, +considerable used up but goin' cheap;--then here's Mausers (he +pronounced it "Morsers")-- old-style, same as used in 1870--good goons +they be, long o' barrel and strong, but too high trajectory for some +folks;--some's new style, magazines an' all--fine till a grain o' sand +jams 'em oop;--an' Lee-Enfields, souvenirs o' the Boer War, some o' +them bought from folks what plundered a battle-field or two--mostly all +in good condition. Look at this one--see it--hold it--take a squint +along it! Nineteen elephants shot wi' that Lee-Enfleld, an' the man's +in jail for shootin' of 'em! Sold at auction by the gov'ment, that one +was. See, here's an Express--a beauty--owned by an officer fr'm +Indy--took by a shark 'e was, in swimmin' against all advice, him what +had hunted tigers! There's no goon store a quarter as good as mine +'tween Cairo an' the Cape or Bombay an-' Boma! Captain Cook's the boy +to sell ye goons all right! Sit down. Look 'em over. Ask anything ye +want to know. I'll tell ye. No obligation to buy." + +There is no need to fit out with guns and tents in London. Until both +good and bad, both cowardly and brave give up the habit of dying in +bed, or getting killed, or going broke, or ending up in jail for one +cause and the other, there will surely always be fine pickings for men +on the spot with a little money and a lot of patience--guns, tents, +cooking pots, and all the other things. + +We spent a morning with Captain Thomas Cook, and left the store--Fred, +Yerkes and I--with a battery of weapons, including a pistol +apiece--that any expedition might be proud of. (Monty, since he had to +go home in any case, preferred to look over the family gun-room before +committing himself.) + +Then, since the first leg of the journey would be the same for all of +us we bought other kit, packed it, and booked passages for British East +Africa. Between then and the next afternoon when the British India +steamboat sailed we were fairly bombarded by inquisitiveness, but +contrived not to tell much. And with patience beyond belief Monty +restrained us from paying court to Tippoo Tib. + +"The U. S. Consul says he's better worth a visit than most of the +world's museums," Yerkes assured us two or three times. "He says +Tippoo Tib's a fine old sport--damned rogue--slave-hunter, but white +somewhere near the middle. What's the harm in our having a chin with +him?" + +But Monty was adamant. + +"A call on him would prove nothing, but he and his friends would +suspect. Spies would inform the German government. No. Let's act as +if Tippoo Tib were out of mind." + +We grumbled, but we yielded. Hassan came again, shiny with sweat and +voluble with offers of information and assistance. + +"Where you gentlemen going?" he kept asking. + +"England," said Monty, and showed his own steamer ticket in proof of +it. +That settled Hassan for the time but Georges Coutlass was not so easy. +He came swaggering upstairs and thumped on Monty's door with the air of +a bearer of king's messages. + +"What do you intend to do?" he asked. (We were all sitting on Monty's +bed, and it was Yerkes who opened the door.) + +"Do you an injury," said Yerkes, "unless you take your foot away!" The +Greek had placed it deftly to keep the door open pending his +convenience. + +"Let him have his say" advised Monty from the bed. + +"Where are you going? Hassan told me England. Are you all going to +England? If so, why have you bought guns? What will you do with six +rifles, three shot-guns, and three pistols on the London streets? What +will you do with tents in London? Will you make campfires in Regent +Circus, that you take with you all those cooking pots? And all that +rice, is that for the English to eat? Bah! No tenderfoot can fool me! + You go to find my ivory, d'you hear! You think to get away with it +unknown to me! I tell you I have sharp ears! By Jingo; there is +nothing I can not find out that goes on in Africa! You think to cheat +me? Then you are as good as dead men! You shall die like dogs! I +will smithereen the whole damned lot of you before you touch a tusk!" + +"Get out of here!" growled Yerkes. + +"Give him a chance to go quietly, Will," urged Monty, and Coutlass +heard him. Peaceful advice seemed the last spark needed to explode his +crowded magazines of fury. He clenched his fists--spat because the +words would not flow fast enough--and screamed. + +"Give me a chance, eh? A chance, eh?" Other doors began opening, and +the appearance of an audience stimulated him to further peaks of rage. +"The only chance I need is a sight of your carcasses within range, and +a long range will do for Georges Coutlass!" He glared past Yerkes at +Monty who had risen leisurely. "You call yourself a lord? I call you +a thief! A jackal!" + +"Here, get out!" growled Yerkes, self-constituted Cerberus. + +"I will go when I damned please, you Yankee jackanapes!" the Greek +retorted through set teeth. Yerkes is a free man, able and willing to +shoulder his own end of any argument. He closed, and the Greek's ribs +cracked under a vastly stronger hug than he had dreamed of expecting. +But Coutlass was no weakling either, and though he gasped he gathered +himself for a terrific effort. + +"Come on!" said Monty, and went past me through the door like a bolt +from a catapult. Fred followed me, and when he saw us both out on the +landing Monty started down the stairs. + +"Come on!" he called again. + +We followed, for there is no use in choosing a leader if you don't +intend to obey him, even on occasions when you fail at once to +understand. There was one turn on the wide stairs, and Monty stood +there, back to the wall. + +"Go below, you fellows, and catch!" he laughed. "We don't want Will +jailed for homicide!" + +The struggle was fierce and swift. Coutlass searched with a thumb for +Will's eye, and stamped on his instep with an iron-shod heel. But he +was a dissolute brute, and for all his strength Yerkes' cleaner living +very soon told. Presently Will spared a hand to wrench at the +ambitious thumb, and Coutlass screamed with agony. Then he began to +sway this way and that without volition of his own, yielding his +balance, and losing it again and again. In another minute Yerkes had +him off his feet, cursing and kicking. + +"Steady, Will!" called Monty from below; but it was altogether too +late for advice. Will gathered himself like a spring, and hurled the +Greek downstairs backward. + +Then the point of Monty's strategy appeared. He caught him, saved him +from being stunned against the wall, and, before the Greek could +recover sufficiently to use heels and teeth or whisk out the knife he +kept groping for, hurled him a stage farther on his journey--face +forward this time down to where Fred and I were waiting. We kicked him +out into the street too dazed to do anything but wander home. + +"Are you hurt, Will?" laughed Monty. "This isn't the States, you know; + by gad, they'll jail you here if you do your own police work! Instead +of Brussels I'd have had to stay and hire lawyers to defend you!" + +"Aw--quit preaching!" Yerkes answered. "If I hadn't seen you there on +the stairs with your mouth open I'd have been satisfied to put him down +and spank him!" + +It was then that the much more unexpected struck us speechless--even +Monty for the moment, who is not much given to social indecision. We +had not known there was a woman guest in that hotel. One does not look +in Zanzibar for ladies with a Mayfair accent unaccompanied by menfolk +able to protect them. Yet an indubitable Englishwoman, expensively if +carelessly dressed, came to the head of the stairs and stood beside +Yerkes looking down at the rest of us with a sort of well bred, rather +tolerant scorn. + +"Am I right in believing this is Lord Montdidier?" she asked, +pronouncing the word as it should be--Mundidger. + +She had been very beautiful. She still was handsome in a hard-lipped, +bold way, with abundant raven hair and a complexion that would have +been no worse for a touch of rouge. She seemed to scorn all the +conventional refinements, though. Her lacy white dress, open at the +neck, was creased and not too clean, but she wore in her bosom one +great jewel like a ruby, set in brilliants, that gave the lie to +poverty provided the gems were real. And the amber tube through which +she smoked a cigarette was seven or eight inches long and had diamonds +set in a gold band round its middle. She wore no wedding ring that I +could see; and she took no more notice of Will Yerkes beside her than +if he had been a part of the furniture. + +"Why do you ask?" asked Monty, starting upstairs. She had to make way +for him, for Will Yerkes stood his ground. + +"A fair question!" she laughed. Her voice had a hard ring, but was +very well trained and under absolute control. I received the +impression that she had been a singer at some time. "I am Lady Saffren +Waldon--Isobel Saffren Waldon." + +Fred and I had followed Monty up and were close behind him. I heard +him mutter, "Oh, lord!" under his breath. + +"I knew your brother," she added. + +"I know you did." + +"You think that gives me no claim on your acquaintance? Perhaps it +doesn't. But as an unprotected woman--" + +"There is the Residency," objected Monty, "and the law." + +She laughed bitterly. "Thank you, I am in need of no passage home! I +overheard that ruffian say, and I think I heard you say too that you +are going to England. I want you to take a message for me." + +There is a post-office here" said Monty without turning a hair. He +looked straight into her iron eyes. "There is a cable station. I will +lend you money to cable with." + +"Thank you, my Lord!" she sneered. "I have money. I am so used to +being snubbed that my skin would not feel a whip! I want you to take a +verbal message!" + +It was perfectly evident that Monty would rather have met the devil in +person than this untidy dame; yet he was only afraid apparently of +conceding her too much claim on his attention. (If she had asked +favors of me I don't doubt I would have scrambled to be useful. I +began mentally taking her part, wondering why Monty should treat her so +cavalierly; and I fancy Yerkes did the same.) + +"Tell me the message, and I'll tell you whether I'll take it," said +Monty. + +She laughed again, even more bitterly. + +"If I could tell it on these stairs," she answered, "I could cable it. +They censor cablegrams, and open letters in this place." + +"I suspect that isn't true," said Monty. "But if you object to +witnesses, how do you propose to deliver your message to me?" he asked +pointedly. + +"You mean you refuse to speak with me alone?" + +"My friends would draw out of earshot," he answered. + +"Your friends? Your gang, you mean!" She drew herself up very +finely--very stately. Very lovely she was to look at in that +half-light, with the shadows of Tippoo Tib's* old stairway hiding her +tale of years. But I felt my regard for her slipping downhill (and so, +I rather think did Yerkes). "You look well, Lord Montdidier, trapesing +about the earth with a leash of mongrels at your heel! Falstaff never +picked up a more sordid-looking pack! What do you feed them--bones? +Are there no young bloods left of your own class, that you need travel +with tradesmen?" + +------------- +* The principal hotel In Zanzibar was formerly Tippoo Tib's residence, +quite a magnificent mansion for that period and place. +------------- + +Monty stood with both hands behind him and never turned a hair. Fred +Oakes brushed up the ends of that troubadour mustache of his and struck +more or less of an attitude. Will reddened to the ears, and I never +felt more uncomfortable in all my life. + +"So this is your gang, is it?" she went on. "It looks sober at +present! I suppose I must trust you to control them! I dare say even +tavern brawlers respect you sufficiently to keep a lady's secret if you +order them. I will hope they have manhood enough to hold their +tongues!" + +Of course, dressed in the best that Zanzibar stores had to offer we +scarcely looked like fashion plates. My shirt was torn where Coutlass +had seized it to resist being thrown out, but I failed to see what she +hoped to gain by that tongue lashing, even supposing we had been the +lackeys she pretended to believe we were. + +"The message is to my brother," she went on. + +"I don't know him!" put in Monty promptly. + +"You mean you don't like him! Your brother had him expelled from two +or three clubs, and you prefer not to meet him! Nevertheless, I give +you this message to take to him! Please tell him--you will find him at +his old address--that I, his sister, Lady Saffren Waldon, know now the +secret of Tippoo Tib's ivory. He is to join me here at once, and we +will get it, and sell it, and have money, and revenge! Will you tell +him that!" + +"No!" answered Monty. + +I looked at Yerkes, Yerkes looked at Fred, and Fred at me. + +There was nothing to do but feel astonished. + +"Why not, if you please?" + +"I prefer not to meet Captain McCauley," said Monty. + +"Then you will give the message to somebody else?" she insisted. + +"No" said Monty. "I will carry no message for you." + +"Why do you say that? How dare you say that? In front of your +following--your gang!" + +I should have been inclined to continue the argument myself--to try to +find out what she did know, and to uncover her game. It was obvious +she must have some reason for her extraordinary request, and her more +extraordinary way of making it. But Monty saw fit to stride past her +through his open bedroom door, and shut it behind him firmly. We stood +looking at her and at one another stupidly until she turned her back +and went to her own room on the floor above. Then we followed Monty. + +"Did she say anything else?" he asked as soon as we were inside. I +noticed he was sweating pretty freely now. + +"Didums, you're too polite!" Fred answered. "You ought to have told +her to keep her tongue housed or be civil!" + +"I don't hold with hitting back at a lone woman," said Yerkes, "but +what was she driving at? What did she mean by calling us a pack of +mongrels?" + +"Merely her way," said Monty offhandedly. "Those particular McCauleys +never amounted to much. She married a baronet, and he divorced her. +Bad scandal. Saffren Waldon was at the War Office. She stole papers, +or something of that sort--delivered them to a German paramour--von +Duvitz was his name, I think. She and her brother were lucky to keep +out of jail. Ever since then she has been--some say a spy, some say +one thing, some another. My brother fell foul of her, and lived to +regret it. She's on her last legs I don't doubt, or she wouldn't be in +Zanzibar." + +"Then why the obvious nervous sweat you're in?" demanded Fred. + +"And that doesn't account for the abuse she handed out to us," said +Yerkes. + +"Why not tip off the authorities that she's a notorious spy?" I asked. + +"I suspect they know all about her," he answered. + +"But why your alarm?" insisted Fred. + +"I'm scarcely alarmed, old thing. But it's pretty obvious, isn't it, +that she wants us to believe she knows what we're after. She's +vindictive. She imagines she owes me a grudge on my brother's account. + It might soothe her to think she had made me nervous. And by gad--it +sounds like lunacy, and mind you I'm not propounding it for +fact!--there's just one chance that she really does know where the +ivory is!" + +"But where's the sense of abusing us?" repeated Yerkes. + +"That's the poor thing's way of claiming class superiority," said +Monty. "She was born into one class, married into another, and divorced +into a third. She'd likely to forget she said an unkind word the next +time she meets you. Give her one chance and she'll pretend she +believes you were born to the purple--flatter you until you half +believe it yourself. Later on, when it suits her at the moment, she'll +denounce you as a social impostor! It's just habit--bad habit, I +admit--comes of the life she leads. Lots of 'em like her. Few of 'em +quite so well informed, though, and dangerous if you give 'em a chance." + +"I still don't see why you're sweating," said Fred. + +"It's hot. There's a chance she knows where the ivory is! She has +money, but how? She'd have begged if she were short of cash! It's my +impression she has been in German government employ for a number of +years. Possibly they have paid her to do some spy-work--in the +Zanzibar court, perhaps--the Sultan's a mere boy--" + +"Isn't he woolly-headed?" objected Yerkes. + +"Mainly Arab. It's a French game to send a white woman to intrigue at +colored courts, but the Germans are good imitators." + +"Isn't she English?" asked Yerkes. + +"Her trade's international," said Monty dryly. "My guess is that +Coutlass or Hassan told her what we're supposed to be doing here, and +she pretends to know where the ivory is in order to trap us all in some +way. The net's spread for me, but there's no objection to catching you +fellows as well." + +"She'll need to use sweeter bait than I've seen yet!" laughed Yerkes. + +"She'll probably be sweetness itself next time she sees you. She'll +argue she's created an impression and can afford to be gracious." + +"Impression is good!" said Yerkes. "I mean it's bad! She has created +one, all right! What's the likelihood of her having double-crossed the +Germans? Mightn't she have got a clue to where the stuff is, and be +holding for a better market than they offer?" + +"I was coming to that," said Monty. "Yes, it's possible. But whatever +her game is, don't let us play it for her. Let her do the leading. If +she gets hold of you fellows, one at a time or all together, for the +love of heaven tell her nothing! Let her tell all she likes, but admit +nothing--tell nothing--ask no questions! That's an old rule in +diplomacy (and remember, she's a diplomat, whatever else she may be!) +Old-stagers can divine the Young ones' secrets from the nature of the +questions they ask! So if you got the chance, ask her nothing! Don't +lie, either! It would take a very old hand to lie to her in such way +that she couldn't see through it!" + +"Why not be simply rude and turn our backs?" said I. + +"Best of all--provided you can do it! Remember, she's a old hand!" + +"D'you mean," said Yerkes, "that if she were to offer proof that she +knows where that ivory is, and proposed terms, you wouldn't talk it +over?" + +"I mean let her alone!" said Monty. + +But it turned out she would not be let alone. We dine in the public +room, but she had her meals sent up to her and we flattered ourselves +(or I did) that her net had been laid in vain. Folk dine late in the +tropics, and we dallied over coffee and cigars, so that it was going on +for ten o'clock when Yerkes and I started upstairs again. Monty and +Fred went out to see the waterfront by moonlight. + +We had reached our door (he and I shared one great room) when we heard +terrific screams from the floor above--a woman's--one after another, +piercing, fearful, hair-raising, and so suggestive in that gloomy, grim +building that a man's very blood stood still. + +Yerkes was the first upstairs. He went like an arrow from a bow, and I +after him. The screams had stopped before we reached the stairhead, +but there was no doubting which her room was; the door was partly +open, permitting a view of armchairs and feminine garments in some +disorder. We heard a man talking loud quick Arabic, and a +woman--pleading, I thought. Yerkes rapped on the door. + +"Come in!" said a voice, and I followed Yerkes in. + +We were met by her Syrian maid, a creature with gazelle eyes and timid +manner, who came through the doorway leading to an inner room. + +"What's the trouble?" demanded Yerkes, and the woman signed to us to go +on in. Yerkes led the way again impulsively as any knight-errant +rescuing beleaguered dames, but I looked back and saw that the Syrian +woman had locked the outer door. Before I could tell Will that, he was +in the next room, so I followed, and, like him, stood rather bewildered. + +Lady Saffren Waldon sat facing us, rather triumphant, in no apparent +trouble, not alone. There were four very well-dressed Arabs standing +to one side. She sat in a basket chair by a door that pretty obviously +led into her bedroom; and kept one foot on a pillow, although I +suspected there was not much the matter with it. + +"We heard screams. Thought you were being murdered!" said Yerkes, out +of breath. + +"Oh, indeed, no! Nothing of the kind! I fell and twisted my +ankle--very painful, but not serious. Since you are here, sit down, +won't you?" + +"No, thanks," said he, turning to go. + +"The maid locked the door on us!" said I, and before the words were out +of my mouth three of the Arabs slipped into the outer room. There was +no hint or display of weapons of any kind, but they were big men, and +the folds of their garments were sufficiently voluminous to have hidden +a dozen guns apiece. + +"She'll open it!" said Will, with inflection that a fool could +understand. + +"One minute, please!" said Lady Saffren Waldon. (It was no poor +imitation of Queen Elizabeth ordering courtiers about.) + +"We didn't come to talk," said Will. "Heard screams. Made a mistake. +Sorry. We're off!" + +"No mistake!" she said; and the sweetness Monty prophesied began to +show itself. The change in her voice was too swift and pronounced to +be convincing. "I did scream. I was, in pain. It was kind of you to +come. Since you are here I would like you to talk to this gentleman." + +She glanced at the Arab, an able-looking man, with nose and eyes +expressive of keen thought, and the groomed gray beard that makes an +Arab always dignified. + +"Some other time," said Will. "I've an engagement!" And he turned to +go again. + +"No--now!" she said. "It's no use--you can't get out! You may as well +be sensible and listen!" + +We glanced at each other and both remembered Monty's warning. Will +laughed. + +"Take seats," she said, with a very regal gesture. She was not +carelessly dressed, as she had been earlier in the day. From hair to +silken hose and white kid shoes she was immaculate, and she wore rouge +and powder now. In that yellow lamplight (carefully placed, no doubt) +she was certainly good-looking. In fact, she was good-looking at any +time, and only no longer able to face daylight with the tale of youth. +Her eyes were weapons, nothing less. We remained standing. + +"This gentleman will speak to you," she said, motioning to the Arab to +commence, and he bowed--from the shoulders upward. + +"I am from His Highness the Sultan of Zanzibar" he announced, a little +pompously. "A minister from His Highness." (In announcing their own +importance Arabs very seldom err in the direction of under-estimate.) +"I speak about the ivory, which I am informed you propose to set out on +a journey to discover." + +"Where did you get your information?" Yerkes countered. + +"Don't be absurd!" ordered Lady Safrren Waldon. "I gave it to him! +Where else need he go to get it?" + +"Where did you get it, then?" he retorted. + +"Never mind! Listen to what Hamed Ibrahim has to say!" + +The Arab bowed his bead slightly a second time. + +"The ivory you seek," he said, "is said to be Tippoo Tib's own, and he +will not tell the hiding-places. It does not belong to him. Such +little part of it as ever was his was long ago swallowed by the +interest on claims against him. The whole is now in truth the property +of His Highness the Sultan of Zanzibar, and whoever discovers it shall +receive reward from the owner. His Highness is willing, through me his +minister, to make treaty in advance in writing with suitable parties +intending to make search." + +"You mean the Sultan wants to hire me to hunt for ivory for him?" Will +asked, and the Arab made a gesture of impatience. At that Lady Saffren +Waldon cut in, very vinegary once more. + +"You two men are prisoners! Show much more sense! Come to terms or +take the consequences! Listen! Tippoo Tib buried the ivory. The +Sultan of Zanzibar claims it. The German government, for reasons of +its own, backs the Sultan's claim; ivory found in German East Africa +will be handed over to him in support of his claim to all the rest of +it. If you--Lord Montdidier and the rest of you--care to sign an +agreement with the Sultan of Zanzibar you can have facilities. You +shall be supplied with guides who can lead you to the right place to +start your search from--" + +"Thought you wanted Lord Montdidier to say in London that you know +where it all is," Will objected. + +She colored slightly, and glared. + +"Perhaps I am one of the guides," she said darkly. "I know more than I +need tell for the sake of this argument! The point is, you can have +facilities if you sign an agreement with the Sultan. Otherwise, you +will be dogged wherever you go! Whatever you should find would be +claimed! Every difficulty will be made for you--every treachery +conceivable practised on you. Lord Montdidier can get influential +backing, but not influence among the natives! He can not get good men +and true information by pulling wires in London. The British +government once offered ten per cent. of the value of the ivory found. +The Sultan of Zanzibar offers twenty per cent.--" + +"Twenty-five per cent.," corrected Hamed Ibrahim. + +"Yes, but I should want five per cent. for my commission!" + +"This sounds like a different yarn to the one you told on the stairs +this afternoon," said Will. "See Monty and tell it to him." + +"It is for you to tell Lord Montdidier. He runs away from me!" + +"I refuse to tell him a word!" said Will, with a laugh like that of a +boy about to plunge into a swimming pool--sort of "Here goes!" + +"You are extremely ill advised!" + +"Do your worst! Monty'll be hunting for us two in about a minute. +We're prisoners, are we? Suit yourself!" + +"You are prisoners while I choose! You could be killed in this room, +removed in sacks, thrown to the sharks in the roadstead, and nobody the +wiser! But I have no intention of killing you. As it happens, that +would not suit my purpose!" + +We both glanced behind us involuntarily. It may be that we both heard +a footstep, but it is always difficult to say certainly after the +event. At any rate, while in the act of turning our heads, two of the +three Arabs, who had previously left the room, threw nooses over them +and bound our arms to our sides with the jiffy-swiftness only sailors +know. The third man put the finishing touches, and presently adjusted +gags with a neatness and solicitude worthy of the Inquisition. + +"Throw them!" she ordered, and in a second our heels were struck from +under us and I was half stunned by the impact of my head against the +solid floor (for all the floors of that great place were built to +resist eternity). + +"Now!" she said. "Show them knives!" + +We were shown forthwith the ugliest, most suggestive weapons I have +ever seen--long sliver-thin blades sharper than razors. The Arabs +knelt on our chests (their knees were harder and more merciless than +wooden clubs) and laid the blades, edge-upward, on the skin of our +throats. + +"Let them feel!" she ordered. + +I felt a sharp cut, and the warm blood trickled down over my jugular to +the floor. I knew it was only a skin-cut, but did not pretend to +myself I was enjoying the ordeal. + +"Now!" she said. + +The Arabs stepped away and she came and stood between us, looking down +at one and then the other. + +"There isn't a place in Africa," she said, "that you can hide in where +the Sultan's men can't find you! There isn't a British officer in +Africa who would believe you if you told what has happened in this room +tonight! Yet Lord Montdidier will believe you--he knows you +presumably, and certainly he knows me! So tell Lord Montdidier exactly +what has happened! Assure him with my compliments that his throat and +yours shall be cut as surely as you dare set out after that ivory +without signing my agreement first. Tell Lord Montdidier he may be +friends with me if he cares to. As his friend I will help make him +rich for life! As his enemy, I will make Africa too hot and dangerous +to hold him! Let him choose!" + +She stepped back and, without troubling to turn away, put powder on her +nose and chin. + +"Now let them up!" she said. + +The Arabs lifted us to our feet. + +"Loose them!" + +The expert of the three slipped the knots like a wizard doing parlor +tricks; but I noticed that the other two held their knives extremely +cautiously. We should have been dead men if we had made a pugnacious +motion. + +"Now you may go! Unless Lord Montdidier agrees with me, the only +safety for any of you is away from Africa! Go and tell him! Go!" + +"I'll give you your answer now!" said Will. + +"No, you don't!" said I, remembering Monty's urgent admonition to tell +her nothing and ask no questions. "Come away, Will! There's nothing +to be gained by talking back!" + +"Right you are!" he said, laughing like a boy again--this time like a +boy whose fight has been broken off without his seeking or consent. +Like me, he pulled out a handkerchief and wiped blood from his neck. +The sight of his own blood--even such a little trickle as that--has +peculiar effect an a man. + +"By Jiminy, she has scratched the wrong dog's ear!" he growled to me as +we went to the door together. + +"They're all in there!" I said excitedly, when the door slammed shut +behind us. "Hurry down and get me a gun! I'll hold the door while you +run for police and have 'em l arrested!" + +"Piffle!" he said. "Come on! Three Sultan's witnesses and two lone +white women against us two--come away! Come away!" + +Monty and Fred were still out, so we went to our own room. + +"I'm wondering," I said, "what Monty will say." + +"I'm not!" said Will. "I'm not troubling, either! I'm not going to +tell Monty a blessed word! See here--she thinks she knows where some +o' that ivory is. Maybe the government of German East Africa is in on +the deal, and maybe not; that makes no present difference. She thinks +she's wise. And she has fixed up with the Sultan to have him claim it +when found, so's she'll get a fat slice of the melon. There's a scheme +on to get the stuff, when who should come on the scene but our little +party, and that makes 'em all nervous, 'cause Monty's a bad man to be +up against. Remember: she claimed that she knows Monty and he knows +her. She means by that that he knows she's a desperado, and she thinks +he'll draw the line at a trip that promises murder and blackmail and +such like dirty work. So she puts a scare into us with a view to our +throwing a scare into him. If I scare any one, it's going to be that +dame herself. I'll not tell Monty a thing!" + +"How about Coutlass the Greek?" said I. "D'you suppose he's her +accomplice?" + +"Maybe! One of her dupes perhaps! I suspect she'll suck him dry of +information and cast him off like a lemon rind. I dare bet she's using +him. She can't use me! Shall you tell Monty?" + +"No," I said. "Not unless we both agreed." + +He nodded. "You and I weren't born to what they call the purple. +We're no diplomatists; but we get each other's meaning." + +"Here come Monty and Fred," said I. "Is my neck still bloody? No, +yours doesn't show." + +We met them at the stairhead, and Monty did not seem to notice anything. + +"Fred has composed a song to the moonlight on Zanzibar roadstead while +you fellows were merely after-dinner mundane. D'you suppose the +landlord 'ud make trouble if we let him sing it?" + +"Let's hope so!" said Will. "I'm itching for a row like they say +drovers in Monty's country itch for mile-stones! Let Fred warble. +I'll fight whoever comes!" + +Monty eyed him and me swiftly, but made no comment. + +"Bill's homesick!" said Fred. "The U. S. eagle wants its Bowery! +We'll soothe the fowl with thoughts of other things--where's the +concertina?" + +"No, no, Fred, that'll be too much din!" + +Monty made a grab for the instrument, but Fred raised it above his head +and brought it down between his knees with chords that crashed like +wedding bells. Then he changed to softer, languorous music, and when +he had picked out an air to suit his mood, sat down and turned art +loose to do her worst. + +He has a good voice. If he would only not pull such faces, or make so +sure that folk within a dozen blocks can hear him, he might pass for a +professional. + +"Music suggestive of moonlight!" he said, and began: + + "The sentry palms stand motionless. Masts move against +the sky. + With measured creak of curving spars dhows gently to the + jeweled stars + Rock out a lullaby. + + "Silver and black sleeps Zanzibar. The moonlit ripples +croon + Soft songs of loves that perfect are, long tales of red- + lipped spoils of war, + And you--you smile, you moon! + For I think that beam on the placid sea + That splashes, and spreads, and dips, and gleams, + That dances and glides till it comes to me + Out of infinite sky, is the path of dreams, + And down that lane the memories run + Of all that's wild beneath the sun!" + +"You fellows like that one? Anybody coming? Nobody for Will to fight +yet? Too bad! Well--we'll try a-gain! There's no chorus. It's all +poetic stuff, too gentle to be yowled by three such cannibals as you! +Listen! + + "Old as the moonlit silences, to-night's loves are the +same + As when for ivory from far, and cloves and gems of +Zanzibar + King Solomon's men came. + + "Sinful and still the same roofs lie that knew da Gama's + heel, + Those beams that light these sleepy waves looked on when +men threw murdered slaves + To make the sharks a meal. + And I think that beam on the silvered swell + That spreads, and splashes, and gleams, and dips, + That has shone on the cruel and brave as well, + On the trail o' the slaves and the ivory ships, + Is the lane down which the memories run + Of all that's wild beneath the sun." + +The concertina wailed into a sort of minor dirge and ceased. Fred +fastened the catch, and put the instrument away. + +"Why don't you applaud?" he asked. + +"Oh, bravo, bravo!" said Will and I together. + +Monty looked hard at both of us. + +"Strange!" he remarked. "You're both distracted, and you've each got a +slight cut over the jugular!" + +"Been trying out razors," said Yerkes. + +"Um-m-m!" remarked Monty. "Well--I'm glad it's no worse. How about +bed, eh? Better lock your door--that lady up-stairs is what the +Germans call gefaehrlich!* Goo'night!" + +----------- +* Gefaehrlich, dangerous. +----------- + + + + +CHAPTER THREE + + +THE NJO HAPA SONG + +Tongues! Oh, music of eastern tongues, harmonied murmur + of streets ahum! +Trade! Oh, frasila weights of clove--ivory--copra--copal + gum-- +Rubber--vanilla and tortoise-shell! The methods change. + The captains come. + + I was old when the clamor o' Babel's end + (All seas were chartless then!) + Drove forth the brood, and Solitude + Was the newest quest of men. + I lay like a gem in a silken sea + Unseen, uncoveted, unguessed + Till scented winds that waft afar + Bore word o' the warm delights there are + Where ground-swells sing by Zanzibar + Long rhapsodies of rest. + +Wild, oh wilder than winter blasts my wet skies shriek when + the winds are freed. +Mild, oh milder than virgin mirth is the laugh o' the reefs + where sea-birds feed, +Screaming and skirling and down again. (Though the sea + -birds warn do captains heed?) + + +There is no public landing wharf at Zanzibar. Passengers have to +submit their persons into the arms of loud-lunged Swahili longshoremen, +who recognize one sole and only point of honor: neither passenger nor +luggage shall be dropped into the surf. + +Their invariable habit, the instant the view-halloa is raised, is to +scamper headlong, pounce on the victim and pull him apart (or so it +feels) until fortune, superior strength, or some such element decides +the point; and then more often +than not it is the victim's fate to be carried between two men, each +hold of a thigh, each determined to get ashore or to the boat first, +and each grimly resolved not to let go until three times the proper fee +shall have been paid. Of only these two things let the passenger +assure himself--fight how he may, he will neither escape their clutches +nor get wet. Rather they will hold him upside-down until the contents +of his pockets fall into the surf. Dry on the beach or into the boat +they will dump him. And whatever he shall pay them will surely be +insufficient. + +But we had a privy councilor of England of our party, and favors were +shown us that never fall to the lot of ordinary travelers. Opposite +the Sultan's palace is the Sultan's private wharf, so royal and private +that it is a prison offense to trespass on it without written +permission. Because of his official call at the Residency, and of his +card left on the Sultan, wires had been pulled, and a pompous +individual whose black face sweated greasily, and whose palm itched for +unearned increment, called on Monty very shortly after breakfast with +intimation that the wharf had been placed at our disposal, since His +Highness the Sultan desired to do us honor. + +So when the B. I. steamer dropped anchor in the great roadstead shortly +after noon we were taken to the wharf by one of the Sultan's +household--a very civil-spoken Arab gentleman--and three English +officers met us there who made a fuss over Monty and were at pains to +be agreeable to the rest of us. While we stood chatting and waiting +for the boat that should row us and belongings the mile-and-a-half or +so to the steamer, I saw something that made me start. Fred gazed +presently in the same direction. + +"Johnson is number one!" he said, as if checking off my mental +processes. He meant Hassan. "Number two is Georges Coutlass, our +friend the Greek. Number three is--am I drunk this early in the +day?--what do you see?--doesn't she look to you like?--by the big blind +god of men's mistakes it's--Monty! Didums, you deaf idiot, look! See!" + +At that everybody naturally looked the same way. Everybody nodded. +Coutlass the Greek, and Hassan, reputed nephew of Tippoo Tib, were +headed in one boat toward the steamer, the worse for the handling, but +right side up and no angrier than the usual passenger. Following them +was another boat containing a motley assortment of Arabs and +part-Arabs, who might, or might not be associated with them. + +On the beach still, surrounded yet by a swarm of longshoremen who +yelled and fought, Lady Isobel Saffren Waldon and her Syrian maid stood +at bay. Her two Swahili men-servants were overwhelmed and already +being carried to a boat. Her luggage was being borne helter-skelter +after them, and another boat waited for her just beyond the belt of +surf, the rowers standing up to yell encouragement at the sweating pack +that dared not close in on its victims. Lady Isobel Saffren Waldon +appeared to have no other weapon than a parasol, but she had plainly +the upper hand. + +"She has a way with her with natives," said the senior officer present. + +"It's a pity," said Monty. "I mean, one scarcely likes to use this +wharf and watch that." + +"Quite so. Yet we daren't accord her official recognition. She'd be +certain to make capital out of it. We're awfully glad she's going. +The Residency atmosphere is one huge sigh of relief. We would like to +speed the parting guest, but it mayn't be done. However, you'll know +there are others not so particular. I imagine her friends are late for +the appointment." + +"Where's she going?" asked Monty. + +"British East Africa." + +"Mombasa?" + +"And then on. She has drafts on a German merchant in Nairobi." + +>From that moment until we were safely in our quarters on the steamer +Monty's attitude became one of rigid indifference toward her or +anything to do with her. The British officers went out to the steamer +with us, but all the way Monty only talked of the climate, trade +conditions, and the other subjects to which polite conversation of +Africa's east coast is limited. Fred kept nudging him, but Monty took +no notice. Yerkes whispered to Fred. Then I heard Fred whisper to +Monty in one of those raucous asides that he perfectly well knows can +be heard by everybody. + +"Why don't you ask 'em about her, you ass?" + +But Monty refused to rise. He talked of the bowed and ancient slaves +of Zanzibar, who refused in those days to be set free and afforded +prolific ground for attack on British public morals by people whose +business it is to abuse England for her peccadillos and forget her +virtues.* + +--------------- +* In 1914 there were still thousands of slaves in German East, although +the German press and public were ever loudest in their condemnation of +British conditions. +--------------- + +We reached the ship, and were watching our piles of luggage arrive up +the accommodation ladder when the solution of Lady Isobel Saffren +Waldon's problem appeared. She arrived alongside in the official boat +of the German consulate, a German officer in white uniform on either +hand, and the German ensign at the stern. + +"Pretty fair impudence, paying official honors to our undesirables, yet +I don't see what we can do," said the senior from the Residency. + +Yerkes drew me aside. + +"Did you ever see anything more stupidly British?" he demanded. + +"It's as obvious as the nose on your face that she's up to some game. +It's as plain as twice two that the Germans are backing her whether the +British like it or not. Look at those two Heinies now!" + +We faced about and watched them. After bowing Lady Waldon to her +cabin, they approached our party with brazen claim to recognition--and +received it. They were met, and spoken to apparently as cordially as +if their friendship had been indisputable. + +"Did you ever see anything to beat it? Why not kick 'em into the sea? +Either that woman's a crook or she isn't. If she isn't, then the +British have treated her shamefully, turning their backs on her. But +we know she is a crook! And so do they. The Germans know it, too, and +they're flaunting her under official British noses! They're using her +to start something the British won't like, and the British know it! +Yet she's going to be allowed to travel to British territory on a +British ship, and the Heinies are shaken hands with! If you complained +to Monty I bet he'd say, 'Don't talk fight unless you mean fight!'" + +"Monty might also add, 'Don't talk-fight!"' said I. + +"Oh, rot!" Will answered. "British individuals may bridle a bit, but +their government'll shut its eyes until too late, whatever happens! +You mark my words!" + +We strolled back toward our party in great discontent, I as much as he, +never supposing there was another country in the world that could so +deliberately shut its eyes to dog's work until absolutely forced to +interfere, by a hair not quite too late. + +Coutlass and Hassan traveled second-class--the Arab and half-Arab +contingent third--and none of them troubled us, at present, except that +Will swore at sight of Coutlass swaggering as if the ship and her +contents were all his. + +"To bear him brag you'd believe the British government afraid of him!" +he grumbled. + +But an immediate problem drove Coutlass out of mind. Lady Isobel +Saffren Waldon had been given a cabin in line-with ours, at the end of +our corridor. Her maid, and her two Swahili servants were obliged to +pass our doors to get to her cabin at all. As nearly all ships' cabins +on those hot routes do, ours intercommunicated by a metal grill for +ventilating purposes, and a word spoken in one cabin above a whisper +could be heard in the next. + +Fred was the first to realize conditions. He opened his door in his +usual abrupt way to visit Monty's cabin and almost fell over the Syrian +maid, her eye at Monty's key-hole--a little too early in the game to +pass for sound judgment, as Fred was at pains to assure her. + +The alarm being given, we locked our cabin doors, repaired to the +smoking-room, and ordered drinks at a center table where no +eavesdropper could overhear. + +"It's one of two things," said Monty. He had his folding board out, +and we did not doubt he would play chess from there to London. "Either +they know exactly where that ivory is, or they haven't the slightest +idea." + +"My, but you're wise!" said Will. + +Monty ignored him. "They suspect us of knowing. They mean to prevent +our getting any of it. If they do know, they've some reason of their +own for not getting it themselves at present. If they don't know, they +suspect we know and intend to claim what we find." + +"How should they think we know?" objected Will. "The first we ever +heard of the stuff was in the lazaretto in Zanzibar." + +"True. Juma told us. Juma probably told them that we told him. +Natives often put the cart before the horse without the slightest +intention of lying." + +"All the same, why should they believe him?" + +"Why not? Zanzibar's agog with the story--after all these years. The +ivory must have been buried more than a quarter of a century ago. Some +one's been stirring the mud. We arrive, unexpectedly from nowhere, ask +questions about the ivory, make plans for British East Africa--and +there you are! The people who were merely determined to get the stuff +jump to the false conclusion that we really know where it is.'' + +"Q. E. D.!" said Fred, finishing his drink. + +"Not at all," said Monty. "There are two things yet to be +demonstrated. They're true, but not proven. The German government is +after the staff. And the German government has very special reasons +for secrecy and tricks." + +"We four against the German government looks like longish odds," said +I. + +"Remains to be seen," said Monty. "If the German government's very +special reasons were legal or righteous they'd be announced with a +fanfare of trumpets." + +"Where's all this leading us?" demanded Fred. + +"To a slight change of plan," said Monty. + +"Thank the lord! That means you don't go to Brussels--stay with us!" + +"Nothing of the sort, Fred. But you three keep together. They're +going to watch you. You watch them. Watch Schillingschen particularly +closely, if you find him. The closer they watch you, the more likely +they are to lose sight of me. I'll take care to have several red +herrings drawn across my trail after I reach London. Perhaps I'll +return down the west coast and travel up the Congo River. At any rate, +when I do come, and whichever way I come, I'll have everything legal, +in writing. Let your game be to seem mysterious. Seem to know more +than you do, but don't tell anybody anything. Above all, listen!" + +Fred leaned back in his chair and laughed. + +"Didums!" he said. "This is the idioticest wild goose chase we ever +started on! I admit I nosed it. I gave tongue first. But think of it +--here we are--four sensible men--hitherto sensible--off after ivory +that nobody can really prove exists, said to be buried somewhere in a +tract of half-explored country more than a thousand miles each way--and +the German government, and half the criminals in Africa already on our +idiotic heels!" + +"Yet the German government and the crooks seem convinced, too, that +there's something worth looking for!" laughed Monty. And none of us +could answer that. + +For that matter, none of us would have been willing to withdraw from +the search, however dim the prospect of sucess might seem in the +intervals when cold reason shed its comfortless rays on us. Intuition, +or whatever it is that has proved superior so often to worldly wisdom +(temptation, Fred calls it!) outweighed reason, and Fred himself would +have been last to agree to forego the search. + +The voyage is short between Zanzibar and Mombasa, but there was +incident. We were spied on after very thorough fashion, Lady Saffren +Waldon's title and gracious bearing (when that suited her) being +practical weapons. The purser was Goanese --beside himself with the +fumes of flattery. He had a pass-key, so the Syrian maid went through +our cabins and searched thoroughly everything except the wallet of +important papers that Monty kept under his shirt. The first and second +officers were rather young, unmarried men possessed of limitless +ignorance of the wiles of such as Lady Waldon. It was they who signed +a paper recommending Coutlass to the B. I. agents and a lot of other +reputable people in Mombasa and elsewhere, thus offsetting the +possibility that the authorities might not let him land. (Had we known +all that at the time, Monty's word against him might have caused him to +be shipped back whence he came, but we did not find it out until +afterward; nor did we know the law.) + +And at Mombasa we made our first united, serious mistake. It was put +to the vote. We all agreed. + +"I can come ashore," said Monty, "introduce you to officialdom, get you +put up for the club, and be useful generally. That, though, 'll lend +color to the theory that you're in league with me--whereas, if I leave +you to your own resources, that may help lose my scent. When they pick +it up again we'll be knowing better where we stand." + +"If you came ashore for a few hours we'd have the benefit of your +prestige," said I. + +"I admit it." + +"I suspect a title's mighty near as useful on British territory as in +N'York or Boston," said Will. "We'd bask in smiles." + +"Not wholly," said Monty. "There's another side to that. There's an +English official element that would rather be rude to some poor devil +with a title than draw pay (and it loves its pay, you may believe me!). + You'd have friends in high places, but make enemies, too, if I go +ashore with you." + +"What's your own proposal?" Fred demanded. + +"I've stated it. I want you fellows to choose. There's no need of me +ashore--that's to say, I've a draft to bearer for the amount you three +have in the common fund--here, take it. If you think you'll need more +than that, then I'll have to go to the bank with you and cash some of +my own draft. I think you'll have enough." + +"Plenty," said Will. + +"Let's send him home!" proposed Fred. + +"How about communications?" We had contrived a code already with the +aid of a pocket Portuguese-English dictionary, of which Fred and Monty +each possessed a similar edition. + +"The Mombasa Bank, Will. You keep them posted as to your whereabouts. +When I write the bank manager I'll ask him to keep my address a secret." + +So we said good-by to Monty and left him on board, and wished we hadn't +a dozen times before noon next day, and a hundred times within the +week. The last sight we had of him was as the shore boat came +alongside the wharf and the half-breed customs officials pounced +smiling on us. My eyes were keenest. I could see Monty pacing the +upper deck, too rapidly for evidence of peace of mind--a +straight-standing, handsome figure of a man. I pointed him out to the +others, and we joked about him. Then the gloom of the customs shed +swallowed us, and there was a new earth and, for the present, no more +sea. + +The island of Mombasa is so close to the cocoanut-fringed mainland that +a railway bridge connects them. Like Zanzibar, it is a place of +strange delights, and bridled lawlessness controlled by the veriest +handful of Englishmen. There are strange hotels--strange +dwellings--streets--stores--tongues and faces. The great grim fort +that brave da Gama built, and held against all comers, dominates the +sea front and the lower town. The brass-lunged boys who pounce on +baggage, fight for it, and tout for the grandly named hotels are of as +many tribes as sizes, as many tongues as tribes. + +Everything is different--everything strange--everything, except the +heat, delightful. And as Fred said, "some folk would grumble in hell!" + Trees, flowers, birds, costumes of the women, sheen of the sea, glint +of sun on bare skins of every shade from ivory to ebony, dazzling coral +roadway and colored coral walls, babel of tongues, sack-saddled donkeys +sleepily bearing loads of coral for new buildings, and--winding in and +out among it all--the narrow-gauge tramway on which trolleys pushed by +stocky little black men carry officialdom gratis, and the rest of the +world and his wife according to tariff; all those things are the +alphabet of Mombasa's charm. Arranged, and rearranged --by chance, by +individual perspective, and by point of view--they spell fascination, +attractiveness, glamour, mystery. And no acquaintance with Mombasa, +however intimate or old, dispels the charm to the man not guilty of +cynicism. To the cynic (and for him) there are sin--as Africa alone +knows how to sin--disease, of the dread zymotic types--and death; death +peering through the doors of godowns, where the ivory tusks are piled; +death in the dark back-streets of the bazaar, where tired policemen +wage lop-sided warfare against insanitary habits and a quite +impracticable legal code; death on the beach, where cannibal crabs +parade in thousands and devour all helpless things; death in the scrub +(all green and beautiful) where the tiny streets leave off and snakes +claim heritage; death in the grim red desert beyond the coast-line, +where lean, hopeless jackals crack today men's dry bones left fifty +years ago by the slave caravans--marrowless bones long since stripped +clean by the ants. But we are not all cynics. + +Last to be cynic or pessimist was Louis McGregor Abraham, proprietor of +the Imperial Hotel--Syrian by birth, Jew by creed, Englishman by +nationality, and admirer first, last and all the time of all things +prosperous and promising, except his rival, the Hotel Royal. + +"You came to the right place," he assured us when the last hot porter +had dumped the last of our belongings on the porch, had ceased from +chattering to watch Fred's financial methods, had been paid double the +customary price, and had gone away grumbling (to laugh at us behind our +backs). "They'd have rooked you at the other hole--underfed you, +overcharged you, and filled you full of lies. I tell the truth to folk +who come to my hotel." + +And he did, some of it. He was inexhaustible, unconquerable, tireless, +an optimist always. He had a store that was part of the hotel, in +which he claimed to sell "everything the mind of man could wish for in +East Africa"; and the boast was true. He even sold American dime +novels. + +"East Africa's a great country!" he kept assuring us. "Some day we'll +all be rich! Have to get ready for it! Have to be prepared! Have to +stock everything the mind of man can want, to encourage new arrivals +and make the old ones feel at home. Lose a little money, but why +grumble? Get it back when the boom comes. As it will, mind you. As +it will. Can't help it. Richest country in the world--grow +anything--find anything--game--climate--elevation--scenery--natives by +the million to do the work--all good! Only waiting for white men with +energy, and capital to start things really moving!" + +But there were other points of view. We went to the bank, and found +its manager conservative. The amount of the draft we placed to our +credit insured politeness. + +"Be cautious," he advised us. "Take a good look round before you +commit yourselves!" + +He agreed to manage the interchange of messages between us and Monty, +and invited us all to dinner that evening at the club; so we left the +bank feeling friendly and more confident. Later, a chance-met English +official showed us over the old fort (now jail) where men of more +breeds and sorts than Noah knew, better clothed and fed than ever in +their lives, drew endless supplies of water in buckets from da Gama's +well. + +"Some of them have to be kicked out when their sentences expire!" he +told us. "See you at the club tonight. Glad to help welcome you." + +But there was a shock in store, and as time passed the shocks increased +in number and intensity. Our guns had not been surrendered to us by +the customs people. We had paid duty on them second-hand at the rate +for new ones, and had then been told to apply for them at the +collector's office, where our names and the guns' numbers would be +entered on the register--for a fee. + +We now went to claim them, and on the way down inquired at a store +about ammunition. We were told that before we could buy cartridges we +would need a permit from the collector specifying how many, and of what +bore we might buy. There was an Arab in the store ahead of us. He was +buying Martini Henry cartridges. I asked whether he had a permit, and +was told he did not need one. + +"Being an Arab?" I asked. + +"Being well known to the government," was the answer. + +We left the store feeling neither quite so confident nor friendly. And +the collector's Goanese assistant did the rest of the disillusioning. + +No, we could not have our guns. No, we could have no permit for +ammunition. No, the collector was not in the office. No, he would not +be there that afternoon. It was provided in regulations that we could +have neither guns, sporting licenses, nor permits for ammunition. The +guns were perfectly safe in the government godown--would not be +tampered with--would be returned to us when we chose to leave the +country. + +"But, good God, we've paid duty on them!" Oakes protested. + +"You should not have brought the guns with you unless you desired to +pay duty," said the Goanese. + +"But where's the collector?" Yerkes demanded. + +"I am only assistant," was the answer. "How should I know?" + +The man's insolence, of demeanor and words, was unveiled, and the more +we argued with him the more sullen and evasive he grew, until at last +he ordered us out of the office. At that we took chairs and announced +our intention of staying until the collector should come or be fetched. + We were informed that the collector was the most important government +official in Mombasa--information that so delighted Fred that he grew +almost good tempered again. + +"I'd rather twist a big tail than a little one!" he announced. "Shall +we sing to pass the time?" + +The Goanese called for the askari,* half-soldier, half-police-man, who +drowsed in meek solitude outside the office door. + +---------------- +* Askari, soldier. +---------------- + +"Remove these people, please!" he said in English, and then repeated it +in Kiswahili. + +The askari eyed us, shifted his bare feet uncomfortably, screwed up his +courage, tried to look stern, and said something in his own tongue. + +"Put them out, I said!" said the Goanese. + +"He orders you to put us out!" grinned Fred. + +"The office closes at three," said the Goanese, glancing at the clock +in a half-hearted effort to moderate his own daring. + +"Not unless the collector comes and closes it himself, it doesn't!" +Fred announced with folded arms. + +Will pulled out two rupees and offered them to the sentry. + +"Go and bring us some food," he said. "We intend to stay in here until +your bwana makubwa* comes." + +-------------- +* Bwana makubwa, lit. big master, senior government officer. +-------------- + +The sentry refused the money, waving it aside with the air of a Caesar +declining a crown. + +"Gee!" exclaimed Will. "You've got to hand it to the British if they +train colored police to refuse money." + +The askari, it seemed, was a man of more than one kind of discretion. +Without another word to the Goanese he saluted the lot of us with a +sweep of his arm, turned on his heel and vanished--not stopping in his +hurry to put on the sandals that lay on the door-step. We amused +ourselves while he was gone by flying questions at the Goanese, +calculated to disturb what might be left of his equanimity without +giving him ground for lawsuits. + +"How old are you?"--"How much pay do you get?"--"How long have you held +your job?"--"Do you ever get drunk?"--"Are you married?"--"Does your +wife love you?"--"Do you keep white mice?"--"Is your life +insured?"--"How often have you been in jail?"--"Are you honest?"--"Are +you vaccinated against the jim-jams?"--"Why is your name Fernandez and +not Braganza?" + +The man was about distracted, for he had been unwise enough to try to +answer, when suddenly the collector came in great haste and stalked +through the office into the inner room. + +"Fernandez!" he called as he passed, and the Goanese hurried after him, +hugely relieved. There was five minute's consultation behind the +partition in tones too low for us to catch more than a word or two, and +then Fernandez came out again with a "Now wait and see, my hearties!" +smile on his face. He was actually rubbing his palms together, sure of +a swift revenge. + +"He says you are to go in there," he announced. + +So we filed in, Fred Oakes first, and it seemed to me the moment I saw +the collector's face that the outlook was not so depressing. He looked +neither young nor incompetent. His jaw was neither receding nor too +prominent. His neck sat on his shoulders with the air of full +responsibility, unsought but not refused. And his eyes looked straight +into those of each of us in turn with a frank challenge no honest +fellow could resent. + +"Take seats, won't you," he said. "Your names, please?" + +We told him, and he wrote them down. + +"My clerk tells me you tried to bribe the askari. You shouldn't do +that. We are at great pains to keep the police dependable. It's too +bad to put temptation in their way." + +Will, with cold precision, told him the exact facts. He listened to +the end, and then laughed. + +"One more Goanese mistake!" he said. "We have to employ them. They +mean well. The country has no money to spend on European office +assistants. Well--what can I do for you?" + +At that Fred cut loose. + +"We want our guns before dark!" he said. "It's the first time my +character has been questioned by any government, and I say the same for +my friends!" + +"Oh?" said the collector, eying us strangely. + +"Yes!" said Fred. + +"That is so," said I. + +"Entirely so," said Will. + +"I have information," said the collector, tapping with a pencil on his +blotter, "that you men are ivory hunters. That you left Portuguese +territory because the German consul there had to request the Portuguese +government to expel you." + +"All easily disproved," said Fred. "Confront us, please, with our +accusers." + +"And that Lord Montdidier, with whom you have been traveling, became so +disgusted with your conduct that he refused to land with you at this +port as he at first intended!" + +We all three gasped. The first thing that occurred to me, and I +suppose to all of us, was to send for Monty. His steamer was not +supposed to sail for an hour yet. But the thought had hardly flashed +in mind when we heard the roar of steam and clanking as the anchor +chain came home. The sound traveled over water and across roofs like +the knell of good luck--the clanking of the fetters of ill fate. + +"Where's her next stop?" said I. + +"Suez," Fred answered. + +Simultaneously then to all three the thought came too that this +interpretation of Monty's remaining on board was exactly what we +wanted. The more people suspected us of acting independently of him +the better. + +"Confront us with our accusers!" Fred insisted. + +"You are not accused--at least not legally," said the collector. "You +are refused rifle and ammunition permits, that is all." + +"On the ground of being ivory hunters?" + +"Suspected persons--not known to the government--something rather +stronger than rumor to your discredit, and nothing known in your favor." + +"What recourse have we?" Fred demanded. + +"Well--what proof can you offer that you are bona fide travelers or +intending settlers? Are you ivory hunters or not?" + +"I'll answer that," said Fred--dexterously I thought, "when I've seen a +copy of the game laws. We're law-abiding men." + +The collector handed us a well thumbed copy of the Red Book. + +"They're all in that," he said. "I'll lend it to you, or you can buy +one almost anywhere in town. If you decide after reading that to go +farther up country I'm willing to issue provisional game licenses, +subject to confirmation after I've looked into any evidence you care to +submit on your own behalf. You can have your guns against a cash +deposit--" + +"How big?" + +"Two hundred rupees for each gun!' + +Fred laughed. The demand was intended to be away over our heads. The +collector bridled. + +"But no ammunition," he went on, "until your claim to respectability +has been confirmed. By the way, the only claim you've made to me is +for the guns. You've told me nothing about yourselves." + +"Two hundred a gun?" said Fred. "Counting a pistol or revolver as +one?" Three guns apiece--nine guns--eighteen hundred rupees' deposit?" + +The collector nodded with a sort of grim pleasure in his own +unreasonableness. Fred drew out our new check book. + +"You fellows agreeable?" he asked, and we nodded. + +"Here's a check on the Mombasa Bank for ten thousand, and your +government can have as much more again if it wants it," he said. "Make +me out a receipt please, and write on it what it's for." + +The collector wrote. He was confused, for he had to tear up more than +one blank. + +"I suppose we get interest on the money at the legal local rate?" asked +Fred maliciously. + +"I'll inquire about that," said the collector. + +"Excuse me," said Fred, "but I'm going to give you some advice. While +you're inquiring, look into the antecedents of Lady Isobel Saffren +Waldon! It's she who gave out the tip against us. Her tip's a bad +one. So is she." + +"She hasn't applied for guns or a license," the collector answered +tartly. "It's people who want to carry firearms--people able +and likely to make trouble whom we keep an eye on." + +"She's more likely to make trouble for you than a burning house!" put +in Will Yerkes. "If my partner hadn't paid you that check I'd be all +for having this business out! I'm going to let them know in the States +what sort of welcome people receive at this port!" + +"You came of your own accord. You weren't invited," the collector +answered. + +"That's a straight-out lie!" snapped Will. "You know it's a lie! Why, +there isn't a newspaper in South Africa that hasn't been carrying ads +of this country for months past. Even papers I've had sent me from the +States have carried press-agent dope about it. Why, you've been +yelling for settlers like a kid squalling for milk--and you say we're +not invited now we've come here! I'm going to write and tell the U. S. +papers what that dope is worth!" + +"Ivory hunters are not settlers," the collector interjected. + +"Who said we're ivory hunters?" Will was in a fine rage, and Fred and +I leaned back to enjoy the official's discomfort. "Besides, your ads +bragged about the big game as one of the chief attractions! All the +information you can possibly have against us must have come from a +female crook in the pay of the German government! You're not behaving +the way gentlemen do where I was raised!" + +"There is no intention to offend," said the collector. + +"Intention is good!" said Will, laughing in spite of himself. "There's +another thing I want to know. What about ammunition? We're to have +our guns. They're useless without cartridges. What about it?" + +"The guns shall be sent to your hotel tonight. The provisional +sporting licenses--if you want them--will be ready tomorrow +morning--seven hundred and fifty rupees apiece--I'll charge them +against your deposit. If the licenses should be confirmed after +inquiry, I will send you permits through the post for fifty rounds of +ammunition each." + +Will snorted. Fred Oakes yelled with laughter, and I gaped with +indignation. + +"I'm going into this to the hilt!" spluttered Fred. "I wouldn't have +missed it for a fortune! We three are going to constitute ourselves a +committee of inspection. We're going to wander the country over and +report home to the newspapers--South African--British--U. S. A.--and +any other part of the world that's interested! We won't worry about +ammunition. Send us permits for whatever quantity seems to you proper, +and we'll note it all down in our diaries!" + +We all stood up, the collector obviously uncomfortable and we, if not +at ease, at least happier than we had been. + +Fred nodded to the collector genially, and we all walked out. + +Mombasa is a fairly large island, but the built-over part of it is +small, so it was not surprising that we should emerge from the office +face to face with Lady Saffren Waldon. She was the one surprised, not +we. She probably thought she had spiked our guns in that part of the +world forever, and the sight of us coming laughing from the very office +where we should have been made glum must have been disconcerting. + +She was riding on one of the little trolley-cars, pushed by two boys in +white official uniform, dressed in her flimsiest best, a lace parasol +across her knee, and beside her an obvious member of the +government--young, and so recently from home as not to have lost his +pink cheeks yet. + +Had there not been an awning over the trolley-car she might have used +the parasol to make believe she had not seen us. But the awning +precluded that, and we were not more than two or three yards away. + +"Laugh!" whispered Fred. + +So we crossed the track laughing and the trolley had to pause to let us +by. We laughed as we raised our helmets to her--laughed both at her +and at the pink and white puppy she had taken in leash. And then the +sort of thing happened that nearly always does when men with a +reasonable faith in their own integrity make up their minds to see +opprobrium through. Fate stepped hard on our arm of the balance. + +If built-over Mombasa is a small place, so is Africa. So is the world. + Striding down the hill from the other hotel, the rival one, the Royal, +came a man so well known in so many lands that they talk of naming a +tenth of a continent after him--the mightiest hunter since Nimrod, and +very likely mightier than he; surely more looked-up to and +respected--a little, wiry-looking, freckled, wizened man whose beard +had once been red, who walked with a decided limp and blinked genially +from under the brim of a very neat khaki helmet. + +"Why, bless my soul if it isn't Fred Oakes!" he exclaimed, in a +squeaky, worn-out voice that is as well known as his face, and +quickened his pace down-hill. + +"Courtney!" said Fred. "There's only one man I'd rather meet!" + +The little man laughed. "Oh, you and your Montdidier are still +inseparable, I suppose! How are you, Fred? I'm glad to see you. Who +are your friends?" + +At that minute out came the collector from his office--stood on the +step, and stared. Fred introduced us to Courtney, and I experienced +the thrill of shaking hands with the man accounts of whose exploits had +fired my schoolboy imagination and made stay-at-home life forever after +an impossibility. + +"I missed the steamer, Fred. Not another for a week. Going down now +to see about a passage to Somaliland. I suppose you'll be at the club +after dinner?" + +"No" said Fred. "We've an invitation, but I think we'll send a note +and say we can't come. We'll dine at our hotel and sit on the veranda +afterward." + +I wondered what Fred was driving at, and so did the collector who was +headed across the street and listening with all ears. + +"That so? Not a bad idea. They've very kindly made me an honorary +member of the club, but I rather expect there's a string to that--eh, +Fred, don't you? They'll expect stories,--stories. I get tired of +telling the same tales so many times over. Suppose I join you fellows, +eh? I'm at the Royal. You at the other place? Suppose I join you +after dinner, and we have a pipe together on the veranda?" + +"Nothing I'd like better," said Fred, and I felt too pleased with the +prospect to say anything at all. Growing old is a foolish and +unnecessary business, but there is no need to forego while young the +thrills of unashamed hero-worship; in fact, that is one of the ways of +continuing young. It is only the disillusioned (poor deceived ones) +and the cynics, who grow old ungracefully. + +We went upstreet, through the shadow of the great grim fort. The +trolley-car trundled down among the din, smells and colors of the +business-end of town. Looking over my shoulder I saw Courtney talking +to the collector. + +"We're getting absolution, Fred!" said I. + +"I'm not sure we need it," Fred answered. "I hope Courtney won't tell +too much!" So quickly does a man jump from praying for friends at +court to fearing them! + +"Courtney looked to me," said Will, "like a man who would give no games +away." + +Glad you think that of him" said Fred. + +"Why?" + +"Tell you later, maybe." + +But he did not tell until after dinner. (It was a good dinner for East +Africa. Shark steak figured in it, under a more respectable name; and +there was zebu hump, guinea-fowl, and more different kinds of fruit +than a man could well remember.) When it was over we sat in deep +armchairs on the long wide veranda that fronts the whole hotel. The +evening sea-breeze came and wafted in on us the very scents of Araby; +the night sounds that whisper of wilderness gave the lie to a tinkling +guitar that somewhere in the distance spoke of civilized delights. The +surf crooned on coral half a mile away, and very good cigar smoke (from +a box that Monty had sent ashore with our belongings) supplemented +coffee and the other aids to physical contentment. Then, limping +between the armchairs, and ashamed that we should rise to greet +him--motioning us down again with a little nervous laugh--Courtney came +to us. Within five minutes of his coming the world, and the clock, and +the laws of men might have all reversed themselves for aught we cared. +Without really being conscious he was doing it Courtney plunged into +our problem, grasped it, sized it up, advised us, flooded us with +priceless, wonderful advice, and did it with such almost feminine +sympathy that I believe we would have been telling him our love-affairs +at last, if a glance at the watch he wore in a case at his belt had not +told him it was three A. M. + +"There's trouble" he began when he had filled his pipe. "You boys are +in trouble. What is it?" he asked, shifting and twitching in his +seat--refusing an armchair--refusing a drink. + +"Tell us first what's the matter with you," said Fred. + +"Oh, nothing. An old wound. A lion once dragged me by this shoulder +half a mile or so. At this time of year I get pains. They last a day +or two, then pass--Go on, tell me!" + +He never sat really still once that whole evening, yet never once +complained or made a gesture of impatience. + +"I propose," said Fred, with a glance at Yerkes and me, "to tell +Courtney everything without reserve." + +The little old hunter nodded, watching us with bright blue eyes. I +received the impression that he knew more secrets than he could tell +should he talk down all the years that might be left him. He was the +sort of man in whom nearly every one confides. + +"We're after Tippoo Tib's ivory!" said Fred, plunging into the middle +of things. "Monty has gone to drive a bargain with the King of +Belgium. Do you think it's a wild goose chase?" + +Courtney chuckled. "No," he said. "I wouldn't call it that. They've +been killing elephants in Africa ever since the flood. Ivory must have +accumulated. It's somewhere. Some of it must be so old and well +seasoned as to be practically priceless, unless rats have spoiled it. +Rats play old Harry with ivory, you know." + +"Have you a notion where it is?" demanded Fred. + +Courtney laughed. "Behold me leaving the country!" he said. +"If I knew I'd look. If I saw I'd take!" + +"Can you give us a hint?" + +"There are caves near the summit of Mount Elgon that would hold the +world's revenues. None of them have ever been thoroughly explored. +Cannibals live in some of them. Cannibals and caverns is a combination +that might appeal to Tippoo Tib, but there's no likelihood that he +buried all that ivory in one place, you know. I suspect the greater +part is in the Congo, and that the Germans know its whereabouts within +a mile or two." + +"How did they discover it?" + +"Why don't they dig it out?" + +"What keeps 'em from turning their knowledge into money?" + +We had forgotten our own troubles. Courtney, too, seemed to forget for +the moment that he had began by asking us a question. + +"Remember Emin Pasha? When was it--'87--'88--'89 that Stanley went and +rescued him? Perhaps you recall what was then described as Emin's +ingratitude after the event? British government offered him a billet. +Khedive of Egypt cabled him the promise of a job, all on Stanley's +recommendation. Emin turned 'em all down and accepted a job from the +Germans. Nobody understood it at the time. My own idea is that Emin +thought he knew more or less where that hoard is. He didn't really +want to come away with Stanley, you know. Being a German, I suppose he +preferred to share his secret with his own crowd. I dare say he +thought of telling Stanley but judged that the 'Rock breaker' might +demand a too large share. The value of the stuff must be so enormous +that it's almost worth going to war about, from the point of view of a +nation hungry for new colonies. Emin is dead, and it's likely he left +no exact particulars behind him. To my personal knowledge the Germans +have had a swarm of spies for a long time operating beyond the Congo +border." + +"Were you looking for the stuff yourself?" I asked. + +"Oh, no," he laughed. "But when I'm hunting I look about me. I'll +tell you where the stuff may possibly be. There's a section of country +called the Bahr el Gazal that the Congo people claim, but that I +believe will eventually prove to lie on the British side of the +boundary. It was good elephant country--which is to say bad living and +traveling for man--since the earth took shape out of ooze. Awful +swampy, malarious, densely wooded, dangerous country, sparsely +inhabited by savages not averse to cannibalism when they've +opportunity. The ivory may be there. If the Germans know it's there +they're naturally afraid the British government would claim the whole +district the minute the secret was out. Their plan may possibly be to +wait until a boundary dispute arises in the ordinary course of time +(keeping a cautious eye on the cache meanwhile, of course) and then +take the Congo government side. If they can contrive to have it +acknowledged as Congo territory, they might then pick a quarrel with +the Congo government--or come to some sort of terms with them." + +"They've patience," I said, "if they're playing that game!" + +Courtney raised his eyebrows until his forehead was a mass of deep +wrinkles. Then he blew a dozen smoke rings. + +"Patient--perhaps. It's my impression they're as remorseless and +persistent as white ants--undermining, digging, devouring everywhere +while the rest of the world sleeps. Do you remember there was a mutiny +of native troops in Uganda not many years ago? Some said that was +because the troops were being paid in truck instead of money, and like +most current excuses that one had some truth in it. But the men +themselves vowed they were going to set up an African Muhammedan +empire." + +"What had that to do with Germans?" asked Fred. + +"Nothing that I can personally prove" said Courtney. "But I've a broad +acquaintance among natives, and considerable knowledge of their +tongues. Muhammedanism is spreading among them very rapidly. Over and +over again, beside camp-fires, and in the dark when they thought I was +not listening, I have heard them talk of missionaries from German +territory who spread a doctrine of what you might call pan-Islam for +lack of a better name. I said at the time of the Uganda mutiny that I +believed Germans were behind it. I've seen no reason to change my +opinion since. It's obvious that if the mutiny had by some ill chance +succeeded Uganda would have been an easy prey for Karl Peters and his +Germans. If that ivory of Tippoo Tib's is really in the Bahr el Gazal +at the back of Uganda, then the German motive for stirring up the +Uganda mutiny would be obvious." + +"But doesn't our government know all this?" demanded Fred. + +"That depends on what you mean by the word know," answered Courtney. +"I've made no secret of my own opinion!" + +"But they wouldn't listen?" + +"Some did, some didn't. The Home government--which was the India +Office in those days--took no notice whatever. One or two men out here +believed, but I think they're dead. When the Foreign Office took the +country over I don't suppose they overhauled old reports very +carefully. I dare say my letters on the subject lie inches deep in +dust." + +"England doesn't deserve to keep her colonies!" vowed Fred, caught in a +sudden flood of indignation. + +Courtney laughed. + +"When you've seen as many of the other nations' colonies as I have +you'll qualify that verdict! We do our best. God gave us our work to +do, and the devil came and made us stupid! Take this country, for +instance." + +"Yes!" agreed Fred. "Take this country! We came ashore today--left +Monty on board ship on his way to Europe. Nobody knew a thing about +us. A female woman, known to the police in Zanzibar and so notorious +in Europe that she's in no hurry to go home--said, too, on every hand +to be in the pay of the German government--chose to tell lies about us +to the chuckle-headed puppies in charge of Mombasa. Net result--what +do you suppose?" + +"I know," said Courtney. "I've been told this evening." His eyes +changed, and his voice took on the almost feminine note of appeal that +came strangely from a big game hunter. "You boys must overlook things. + These boys you're angry with are younger than you, Fred. That +collector you've contrived to pick a quarrel with has fought Arabs and +cannibal troops--odds against him of fifty or a hundred to one, mind +you--all across the Congo and back again. He fought in the Uganda +mutiny. He's a man. He's a merchant, though, with a merchant's +education. He was taken over with the rest of the clerks when the +British government superseded the British East Africa Trading Company. +He has never had the advantage of legal training. Went to a common +school. No advantages of any kind. Poorly paid and overworked. +There's no money in the country yet. Nobody to tax. +Salaries--expenses and so on come from home, voted by Parliament. As +long as that condition lasts they're all going to feel nervous. They +know they'll get the blame for everything that goes wrong, and precious +little credit in any case. Parliament advertised the country in answer +to their complaints of no revenue. Parliament called for settlers. +But they're not ready for settlers. They don't know how to handle +them. They've no troops--nothing but a handful of black police. How +shall they keep in order colonials armed with repeating rifles? +They're not ready. The Uganda Railway isn't finished yet; trains get +through to Victoria Nyanza once a week, but there's endless work to be +done yet on the line, and Parliament grudges them every penny they +spend on it. Yet the railway was rushed through by order of Parliament +to prevent Doctor Karl Peters and the Germans from claiming occupation +of the head-waters of the Nile and so dominating Upper Egypt. You boys +must be considerate." + +"All right," said Fred. "I'll grant all that." + +"But what gets me" Will interrupted, "is that they should condemn us +out-of-hand--on sight--untried--on the say-so of this Lady Saffren +Waldon. She carries German letters of credit. She's so notoriously in +league with Germans that you'd think even these little Napoleons 'ud +know it. I'm American myself, thank God, but these two men are their +own kith and kin. Why should they judge their own countrymen unheard +on the say-so of a woman like that? That's what rattles me!" + +Courtney blew six smoke rings. + +"You'll have to forgive them, lad. Too many of the Englishmen who have +come here were bad bats from the South, so hot-footed that they burned +the grass. Then--don't forget that the Germans have a military +government to the south of us--all experienced men--a great many of +them unmitigated rascals, but nearly all of them clever--students of +strategy and psychology and tactics--some of them brilliant men who +have had to apply for colonial service because of debt or scandal. +They're overmanned where we are under-manned--backed up from home where +our boys are only blamed and neglected--well supplied with troops and +ammunition, where our police are kept down to the danger point and now +and then even without cartridges. The Germans have no railway yet, but +they've a policy and they keep it secret. We have a railway, and no +policy except retrenchment and economy. I'm convinced the German +government has no scruples. We have. So you must sympathize with our +young men, not quarrel with them." + +"Believe me," I said, "we didn't start out to quarrel with anybody. +That woman lied about us. There's no excuse for believing her without +giving us a hearing." + +"Oh, yes there is. I spoke with her myself this evening," said +Courtney. "She's staying at my hotel, you know. She's a match for +much more experienced men than our young officials. They've been +fighting Arabs, not flirting. She had the impudence to try to flatter +me. I don't doubt she's telling a crowd of men tonight that I'm in +love with her--perhaps not exactly telling them that, but giving them +to understand it. Why don't I stroll down to the club and deny it? +For the same reason that you don't openly denounce her! It's semi- or +wholly-sentimental chivalry--rank stupidity, if you like to call it +that, but it's national, I'm glad to say, and I'm as proud of it as any +one." + +"Doesn't it look to you," said Fred, "that if she and the German +government are so infernally anxious to spoil our chances--and they +suspect what we're after, you know--doesn't it look to you as if there +may really be something in this quest of ours?" + +"Undoubtedly," said Courtney. "There's ivory in it, tons and tons and +tons of ivory. Somebody will find it some day." + +"Join us then!" said Fred. "Cancel your trip to Somaliland and come +with us! I can speak for Monty. I know he'll welcome you into the +partnership!" + +"I believe I could almost speak for Monty, too," laughed Courtney. "He +and I were at Eton together, and we've never ceased being friends. But +I can't come with you. No. I'm making a sort of semi-official trip. +I shall hunt, of course, but there are observations to be made. The +pan-Islamic theory is said to be making headway also in Somaliland." + +"Do you feel you have any lien on the Elgon Caves and Bahr el Gazal +clues?" Fred asked. + +"No. I make you a present of those ideas. I'm sure I hope you find +the stuff. I'm wondering, though--I'm wondering." + +"I'll bet you a dollar I'm thinking of the same thing," said Will. + +"Out with it, then." + +"What's to prevent the Germans from making their own dicker with the +King of the Belgians or with the Congo government, and rifling the +hoard on a fifty-fifty or some such basis?" + +"Correct," said Courtney. "I confess myself puzzled about that. But I +know no European politics. There may be a thousand reasons. And then, +you know, the King of the Belgians has the name of being a grasping +dealer. The management of his private zone on the Congo is +unspeakable. It's possible the Germans may prefer not to risk putting +His Majesty on the scent." + +"Well, we've our work cut out," said Fred, laughing and yawning. "That +woman has started us off with a bad name." + +"That is one thing I can really do for you," Courtney answered. "I've +no official standing, but the boys all listen to me. I'll tell them--" + +"For the love of God don't tell them too much!" Fred exclaimed. + +"I'll tell them you're friends of mine," he went on. "I believe that +will solve the sporting license and ammunition problem. As for the +woman--if I were in your shoes I would steal a march on her. I +wouldn't be surprised if your licenses and ammunition permits were here +at the hotel by ten tomorrow morning. I see they've sent your guns +already. Well, there's a train for Nairobi tomorrow noon, and not +another for three days. I'd take tomorrow's train if I were you. I +always find in going anywhere the start's the principal thing. You'll +go?" + +"We will," we answered, one after the other. + +"Good night, then, boys; I'll be going." + +But we walked with him down to his hotel--I, and I think the others, +full to the teeth with the pleasure of knowing him, as well as of envy +of his scars, his five or six South African campaigns, his adventures, +and (by no means least) his unblemished record as a gentleman. Merely +a little bit of a man with a limp, but better than a thousand men who +lacked his gentleness. + + + + +CHAPTER FOUR + +THE NJO HAPA SONG + +Delights--ah, Ten are the dear delights (and the Book + forbids them, one by one)-- +The broad old roads of a thousand loves--back turned to the + Law--the lawless fun-- +Old Arts for new--old hours reborn--and who shall mourn + when the sands have run? + + I was old when they told the Syren Tales + (All ears were open then!) + And the harps were afire with plucked desire + For the white ash oars again-- + For oars and sail, and the open sea, + High prow against pure blue, + The good sea spray on eye and lip, + The thrumming hemp, the rise and dip, + The plunge and the roll of a driven ship + As the old course boils anew! + +Sweetly I call, the captains come. The home ties draw at + hearts in vain. +Potent the spell of Africa! Who East and South the course + has ta'en +By Guardafui to Zanzibar may go, but he, shall come again. + + +Courtney proved better than his word. Our Big Game Licenses arrived +after breakfast, and permits for five hundred rounds of rifle +ammunition each. In an envelope in addition was Fred's check with the +collector's compliments and the request that we kindly call and pay for +the licenses. In other words we now had absolution. + +We called, and were received as fellow men, such was the genius of +Courtney's friendship. A railway man looked in. The collector's dim +office became awake with jokes and laughter. + +"Going up today?" he asked. "I'll see you get berths on the train." + +We little realized at the moment the extent of that consideration; but +understanding dawned fifteen minutes before high noon when we strolled +to the station behind a string of porters carrying our luggage. +Courtney was there to see us off, and he looked worried. + +"I'm wondering whether you'll ever get your luggage through," he said +with a sort of feminine solicitude. It was strange to hear the hero of +one's school-days, mighty hunter and fearless leader of forlorn +campaigns, actually troubled about whether we could catch our train. +But so the man was, gentle always and considerate of everybody but +himself. + +There was law in this new land, at all events along the railway line. +Not even handbags or rifles could pass by the barrier until weighed and +paid for. Crammed in the vestibule in front of us were fifty people +fretfully marshalling in line their strings of porters lest any later +comer get by ahead of them; foremost, with his breast against the +ticket window, was Georges Coutlass. Things seemed not to be +proceeding as he wished. + +There was one babu behind the window--a mild, unhappy-looking Punjabi, +or Dekkani Mussulman. There was another at the scales, who knew almost +no English: his duty was to weigh--do sums--write the result on a +slip, and then justify his arithmetic to office babu and passenger, +before any sort of progress could be made. The fact that all +passengers shouted at him to hurry or be reported to big superiors +complicated the process enormously; and the equally discordant fact +that no passenger--and especially not Georges Coutlass--desired or +intended to pay one anna more than he could avoid by hook, crook, or +argument, made the game amusing to the casual looker-on, but hastened +nothing (except tempers). The temperature within the vestibule was +112' by the official thermometer. + +"You pair of black murderers!" yelled Coutlass as we took our place in +line. "You bloody robbers! You pickpockets! You train-thieves! Go +out and dig your graves! I will make an end of you!" + +"You should not use abusive language" the babu retorted mildly, +stopping to speak, and then again to wipe his spectacles, and his +forehead, and his hands, and to glance at the clock, and to mutter what +may or may not have been a prayer. + +Coutlass exploded. + +"Shouldn't, eh? Who the hell are you to tell me what I shouldn't do? +Sell me a ticket, you black plunderer, d'you hear! Look! Listen!" + +He snatched a piece of paper from the babu's hand and turned to face +the impatient crowd. + +"This hell-cat--" (the unhappy babu looked less like a hell-cat than +any vision of the animal I ever imagined) "wants to make out that +seventy-one times seven annas and three pice is forty-nine rupees, +eleven annae! Oh, you charlatan! You mountebank! You black-blooded +robber! You miscreant! Cut your throat, I order you!" + +The babu expostulated, stammered, quailed. Coutlass drew in his breath +for the gods of Greece alone knew what heights of fury next. But +interruption entered. + +"There, that's enough of you! Get to the back of the line!" + +The man who had promised us berths came abruptly through the barrier, +and unlike the babu did not appear afraid of any one. The Greek let +out his gathered breath with a bark of fury, like a seal coming up to +breathe. Taking that for a symptom of opposition the newcomer, very +cool in snow-white uniform and helmet, seized Coutlass by the neck and +hustled him, arguing like a boiler under pressure, through the crowd. +The Greek was three inches taller, and six or eight inches bigger round +the chest, but too astonished to fight back, and perhaps, too, aware of +the neighborhood of old da Gama's fort, where more than one Greek was +pining for the grape and olive fields of Hellas. With a final shove +the railway official thrust him well out into the road. + +"If you miss the train, serve you right!" he said. "Babus are willing +servants, to be treated gently!" + +Then he saw us. + +"You're late! Where's your luggage? These your porters? All +right--put you on your honor. Go on through. Save time. Have your +stuff weighed, and settle the bill at Nairobi. All of it, mind! Babu, +let these people through!" + +Followed by Courtney, who seemed to have right of way wherever it +suited him to wander, we filed through the gate, crossed the blazing +hot platform, and boarded a compartment labeled "Reserved." The +railway man nodded and left us, to hurry and help sell tickets. + +It was an Indian type railway carriage be left us in, a contraption not +ill-suited to Africa--nor yet so comfortable as to diminish the +sensation of travel toward new frontiers. + +Each car was divided into two compartments, entirely separate and +entered from opposite ends; facing ours was the rear end of a +second-class car, into which we could look if the doors were open and +we lay feet-foremost on the berths. The berths were arranged +lengthwise, two each side, and one above the other. + +It was what they called a mixed train, mixed that is of freight and +passengers--third-class in front, second next, then first, and a dozen +little iron freight cars of two kinds in front. In those days there +were neither tunnels nor bridges on that railway, and there was a +single seat on the roof at each end of first- and second-class +compartments reached by a ladder, for any passenger enamored of the +view. Even the third-class compartments (and they were otherwise as +deliberately bare and comfortless as wood and iron could make them) had +lattice-work shades over the upper half of the windows. + +For the babu's encouragement, and to increase the panic of the +ticketless, the engineer was blowing the whistle at short intervals. +Passengers, released in quicker order now that a white official was +lending the two babus a hand, began coming through the barrier in +sudden spurts, baggage in either hand and followed hot-foot by natives +with their heavier stuff. They took headers into the train, and the +porters generally came back grinning. + +"I see through the whistling stunt," Will announced. "My, but that +fellow on the engine has faith; or else the system's down real fine in +these parts! He won't be back for a week. Those woolly-headed porters +are going to save up his commission and hand it to him when he brings +the down-train in! The game's good: he whistles--passenger +runs--can't make change--pays two, three, four, ten times what the +job's worth--and the porters divvy up with the engineer. But good +lord, the porters must be honest!" + +Presently a pale white man in khaki with a red beard entered our +compartment, and Courtney had to make room for him on the seat. He +apologized with less conviction of real regret than I ever remember +noticing, although the pouches under his eyes gave him a rather +world-weary look. + +"Not another first-class berth on the train--every last one engaged. +Might be worse. Might have had to ride with Indians. Curse of this +country, Indians are. I'd rid the land of 'em double-quick if +government 'ud pay me a rupee a head--an' I'd provide cartridges! But +government likes 'em! Ugh! Ever travel in one compartment with a +dozen of 'em? Sleep in a tent with a score of 'em? Share blankets +with a couple of 'em on a cold night? No? You be glad I'm not an +Indian. One's enough!" + +We made room for his belongings, and leaned from the window all on one +seat together. The time to start arrived and passed; hot passengers +continued spurting for the train at intervals--all sorts of +passengers--English, Mauritius--French, Arab, Goanese, German, Swahili, +Indian, Biluchi, one Japanese, two Chinamen, half-breeds, +quarter-breeds of all the hues from ivory to dull red, guinea-yellow, +and bleached out black; but the second-class compartment facing our +door remained empty. There was a name on the card in the little metal +reservation frame, and every passenger who could read English glanced +at it, but nobody came to claim it even when the engine's extra shrill +screaming and at last the ringing of a bell warned Courtney that time +was really up, and he got out on the platform. + +"Good-by," he said through the window. "I've done what I could to bring +you luck. Don't be tempted to engage the first servants who apply to +you at Nairobi. If you wait there a week I'll send my Kazimoto to you; + he's a very good gun-bearer. He'll be out of a job when I'm gone. I +shall give him his fare to Nairobi. Engage him if you want a +dependable boy, but remember the rule about dogs: a good one has one +master! I don't mean Kazimoto is a dog--far from it. I mean, treat +him as reasonably as you would a dog, and he'll serve you well. He's a +first-class Nyamwezi, from German East. Oh, and one more scrap of +advice--": + +He came close to the window, but at that moment the engine gave a final +scream and really started. Passengers yelled farewells. The engine's +apoplectic coughs divided the din into spasms, and there came a great +bellowing from the ticket office. He could not speak softly and be +heard at all. Louder he had to speak, and then louder, ending almost +with a shout. + +"The best way to Elgon is by way of Kisumu and Mumias, whatever anybody +else may tell you. And if you find the stuff, or any of it," (he was +running beside the train now)--"be in no hurry to advertise the fact! +Go and make terms first with government--then--after you've made +terms--tell 'em you've found it! Find the stuff--make terms--then +produce what you've found! Get my meaning? Good-by, all. Good luck!" + +We left him behind then, wiping the sweat from his wrinkled, freckled +forehead, gazing after us as if we had all been lifelong friends of +his. He made no distinction between us and Fred, but was equally +anxious to serve us all. + +"If that man isn't white, who is?" demanded Will, and then there was +new interest. + +We had left the ticket office far behind, but the train was moving +slowly and there was still a good length of platform before our car +would be clear of the station altogether. We heard a roar like a +bull's from behind, and a dozen men--white, black and yellow--came +careering down the platform carrying guns, baggage, bedding, and all +the paraphernalia that travelers in Africa affect. + +First in the van was Georges Coutlass, showing a fine turn of speed but +tripping on a bed-sheet at every other step, with his uncased rifle in +one hand, his hat in the other, an empty bandolier over one shoulder +and a bag slung by a strap swinging out behind him. He made a leap for +the second-class compartment in front of us, and landed on all fours on +the platform. We opened the door of our compartment to watch him +better. + +Once on the platform he threw his rifle into the compartment and braced +himself to catch the things his stampeding followers hurled after +him--caught them deftly and tossed them in, yelling instructions in +Greek, Kiswahili, Arabic, English, and two or three other languages. +It may be that the engineer looked back and saw what was happening (or +perhaps the guard signaled with the cord that passed through eyeholes +the whole length of the train) for though we did not slow down we +gained no speed until all his belongings had been hurled, and caught, +and flung inside. Then came his traveling companions--caught by one +hand and dragged on their knees up the steps. They were heavy men, but +he snatched all three in like a boy pulling chestnuts from the fire. + +The first was a Greek--evil-looking, and without the spirit that in the +case of Coutlass made a stranger prone to over-look +shortcomings--dressed in khaki, with rifle and empty bandolier. Next, +chin, elbow, hand and knee up the steps came a fat, tough-looking +Goanese, dressed anyhow at all in pink-colored dirty shirt, dark pants, +and a helmet, also with rifle and empty bandolier. I judged he weighed +about two hundred and eighty pounds, but Coutlass yanked him in like a +fish coming overside. Last came a man who might be Arab, or part-Arab, +part-Swahili, whom I did not recognize at first, fat, black, dressed in +the white cotton garments and red fez of the more or less well-to-do +native, and voluble with rare profanity. + +"Johnson!" shouted Fred with almost the joy of greeting an old +acquaintance. + +It was Hassan, sure enough, short-winded and afraid, but more afraid of +being left behind than of the manhandling. Coutlass took hold of his +outstretched arm, hoisted him, cracked his shins for him against the +top step, and hurled him rump-over-shoulders into the compartment, +where the other Greek and the Goanese grabbed him by the arms and legs +and hove him to an upper berth, on which he lay gasping like a fish out +of water and moaning miserably. Their compartment was a mess of +luggage, blankets, odds-and-ends, and angry men. Coutlass found a +whisky bottle out of the confusion, and swallowed the stuff neat while +the other Greek and the Goanese waited their turn greedily. There was +nothing much in that compartment to make a man like Hassan feel at home. + +"Those Greeks," said our red-bearded traveling companion as we shut the +door again, "are only one degree better than Indians--a shade less +depraved perhaps--a sight more dangerous. I sure do hate a Punjabi, +but I don't love Greeks! The natives call 'em bwana masikini to their +faces--that means Mister Mean White y'know. They're a lawless lot, the +Greeks you'll run across in these parts. My advice is, shoot first! +Walk behind 'em! If they ain't armed, hoof 'em till they cut an' run! +Greeks are no good!" + +We introduced ourselves. He told us his name was Brown. + +"There's three Browns in this country: Hell-fire Brown of Elementaita, +Joseph Henry Brown of Gilgil, and Brown of Lumbwa. Brown of Lumbwa's +me. Don't believe a word either of the other two Browns tell you! +Yes, we're all settlers. Country good to settle in? Depends what you +call good. If you like lots of room, an' hunting, natives to wait an' +your own house on your own square mile--comfortable climate--no +conventions--nor no ten commandments, why, it's pretty hard to beat. +But if you want to wear a white shirt, and be moral, and get rich, it's +rotten! You've a chance to make money if you're not over law-abiding, +for there's elephants. But if you're moral, and obey the laws, you +haven't but one chance, an' she's a slim one." + +"Well," said Fred, genially, "tell us about the only one. We're men to +whom the ten commandments are--" + +"You look it!" Brown interrupted. "Well, what's the odds? You'll +never find it, and anyhow, everybody knows it's Tippoo Tib's ivory. I +mean to have a crack at spotting it myself, soon as I get my farm +fenced an' one or two other matters attended to. Gov'ment offers ten +per cent. to whoever leads 'em to it, but they can't believe any one's +as soft as that surely! They'll be lucky if they get ten per cent. of +it themselves! Man alive, but they say there's a whale of a hoard of +it! Hundreds o' tons of ivory, all waiting to be found, and fossicked +out, an' took! Say--if I was some o' those Greeks for instance, tell +you what I'd do: I'd off to Zanzibar, an' kidnap Tippoo Tib. The old +card's still living. I'd apply a red-hot poker to his silver-side an' +the under-parts o' his tripe-casings. He'd tell me where the stuff is +quicker'n winking! Supposin' I was a Greek without morals or no +compunctions or nothin', that's what I'd do! I don't hold with +allowin' any man to play dog in the manger with all that plunder!" + +"Have you a notion where the stuff might be?" Fred wondered guilelessly. + +"Ah! That 'ud be tellin'!" + +We had crossed the water that divides Mombasa from the mainland. +Behind us lay the prettiest and safest harbor on all that +thousand-league-long coast; before us was the narrow territory that +still paid revenue and owed nominal allegiance to the Sultan of +Zanzibar, although really like the rest of those parts under British +rule. We were bowling along beside plantations of cocoanut, peanut, +plantain and pineapple, with here and there a thicket of strange trees +to show what the aboriginal jungle had once looked like. When we +stopped at wayside stations the heat increased insufferably, until we +entered the great red desert that divides the coast-land from the +hills, and after that all seemed death and dust, and haziness, and hell. + +At first we passed occasional baobabs, with trunks fifteen or twenty +feet thick and offshoots covering a quarter of an acre. Then the trees +thinned out to the sparse and shriveled all-but-dead things that +struggle for existence on the border-lines between man's land and +desolation. At last we drew down the smoked panes over the window to +escape the glare and sight of the depressing desolation. + +The sun beat down on the iron roof. The heat beat up from the tracks. +Red dust polluted the drinking water in the little upright tank. Dust +filled eyes, nostrils, hair. Dust caked and grew stiff in the sweat +that streamed down us. Yet we stopped once at a station, and humans +lived there and a man got off the train. A lone lean babu and his +leaner, more miserable native crew came out and eyed the train like +vultures waiting for a beast to die. But we did not die, and the train +passed on into illimitable dusty redness, leaving them to watch the hot +rails ribbon out behind our grumbling caboose. + +There began to be carousing in the second-class compartment next ahead +of us. Our own Brown of Lumbwa produced a stone crock of Irish whisky +from a basket, imbibed copiously, offered us in turn the glistening +neck, looked relieved at our refusal, and grew voluble. + +"Hear them Greeks an' that Goa. You'd think they were gentlemen o' +breeding to hear 'em carryin' on! Truth is we've no government worth a +moment's consid'ration, an' everybody knows it, Greeks included! You +men lookin' for farms? Take your time! Once you get a farm, an' get +your house built, an' stock bought, an' stuff planted--once you've got +your capital invested so to speak, they've got you! Till then you're +free! Till then they'll maybe treat you with consideration! Till then +you leave the country when you like an' kiss yourselves good-by to them +an' Africa. Till then they've got no hold! The courts can fine you, +maybe, but can they make you pay? It's none so easy if you're half +awake! But take me: Suppose I break a reggylation. What happens? +They know where to find me--how much I've got--where it is--an' if I +don't pay the fine, they come an' collar my cattle an' sticks! D'you +notice any Greeks applyin' for farms? Not no crowds of 'em you don't! +I don't know one single Greek who has a farm in all East Africa! Any +Goas? Not a bit of it! Any Indians? Not one! So when a few extry +elephants get shot, I get the blame--down at Lumbwa, where there ain't +no elephants; an' the Greeks, Goas, Arabs an' Indians get fat on the +swag! It's easy to keep track of a white man; the natives all know +him, an' his name, an' where he lives, an' report everything he does to +the nearest gov'ment officer. But Greeks an' Goas an' Indians an' +Arabs ain't white, so the natives make no mention of 'em. They do the +lootin'; we settlers get the blame; an' the whole perishing country's +going to blazes as fast as a lump of ice melting in hell--but not so +fast as I'd like to see it go. Have some o' this whisky, won't you?" + +I was scarcely listening to him, but he seemed to get drunk just "so +far and no further," and Fred found him worth attention. It happened +that Fred, Will and I were all thinking of the same thing. Will put a +hand to his neck and stroked the little scar the Arab knife had made in +Zanzibar. + +"What sort of a country's this for women?" Fred demanded. + +"Which women?" Brown asked in sort of mild amazement. + +"White women?" + +"Rotten! Leastwise, there aren't any. Yes, there's three. Two +officials' wives, an' Pioneer Jane French. Heard o' her? Walked from +South Africa, Jane did--hoofed it along o' French, bossed his boys, +drove the cattle, shot the meat, ran the whole shootin' match, an' runs +him, too, when he's sober an' she's drunk. When they're both drunk +everybody ducks. She's scarcely a woman, she's sort of +three-men-rolled-into-one. Give her a horsewhip ae she'll manage the +unruliest crowd o' savages ever you or she set eyes on! Countin' her +as one, an' the two officials wives, an' her on this train, there's +four!" + +Our eyes met. I awoke to sudden interest that startled our informant +and made him curious in turn. + +"On this train?" + +"On this train. Didn't you see her? She was watching you chaps through +the window slits like the Queen o' Sheba keepin' tabs on Solomon. Say, +what's she doing in this country anyhow? I made a try to get a seat in +her carriage, but she ordered me out like Aunt Jemima puttin' out the +cat the last thing. She's got a maid in with her, but the maid ain't +white--Jew--Syrian--Levantine--Dago--some such breed. She's in this +compartment next behind." + +Our eyes met again. Fred laughed, and Will leaned forward to whisper +to me: "She heard what Courtney said to us about the way to Mount +Elgon!" + +"D'you know her name?" asked Brown. + +"No!" we all three lied together with one voice. + +"I do! I seen it on the reservation card. Lady Isobel Saffren Waldon! + Pretty high-soundin' patronymic, what? Lady Isobel Saffren Waldon!" +He repeated the name over and over, crescendo, with growing fervor. +"What's a woman with a title doin' d'you suppose? The title's no fake. + She's got the blood all right, all right! You ought to ha' heard her +shoo me out! Lummy! A nestin' hen giving the office to a snake +weren't in it to her an' me! Good looker, too! What's she doin' in +East Africa?" + +We made no shift to answer. + +"The officials' wives," he went on, "are keen after Tippoo's ivory, +but, bein' obliged to stay in the station except when their husbands go +on safari, an' then only go where their husbands go, they've no show to +speak of. Pioneer Jane's nuts on it, an' she's dangerous. Jane's as +likely to find the stuff as any one. She's independent--go where she +blooming well pleases--game as a lioness--looks like one, too, only a +lioness is kind o' softer an' not so quick in the uptake. My money's +on Jane for a place. But d'you suppose this Lady Saffren +Whatshername's another one? Them Greeks ahead of us I'm sure of; all +the Greeks in Africa are huntin' for nothin' else. But what about the +dame?" + +"Going to join her husband, perhaps," suggested Fred to put him off. + +"There's no man o' that name in British East or Uganda. I know 'em +all--every one." + +"Father--brother--uncle--nephew--oh, perhaps she's just traveling," +said Fred. + +"Just traveling my eye! Titled ladies don't come 'just traveling' in +these parts--not by a sight, they don't--not alone!" + +He helped himself to more whisky, but had reached the stage where it +had no further visible effect on him. + +"Anyhow," he said, wiping the neck of the jar with his hand, "if she +kids herself she'll be let go where she pleases--why, she kids herself! + It takes Pioneer Jane to trespass where writs don't run! Jane goes +where her husband don't dare follow. The officials don't say a word. +Y'see there's no jail where they could stow a white woman and observe +the decencies. So she goes over the borderline whenever she sees fit. +The king's writ runs maybe for thirty miles north o' this railway. +Once over that they can't catch you. But unless you're a black man, or +Pioneer Jane, the natives tip the gov'ment off an' gov'ment rounds you +up afore you get two-thirds the way. They'll take less than half a +chance with her ladyship or I'm a Dutchman. Why! How would it look to +have to bring her back between two native policemen? She'll not be +allowed five miles outside Nairobi township!" + +He up-ended his whisky again, consumed about a pint of it, and settled +down to sleep. We took him by the legs and arms and threw him on the +upper berth to stew in the cabined heat under the roof. + +"It's good Monty's not with us," said Fred. He sat down and laughed at +our surprise that he should state such heresy. "Monty mustn't break +laws, but who cares if we do?" + +"Laws?" said Will disgustedly. "I don't care who makes, or breaks the +laws of this land! Let's beat it! Let's join Monty in London and make +plans for some other trip. Everybody's after this ivory. We haven't a +look-in. Even if we knew where to look for it we'd be followed. Let's +take the next train back from Nairobi, and the next boat for Europe!" + +Fred rubbed his hands delightedly, and stroked his beard into the neat +point it refuses to keep for long at a time in very hot weather. + +"Let's stay in Nairobi" he said, "at least until Courtney sends that +boy he promised us. We can put in the time asking questions, and +then--" + +"What then?" grumbled Will. + +"There may be truth in what Brown of Lumbwa says about a dead-line." + +"Dead-line?" + +"Beyond which the king's writ doesn't run." + +"Betcherlife there's truth in it!" Brown mumbled from the upper berth. + +Will exploded silently, going through the motions of reeling off all +the bad language he knew--not an insignificant performance. + +"He's really asleep now," I said, standing on the lower berth and +lifting the man's eyelid to make sure. + +"Who cares?" said Will. "He's heard. We've given the game away. The +woman heard Courtney shout about how to reach Mount Elgon. So did this +sharp. Now he hears Fred talk about dead-lines and the king's writ and +breaking laws! The game's up! Me for the down-train and a steamer!" + +We smoked in silence, rendered more depressing by the deepening gloom +outside. With the evening it grew no cooler. What little wind there +was followed the train, so that we traveled in stagnation. Utter +darkness brought no respite, but the fascination of flitting shadows +and the ever-new mystery of African night. The train drew up at last +in a station in the shadow of great overleaning mountains, and the heat +shut down on us like hairy coverings. We seemed to breathe through +thicknesses of cloth, and the very trees that cast black shadow on the +platform ends were stifling for lack of air. + +"One hour for diner!" called the guard, walking limply along the train. + "Just an hour for dinner! Dinner waiting!" + +He was not at all a usual-looking guard. He was dressed in riding +breeches and puttee leggings, and wore a worn-out horsey air as if in +protest against the obligation to work in a black man's land. In +countries where the half-breed and the black man live for and almost +monopolize government employment few white men take kindly to braid and +brass buttons. That fellow's contempt for his job was equaled only by +the babu station master's scorn of him and his own for the station +master. Yet both men did their jobs efficiently. + +"Only an hour for dinner, gents--train starts on time!" + +"Guard!" called a female voice we all three recognized--"Guard! Come +here at once, I want you!" + +We left Brown of Lumbwa snoring a good imitation of the Battle of +Waterloo on the upper berth, and filed out to the dimly-lighted +platform. A space in the center was roofed with corrugated iron and +under that the yellow lamplight cast a maze of moving shadows as the +passengers swarmed toward the dining-room. The smell of greasy cooking +blended with the reek of axle and lamp oil. At the platform's forward +end shadowy figures were throwing cord-wood into the tender, and the +thump-thump-thump of that sounded like impatience; everything else +suggested lethargy. + +"Guard!" called the voice again. "Come here, guard!" + +He stopped in passing to close our windows and lock our compartment +door against railway thieves. + +"There's a man asleep in there," I said. + +"The 'eat 'll sober 'im!" he grinned, slamming the last window down. +"What'll you bet 'er 'ighness don't want me to fetch dinner to 'er? +She was in the train in Mombasa two hours afore startin' time, an' the +things she ordered me to do 'ud have made a 'alf-breed think 'e was +demeaning of 'imself! I 'aven't seen the color of 'er money yet. If +she wants dinner she gets out and walks or 'er maid fetches it--you +watch!" + +Coutlass, the other Greek and the Goanese staggered out beside us on to +the platform, drunk enough not to know whether Hassan was with them or +not. He came out and stood beside them in a sort of alert defensive +attitude. + +"Guard!" called the voice again. "Where is the man?" + +We followed the last of the crowd through the screened doors, and took +seats at a table marked "First Class Only!" There were four men there +ahead of us, two government officials disinclined to talk; a +missionary in a gray flannel shirt, suffering from fever and too +suspicious to say good evening; and a man in charge of that section of +the line, who checked the station master's accounts and counted money +in a tray between mouthfuls. Between us and the second-class tables +was a wooden screen on short legs, and beyond that arose babel. +Second-class is democratic always, and talks with its mouth full. In +addition to our privilege of paying more for exactly the same food, we +enjoyed exclusiveness, a dirty table-cloth, and the extra smell from +the kitchen door. (The table-cloth was dirty because the barefoot +Goanese waiters invariably stubbed their feet against a break in the +floor and spilt soup exactly in the same place.) + +We had scarcely taken our seats when Coutlass swaggered in, closely +followed by his gang. Inside the door he turned on Hassan. + +"Black men eat outside!" he snarled, and shoved him out again backward. + Then he came over to us and stood leering at the framed sign, "First +Class Only," avoiding our eyes, but plainly at war with us. + +"Gassharamminy!" he growled. "You think you're popes or something! +You three would want a special private piece of earth to spit on!" He +raised his voice to a sort of scream. "I proclaim one class only!" + +At that he lifted his foot about level with his chest and kicked the +screen over. The crash brought everybody to his feet except the two +officials and the railway man. They continued eating, and the railway +man continued counting copper coins as if life depended on that alone. + +"Sit down all!" yelled Coutlass. "You will eat with better appetite +now that you can behold the blushes of these virgins!" Then he +swaggered over to the long table, thrust the other Greek and the +Goanese into chairs on either side of him, and yelled for food. It was +the first time we had been referred to publicly as virgins, and I think +we all three felt the strain. + +The Goanese manager--a wizened old black man with perfectly white +hair--came running from the kitchen in a state of near-collapse, the +sweat streaming off him and his hands trembling. + +"What shall I do?" he asked, almost upsetting the railway man's tray of +money. "That man is crazy! He came in once before and broke the +dishes! Twice he has come in here and eaten and refused to pay! What +shall I do?" + +"Nothing," said the railway man. "Go on serving dinner. Serve him +too." + +The manager hurried out again and the running to and fro resumed. Then +in came the guard. + +"First-class for two on trays!" he shouted. + +The railway man beckoned to him and he winked as he passed by us. + +"When you've seen to that, and had your own meal, I want you," said the +railway man. + +"Thought you said the lady's maid would have to come and fetch the +food?" I said maliciously as the guard passed my chair a second time. + +"So I did. But if you know how to refuse her, just teach me! I told +her flat to have the maid fetch it. She let on they're both too +frightened to cross the platform in the dark! Never saw anything like +'em! Tears! An' dignified! When I climbed down they was too afraid +next to be left alone. Swore train-thieves 'ud murder 'em! I had to +leave 'em my key to lock 'emselves in with until I come back with the +grub! What d'you think of that?" + +But our soup came, and one could not think and eat that stuff +simultaneously. The railway man looked up for a moment, saw my face, +and explained in a moment of expansiveness that meat would not keep in +that climate but was "perfectly good" when cooked. + +"Besides," he added, "you'll get nothing more until you reach Nairobi +tomorrow noon!" + +That turned out to be not quite true, but as an argument it worked. We +swallowed, like the lined-up merchant seamen taking lime-juice under +the skipper's eye. + +The guard grew impatient and went into the kitchen, but had scarcely +got through the door when a scream came from the direction of the train +that brought him back on the run. No black woman ever screams in just +that way, and in a land of black and worse-than-black men imagination +leaps at a white woman's call for help. + +There was a stampede for the door by every one except the Greeks and +Goanese and the railway man. (He had to guard the money.) We poured +through the screen doors, the guard fighting to burst between us, and, +because with a self-preserving instinct that I have never thought quite +creditable to the human race, everybody ran toward his own compartment, +it happened that we three and the two officials and the guard came +first on the scene of trouble. + +Brown of Lumbwa was still drunk-affectionate, it seemed, by that time. + +"You've no call to be 'fraid of me, li'l sweetheart!" The door was +open. Within the compartment all was dark, but every sound emerged. +There came a stifled scream. + +"Li'l stoopid! What d'you come in for, if you're 'fraid o' poor ole +Brown? I won't hurt you." + +The guard passed between us and went up the step. He listened, looked, +disappeared through the open door, and there came a sound of struggling. + +"Whassis?" shouted Brown. "An interloper? No you don't! This is my +li'l sweetheart! She came in to see me--didn't you, Matilda Ann?" + +The woman apparently broke free. The guard yelled for help. Fred and +one of the government officials were nearest and as they entered they +passed the woman coming out. I recognized Lady Saffren Waldon's Syrian +maid, with the big railway key in her fist that the guard had left with +her. By that time there was a considerable crowd about our car, unable +to see much because it stood in the way of the station lamp-light. She +slipped through--to the right--not toward Lady Isobel's compartment, +and I lost sight of her behind some men. I ran after her, but she was +gone among the shadows, and although I hunted up and down and in and +out I could find her nowhere. + +When I returned to our car Brown of Lumbwa was out on the platform with +his hair all tousled and a wild eye. The guard was wiping a bloody +nose and everybody was inventing an account of what nobody had seen. + +"Scrag him!" advised some expert on etiquette. + +"What the hell right has anybody got," demanded Brown with querulous +ferocity, "to interfere between me and a lady? Eh? Whose compartment +was she in? Me in hers or her in mine? Eh? Me. I'm sleeping. +Hasn't a gent a right to sleep? Next thing I know she's fingerin' my +whiskers. How should I know she's not balmy on red beards an' makin' +love to me? What right's she got in my compartment anyhow? Who let +her in? Who asked her? What if I did frighten her? What then?" + +"Who was she?" demanded the official. "Had anybody seen her before?" + +"The maid attending the lady in the next compartment," said I. + +"Are you sure?" + +"Positive." + +"Very well. Guard! See who is in there!" + +The guard wiped blood from his nose and obeyed orders. We clustered +round the steps to hear. + +"'Ow many's in here?" he demanded. + +There was no answer. He tried the door and it opened 'readily. + +"'Scuse me, but is there two of you? I can't see in the dark." + +"Oh, is that our dinner?" said Lady Saffren Waldon's Voice. + +"No ma'am, not the dinner yet." + +"Why not, pray?" + +"There's folks accusin' your maid o' enterin' the next compartment +an'--an'--" + +"Nonsense! My maid is here! You kept us so long waiting for dinner we +were both asleep! Ah! There's light at last, thank heaven!" + +Two native porters running along the roofs were dropping lamps into the +holes appointed for them, and the train that had been a block of +darkness hewn out of the night was now a monster, many-eyed. + +"They're both in there, so 'elp me!" the guard reported, retreating +backward through the door and leering at us. + +There remained nobody, except the still indignant Brown of Lumbwa to +levy charges, and the crowd remembered its dinner (not that anything +could be expected to grow cold in that temperature). + +"The train will start on time!" announced the babu station master, and +everybody hurried to the dining-room. Brown came with us, bewildered. + +"How did it happen?" he demanded. "When did we get here? Why wasn't I +called for dinner? How did she get in? Where did she go to?" + +"Oh, come and eat curried cow, it's lovely!" answered Will. + +Fred overtook us at the door, and whispered: + +"Our things have been gone through, but I can't find that anything's +missing." + +Within the dining-room was new ground for discontent. The British race +and its offshoots wash, but disbelieve with almost unanimity in water +as a drink. Every guest at either table had left at his place a partly +emptied glass of beer, or brandy and soda, or whisky. Each looked for +the glass on his return, and found it empty. + +"Those Greeks!" exclaimed the Goanese manager, with a fearful air, and +shoulders shrugged to disclaim his own responsibility. + +Coutlass and the other Greek were sitting at a table with a gorged +look, glancing neither to the right nor left, yet not eating. I looked +at the railway official, who had not left his seat. It struck me he +was laughing silently, but he did not look up. The crowd, after the +manner of all crowds, stormed at the Goanese manager. + +"What can I do? What shall I do?" wailed the unhappy little man. +"They are bigger than I! They were greedy! They took!" + +All those charges were evidently true, and stated mildly. Coutlass +rose to his feet. + +"Gassharamminy!" he thundered, and his stomach stuck out over the table +it was so full of various drinks. "Why should we not take? Who isn't +thirsty in this hell of a place? Who leaves good drink deserves to +lose it!" + +"What shall I do?" wailed the Goanese manager. + +"Take the orders for drinks again," said the railway man, glancing up +from his figures. "Bring the account to me." + +The waiters ran to fill orders, and a babel of abuse at the second +table was hurled at Coutlass and his friends; but they lid not leave +the table because there was another course to come, and, as the manager +had said, they were greedy. Then in came the guard, his face a +blood-and-smudgy picture of discontent. + +"Say!" he yelled. "Ain't I goin' to get those two first-classes on +trays?" He came and stood by us. "Did you ever 'ear the likes of it? +They swear neither of 'em was out of the compartment. They call me a +liar for askin' for my key back! They swear I never gave it to 'em, +'an they never asked for it, an' their door was never locked, nor +nothin'!" + +He passed on to the railway man. + +"I'll have to borry your key, sir. Mine's lost. Can't open doors +until I get one from somewhere." + +The railway man passed him his key with a bored expression and no +remark. + +"Don't forget that I want you presently," be ordered. "Be quick and +get your own dinner." + +"I'm in love with this ivory hunt!" Fred whispered to us across the +table. "If she's sure our pockets are worth going through, I'm sure +there's something to look for!" + +"Are you sure the maid went through our things?" asked Will. + +"Quite. I left my shooting jacket hanging on a hook. Everything was +emptied out of the pockets on to the berth." + +"I think I'll make you a confession presently," said I, with a look at +Will that just then he did not understand. + +"Never confess before dessert and coffee!" advised Fred. "It spoils +the appetite." + + + + +CHAPTER FIVE + + +THE SLAVE GANGS + +Our fathers praised the old accustomed things, + The privilege of chiefs, the village wall +Within whose circling dark Monumme* sings + O' nights of belly-full and ease and all +They taught us we should prize and praise + (Only of dearth and pestilence should be our fears;) +And now behind us are the green, regretted days. + The water in the desert is our tears. + Then ye, who at the waters drink + Of Freedom, oh with Pity think + On us, who face the desert brink + Your fathers entered willingly. + +Our fathers mocked the might of the Unseen, + Teaching that only what we saw and felt +Was good to fight about--what aye had been, + Old-fashioned foods that their forefathers smelt, +Old stars each night illuming the old sky, + The warm rain softening ere women till the ground, +The soft winds singing, only ask not why! + And now our weeping is the desert sound. + Oh ye, who gorge the daily good, + Unquestioned heirs of all ye would, + Spare not too timidly the blood + Your fathers shed so willingly. + +Our fathers taught us that the village good was best. + Later we learned the red, new tribal creed +That our place was the sun--night owned the rest + Unless their treasure profited our greed! +But now we gather nothing where our fathers sowed, + For harvest grim the vultures wait in rows +As, urged by greedier than us with gun and goad, + Yoked two by two the slave safari goes. + Oh ye, who from true judgment shrink, + Nor gentleness with courage link, + Be thoughtful when the cup ye drink + Your fathers spilled so willingly. + +---------- +* Monumme (Kiswahili)--Lit. male-man in his prime. +---------- + +The guard procured his trays at last, delivered them at a run, returned +in a hurry and swallowed his own meal at a side-table. Then, with his +mouth full, he reported for orders to the railway official, who was +still checking figures. The room was beginning to grow empty. +Coutlass and his Greek friend and the Goanese sat almost alone at the +far end of the other table, finishing their pudding. I had not noticed +until then that the guard was a singularly little man. He stood very +few inches taller than the seated official. I suppose that hitherto in +some way his energy had seemed to increase his inches. + +"Are there handcuffs in the caboose?" + +"Yes, sir." + +"Fetch them." + +In spite of Brown of Lumbwa's protests, who wept at the notion of +having to eat alone, we were in the act of settling our bills and +going. But mention of handcuffs suggesting entertainment, we lit +cigars and, imagining we stayed for love of him, Brown cooed at us. + +"I've the darbies in my pocket, sir!" + +I thought the guard looked more undersized than ever. He would have +made a fair-sized middle-weight jockey. + +"Tell that Greek--Coutlass his name is--to come here." + +With his tongue stuck into his cheek and a wink at us the guard obeyed. + +"He says for you to go to 'ell, sir!" he reported after a moment's +interview. + +"Very well. Arrest him!" + +"He'll need help," I interrupted. "My two friends and I--" + +"Oh, dear no," said the official. "He is fully up to his work." + +So we moved our chairs into position for a better view. + +The guard advanced fox-terrierwise to within about six paces of +Coutlass. + +"Up with both your 'ands, Thermopylea!" he snapped. "Your bloomin' +reckonin's come!" + +Coutlass showed tobacco-stained teeth for answer, and his friends +rutched their chairs clear of the table, ready for action. Yet they +were taken unawares. With a terrier's speed the guard pounced on +Coutlass, seized him by the hair and collar, hurled him, chair and all, +under a side-table, and was on the far side of the table kicking his +prostrate victim in the ribs before either Greek or Goanese--likewise +upset in the sudden onslaught--could gather themselves and interfere. + +The Goanese was first on his feet. He hurled a soda-water bottle. The +guard ducked and the bottle smashed into splinters on the wall. Before +the sound of smashing glass had died the Goanese was down again, laid +out by blows on the nose and jugular. Then again the guard kicked +Coutlass, driving him back under the table from which he was trying to +emerge on all fours. + +The second Greek looked more dangerous. His face grew dark with rage +as the lips receded from his yellow teeth. He reached toward his boot, +but judged there were too many witnesses for knife work and rushed in +suddenly, yelling something in Greek to Coutlass as he picked up a +chair to brain the guard with. He swung the chair, but the guard met +it with another one, dodged him, and tripped him as he passed. In +another second it was his turn to be kicked in the ribs until he yelled +for mercy. (An extra large dinner and all those assorted drinks in +addition to what they had had in the train made neither man's wind +good.) + +No mercy was forthcoming. He was kicked, more and more violently, +until the need of crawling through the door to safety dawned on his +muddled wits and he made his exit from the room snake fashion. By that +time Coutlass was on his feet, and he too elected to force the issue +with a chair. The guard sprang at the chair as Coutlass raised it, +bore it down, and drove his fist hard home into the Greek's right eye +three times running. + +"'Ave you 'ad enough?" he demanded, making ready for another assault. +The Goanese had recovered and staggered to his feet to interfere, but +Coutlass yielded. + +"All right," he said, "why should I fight a little man? I surrender to +save bloodshed!" + +"Put your 'ands out, then!" + +Coutlass obeyed, and was handcuffed ignominiously. + +"Outside, you!" + +A savage kick landed in exactly the place where the Goanese least +expected and most resented it. He flew through the door as if the +train had started, and then another kick jolted Coutlass. + +"Forward, march! Left-right-left-right!" + +With hands manacled in front and the inexorable bantam guard behind, +Coutlass came and stood before the railway official, who at last +condescended not to seem engrossed in his accounts. + +"'Ere he is, sir!" + +"I suppose you know, my man, that I have magisterial powers on this +railway?" said the official. + +Coutlass glowered but said nothing. + +"This is not the first time you have made yourself a nuisance. You +broke dishes the last time you were here." + +"That is long ago," Coutlass objected. "That was on the day the place +was first opened to the public. There was a celebration. Every one +was drunk." + +"You broke plates and refused to pay the damage!' + +"Officials were drunk. I saw them!" + +"The damage amounted to seventeen rupees, eight annas." + +"Gassharamminy! All the crockery from Mombasa to Nairobi isn't worth +that amount! I shall not pay!" + +"Now there's another bill for those drinks you and your friends stole +when passengers' backs were turned. I saw you do it!" + +"Why didn't you object at the time?" sneered Coutlass. + +"Here is the bill: twenty-seven rupees, twelve annas. Total, +forty-five rupees, four annas. You may make the manager a present of +the odd sum for his injured feelings, and call it an even fifty. +Settle now, or wait here for the down-train and go to jail in Mombasa!" + +"Wait in this place?" asked Coutlass, aghast. + +"Where else? There'll be a down passenger train in a week." + +"I pay!" said the Greek, with a hideous grimace. + +"Take the irons off him, then." + +The guard unlocked the handcuffs and Coutlass began to fumble for a +money-bag. + +"Give me a receipt!" he demanded, thumbing out the money. + +"You are the receipt!" said the official. "An Englishman would have +been sent to jail with a fine, and have paid the bill into the bargain. + You're treated leniently because you can't be expected to understand +decent behavior. You're expected to learn, however. Next time you +will catch it hot!" + +"All aboard!" called the guard cheerfully. "All aboard!" + +"Tears, idle tears!" said Brown of Lumbwa, taking my arm and Fred's. + +"Thass too true--too true! They'd have jailed an Englishman--me, +f'rinstance. One little spree, an' they'd put me in the Fort! One +li'l indishcresshion an' they'd jug me for shix months! Him they let +go wi' a admonisshion! It's 'nother case o' Barabbas, an' a great +shame, but you can't change the English. They're ingcorridgible! +Brown o' Lumbwa's my name," he added by way of afterthought. + +"Take advice and get under blankets afore you go to sleep, gents!" +warned the guard. All windows were once more opened wide, and every +one was panting. + +"A job on this 'ere line's a circus!" he grinned. "I'm lucky if +there's only one fight before Nairobi! 'Ave your blankets ready, +gents! Cover yourselves afore you sleep!" + +That sounded like a joke. The sweat poured from every one in streams. +The hot hair cushions were intolerable. The dust gathered from the +desert stirred and hung, and there was neither air to breathe nor +coolness under all those overhanging mountains. + +"Get under your blankets, gents!" advised the guard, passing down the +train; and then the train started. + +I had the upper berth opposite Brown's, where it was hottest of all +because of the iron roof. Drunk though he was, I noticed that the +first thing Brown did after we had hoisted him aloft was to dig among +the blankets like a dog and make the best shift he could of crawling +under them. With one blanket twisted about his neck and shoulders and +the other tangled about his knees he remarked to the roof that his name +was Brown of Lumbwa, and proceeded to sob himself to sleep. He had +made the journey a dozen times, so knew what he was doing. I drew on +my own blankets, and stifling, blowing out red dust, remembered a +promise. + +"Will!" I said. "Tell Fred what happened to us in Zanzibar while he +and Monty viewed the moon!" + +"We agreed not to," he answered, but it seemed to me he might arouse +his own enthusiasm if he did tell. + +"Who's afraid of Fred?" said I. + +That settled it. + +"One of you shall tell before you sleep!" Fred announced, sitting up. +"Who feareth not God nor regardeth me will blench before the prospect +of a sleepless night! Speak, America!" + +He took out a cleaning rod from his gun-case, and proceeded to stir +Will's ribs and whack his feet. In a minute there was a +rough-house--panting, and bursts of laughter--cracks of the cleaning +rod on Will's bare legs--the sound of hands slipping on sweaty arms--and + +"Murder!" yelled Brown of Lumbwa, waking up. "Murder! Oh, mur-durrr!" + +"Shut up, you fool!" I shouted at him. But he only yelled the louder. + +"I knew these tears were not for nothing!" he wailed. "It was +premonition! Pass me the whisky! Pass it up here! Oh, look! They're +at each other's throats! Murder! Oh, mur-durrr! Pass the whisky or +I'll come down and kill everybody in self-defense! Murrrrr-durrr!" + +They stopped fooling because his idiotic screams could be heard all +down the train. + +"There," said Brown, "you see, I've saved two worthless lives! Very +foolish of me! Pass the whisky! See that I save a little for the +morning!" + +At that he fell asleep again; and because Fred threatened to start new +commotion and wake him unless Will or I confessed at once, Will took up +the tale, I leaning over the edge of my berth to prompt him. 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. Later, +as we mounted higher, we shivered under blankets. There is a spirit +and a spell of Africa that grip men even in sleep. The curt engine +blasts became in my dreams the panting of enormous beasts that fought. +A dream-continent waged war on itself, and bled. I saw the caravans +go, thousands long, the horsed and white-robed Arab in the lead--the +paid, fat, insolent askaris, flattering and flogging--slaves burdened +with ivory and other, naked, new ones, two in a yoke, shivering under +the askari's lash, the very last dogged by vultures and hyenas, lean as +they, ill-nourished on such poor picking. + +----------- +* It was the cheerful Arab rule never to release one slave from the +yoke if the other failed on the journey, on the principle that then the +stronger would be more likely to care for, encourage, and drive the +weaker. +----------- + +Then I saw elephants in herds five thousand strong that screamed and +stormed and crashed, flattening out villages in rage that man should +interfere with them--in fear of the ruthless few armed men with rifles +in their rear. Whole herds crashed pell-mell through artfully staged +undergrowth into thirty-foot-deep pits, where they lingered and died of +thirst, that Arabs (who sat smoking within hail until they died) might +have the ivory. + +And all I saw in my dream was nothing to the things I really was to +see. None of the cruelty of man, none of the rage and fear of animal +have vanished yet from Africa. Some of the cruelty is more refined; +some of the herds are smaller; some good is making headway but Africa +is unchanged on the whole. It is a land of nightmares, with lovely +oases and rare knights errant; a land whose past is gloom, whose +present is twilight and uncertainty, but whose future under the rule of +humane men is immeasurable, unimaginable. + +In my dream din followed crash and confusion until the engine's +screaming at last awoke me. My blanket had fallen to the floor and I +was shivering from cold. I jumped down to recover it and realized it +was dawn already. We were bowling along at a fine pace past green +trees and undulating veld, and I wondered why the engine should keep on +screaming like a thing demented. I knelt on Fred's berth to lean from +the window and look ahead. We were going round a slight curve and I +could see the track ahead for miles. + +Three hundred yards away a full-grown rhinoceros stood planted on the +track, his flank toward us and his interest fixed on anything but +trains. He was sniffing the cool morning, looking the other way. + +"Wake up, you fellows!" I yelled, and Fred and Will put their heads +through the window beside me just in time to see the rhino take notice +of the train at last. When the engine was fifty yards from him he +wheeled, took a short-sighted squint at it, snifted, decided on war, +and charged. The engineer crowded on steam. + +"He's a game enough sport!" chuckled Fred. + +"He's a fool!" grinned Will. + +He was both, but he never flinched. He struck the cow-catcher head-on +and tried to lift it sky-high. The speed and weight of the engine sent +him rolling over and over off the track, and the shock of the blow came +backward along the train in thunderclaps as each car felt the check. +The engineer whistled him a requiem and a cheer went up from fifty +heads thrust out of windows. But he was not nearly done for. + +He got up, spun around like a polo pony to face the train, deliberately +picked out level going, and charged again. This time he hit the car we +were in, and screams from the compartment behind us gave notice that +Lady Saffren Waldon's maid was awake and looking through a window too. +He hit the running-board beside the car, crumpled it to matchwood, +lifted the car an inch off the track, but failed to disrail us. The +car fell back on the metal with a clang, and the rhino recoiled +sidewise, to roll over and over again. This time the impetus sent him +over the edge of a gully and we did not doubt he was dead at the bottom +of it. + +The guard stopped the train and came running to see what the damage +amounted to. + +"Any gent got his rifle handy?" he shouted. "The train's ahead o' +time. There's twenty minutes for sport!" + +We dived for our rifles, but Coutlass had his and was on the track +ahead of us, his eye a ghastly sight from the guard's overnight +attentions, his face the gruesome color of the man who has eaten and +drunk too much, but his undamaged eye ablaze, and nothing whatever the +matter with his enthusiasm. + +"Give me a cartridge--a cartridge, somebody!" he yelled. Gassharamminy! +He's not dead! I saw him kick as he went over the edge legs upwards! +Give me one cartridge and I'll finish him!" + +By that time every male passenger was out on the track, some in +night-shirts, some in shirts and pants, some with next-to-nothing at +all on, but nearly all with guns. Somebody gave Coutlass a handful of +cartridges that fitted his Mauser rifle and he was off in the lead like +a hero leading a forlorn hope, we after him. We searched high and low +but lost all trace of the rhino, and at the end of half an hour the +engine's whistle called us back. There were blood and hair all over +the engine--blood and hair on our car, but the rhino had been as +determined in defeat as in attack, and if he died of his wounds he +contrived to do it alone and in dignity. + +"That leaves Coutlass with six cartridges," said I, overtaking Fred. +"Let's hope their owner asks for them back." + +The owner did ask for them. He stood with his hand out by the door of +the Greek's compartment. + +"You didn't use those cartridges," he said. + +"But I will!" sneered Coutlass. "Out of my way!" + +He sprang for his door and slammed it in the man's face, and the other +Greek and the Goanese jeered through the window. I caught sight of +Hassan beside them looking gray, as unhappy black men usually do. Will +saw him too. + +"The cannibal's ours," he said, "supposing we want him and play our +cards kind o' careful." + +The next thing to delay the train was an elephant, who walked the track +ahead of us and when the engine whistled only put on speed. Hypnotized +by the tracks that reached in parallel lines to the horizon, with trunk +outstretched, ears up, and silly tail held horizontally he set himself +the impossible task of leaving us behind. The more we cheered, the +more the engine screamed, the fiercer and less dignified became his +efforts; he reached a speed at times of fourteen or fifteen miles an +hour, and it was not until, after many miles, he reached a culvert he +dared not cross that he switched off at right angles. Realizing then +at last that the train could not follow him to one side he stood and +watched us pass, red-eyed, blown and angry. He had only one tusk, but +that a big one, and the weight of it caused him to hold his head at a +drunken-looking angle. + +"Stop the train!" yelled Coutlass, brandishing his rifle as he climbed +to the seat on the roof. But the guard, likewise on the roof at his end +of the train, gave no signal and we speeded on. We were already in the +world's greatest game reserve, where no man might shoot elephant or any +other living thing. + +We began to pass herds of zebra, gnu, and lesser antelope--more than a +thousand zebra in one herd--ostriches in ones and twos--giraffes in +scared half-dozens--rhinoceros--and here and there lone lions. +Scarcely an animal troubled to look up at us, and only the giraffes ran. + +Watching them, counting them, distinguishing the various breeds we +three grew enormously contented, even Will Yerkes banishing depression. + Obviously we were in a land of good hunting, for the strictly policed +reserve had its limits beyond which undoubtedly the game would roam. +The climate seemed perfect. There was a steady wind, not too cold or +hot, and the rains were recent enough to make all the world look green +and bounteous. + +To right and left of us--to north and south that is--was wild mountain +country, lonely and savage enough to arouse that unaccountable desire +to go and see that lurks in the breast of younger sons and all +true-blue adventurers. We got out a map and were presently tracing on +it with fingers that trembled from excitement routes marked with tiny +vague dots leading toward lands marked "unexplored." There were vast +plateaus on which not more than two or three white men had trodden, and +mountain ranges almost utterly unknown--some of them within sight of +the line we traveled on. If the map was anything to go by we could +reach Mount Elgon from Nairobi by any of three wild roads. Fred and I +underscored the names of several places with a fountain pen. + +"And say!" said Will. "Look out of the window! If we once got away +into country like that, who could follow us!" + +"But you can't get away!" said a. weary voice from the upper berth. +"I'm Brown of Lumbwa. That's my name, gents, and I know, because I +tried! Thought I was sound asleep, didn't you! Well, I weren't! +Listen to me, what happens. You start off. They get wind of it. They +send the police helter-skelter hot-foot after you--native police--no +officer--Masai they are, an' I tell you those Masai can make their +sixty miles a day when they're minded an' no bones about it either! +Maybe the Masai catches you and maybe not. S'posing they do they can't +do much. They've merely a letter with 'em commanding you to return at +once and report at the gov'ment office. And o' course--bein' ignorant, +same as me, an' hot-headed, an' eager--you treat that contumelious an' +tip the Masai the office to go to hell. Which they do forthwith. +They're so used to bein' told to go to hell by wishful wanderers that +they scarcely trouble to wait for the words. Presently they draw a +long breath an' go away again like smoke being blowed downwind. An' +you proceed onward, dreamin' dreams o' gold an' frankincense an' +freedom." + +"Well, what next?" said I, for he made a long pause, either for +reminiscence or because of headache. + +"Whisky next!" he answered. "I left a little for the morning, didn't +I? I almost always do. Hold the bottle up to the light--no, no, +you'll spill it!--pass it here! Ah-h-h--gug-gug!" + +He finished what was left and tried to hurl the empty bottle through +the window, but missed and smashed it against the woodwork. + +"'Sapity!" he murmured. "Means bad luck, that does! Poor ole Brown o' +Lumbwa--poor ole fella'. Pick up the pieces, boys! Pick 'em up +quick--might get some o' poor ole Brown's bad luck--cut yourselves or +what not. Pick 'em up careful now!" + +We did, and it took ten minutes, for the splinters were scattered +everywhere. + +"Next time you do a thing like that you shall get out an' walk!" +announced Fred. + +"That 'ud be only my usual luck!" he answered mournfully. "But I was +tellin' how you notify the Masai police to go to hell, an' they oblige. + It's the last obligin' anybody does for you. Every native's a bush +telegraph--every sleepy-seemin' one of 'em! They know tracks in an' +out through the scrub that ain't on maps, an' they get past you day or +night wi'out you knowin' it, an' word goes on ahead o' you--procedes +you as the sayin' is. You come to a village. You need milk, food, +Porters maybe, an' certainly inf'mation about the trail ahead. You +ask. Nobody answers. They let on not to sling your kind o' lingo. +Milk--never heard o' such stuff--cows in them parts don't give milk! +Food? They're starving. It isn't overeating makes their bellies big, +it's wind. Porters? All the young men are lame, an' old 'uns too old, +an' the middle 'uns too middle-aged--an' who ever heard of a native +woman workin' anyhow. Who tills the mtama patch, then? It don't get +tilled, or else the women only 'tend to it at tillin' time. Nobody +works at anythin' about the time you come on the scene, for work ain't +moral, pleasin' nor profitable, an' there you are! As for the trail +ahead, lions an' cannibals are the two mildest kind of calamities they +guarantee you'll meet." + +"You don't have to believe them," I argued. "No man in his senses +would start without porters of his own--" + +"Who never run away, an' never, oh never go lame o' course!" said Brown. + +"Porters enough and to spare," I continued. "And food for a month or +two--" + +"How are you going to get away right under their noses with food for a +month or two?" demanded Brown. "You've got to live off the country +after a certain distance. The further you go, the worse for you, for +they'll sell you nothing and give you less. By and by your porters get +tipped off by the natives of some village you spend a night at. You +look for 'em next mornin' and where are they? Gone! There are their +loads, an' no one to carry 'em! You've got to leave your loads an' +return, an' the police you told so stric'ly to go to hell meet you with +broad grins and lead you to the gov'ment office. There the collector, +or, what's worse, the 'sistant collector, gives you a lecture on infamy +an' the law of doin' as you'd be done by. You ask for your loads back, +an' he laughs at you. An' that's all about it, excep' that next time +you happen to want a favor done you by gov'ment you get a lecture +instead! No, you can't get away, an' it's no use tryin'! If you was +Greeks maybe, or Arabs, yes. Bein' English, the Indian Penal Code, +which is white man's law in these parts, 'll get you sure!" + +Brown of Lumbwa sighed at recollection of his wrongs, turned over, and +went to sleep again. The train bowled along over high veld, cutting in +half magnificent distances and stopping now and then at stations whose +excuse for existence was unimaginable. We stopped at a station at last +where the Hindu clerk sold tea and biscuits. The train disgorged its +passengers and there was a scramble in the tiny ticket office like the +rush to get through turnstiles at a football game at home, only that +the crowd was more polyglot and less good-natured. + +Coutlass, his Greek friend and the Goanese being old travelers on that +route were out of the train first, first into the room, and first +supplied with breakfast. Fred and I were nearly last. Brown of Lumbwa +refused to leave his berth but lay moaning of his wrongs, and the +iniquity of drink not based on whisky. I missed Will in the scramble, +and although it was nearly half an hour before I got served I did not +catch sight of him in all that time. + +I counted eleven nations taking tea in that tiny room and there were +members of yet other tribes strolling the platform, holding themselves +aloof with the strange pride of the pariah the wide world over. + +When Will came in he was grinning, and his ears seemed to stick out +more than usual, as they do when he is pleased with himself. + +"Didn't I say fat Johnson was ours if we'd play our cards right?" he +demanded. + +"You mean Hassan?" + +"He'd had no breakfast. He'd had no supper. He had no money. The +Greeks took away what little money he did have on the pretext that he +might buy a return ticket and desert them. They seem to think that a +day or two's starvation might make him good and amenable. I found him +trying to beg a bite from a full-blooded Arab, and say! they're a +loving lot. The Arab spat in his eye! I offered to buy him eats but +he didn't dare come in here for fear the Greeks 'ud thrash him, so I +slipped him ten rupees for himself and he's the gratefulest fat black +man you ever set eyes on. You bet it takes food and lots of it to keep +that belly of his in shape. There's a back door to this joint. He +slipped round behind and bribed the babu to feed him on the rear step, +me standing guard at the corner to keep Greeks at bay. He's back in +the car now, playing possum." + +"Let's trade him for Brown of Lumbwa," suggested Fred genially. "Call +him into our car and kick Brown out!" + +"Trade nothing! I tell you the man is ours! Call him, and he'll +bargain. Let him be, and the next time the Greeks ill-treat him he'll +come straight to us in hope we'll show him kindness." + +"Swallow your tea quickly, Solomon!" Fred advised him. "There goes the +whistle!" + +It was fresh tea, just that minute made for him. Will gulped down the +scalding stuff and had to be thumped on the back according to Fred. +With eyes filled with water he did not see what I did, and Fred was too +busy guarding against counter-blows. The most public place and the +very last minute always suited those two best for playing horse. + +"Thought you said Johnson was asleep," said I. + +"Possuming," coughed Will. "Shamming sleep to fool the Greeks." + +"Possuming, no doubt," I answered, "but the Greeks are on. He has just +come scurrying out of Lady Saffren Waldon's compartment. The Greeks +watched him and made no comment!' + +We piled into our own appointed place and sat for a while in silence. + +"All right said Will at last, lighting his pipe. "I own I felt like +quitting once. I'll see it through now if there's no ivory and nothing +but trouble! That dame can't thimblerig me!" + +"We're supposed to know where the ivory is," grinned Fred. "Keep it +up! They'll hunt us so carefully that they'll save us the trouble of +watching them!" + +"I'm beginning to think we do know where the ivory is," said I. "I +believe it's on Mount Elgon and they mean to prevent our getting it." + +"If that turns out true, we'll have to give them the slip, that's all," +said Fred, and got out his concertina just as Monty always played chess +when his brain was busy, Fred likes to think to the strains of his +infernal instrument. One could not guess what he was thinking about, +but the wide world knew he was perplexed, and Lady Saffren Waldon in +the next compartment must have suffered. + +After a while he commenced picking out the tunes of comic songs, and +before long chanced on one that somebody in the front part of the train +recognized and began to sing. In ten minutes after that he was playing +accompaniments for a full train chorus and the seared zebra and impala +bolted to right and left, pursued by Tarara-boom-de-ay, +Ting-a-ling-a-ling, and other non-Homeric dirges that in those days +were dying an all-too-lingering death. + +It was to the tune of After the Ball that the engine dipped +head-foremost into a dry watercourse, and brought the train to a +jaw-jarring halt. The tune went on, and the song grew louder, for +nobody was killed and the English-speaking races have a code, +containing rules of conduct much more stringent than the Law of the +Medes and Persians. Somebody--probably natives from a long way off, +who needed fuel to cook a meal--had chopped out the hard-wood plate on +which the beams of a temporary culvert rested. Time, white ants, +gravity and luck had done the rest. It was a case thereafter of walk +or wait. + +"Didn't I tell you?" moaned Brown of Lumbwa. "Didn't I say walkin' 'ud +be only just my luck?" + +So we walked, and reached Nairobi a long way ahead of Coutlass and his +gang, whose shoes, among other matters, pinched them; and we were +comfortably quartered in the one hotel several hours before the arrival +of Lady Saffren Waldon and those folk who elected to wait for the +breakdown gang and the relief train. + +It was a tired hotel, conducted by a tired once-missionary person, just +as Nairobi itself was a tired-looking township of small parallel roofs +of unpainted corrugated iron, with one main street more than a mile +long and perhaps a dozen side-streets varying in length from fifty feet +to half a mile. + +He must have been a very tired surveyor who pitched on that site and +marked it as railway headquarters on his map. He could have gone on +and found within five miles two or three sightlier, healthier spots. +But doubtless the day's march had been a long one, and perhaps he had +fever, and was cross. At any rate, there stood Nairobi, with its +"tin-town" for the railway underlings, its "tin" sheds for the repair +shops, its big "tin" station buildings, and its string of +pleasant-looking bungalows on the only high ground, where the +government nabobs lived. + +The hotel was in the middle of the main street, a square frame building +with a veranda in front and its laundry hanging out behind. Nairobi +being a young place, with all Africa in which to spread, town plots +were large, and as a matter of fact the sensation in our corner room +was of being in a wilderness--until we considered the board partition. +Having marched fastest we obtained the best room and the only bath, but +next-door neighbors could hear our conversation as easily as if there +had been no division at all. However, as it happened, neither Coutlass +and his gang nor Lady Saffren Waldon and her maid were put next to us +on either side. To our right were three Poles, to our left a Jew and a +German, and we carried on a whispered conversation without much risk. + +She and her maid arrived last, as it was growing dusk. We had already +seen what there was to see of the town. We had been to the post-office +on the white man's habitual hunt, for mail that we knew was +non-existent. And I had had the first adventure. + +I walked away from The post-office alone, trying to puzzle out by +myself the meaning of Lady Saffren Waldon's pursuit of us, and of her +friendship with the Germans, and her probable connection with Georges +Coutlass and his riff-raff. I had not gone far either on my stroll or +with the problem--perhaps two hundred yards down a grassy track that +they had told me led toward a settlement--when something, not a sound, +not a smell, and certainly not sight, for I was staring at the ground, +caused me to look up. My foot was raised for a forward step, but what +I saw then made me set it down again. + +To my right front, less than ten yards away, was a hillock about twice +my own height. To my left front, about twelve yards away was another, +slightly higher; and the track passed between them. On the right-hand +hillock stood a male lion, full maned, his forelegs well apart and the +dark tuft on the end of his tail appearing every instant to one side or +the other as be switched it cat-fashion. He was staring down at me +with a sort of scandalized interest; and there was nothing whatever +for me to do but stare at him. I had no weapon. One spring and a jump +and I was his meat. To run was cowardice as well as foolishness, the +one because the other. And without pretending to be able to read a +lion's thoughts I dare risk the assertion that he was puzzled what to +do with me. I could very plainly see his claws coming in and out of +their sheaths, and what with that, and the switching tail, and the +sense of impotence I could not take my eyes off him. So I did not look +at the other hillock at first. + +But a sound like that a cat makes calling to her kittens, only greatly +magnified, made me glance to the left in a hurry. I think that up to +that moment I had not had time to be afraid, but now the goose-flesh +broke out all over me, and the sensation up and down my spine was of +melting helplessness. + +On the left-hand hillock a lioness stood looking down with much +intenser and more curious interest. She looked from me to her mate, +and from her mate to me again with indecision that was no more +reassuring than her low questioning growl. + +I do not know why they did not spring on me. Surely no two lions ever +contemplated easier quarry. No victim in the arena ever watched the +weapons of death more helplessly. I suppose my hour had not come. +Perhaps the lions, well used to white men who attacked on sight with +long-range weapons, doubted the wisdom of experiments on something new. + +The lioness growled again. Her mate purred to her with an uprising +reassuring note that satisfied her and sent my heart into my boots. +Then he turned, sprang down behind the hillock, and she followed. The +next I saw of them they were running away like dogs, jumping low +bushes and heading for jungle on the near horizon faster than I had +imagined lions could travel. + +That ended my desire for further exercise and solitude. I made for the +hotel as fast as fear of seeming afraid would let me, and spent fifteen +aggravating minutes on the veranda trying to persuade Fred Oakes that I +had truly seen lions. + +"Hyenas!" he said with the air of an old hunter, to which he was quite +entitled, but that soothed me all the less for that. + +"More likely jackals," said Will; and he was just as much as Fred +entitled to an opinion. + +While I was asserting the facts with increasing anger, and they were +amusing themselves with a hundred-and-one ridiculous reasons for +disbelieving me, Lady Saffren Waldon came. She had, as usual, +attracted to herself able assistance; a settler's ox-cart brought her +belongings, and she and her maid rode in hammocks borne by porters +impressed from heaven knew where. It was not far from the station, but +she was the type of human that can not be satisfied with meek +beginnings. That type is not by any means always female, but the +women, are the most determined on their course, and come the biggest +croppers on occasion. + +She was determined now, mistress of the situation and of her plans. +She left to her maid the business of quarreling about accommodations; +(there was little left to choose from, and all was bare and bad); +dismissed the obsequious settler and his porters with perfunctory +thanks that left him no excuse for lingering, and came along the +veranda straight toward us with the smile of old acquaintance, and such +an air of being perfectly at ease that surprise was disarmed, and the +rudeness we all three intended died stillborn. + +"What do you think of the country?" she asked. "Men like it as a rule. + Women detest it, and who can blame them? No, comfort--no manners--no +companionship--no meals fit to eat--no amusement! Have you killed +anything or anybody yet? That always amuses a man!" + +We rose to make room for her and I brought her a chair. There was +nothing else one could do. There is almost no twilight in that part of +East Africa; until dark there is scarcely a hint that the day is +waning. She sat with us for twenty or thirty minutes making small +talk, her maid watching us from a window above, until the sun went down +with almost the suddenness of gas turned off, and in a moment we could +scarcely see one another's faces. + +Then came the proprietor to the door, with his best ex-missionary air +of knowledge of all earth's ways, their reason and their trend. + +"All in!" he called. "All inside at once! No guest is allowed after +dark on the veranda! All inside! Supper presently!" + +"Pah!" remarked Lady Saffren Waldon, rising. "What is it about some +men that makes one's blood boil? I suppose we must go in." + +She came nearer until she stood between the three of us, so close that +I could see her diamond-hard eyes and hear the suppressed breathing +that I suspected betrayed excitement. + +"I must speak with you three men! Listen! I know this place. The +rooms are unspeakable--not a bedroom that isn't a megaphone, magnifying +every whisper! There is only one suitable place--the main dining-room. + The proprietor leaves the oil-lamp burning in there all night. People +go to bed early; they prefer to drink in their bedrooms because it +costs less than treating a crowd! I shall provide a light supper, and +my maid shall lay the table after everybody else is gone up-stairs. +Then come down and talk with me. Its important! Be sure and come!" + +She did not wait for an answer but led the way into the hotel. There +was no hall. The door led straight into the dining-room, and the noisy +crowd within, dragging chairs and choosing places at the two long +tables, made further word with her impossible, even if she had not +hurried up-stairs to her room. "What do you make of it--of her? Isn't +she the limit?" + +The words were scarcely out of Will's mouth when a roar that made the +dishes rattle broke and echoed and rumbled in the street outside. The +instant it died down another followed it--then three or four--then a +dozen all at once. There came the pattering of heavy feet, like the +sound of cattle coming homeward. Yet no cattle--no buffaloes ever +roared that way. + +"Now you know why I ordered you all inside," grinned the ex-missionary +owner of the place. I divined on the instant that this was his habit, +to stand by the door before supper and say just those words to the last +arrivals. I had a vision of him standing by his mission door +aforetime, repeating one jest, or more likely one stale euphuism night +after night. + +"Lions?" I asked, hating to take the bait, yet curious beyond power to +resist. + +"Certainly they're lions! Did you think you were dreaming? Are you +glad you came in when I called you? Would you rather go out again now? + Make a noise like a herd of cattle, don't they! That's because +they're bold. They don't care who hears them! The day is ours. It +used to be theirs, but the white man has come and broken up their +empire. The night is still theirs. They're reveling in it! They're +boasting of it! Every single night they come swaggering through like +this just after sunset. They'll come again just before dawn, roaring +the same way. You'll hear them. They'll wake you all right. No +trouble in this hotel about getting guests down-stairs for early +breakfast!" + +"I'll get my rifle and settle the hash of one or two of them before I +eat supper!" announced Will, turning away to make good his words. But +the proprietor seized him by the arm. + +"Don't be foolish! It has been tried too often! I never allowed such +foolishness at my place. A party up-street fired from the windows. +Couldn't see very well in the dark, but wounded two or three lions. +What happened, eh? Why the whole pack of lions laid siege to the +house! They broke into the stable and killed three horses, a donkey, +and all the cows and sheep. There weren't any shutters on the house +windows--nothing but glass. It wasn't long before a young lion broke a +window, and in no time there were three full-grown ones into the house +after him. They injured one man so severely that he died next day. +They only shot two of the lions that got inside. The other two got +safely away, and since that time people here have known enough not to +interfere with them except by daylight! They'll do no harm to speak of +unless you fire and enrage them. They'll kill the stray dogs, or any +other animal they find loose; and heaven help the man they meet! But +the place to be after six P.M. in Nairobi is indoors. And it's the +place to stay until after sunrise! Hear them roar! Aren't they +magnificent? Listen!" + +The noise that twenty or thirty lions can make, deliberately bent on +making it and roaring all at once, is unbelievable. They throw their +heads up and glory in strength of lungs until thunders take second +place and the listener knows why not the bravest, not the most +dangerous of beasts has man aged to impose the fable of his grandeur on +men's imagination. + +We were summoned to the table by the din of Georges Coutlass rising to +new heights of gallantry. + +"Gassharamminy!" he shouted, thumping with a scarred fist. With a +poultice on his eye he looked like a swashbuckler home from the wars; +and as he had not troubled to shave himself, the effect was heightened. + "What sort of company sits when a titled lady enters!" He seized a +big spoon and rapped on the board with it. "Blood of an onion! Rise, +every one!" + +Everybody rose, although there were men in the room in no mind to be +told their duty by a Greek. Lady Saffren Waldon walked to a place near +the head of the table with a chilling bow. As usual when night and the +yellow lamplight modified merciless outlines, she looked lovely enough. + But she lacked the royal gift of seeming at home with the vulgar herd. + She could make men notice her--serve her, up to a certain point--and +feel that she was the center of interest wherever she might choose to +be; but because she was everlastingly on guard, she lacked the power +to put mixed company at ease. + +Only the ex-missionary at the head of the table seemed to consider +himself socially qualified to entertain her. She was at no pains to +conceal contempt for him. + +"You honor my poor hotel!" he assured her. + +"It is certainly a very poor hotel," she answered. + +"Do you expect to remain long, may I ask?" + +"What right have you to ask me questions? Tell that native to go away +from behind my chair. My own maid will wait on me!" + +Whether purposely or not, she cast such a chill upon the company that +even Georges Coutlass subsided within himself, and, though he ate like +a ravening animal, did not talk. Almost the only conversation was +between the owner and the native servants, who waited at table +abominably and were noisily reprimanded, and argued back. Each +reprimand increased their inefficiency and insolence. Natives detest a +fussy, noisy white man. + +Bad food, indifferent cooking, and no conversation worthy of the name +produced gloom that drove every one from table as soon as possible. +Even the proprietor, with unsatiable curiosity exuding from him, but no +spirit for forcing issues, departed to a sanctum of his own up +somewhere under the roof. The boys cleared the tables. The smell of +food spread itself and settled slowly. A half-breed butler served +countless orders of drinks on trays, and sent them upstairs to +bedrooms. Presently we three sat alone in the long bare room. + +"Shall we wait for her?" I asked. "Haven't we had enough of her?" + +Fred laughed. "She can scarcely cut the throats of all three of us!" + +"I said we'd never hear the last of it!" said Will, with a scowl at me. + +"Shall we wait for her?" I repeated. + +My own vote would have been in favor of going upstairs and leaving her +to her own devices. I could see that Fred was afire with curiosity, +but guessed that Will would agree with me. However, the point was +settled for us by the arrival of her maid, who smiled with unusual +condescension and produced from a basket an assortment of drinks, nuts, +cigarettes and sandwiches. She spread them on the table and went away +again. + +We sat and smoked for an hour after that, imagining every moment that +Lady Saffren Waldon would be coming. Whenever we yawned in chorus and +rose to go upstairs, a footstep seemed to herald her arrival. To have +passed her on the stairs would have been too awkward to be amusing. + +At last we really made up our minds to go to bed; and then she really +came, appearing at the bend in the stairs just as I set my foot on the +lower step, so we trooped back to our chairs by the window. She was +dressed in a lacy silk negligee, and took pains this time to appear +gracious. + +"I waited until I felt sure we should not be disturbed," she said, +smiling. "Won't you come and sit down?" + +We brought our chairs to the table, she sitting at one end and we +together at one side, Fred nearest her and I farthest away. She made a +sign toward the wine and sandwiches, and offered us cigarettes of a +sort I had never seen. Without feeling exactly like flies in a +spider's web, we were nervous as schoolboys. + +"What do you want with us?" asked Will at last. + +She laughed and took a cigarette. + +"Don't let us talk too loud. You three men are after the Tippoo Tib +ivory. So is the Sultan of Zanzibar. So is the German government. So +am I" + +She gave the statement time to do its own work, and smoked a while in +silence. The strength of her position, and our weakness, lay in there +being three of us. Any one of us might let drop an ill-considered word +that would commit the others. I think we all felt that, for we sat and +said nothing. + +"You answer her, Fred," I said at last, and Will nodded agreement. + +So Fred got up and sat on the other side of the table, where we could +see his face and he ours. + +"You haven't answered Mr. Yerkee question," he said. "What do you want +with us, Lady Saffren Waldon?" + +"I want an understanding with you. I will be plain to begin with. We +all know you know where the ivory is. Lord Montdidier is not the man +to connect himself with any wild goose chase. We don't pretend to know +how you came by the secret or why he has gone to London, but we are +sure you know it, perfectly sure, and for five or six reasons. We are +willing to buy the secret from you at your own price." + +"Who are 'we'?" asked Fred pointedly, helping himself to nuts. + +"The German government, the Sultan of Zanzibar, and myself." + +Fred smiled. "Between you you probably could pay," he remarked. + +"I will tell you a few hard facts," she said, "now that the ice is +broken. You will never be allowed to make full use of your own secret. + You have arrived at an inopportune moment, for you and for us. Our +plans have been on foot a long time. Our search has been systematic, +and it is a mathematical certainty we shall find what we look for in +time. We do not propose to let new arrivals on the scene spoil all our +plans and disappoint us just because they happen to have information. +If you go ahead you will be watched like mice whom cats are after. If +you find the ivory, you will be killed before you can make the +discovery known!" + +"We seem up against it, don't we!" smiled Fred. + +"You are! But you can save us trouble, if you will. Name your price. +Tell me your secret. Go your way. If your story proves true you shall +be paid by draft on London." + +"Are you overlooking the idea," asked Fred, "that we might tell the +secret to the British government, and be contented with our ten per +cent. commission?" + +"I am not. You are expressly warned against any such foolishness. In +the first place, you will be killed, at once if you dare. In the +second place, how do you know the British government would pay you ten +per cent.?" + +"I've had dealings with the English!" laughed Fred. + +"Bah! Do you think this is Whitehall? Do you think the officials here +are proof against temptation? When I tell you that in Whitehall itself +I can bribe two officials out of three, perhaps you'll understand me +when I say that all these people have their price! And the price is +low! Tell them where the ivory is--lead them to it--and they'll swear +they found it themselves, so as to keep the commission themselves! And +as for you--you three"--she sneered with the most sardonic, thin-lipped +smile I ever saw--"there are lions out here, and buffalo, snakes, +fevers, native uprisings--more ways of being rid of you than by choking +you to death with butter!" + +"Do you suppose" asked Fred, "that Lord Montdidier has no influence in +London, that he--" + +"I know he had influence. I should have told you first, perhaps. Lord +Montdidier was murdered on board ship. A telegram reached Mombasa +yesterday at ten A.M. from up-coast saying that the body of an unknown, +Englishman had been picked up at sea by an Arab dhow, with the face too +badly eaten by fish to be recognizable. You may take it from me, that +is Lord Montdidier's corpse." + +The calm announcement was intended to surprise us, and it did, but the +result surprised her. + +"You she-devil!" said Will. "If you and your gang have murdered that +fine fellow I'll turn the tables on you! You go up-stairs, and pray he +isn't dead! Pray that corpse may prove to be some one's else! If he's +dead I'll guarantee you it's the worst day's work you ever had a hand +in! Go up-stairs!" + +He flung away the cigarette she had given him and knocked his chair +away. + +"Sit down, you young fool!" she said. "Don't make all that noise!" + +But Will had none of the respect for titles acquired by marriage that +made most men an easy mark for her. + +"Leave the room!" he ordered. "Go away from us! Just you hope that's +a lie about Monty, that's all!" + +"Sit down!" she repeated. "I admit I am a little previous. The story +is unconfirmed yet. Sit down and be sensible! Something of the sort +will happen to all of you unless you three men get religion!" + +But Will began to pace the floor noisily, stopping to glare at her each +time he turned. + +"Is there any sense in protracting the scene?" asked Fred. + +"No," she admitted. "I see you are too hot-headed to be reasoned with. + But it makes little difference! +Fever--animals--climate--sun--flood--accident--natives--there are +excuses in plenty--explanations by the dozen! I will say good night, +then--and good-by!" + +"Yes, good-by!" growled Will, facing her with his back to the stairs. +"You take us for men with a price, do you?" + +"All men have a price," she smiled bitterly. "Only it is no use +offering flowers to pigs! We must treat pigs another way--pigs, and +young fools! And fools old enough to know better!" she added with a +nod toward Fred, who bowed to her in mock abasement--too politely, I +thought. + +Will got out of her way and she went up-stairs with the manner of an +empress taking leave of subjects. Fred swept her food and wine from +the table and stowed it in a corner, and we sat down at the table again. + +"The whole thing's getting ridiculous." he said. + +"Why don't we hunt up some official in the morning," I proposed, "and +simply expose her?" + +"No use," said Will. "She never followed us up here and tried that +game without being sure of her pull. Besides--what kind of a tale +could we tell without letting on we're after the ivory? I vote we see +the game through to a finish." + +"Good!" said Fred. "I agree!" + +"The only clue we've got," said I, "is Courtney's advice about Mount +Elgon." + +"And what Coutlass said in Zanzibar about German East," added Will. + +"Tell you what," said Fred, rapping the table excitedly. "Instead of +falling foul of this government by slipping over the dead-line, why not +run down to German East--pretend to search for the stuff down +there--and go from German East direct to Mount Elgon, giving 'em all +the slip. Who's got the map?" + +"It's up-stairs," I said. "I'll fetch it." + +There was nothing like silence in the rooms above. Men were smoking +and drinking in one another's rooms. Some doors were open to make +conversation easier across the landing, and nobody was asleep. But I +was surprised to see Georges Coutlass leaning against the door-post of +the room +he shared with the other Greek and the Goanese, obviously on guard, but +against whom and on whose behalf it was difficult to guess. + +"Are you off to bed?" he asked, piercing me with his unbandaged eye. +"Why don't the others go, too?" + +It dawned on me what he was after. + +"Take the wine if you want it," I said. "None of us will prevent you." + +He went down-stairs in his stocking feet, leaving his own door wide. I +glanced in. The other Greek and the Goanese were asleep. Hassan lay +on the floor on a mat between their cots. He looked up at me. I did +not dare speak, but I smiled at him as friendly as I knew how and made +a gesture I hoped he would interpret as an invitation to come and +attach himself to our party. Then I hurried on, for Coutlass was +coming back with a bottle of wine in each hand. + +I was five minutes in our bedroom. In a minute I knew what had +happened. We had left the door locked, but the lock was a common one; +probably the keys of other doors fitted it, and there was not one thing +in the room placed exactly where we had left it. Everything was more +or less in place, but nothing quite. + +I returned empty-handed down-stairs, locking the bedroom door behind me. + +"Listen, you chaps!" I said. "While we waited for that woman she and +her maid went through our things again!" + +"How d'you know it was she?" asked Fred. + +"No mistaking the scent she uses. Where's our money?" + +"Here in my pocket." + +"Good. The map's gone, though!" + +Will showed big teeth in the first really happy smile for several days. + +"Good enough!" he said. "Let's go to bed now. I'll bet you my share +of the ivory they're poring over the map with a magnifying-glass! +D'you remember the various places we underscored? They'll think it's a +cryptogram and fret ever it all night! Come on--come to bed!" + + + + +CHAPTER SIX + + +THE SONG OF THE GREAT GAME RESERVE + +Noah was our godfather, and he pitched and caulked a ship +'With stable-room for two of each and fodder for the trip, +Lest when the Flood made sea of earth the animals should die; +And two by two he stalled us till the wrath of God was by. +But who in the name of the Pentateuch can the paleface people be +Who ha' done on the plains of Africa more than he did at sea? + +A million hoofs once drummed the dust (Kongoni led the way!) +>From river-pool to desert-lick we thundered in array +Until the dark-skin people came with tube and smoke and shot, +Hunting and driving and killing, and leaving the meat to rot. +And we didn't know who the hunters were, but we saw the herds grow +thin +That used to drum the dust-clouds up with thousand-footed din. + +We were few when the paleface people came--scattered and few and +afraid. +Fewer were they, but they brought the law, and the dark-skin men +obeyed. +The paleface people drew a line that none by dark or day +Might cross with fell intent to hunt--capture or drive or slay. +But who ran the paleface people be with red-meat appetites +Who ruled anew what Noah knew--that animals have rights? + +And now in the Athi Game Reserve--in a million-acre park +A million creatures graze who went by twos into the Ark. +We sleep o' nights without alarm (Kongoni, prick your ear!) +And barring the leopard and lion to watch, and ticks, we've nought +to fear, +Zebra, giraffe and waterbuck, rhino and ostrich too-- +But who can the paleface people be who know what Noah knew? + + +The lions awoke us a little before dawn as the proprietor had promised. +They seemed to have had bad hunting, for their boastfulness was gone. +They came in twos and threes, snarling, only roaring intermittently--in +a hurry because the hated daylight would presently reverse conditions +and put them at disadvantage. + +I grew restless and got up. The air being chilly, I put my clothes on +and sat for a while by the window. So it happened I caught sight of +Hassan, very much afraid of lions, but obviously more afraid of being +seen from the hotel windows. He was sneaking along as close to the +house as he could squeeze, his head just visible above the veranda rail. + +For no better reason than that I was curious and unoccupied, I slipped +out of the house and followed him. + +Once clear of the hotel he seemed to imagine himself safe, for without +another glance backward he ran up-street in the direction of the +bazaar. I followed him down the bazaar--a short street of corrugated +iron buildings--and out the other end. Being fat, he could not run +fast, although his wind held out surprisingly. If he saw me at all he +must have mistaken me for a settler or one of the Nairobi officials, +for he seemed perfectly sure of himself and took no pains whatever now +to throw pursuers off the track. + +It soon became evident that he was making for an imposing group of +tents on the outskirts of the town. As he drew nearer he approached +more slowly. + +It now became my turn to take precautions. There was no chance of +concealment where I was--nothing but open level ground between me and +the tents. But now that I knew Hassan's destination, I could afford to +let him out of sight for a minute; so I turned my back on him, walked +to where a sort of fold in the ground enabled me to get down unseen +into a shallow nullah, and went along that at right angles to Hassan's +course until I reached the edge of some open jungle, about half a mile +from the tents. I noticed that it came to an end at a spot about three +hundred yards to the rear of the tents, so I worked my way along its +outer edge, and so approached the encampment from behind. + +I had brought a rifle with me, not that I expected to shoot anything, +but because the lion incident of the previous afternoon had taught me +caution. It had not entered my head that in that country a strange +white man without a rifle might have been regarded as a member of the +mean white class; nor that anybody would question my right to carry a +rifle, for that matter. + +The camp was awake now. There were ten tents, all facing one way. Two +of them contained stores. The central round tent with an awning in +front was obviously a white man's. One tent housed a mule, and the +rest were for native servants and porters. The camp was tidy and +clean--obviously belonging to some one of importance. Fires were +alight. Breakfast was being cooked, and smelled most uncommonly +appetizing in that chill morning air. Boys were already cleaning +boots, and a saddle, and other things. There was an air of discipline +and trained activity, and from the central tent came the sound of +voices. + +I don't know why, but I certainly did not expect to hear English. So +the sound of English spoken with a foreign accent brought me to a +standstill. I listened to a few words, and made no further bones about +eavesdropping. Circumstances favored me. The boys had seen I was +carrying a rifle and was therefore a white man of importance, so they +did not question my right to approach. The tent with the mule in it +and the two store tents were on the right, pitched in a triangle. I +passed between them up to the very pegs of the central tent from which +the voices came, and discovered I was invisible, unless some one should +happen to come around a corner. I decided to take my chance of that. + +The first thing that puzzled me was why a German (for it was a +perfectly unmistakable German accent) should need to talk English to a +native who was certainly familiar with both Arabic and Kiswahili. When +I heard the German addressed as Bwana Schillingschen I wondered still +more, for from all accounts that individual could speak more native +tongues than most people knew existed. It did not occur to me at the +time that if he wished not to be understood by his own crowd of boys he +must either speak German or English, and that Hassan would almost +certainly know no German. + +"A good thing you came to me!" I heard. The accent was clumsy for a +man so well versed in tongues. "Yes, I will give you money at the +right time. Tell me no lies now! There will be letters coming from +people you never saw, and I shall know whether or not you lie to me! +You say there are three of the fools?" + +"Yes, bwana. There were four, but one going home--big lord gentleman, +him having black m'stache, gone home." + +There was no mistaking Hassan's voice. No doubt he could speak his +mother tongue softly enough, but in common with a host of other people +he seemed to imagine that to make himself understood in English he must +shout. + +"Why did he go home?" + +"I don't know, bwana." + +"Did they quarrel?" + +"Sijui."* [* Sijui, I don't know: the most aggravating word In +Africa, except perhaps bado kidogo, which means "presently," "bye and +bye," "in a little while." + +"Don't you dare say 'sijui' to me!" + +"Maybe they quarrel, maybe not. They all quarreling with Lady +Saffunwardo--staying in same hotel, Tippoo Tib one time his house--she +wanting maybe go with him to London. He saying no. Others saying no. +All very angry each with other an' throwing bwana masikini, Greek man, +down hotel stairs." + +"What had he to do with it?" + +"Two Greek man an' one Goa all after ivory, too. She--Lady Saffunwardo +afterwards promising pay them three if they come along an' do what she +tell 'em. They agreeing quick! Byumby Tippoo Tib hearing bazaar talk +an' sending me along too. She refuse to take me, all because German +consul man knowing me formerly and not making good report, but Greek +bwana he not caring and say to me to come along. Greek people very +bad! No food--no money--nothing but swear an' kick an' call bad +names--an' drunk nearly all the time!" + +"What makes you think these three men know where the ivory is?" said +the German voice. It was the voice of a man very used to questioning +natives--self-assertive but calm--going straight each time to the point. + +"They having map. Map having marks on it." + +"How do you know?" + +"She--Lady Saffunwardo go in their bedroom, stealing it last night." + +"Did you see her take it?" + +"Yes, bwana." + +"Did you see the marks on it?" + +"No, bwana." + +"Then how do you know the marks were on it? Now, remember, don't lie +to me!" + +"Coutlass, him Greek man, standing on stairs keeping watch. Them three +men you call fools all sitting in dining-room waiting because they +thinking she come presently. She send maid to their room. Maid, fool +woman, upset everything, finding nothing. 'No,' she say, 'no map--no +money--no anything in here.' An' Lady Saffunwardo she very angry an' +say, 'Come out o' there! Let me look!' And Lady Saffunwardo going in, +but maid not coming out, an' they both search. Then Lady Saffanwardo +saying all at once, 'Here it is. Didn't you see this?' An' the maid +answering, 'Oh, that! That nothing but just ordinary pocket map! That +not it!' But Lady Saffunwardo she opening the map, an' make little +scream, an' say, 'Idiot! This is it! Look! See! See the marks!' +So, bwana, I then knowing must be marks on map!" + +"Good. What did she do with it?" + +"Sujui." + +"I told you not to dare say 'sijui' to me!" + +"How should I know, bwana,, what she doing with it?" + +"Could you steal it?" + +"No, bwana!" + +"Why not?" + +"You not knowing that woman! No man daring steal from her! She very +terrible!" + +"If I offered you a hundred rupees could you steal it?" + +"Sujui, bwana." + +"I told you not to use that word!" + +"Bwana, I--" + +"Could you steal it?" + +"Maybe." + +"That is no answer!" + +"Say that again about hundred rupees!" + +"I will give you a hundred rupees if you bring me that map and it +proves to be what you say." + +"I go. I see. I try. Hundred rupees very little money!" + +"It's all you'll get, you black rascal! And you know what you'll get +if you fail! You know me, don't you? You understand my way? Steal +that map and bring it here, and I shall give you a hundred rupees. +Fail, and you shall have a hundred lashes, and what Ahmed and Abdullah +and Seydi got in addition! The hundred lashes first, and the ant-hill +afterward! You're not fool enough to think you can escape me, I +suppose?" + +"No. bwana." + +"Then go and get the map!" + +"But afterward, what then? She very gali* woman." [*Gali, same as +Hindustani kali--cruel, hard, fierce, terrible.] + +"Nonsense! Steal the map and bring it here to me. Then I've other +work for you. Are you a renegade Muhammedan?" + +"No, bwana! No, no! Never! I'm good Moslem." + +"Very well. Back to your old business with you! Preach Islam up and +down the country. Go and tell all the tribes in British territory that +the Germans are coming soon to establish an empire of Islam in Africa! +Good pay and easy living! Does that suit you?" + +"Yes, bwana. How much pay?" + +"I'll tell you when you bring the map. Now be going!" + +Hassan went, after a deal of polite salaaming. Then boys began +bringing the German's breakfast, and unless I chose to confess myself +an eavesdropper it became my business to be in the tent ahead of them. +So I strode forward as if just arrived and purposely tripped over a +tent-rope, stumbling under the awning with a laugh and an apology. + +"Who are you?" demanded the German without rising. He had the splay +shovel beard described to us in Zanzibar--big dark man, sitting in the +doorway of a tent all hung with guns, skins and antlers. He was in +night-shirt and trousers--bare feet--but with a helmet on the back of +his head. + +"A visitor," I answered, "staying at the hotel--out for a morning shot +at something--had no luck--got nothing--saw your tents in the distance, +and came out of curiosity to find out who you are." + +"My name is Professor Schillingschen," he answered, still without +getting up. There was no other chair near the awning, so I had to +remain standing. I told him my name, hoping that Hassan had either not +done so already, or else that he might have so bungled the +pronunciation as to make it unrecognizable. I detected no sign of +recognition on Schillingschen's face. + +The boys reached the tent with his breakfast, and one of them dragged a +chair from inside the tent for me. I sat down on it without waiting +for the professor to invite me. + +"I'm tired," I said, untruthfully, minded to refuse an invitation to +eat, but interested to see whether he would invite me or not. + +"Have you any friends at the hotel?" he asked, looking up at me darkly +under the bushiest eyebrows I ever saw. + +"I've got friends wherever I go," I answered. "I make friends." + +"Are you going far?" he demanded, holding out a foot for his boy to +pull a stocking on. + +"That depends," I said. + +"On what?" + +"On whether I get employment." + +I said that at random, without pausing to think what impression I might +create. He pulled the night-shirt off over his head, throwing the +helmet to the ground, and sat like a great hairy gorilla for the boy to +hang day-clothes on him. He had the hairiest breast and arms I ever +saw, hung with lumpy muscles that heightened his resemblance to an ape. + +"I might give you work," he said presently, beginning to eat before the +boy had finished dressing him. + +"I want to travel" I said. "If I could find a job that would take me +up and down the length and breadth of this land, that would suit me +finely." + +"That is the kind of a man I want," he said, eying me keenly. "I have +a German, but I need an Englishman. Do you speak native languages?" + +"Scarcely a word." + +To my surprise he nodded approval at that answer. + +"I have parties of natives traveling all over the country gathering +folk lore, and ethnographical particulars, but they get into a village +and sit down for whole weeks at a time, drawing pay for doing nothing. +I need an Englishman to go with them and keep them moving." + +"All well and good," I said, "but I understand the government is not in +favor of white men traveling about at random." + +"But I am known to the government," he answered. "I have been accorded +facilities because of my professional standing. Have you references +you can give me?" + +"No," I said. "No references." + +I thought that would stump him, but on the contrary he looked rather +pleased. + +"That is good. References are too frequently evidence of back-stairs +influence." + +All this while he kept eying me between mouthfuls. Whenever I seemed +to look away his eyes fairly burned holes in me. Whenever food got in +his beard (which was frequently) be used the napkin more as a shield +behind which to take stock of me than as a means of getting clean +again. By the time his breakfast was finished his beard was a beastly +mess, but he probably had my features from every angle fixed indelibly +in his memory. The sensation was that I had been analyzed and card +indexed. + +"I pay good wages," he remarked, and then stuck his face, beard and +all, into the basin of warm water his boy had brought. "Where did you +get that rifle?" he demanded, spluttering, and combing the beard out +with his fingers. + +It was on the tip of my tongue to say "At Zanzibar," but, as that might +have started him on a string of questions as to how I came to that +place and whom I knew there, I temporized. + +"Oh, I bought it from a man." + +"That is no answer!" he retorted. + +If I had been possessed of much inclination to play deep games and +match wits with big rascals I suppose I would have answered him civilly +and there and then learned more of his purpose. But I was not +prepossessed by his charms or respectful of his claim to superiority. +The German type super-education never did impress me as compatible with +good breeding or good sense, and it annoyed me to have to lie to him. + +"It's all the answer you'll get!" I said. + +"Where is your license for it?" he growled. + +The game began to amuse me. + +"None of your business!" I answered. + +"How long have you been in the country!" + +"Since I came," I said. + +"And you have no license! You have been out shooting. A lucky thing +you came to my camp and not to some other man's! The game laws are +very strict!" + +He spoke then to a boy who was standing behind me, giving him very +careful directions in a language of which I did not know one word. The +boy went away. + +"The last man who went shooting near Nairobi without a license," he +said, "tried to excuse himself before the magistrate by claiming +ignorance of the law. He was fined a thousand rupees and sentenced to +six months in jail!" + +"Very severe!" I said. + +"They are altogether too severe," he answered. "I hope you have killed +nothing. It is good you came first to me. You would better stand that +rifle over here in the corner of my tent. To walk back to the hotel +with it over your shoulder would be dangerous." + +"I've taken bigger chances than that," said I. + +"If you have shot nothing, then it is not so serious," he said, +disappearing behind a curtain into the recesses of his tent. + +He stayed in there for about ten minutes. I had about made up my mind +to walk away when four of his boys approached the tent from behind, and +one of them cried "Hodi!" The boy to whom he had given directions +across my shoulder was not among them. + +They threw the buck down near my feet, and he came out from the gloomy +interior and stared at it. He asked them questions rapidly in the +native tongue, and they answered, pointing at me. + +"They say you shot it," he told me, stroking his great beard +alternately with either hand. + +"Then they lie!" I answered. + +"Let me see that rifle!" he said, reaching out an enormous freckled +fist to take it. + +I saw through his game at last. It would have been the easiest thing +in the world to extract a cartridge from the clip in the magazine and +claim afterward that I had fired it away. Evidently he proposed to get +me in his power, though for just what reason he was so determined to +make use of me rather than any one else was not so clear. + +"So I shot the buck, did I?" I asked. + +"Those four natives say they saw you shoot it." + +"Then it's mine?" + +He nodded. + +"It's heavy," I said, "but I expect I can carry it." + +I took the buck by the hind legs and swung myself under it. It weighed +more than a hundred pounds, but the African climate had not had time +enough to sap my strength or destroy sheer pleasure in muscular effort. + +"What's mine's my own I" I laughed. "You gave me something to eat after +all! Good day, and good riddance!" + +The boys tried to prevent my carrying the buck away. + +"Come back!" growled the professor. "I will take responsibility for +that buck and save you from punishment. Bring it back! Lay it down!" + +But I continued to walk away, so he ordered his boys to take the +carcass from me. I laid it down and threatened them with my butt end. +He brought his own rifle out and threatened me with that. I laughed at +him, bade him shoot if he dared, offered him three shots for a penny, +and ended by shouldering the buck again and walking off. + +Meat was cheap in Nairobi in those days, so the owner of the hotel was +not so delighted as I expected. He reprimanded me for being late for +breakfast, and told me I was lucky to get any. Fred and Will had +waited for me, and while we ate alone and I told them the story of my +morning's adventure a police officer in khaki uniform tied up his mule +outside and clattered in. + +"Whose buck is that hanging outside the kitchen?" he demanded. + +"There's some doubt about it," I said. "I've been accused of being the +owner." + +"Then you're the man I want. The court sits at nine. You'd better be +there, or you'll be fetched!" + +He placed in my hand what proved to be a summons to appear before the +district court that morning on the charge of carrying an unregistered +rifle and shooting game without a license. Two native policemen he had +with him took down the buck from the hook outside the kitchen door and +carried it off as evidence. + +We finished our breakfast in great contentment, and strode off +arm-in-arm to find the court-house, feeling as if we were going to a +play--perhaps a mite indignant, as if the subject of the play were one +we did not quite approve, but perfectly certain of a good time. + +The court was crowded. The bearded professor, his four boys, and two +other natives were there, as well as several English officials, all +apparently on very good terms indeed with Schillingschen. + +As we entered the court under the eyes of a hostile crowd I heard one +official say to the man standing next him: + +"I hope he'll make an example of this case. If he doesn't every new +arrival in this country will try to take the law in his own hands. I +hope he fines him the limit!" + +"Give me your hunting-knife, Fred!" said I, and Fred laughed as he +passed it to me. For the moment I think he thought I meant to plunge +it into the too talkative official's breast. + +First they called a few township cases. A drunken Muhammedan was fined +five rupees, and a Hindu was ordered to remove his garbage heap before +noon. Three natives were ordered to the chain-gang for a week for +fighting, and a Masai charged with stealing cattle was remanded. Then +my case was called, very solemnly, by a magistrate scarcely any older +than myself. + +The police officer acted as prosecutor. He stated that "acting on +information received" he had proceeded to the hotel. Outside of which +he saw a buck hanging (buck produced in evidence); that he had entered +the hotel, found me at breakfast, and that I had not denied having shot +the buck. He called his two colored askaris to prove that, and they +reeled off what they had to say with the speed of men who had been +thoroughly rehearsed. Then he put the German on the stand, and +Schillingschen, with a savage glare at me, turned on his verbal +artillery. He certainly did his worst. + +"This morning," be announced, after having been duly sworn on the Book, +"that young man whose name I do not know approached my tent while I was +dressing. The sound of a rifle being fired had awakened me earlier +than usual. He carried a rifle, and I put two and two together and +concluded he had shot something. Not having seen him ever before, and +he standing before my tent, I asked him his name. He refused to tell +me, and that made me suspicious. Then came my four boys carrying a +buck, which they assured me they had seen him shoot. I asked him +whether he had a license to shoot game, and he at once threatened to +shoot me if I did not mind my own business. Therefore, I sent a note +to the police at once." + +His four boys were then put on the stand in turn, and told their story +through an interpreter. Their words identical. If the interpreter +spoke truth one account did not vary from the next in the slightest +degree, and that fact alone should have aroused the suspicion of any +unprejudiced judge. + +Having the right to cross-examine, I asked each in turn whether the +rifle I had brought with me to court was the same they had seen me +using. They asserted it was. Then I recalled the German and asked him +the same question. He also replied in the affirmative. I asked him +how he knew. He said he recognized the mark on the butt where the +varnish had been chafed away. +Then I handed the hunting knife I had borrowed from to the police +officer and demanded that he have the bullet cut out of the buck's +carcass. The court could not object to that, so under the eyes of at +least fifty witnesses a flattened Mauser bullet was produced. I called +attention to the fact that my rifle was a Lee-Enfield that could not +possibly have fired a Mauser bullet. The court was young and very +dignified--examined the bullet and my rifle--and had to be convinced. + +"Very well," was the verdict on that count, "it is proved that you did +not shoot this particular buck, unless the police have evidence that +you used a different rifle." + +The policeman confessed that he had no evidence along that line, so the +first charge was dismissed. + +"But you are charged," said the magistrate, "with carrying an +unregistered rifle, and shooting without a license." + +For answer I produced my certificate of registration and the big game +license we had paid for in Mombasa. + +"Why didn't you say so before?" demanded the magistrate. + +"I wasn't asked," said I. + +"Case dismissed!" snapped his honor, and the court began to empty. + +"Don't let it stop there!" urged Will excitedly. "That Heinie and his +boys have all committed perjury; charge them with it!" + +I turned to the police officer. + +"I charge all those witnesses with perjury!" I said. + +"Oh," he laughed, "you can't charge natives with that. If the law +against perjury was strictly enforced the jails wouldn't hold a +fiftieth of them! They don't understand." + +"But that blackguard with a beard--that rascal Schillingschen +understands!" said I. "Arrest him! Charge him with it!" + +"That's for the court to do," he answered. "I've no authority." + +The magistrate had gone. + +"Who is the senior official in this town?" I demanded. + +"There he goes," he answered. "That man in the white suit with the +round white topee is the collector." + +So we three followed the collector to his office, arriving about two +minutes after the man himself. The Goanese clerk had been in the +court, and recognized me. He had not stayed to hear the end. + +"Fines should be paid in the court, not here!" he intimated rudely. + +We wasted no time with him but walked on through, and the collector +greeted us without obvious cordiality. He did not ask us to sit down. + +"My friend here has come to tell you about that man Schillingschen," +said Fred. + +"I suppose you mean Professor Schillingschen!" + +The collector was a clean-shaven man with a blue jowl that suffered +from blunt razors, and a temper rendered raw by native cooking. But he +had photos of feminine relations and a little house in a dreary Midland +street on his desk, and was no doubt loyal to the light he saw. I +wished we had Monty with us. One glimpse of the owner of a title that +stands written in the Doomsday Book would have outshone the halo of +Schillingschen's culture. + +I rattled off what I had to say, telling the story from th moment I +started to follow Hassan from the hotel down to the end, omitting +nothing. + +"Schillingschen is worse than a spy. He's a black-hearted, schemer. +He's planning to upset British rule in this Protectorate and make it +easy for the Germans to usurp!" + +"This is nonsense!" the collector interrupted. "Professor +Schillingschen is the honored friend of the British government. He +came to us here with the most influential backing--letter of +introduction from very exalted personages, I assure you! Professor +Schillingschen is one of the most, if not the most, learned +ethnologists in the world to-day. How dare you traduce him!" + +"But you heard him tell lies in court!" I gasped. "You were there. +You heard his evidence absolutely disproved. How do you explain that +away?" + +"I don't attempt to! The explanation is for you to make!" he answered. + "The fact that he did not succeed in proving his case against +you is nothing in itself! Many a case in court is lost from lack of +proper evidence! And one more matter! Lady Isobel Saffren Waldon is +staying--or rather, I should say, was staying at the hotel. She is now +staying at my house. She complains to me of very rude treatment at the +hands of you three men--insolent treatment I should call it! I can +assure you that the way to get on in this Protectorate is not to behave +like cads toward ladies of title! I understand that her maid is afraid +to be caught alone by any one of you, and that Lady Saffren Waldon +herself feels scarcely any safer!" + +Fred and I saw the humor of the thing, and that enabled us to save Will +from disaster. There never was a man more respectful of women than +Will. He would even get off the sidewalk for a black woman, and would +neither tell nor laugh at the sort of stories that pass current about +women in some smoking-rooms. His hair bristled. His ears stuck out on +either side of his head. He leaned forward--laid one strong brown hand +on the desk--and shook his left fist under the collector's nose. + +"You poor boob!" he exploded. Then he calmed himself. "I'm sorry for +your government if you're the brightest jewel it has for this job! +That Jane will use everything you've got except the squeal! Great +suffering Jemima! Your title is collector, is it? Do you collect bugs +by any chance? You act like it! So help you two men and a boy, a +bughouse is where I believe you belong! Come along, fellows, he'll +bite us if we stay!" + +"Be advised" said the collector, leaning back in his chair and +sneering. "Behave yourselves! This is no country for taking chances +with the law!" + +"Remember Courtney's advice," said Fred when we got outside. "Suppose +we give him a few days to learn the facts about Lady Isobel, and then +go back and try him again?" + +"Say!" answered Will, stopping and turning to face us. "What d'you +take me for? I like my meals. I like three squares a day, and +tobacco, and now and then a drink. But if this was the Sahara, and +that man had the only eats and drinks, I'd starve." + +"Telling him the truth wouldn't be accepting favors from him," +counseled Fred. + +"I wouldn't tell him the time!" + +That attitude--and Will insisted that all the officials in the land +would prove alike--limited our choice, for unless we were to allay +official suspicion it would be hopeless to get away northward. +Southward into German East seemed the only way to go; there was +apparently no law against travel in that direction. On our way to the +hotel we passed Coutlass, striding along smirking to himself, headed +toward the office from which we had just come. + +"I'll bet you," said Will, "he's off to get an ammunition permit, and +permission to go where he damned well pleases! I'll bet he gets both! +This government's the limit!" + +We laughed, but Will proved more than half right. Coutlass did get +ammunition. Lady Saffren Waldon's influence was already strong enough +for that. He did not ask for leave to go anywhere for the simple +reason that his movements depended wholly on ours--a fact that +developed later. + +At the hotel there was a pleasant surprise for us. A squarely built, +snub-nosed native, not very dark skinned but very ugly--his right ear +slit, and almost all of his left ear missing--without any of the brass +or iron wire ornaments that most of the natives of the land affect, but +possessed of a Harris tweed shooting jacket and, of all unexpected +things, boots that he carried slung by the laces from his neck-waited +for us, squatting with a note addressed to Fred tied in a cleft stick. + +It does not pay to wax enthusiastic over natives, even when one +suspects they bring good news. We took the letter from him, told him +to wait, and went on in. Once out of the man's hearing Fred tore the +letter open and read it aloud to us. + + "Herewith my Kazimoto," it ran. "Be good to him. It +occurred to me that you might not care after all to linger in +Nairobi, and it seemed hardly fair to keep the boy from getting a good +job simply because be could make me comfortable for the +remainder of a week. So, as there happened to be ae special train +going up I begged leave for him to ride in the caboose. He is +a splendid gun- bearer. He never funks, but reloads coolly under the +most nerve-trying conditions. He has his limitations, of course, +but I have found him brave and faithful, and I pass him along to you +with confidence. + + "And by the way: he has been to Mount Elgon with me. I +was not looking for buried ivory, but he knows where the caves +are in which anything might be! + "Wishing you all good luck, Yours truly, + "F. Courtney" + +For the moment we felt like men possessed of a new horse apiece. We +were for dashing out to look the acquisition over. But Will checked us. + +"Recall what Courtney said about a dog?" he asked. "We can't all own +him!" + +Fred sat down. "Ex-missionaries own dice," he announced. "That's how +they come to be ex! You'll find them in the little box on the shelf, +Will. We'll throw a main for Kazimoto!" + +"I know a better gamble than that!' + +"Name it, America." + +"Bring the coon in and have him choose." + +So I went out and felt tempted to speak cordially to the homeless ugly +black man--to give him a hint that he was welcome. But it is a fatal +mistake to make a "soft" impression on even the best natives at the +start. + +"Karibu!"* I said gruffly when I had looked him over, using one of the +six dozen Swahili words I knew as yet. [*Karibu, enter, come in.] + +He arose with the unlabored ease that I have since learned to look for +in all natives worth employing; and followed me indoors. Will and +Fred were seated in judicial attitudes, and I took a chair beside them. + +"What is your name?" demanded Fred. + +"Kazimoto." + +"Um-m! That means 'Work-like-the-devil.' Let us hope you live up to +it. Your former master gives you a good character." + +"Why not, bwana? My spirit is good." + +"Do you want work?" + +"Yes." + +"How much money do you expect to get?" + +"Sijui!" + +"Don't say sijui!" I cut in, remembering Schillingschen's method. + +"Six rupees a month and posho," he said promptly. Posho means rations, +or money in lieu of rations. + +"Don't you rather fancy yourself?" suggested Fred with a perfectly +straight face. + +"Say two dollars a month all told!" Will whispered to me behind his +hand. + +"I am a good gun-bearer!" the native answered. "My spirit is good. I +am strong. There is nobody better than me as a gun-bearer!" + +"We happen to want a headman," answered Fred. "Have you ever been +headman?" + +"Would you like to be?" + +"Yes." + +"Are you able?" + +"Surely." + +"Choose, then. Which of us would you like to work for?" + +"You!" he answered promptly, pointing at Fred. + +It was on the tip of the tongue of every one of us to ask him instantly +why, but that would have been too rank indiscretion. It never pays to +seem curious about a native's personal reasons, and it was many weeks +before we knew why he had made up his mind in advance to choose Fred +and not either of us for his master. + +His choice made, and the offer of his services accepted, he took over +Fred forthwith--demanded his keys--found out which our room was--went +over our belongings and transferred the best of our things into Fred's +bag and the worst of his into ours--remade Fred's bed after a +mysterious fashion of his own, taking one of my new blankets and one of +Will's in exchange for Fred's old ones--cleaned Fred's guns thoroughly +after carefully abstracting the oil and waste from our gun-cases and +transferring them to Fred's--removed the laces from my shooting boots +and replaced them with Fred's knotted ones--sharpened Fred's razors and +shaved himself with mine (to the enduring destruction of its once +artistic edge)--and departed in the direction of the bazaar. + +He returned at the end of an hour and a half with a motley following of +about twenty, arrayed in blankets of every imaginable faded hue and in +every stage of dirtiness. + +"You wanting cook," he announced. "These three making cook." + +He waved three nondescripts to the front, and we chose a tall Swahili +because he grinned better than the others. "Although," as Fred +remarked, "what the devil grinning has to do with cooking is more than +anybody knows." The man, whose name was Juma, turned out to be an +execrable cook, but as he never left off grinning under any +circumstances (and it would have been impossible to imagine +circumstances worse than those we warred with later on) we never had +the heart to dismiss him. + +After that, Will and I selected a servant apiece who were destined +forever to wage war on Kazimoto in hopeless efforts to prevent his +giving Fred the best end of everything. Mine was a Baganda who called +himself Matches, presumably because his real name was unpronounceable. +Will chose a Malindi boy named Tengeneza (and that means arrange in +order, fix, make over, manage, mend--no end of an ominous name!). They +were both outclassed from the start by Kazimoto, but to add to the +handicap he insisted that since he was a headman he would need some one +to help look after Fred at times when other duties would monopolize his +attention. He himself picked out an imp of mischief whose tribe I +never ascertained, but who called himself Simba (lion), and there and +then Simba departed up-stairs to steal for Fred whatever was left of +value among Will's effects and mine. + +We had scarcely got used to the idea of once more having a savage +apiece to wait on us when Kazimoto turned up at the door with a string +of porters and a Goanese railway clerk. We had left our tents and +heavy baggage checked at the station, but had said nothing about them +to our new headman; however, he had made inquiries and worked out a +plan on his own account. The railway clerk asked to know whether he +should let Kazimoto have our things. + +"Why?"' demanded Fred. + +"This hotel no good!" announced Kazimoto. "No place for boys. Heap +too many plenty people. Pitching camp, that good!" + +"All right," said Fred, and then and there paid our baggage charges. + +Presently Brown of Lumbwa, who had spent most of the daylight hours in +The little corrugated iron bar run by a Goanese in the bazaar, came +lurching past the township camping ground, and viewed Kazimoto with his +gang pitching our tents. He asked questions, but could get no +information, so came along to us. + +"Where you schaps going?" he demanded, leaning against the wall. Fred +took advantage of the opportunity and examined him narrowly as to his +knowledge of German East and ways of getting there. He was in an +aggravating mood that made at one moment a very well of information of +him, and at the next a mere garrulous ass. + +"Come along o' me t' Lumbwa," was his final word on the matter. "I'll +put you on a road nobody knows an' nobody, uses!" + +We spent that night under canvas and talked the matter out. The usual +way to reach Lumbwa was to wait for a freight, or construction train +and beg leave to ride on that, for as yet, no passenger trains were +running regularly on the western section of the line. But there was no +rule against traveling anywhere south of the equator, and it was our +purpose to march down into German East without any one being the wiser. + +The next morning we imagined Brown was sober and sorry enough to hold +his tongue, so, without going into details with him, we agreed to go +with him "some of the way," and Fred spent the whole of that morning in +the bazaar buying loads of food and general supplies. Will and I +engaged porters, and with Kazimoto's aid as interpreter, had fifty +ready to march that afternoon. + +The whole trick of starting on a journey is to start. If you only make +a mile or two the first day you have at least done better than stand +still; loads have been apportioned and porters broken in to some +extent; you have broken the spell of inertia, and hereafter there is +less likely to be trouble. We made up our minds to get away that +afternoon, and I was sent back to the hotel to find Brown, who had gone +for his belongings. + +If Brown had stayed sober all might have been well, but his headache +and feeling of unworthiness had been too much for him and I found him +with a straw in the neck of a bottle of whisky alternately laying down +law to Georges Coutlass and drinking himself into a state of temporary +bliss. + +"You Greeks dunno nothin'!" he asserted as I came in. "You never did +know nothin', an' you're never goin' to know nothin'! 'Cause why? +'I'll tell you. Simply because I am goin' to tell! I'm mum, I am! +When s'mother gents an' me 'ave business, that's our business--see! +None o' your business--'ss our business, an' I'm not goin' to tell you +Greeks nothin' about where we're off to, nor why, nor when. An' you +put that in your pipe an' smoke it!" + +I sat in the dining-room for a while, hoping that the Greek would go +away; but as Brown was fast drinking himself into a condition when he +could not have been moved except on stretcher, and was momentarily +edging closer to an admission of all he knew or guessed about our +intention, I took the bull by the horns at last--snatched away his +whisky bottle, and walked off with it. + +He came after me swearing like a trooper, and his own porters, who had +been waiting for more than an hour beside his loads, trailed along +after him. Once in our camp we made a hammock for him out of a blanket +tied to a pole, and made him over to two porters with the promise that +they would get no supper if they lost him. Then we started--uphill, +toward the red Kikuyu heights, where settlers were already trying to +grow potatoes for which there was no market, and onions that would only +run to seed. + +To our left rear and right front were the highest mountain ranges in +Africa. Before us was the pass through which the railway threaded over +the wide high table-land before dipping downward to Victoria Nyanza. +On our left front was all Kikuyu country, and after that Lumbwa, and +native reserves, and forest, and swamp, and desert, and the German +boundary. + +We made a long march of it that first day, and camped after dark within +two miles of Kikuyu station. Most of the scrub thereabouts was castor +oil plant, that makes very poor fuel; yet there were lions in plenty +that roared and scouted around us even before the tents were pitched. + +Nobody got much sleep that night, although the porters were perfectly +indifferent to the risk of snoozing on the watch. Kazimoto produced a +thing called a kiboko--a whip of hippopotamus-hide a yard and a half +long, and with the aid of that and Will's good humor we constituted a +yelling brigade, whose business was to make the welkin ring with +godless noises whenever a lion came close enough to be dangerous. + +I made up a signal party of all our personal boys with our lanterns, +swinging them in frantic patterns in the darkness in a way to terrify +the very night itself. Fred played concertina nearly all night long, +and when dawn came, though there were tracks of lions all about the +camp we were only tired and sleepy. Nobody was missing; nobody killed. + +We never again took lions so seriously, although we always built fires +about the camp in lion country when that was possible. Partly by dint +of carelessness that brought no ill results, and partly from +observation we learned that where game is plentiful lions are more +curious than dangerous, and that unless something should happen to +enrage them, or the game has gone away and they are hungry, they are +likely to let well alone. + +If there are dogs in camp--and we bought three terrier pups that +morning from a settler at Kikuyu--leopards are likely to be more +troublesome than lions. The leopards seemed to yearn for dog-meat much +as Brown of Lumbwa yearned for whisky. + +The journey to Lumbwa is one of the pleasantest I remember. We took +Brown's supply of whisky from him, locked up with our own, sent him +ahead in the hammock, and let him as work as guide by promises of +whisky for supper if he did his duty, and threats of mere cold water if +he failed. + +"But water rots my stomach!" he objected. + +"Lead on, then!" was the invariable, remorseless answer. So Brown led +until we reached Naivasha with its strange lake full of hippo at an +elevation so great that the mornings are frosty (and that within sight +of the line) there was never a day that we were once out of sight of +game from dawn to dark. When we awoke the morning mist would scatter +slowly and betray sleepy herds of antelope, that would rise leisurely, +stand staring at us, suddenly become suspicious, and then gallop off +until the whole plain was a panorama of wheeling herds, reminding one +of the cavalry maneuvers at Aldershot when the Guards regiments were +pitted against the regular cavalry--all riding and no wits. + +Although we had to shoot enough meat for ourselves and men, we never +once took advantage of those surprise parties in the early morning, +preferring to stalk warier game at the end of a long march. The rains +were a thing of the past, and we seldom troubled to pitch tents but +slept under the stars with a sensation that the universe was one vast +place of peace. + +Occasionally we reached an elevation from which we could look down and +see men toiling to build the railway, that already reached Nyanza after +the unfinished fashion of work whose chief aim is making a showing. +Profits, performances were secondary matters; that railway's one +purpose was to establish occupation of the head waters of the Nile and +refute the German claim to prior rights there. At irregular intervals +trains already went down to the lake, and passengers might ride on +suffrance; but we deluded ourselves with the belief that by marching +we threw enemies off the scent. It was pure delusion, but extremely +pleasant while it lasted. Where Africa is green and high she is a +lovely land to march across. + +Brown grew sober on the trip, as if approaching his chosen home gave +him a sense of responsibility. His own reason for preferring the march +to a ride in a construction train was simple: + +"Every favor you ask o' gov'ment, boys, leaves one less to fall back on +in a pinch! Ask not, and they'll forget some o' your peccadillos. Ask +too often, and one day when you really need a kindness you'll find the +Bank o' Good Hope bu'sted! And, believe me, boys, that 'ud be a hell +of a predicament for a poor sufferin' settler to find himself in!" + +The approach to Lumbwa was over steep hilly grass land, between forests +of cedar--perfect country, kept clean by a wind that smelt of fern and +clover. + +"You can tell we're gettin' near my place," said Brown, "by the number +o' leopards that's about." + +We had to keep our three pups close at heel all the time, and even at +that we lost two of them. One was taken from between Will's feet as he +sat in camp cleaning his rifle. All he heard was the dog's yelp, and +all he saw was a flash of yellow as the leopard made for the boulders +close at hand. The other was taken out of my tent. I had tied it to +the tent pole, but the stout cord snapped like a hair and the darkness +swallowed both leopard and its prey before I could as much as reach my +rifle to get a shot. + +"Splendid country for farmin"' Brown remarked, "Splendid. Only you +can't keep sheep because the leopards take 'em. You can't keep hens +for the same reason. Nor yet cows, because the leopards get the +calves--leastways, that's to say unless you watch out awful cautious. +Nor yet you can't keep pigeons, 'cause the leopards take them too. I +sent to England for fancy pigeons--a dozen of em. Leopards got all but +one, so I put him in the loft above my own house, where it seemed to me +'tweren't possible for a leopard to get, supposin' he'd dared. Went +away the next day for some shootin', an' lo and behold!--came back that +evenin' to discover my cook an' three others carryin' on as if Kingdom +Come had took place at last. Never heard or saw such a jamboree. The +blamed leopard was up in the loft; and had eaten the pigeon, feathers +and all, but couldn't get out again!" + +"What happened? Nothin'! I was that riled I didn't stop to +think--fixed a bayonet on the old Martini the gov'ment supplies to +settlers out of the depths of its wisdom an' generosity--climbed up by +the same route the leopard took--invaded him--an' skewered him wi' the +bayonet in the dark! I wouldn't do it again for a kingdom--but I won't +buy more pigeons either!" + +"What do you raise on your farm, then--pigs?" we asked. + +"No, the leopards take pigs." + +"What then?" + +"Well--as I was explainin' to that Greek Georges Coutlass at +Nairobi--there's a way of farmin' out your cattle among the natives +that beats keepin' 'em yourself. The natives put 'em in the village +pen o' nights; an' besides, they know about the business. + +"All you need do is give 'em a heifer calf once in a while, and they're +contented. I keep a herd o' two hundred cows in a native village not +far from my place. The natural increase o' them will make me +well-to-do some day." + +The day before we reached Brown's tiny homestead we heard a lot of +shooting over the hill behind us. + +"That'll be railway men takin' a day off after leopards," announced +Brown with the air of a man who can not be mistaken. + +Nevertheless, Fred and I went back to see, but could make out nothing. +We lay on the top of the hill and watched for two or three hours, but +although we heard rifle firing repeatedly we did not once catch sight +of smoke or men. We marched into camp late that night with a feeling +of foreboding that we could not explain but that troubled us both +equally. + +Once or twice in the night we heard firing again, as if somebody's camp +not very far away was invaded by leopards, or perhaps lions. Yet at +dawn there were no signs of tents. And when that night we arrived at +Brown's homestead we seemed to have the whole world to ourselves. + +Brown's house was a tiny wooden affair with a thick grass roof. It +boasted a big fireplace at one end of the living-room, and a chimney +that Brown had built himself so cunningly that smoke could go up and +out but no leopards could come down. + +He got very drunk that night to celebrate the home-coming, and stayed +completely drunk for three days, we making use of his barn to give our +porters a good rest. By day we shot enough meat for the camp, and at +night we sat over the log fire, praying that Brown might sober up, Fred +singing songs to his infernal concertina, and all the natives who could +crowd in the doorway listening to him with all their ears. Fred made +vast headway in native favor, and learned a lot of two languages at +once. + +Every day we sent Kazimoto and another boy exploring among the Lumbwa +tribe, gathering information as to routes and villages, and it was +Kazimoto who came running in breathless one night just as Brown was at +last sobering up, with the news that some Greeks had swooped down on +Brown's cattle, had wounded two or three of the villagers who herded +them, and had driven the whole herd away southward. + +That news sobered Brown completely. He took the bottle of whisky he +had just brought up from the cellar and replaced it unopened. + +"There's on'y one Greek in the world knew where my cattle were!" he +announced grimly. "There's on'y one Greek I ever talked to about +cattle. Coutlass, by the great horn spoon! The blackguard swore he +was after you chaps--swore he didn't care nothing about me! What he +did to you was none o' my business, o' course--an' I figured anyway as +you could look out for yourselves! Not that I told the swine any o' +your business, mind! Not me! I was so sure he was gunnin' for you +that I told him my own business to throw him off your track! And now +the devil goes an' turns on me!" + +He got down his rifle and began overhauling it, feverishly, yet with a +deliberate care that was curious in a man so recently drunk. While he +cleaned and oiled be gave orders to his own boys; and what with having +servants of our own and having to talk to them mostly in the native +tongue, we were able to understand pretty well the whole of what he +said. + +"You're not going to start after them to-night?" Fred objected. But he +and Will were also already overhauling weapons, for the second time +that evening. (It is religion with the true hunter never to eat supper +until his rifle is cleaned and oiled.) I got my own rifle down from +the shelf over Brown's stone mantelpiece. + +"What d'you take me for?" demanded Brown. "There's one pace they'll go +at, an' that's the fastest possible. There's one place they'll head +for, an' that's German East. They can't march faster than the cattle, +an' the cattle'll have to eat. Maybe they'll drive 'em all through the +first night, and on into the next day; but after that they'll have to +rest 'em an' graze 'em a while. That's when we'll begin to gain. The +tireder the cattle get, the faster we'll overhaul 'em, for we can eat +while we're marchin', which the cattle can't! You chaps just stay here +an' look after my farm till I come back!" + +"You mean you propose to go alone after them?" asked Fred. + +"Why not? Whose cattle are they?" + +He was actually disposed to argue the point. + +"Man alive, there'll be shootin'!" he insisted. "If they once get over +the border with all those cattle, the Germans'll never hand 'em over +until every head o' cattle's gone. They'll fine 'em, an' arrest 'em, +an' trick 'em, an' fine 'em again until the Germans own the herd all +legal an' proper--an' then they'll chase the Greeks back to British +East for punishment same as they always do. What good 'ud that be to +me? No, no! Me--I'm going to catch 'em this side o' the line, or else +bu'st--an' I won't be too partic'lar where the line's drawn either! +There's maybe a hundred miles to the south o' their line that the +Germans don't patrol more often than once in a leap-year. If I catch +them Greeks in any o' that country, I'm going to kid myself deliberate +that it's British East, and act accordin'!" + +At last we convinced him, although I don't remember how, for he was +obstinate from the aftermath of whisky, that we would no more permit +him to go alone than he would consider abandoning his cattle. Then we +had to decide who should follow with our string of porters, for if +forced marching was in order it was obvious that we should far +outdistance our train. + +We invited Brown to follow with all the men while we three skirmished +ahead, but he waxed so apoplectically blasphemous at the very thought +of it that Fred assured him the proposal was intended for a joke. Then +we argued among ourselves, coaxed, blarneyed, persuaded, and tried to +bribe one another. Finally, all else failing, we tossed a coin for it, +odd man out, and Fred lost. + +So Brown, Will Yerkes and I, with Kazimoto, our two personal servants, +and six boys to carry one tent for the lot of us and food and cooking +pots, started off just as the moon rose over the nearest cedars, and +laughed at Fred marshaling the sleepy porters by lamplight in the open +space between the house and barn. He was to follow as fast as the +loaded porters could be made to travel, and with that concertina of his +to spur them on there was little likelihood of losing touch. But the +rear-guard, when it comes to pursuing a retreating enemy, is ever the +least alluring place. + +"You've got all the luck," he shouted. "Make the most of it or I'll +never gamble on the fall of a coin again!" + +That pursuit was a journey of accidents, chapter after chapter of them +in such close sequence that the whole was a nightmare without let-up or +reason. I began the book by falling into an elephant pit. + +Before we had gone a mile in the dark we stood in doubt as to whether +the most practicable trail went right or left. Brown set his own +indecision down frankly to the whisky that had muddled him. Even +Kazimoto, who had passed that way three times, did not know for +certain. So I went forward to scout--stepped into the deep shadow of +some jungle--trod on nothing--threw the other foot forward to save +myself--and fell downward into blackness for an eternity. + +I brought up at last unhurt in the trash and decaying vegetation at the +bottom of a pit, and looked up to see the stars in a rough +parallelogram above me, whose edge I guessed was more than thirty feet +above my head. I started to dig my way out, but the crumbling sides +fell in and threatened to bury me alive unless I kept still. So I +shouted until my lungs ached, but without result. I suppose the noise +went trumpeting upward out of the hole and away to the clouds and the +stars. At any rate, Will and Brown swore afterward they never heard it. + +I was fifteen minutes in the hole that very likely had held many an +elephant with his legs wedged together under him until the poor brute +perished of thirst, before it occurred to me to fire my rifle. I fired +several shots when I did think of it; but we had agreed on no system +of signals, and instead of coming to find me at once, the other two +cursed me for wasting time shooting at leopards in the dark instead of +scouting for the track. I used twenty cartridges before they came to +see what sort of battle I was waging, and with the last shot I nearly +blew Brown's helmet off as he stooped over the hole to look down in. + +Then there were more precious minutes wasted while someone cut a long +pole for me to swarm up, and at the end of that time, when I stood on +firm ground at last and wiped the blood from hands and knees, we were +no wiser about the proper direction to take. + +The next accident was a little before midnight. Will Yerkes was +leading, I following, next the boys, and Brown bringing up the rear +(for in those wild hills there is never a good track wide enough for +two men to march abreast. Even the cattle proceed in single file +unless driven furiously.) Will came on a leopard devouring its kill, a +fat buck, in the midst of the track in the moonlight, and the brute +resented the interruption of his meal. It slunk into the shadows +before Will could get a shot at it, and for the next two hours followed +us, slinking from shadow to shadow, snarling and growling. It plainly +intended murder, but which of us was to be the victim, and when, there +was no means of guessing, so that the nerves of all of us were tortured +every time the brute approached. + +We wasted at least thirty cartridges on futile efforts to guess his +whereabouts in velvet black shadows, and Brown went through all the +stages from simple nervousness to fear, and then to frenzy, until we +feared he would shoot one of us in frantic determination to ring the +leopard's knell. + +At last the brute did rush in, and of course where least expected. He +seized one of our porters by the shoulder, his claws doing more damage +than his teeth. I shot him by thrusting my rifle into his ear, and +although that dropped him instantly his claws, in the dying spasm and +by the weight of his fall, tore wounds in the man's arm eighteen or +twenty inches long. + +One of the things we did have with us was bandages. But it took time +to attend to the man's wounds properly by lamp and moonlight, and after +that he could neither march fast, nor was there anywhere to leave him. + +So just before dawn Fred came up with us, and was more pleased at our +discomfiture than sympathetic. He told off two men to carry the injured +porter to a mission station more than a day's march away, and +redistributed the loads. Then we went on again, once more placing rock, +hill, and cedar forest between us and our supply column, this time with +Fred's counsel ringing in our ears. + +"Better send for nursemaids and perambulators, and have yourselves +pushed!" + +At noon that day we found the track of the driven cattle, and soon +after that came on the half-devoured carcass of a heifer that the +Greeks had shot, presumably because it could not march, and perhaps +with the added reason that freshly-killed meat would draw off leopards +and hyenas and provide peace for a few miles. + +Once on the trail it would not have been easy to lose it, except in the +dark, for the Greek marauders were bent on speed and the driven cattle +had smashed down the undergrowth in addition to leaving deep +hoof-prints at every water-course. + +The first suspicion that dawned on me of something more than mere +freebooting on the part of Coutlass, was due to the discovery of +hoof-prints of either mules or horses. I was marching alone in +advance, and came on them beside a stream that was only apparently +fordable in that one place. After making sure of what they were I +halted to let Will and Brown catch up. + +"Did Coutlass have money enough to buy mules for himself and gang?" +wondered Will. + +"That robber?" snorted Brown. "When Lady Saffren Waldon refused him +tobacco money in the hotel he tried to borrow from me!" + +"Where could be steal mules?" Will asked. + +"Nowhere. Aren't any!" + +"Horses' then?" + +"He'd never take horses. They'd die." + +"What are they riding, then?" + +"Unless he stole trained zebras from the gov'ment farm at Naivasha," +said Brown, "an' they're difficulter to ride 'an a greasy pole up-ended +on a earthquake, he must ha' bought mules from the one man who has any +to sell. And he lives t'other side o' Nairobi. There are none between +there and here--none whatever. Zachariah Korn--him who owns mules--is +too wide awake to be stolen from. He bought 'em, you take it from me, +and paid twice what they were worth into the bargain." + +"Then he bought them with her money!" said Will. + +"If not Schillingschen's," said I. + +"Or the Sultan of Zanzibar's" said Will, "or the German government's." + +"But why? Why should she, or they, conspire at great expense and risk +to steal Brown's cattle?" + +"They'll figure," said Will, "that Brown is helping us, and therefore, +Brown is an enemy. Prob'ly they surmise Brown is in league with us to +show us a short cut to what we're after. If that's how they work it +out, then they wouldn't need think much to conclude that putting Brown +on the blink would hoodoo us. Maybe they allow that that much bad luck +to begin with would unsettle Brown's friendly feelings for us. +Anyway--somebody bought the mules--somebody stole the cattle--cattle +are somewhere ahead. Let's hurry forward and see!" + +We did hurry, but made disgustingly poor time. Once a dozen buffalo +stampeded our tiny column. Our five porters dropped their loads, and +the biggest old bull mistook our only tent for our captain's dead body +and proceeded to play ball with it, tossing it and tearing it to pieces +until at last Will got a chance for a shoulder shot and drilled him +neatly. Two other bulls took to fighting in the midst of the +excitement and we got both of them. Then the rest trotted off; so we +packed the horns of the dead ones on the head of our free porter (for +the tent he had carried was now utterly no use) and hastened on. + +Once, in trying to make a cut that should have saved us ten or fifteen +miles between two rivers, we fell shoulder-deep into a bog and only +escaped after an hour's struggle during which we all but lost two +porters. We had to retrace our steps and follow the Greek's route, +only to have the mortification of seeing Fred and our column of +supplies coming over the top of a rise not eight miles behind us. + +Determined not to be overtaken by him a second time and treated to +advice about nursemaids, we dispensed with sleep altogether for that +night, and nearly got drowned at the second river. + +We found a native who owned a thing he called a mtungi--a near-canoe, +burned out of a tree-trunk. He assured us the ford was very winding +(he drew a wiggly finger-mark in the mud by way of illustration) but +that his boat would hold twice our number, and that be could take us +over easily in the dark. In fact he swore he had ferried twice our +number over on darker nights more than twenty or thirty times. He also +said that he had taken the cattle over by the ford early that morning, +and then had crossed over in the boat with two Greeks and a bwana Goa. +He showed us the brass wire and beads they gave him in proof of that +statement, and we began to put some faith in his tale. + +So we all piled into his crazy boat with our belongings, and be +promptly lost the way amid the twelve-foot grass-papyrus mostly--that +divided the river into narrow streams and afforded protection to the +most savagely hungry mosquitoes in the world. Our faces and hands were +wet with blood in less than two minutes. + +Presently, instead of finding bottom for his pole, he pushed us into +deep water. The grass disappeared, and a ripple on the water lipping +dangerously within three inches of our uneven gunwale proved that we +were more or less in the main stream. We had enjoyed that sensation +for about a minute, and were headed toward where we supposed the +opposite bank must be, when a hippo in a hurry to breathe blew just +beside us--saw, smelt, or heard us (it was all one to him)--and dived +again. + +I suppose in order to get his head down fast enough he shoved his rump +up, and his great fat back made a wave that ended that voyage abruptly. + Our three inches of broadside vanished. The canoe rocked violently, +filled, turned over, and floated wrong side up. + +"All the same," laughed Will, spluttering and spitting dirty water, +"here's where the crocks get fooled! They don't eat me for supper!" + +He was first on top of the overturned boat, and dragged me up after +him. Together we hauled up Brown, who could not swim but was +bombastically furious and unafraid; and the three of us pulled out the +porters and the fatuous boat's owner. The pole was floating near by, +and I swam down-stream and fetched it. When they had dragged me back +on to the wreck the moon came out, and we saw the far bank hazily +through mist and papyrus. + +The boat floated far more steadily wrong side up, perhaps because we +had lashed all our loads in place and they acted as ballast. Will took +the pole and acted the part of Charon, our proper pilot contenting +himself with perching on the rear end lamenting the ill-fortune noisily +until Kazimoto struck him and threatened to throw him back into the +water., + +"They don't want a fool like you in the other world," he assured him. +"You will die of old age!" + +The papyrus inshore was high enough to screen the moon from us, and we +had to hunt a passage through it in pitch darkness. Then, having found +the muddy bank at last (and more trillions of mosquitoes) we had to +drag the overturned boat out high and dry to rescue our belongings. +And that was ticklish work, because most of the crocodiles, and +practically all the largest ones, spend the night alongshore. + +Matches were wet. We had no means of making a flare to frighten the +monsters away. We simply had to "chance it" as cheerfully and swiftly +as we could, and at the end of a half-hour's slimy toil we carried our +muddied loads to the nearest high ground and settled down there for the +night. + +It would be mad exaggeration to say we camped. Wet to the skin--dirty +to the verge of feeling suicidal--bitten by insects until the blood ran +down from us--lost (for we bad no notion where the end of the ford +might be)--at the mercy of any prowling beasts that might discover us +(for our rifle locks were fouled with mud)--we sat with chattering +teeth and waited for the morning. + +When the sun rose we found a village less than four hundred yards away +and sent the boys down to it to unpack the loads and spread everything +in the sun to dry, while we went down to the river again and washed our +rifles. Then we dried and oiled them, and without a word of bargain or +explanation, invaded the cleanest looking hut, lay down on the stamped +clay floor, and slept. It was only clean-looking, that hut. It housed +more myraids of fleas than the air outside supported "skeeters"; but we +slept, unconscious of them all. + +At four that afternoon we had the mortification of being roused by +Fred's voice, and the dumping of loads as his sixty porters dropped +their burdens inside the village stockade. He had scorned the ferry +and crossed the ford on foot, making a prodigious splash to keep +crocodiles away, and was as full of life and fun as a schoolboy on +vacation. + +"Wake up, you vorloopers!" he shouted. "Wake up! Shake off the fleas +and come, and I'll show you something." + +He had already had the tale of our night's misfortune in detail from +the owner of the only canoe (who claimed double pay on the ground that +we had lost no loads in spite of over-turning. "The last really white +man who crossed lost all his loads!" he explained.) . + +"Come and I'll show you something you never saw before, you +scouts!--you advance guard!--you line of skirmishers!" + +Will hurled a lump of earth at him, and chased him to the river, where +they wrestled, trying to throw each other in, until both were +breathless. Then, when neither could make another effort: + +"Look!" gasped Fred. + +There was an island in mid-stream below where we must have crossed. +The stream was straight, and from where we stood we could see more than +half a mile of alluvial mud with an arm of the river on either side. +The mud was white, not black--so white that it dazzled the eyes to look +at it. + +"Know what it is?" Fred panted. + +We did not know, and it was no use guessing. It looked like burned +lime, or else the secretions of about a billion birds; and there were +no birds to speak of. + +"Crocodile eggs!" said Fred. + +We did not believe that. Even Brown did not believe it. There was no +time to spare, but Brown out of curiosity agreed, so we took the absurd +canoe and poled down to investigate. As we came nearer the solid white +broke up into a myriad dots, and Fred's tale stood confirmed. + +They were as long as two hens' eggs laid end to end, or longer. They +lay in the sun in batches in every stage of incubation, and from almost +every batch there were little crocodiles emerging, that made straight +for the water. What worse monster preyed on them to keep their numbers +down, or what disease took care of their prolixity we could not guess. +Perhaps they ate one another, or just died of hunger. The owner of the +boat vowed there were no fish left in the river, and that the +crocodiles did not eat hippo unless it were first dead. + +We took another tent from among Fred's loads, changed two of our +porters for stronger ones, and went forward that evening; for it began +to be obvious that the speed had been telling on the cattle. We passed +two more dead heifers within a few miles of the river bank, and there +were other signs that for all our long sleep we were gaining on them. + +Perhaps the Greeks thought they had shaken off pursuit. Judging by the +compass they were headed for the shore of Victoria Nyanza, where the +grazing would be better, food for men would be purchaseable, and the +number of villages closely spaced would make the task of night-herding +vastly easier. There isn't a village in that part of Africa that is +not proud to be a host to anybody's cattle, if only because the +ownership of so much living wealth casts glory on all who come in +contact with it. + +There was no means of telling whether or not we were over the German +border. The boundary line had not been surveyed yet, and on the map +the part where we were was set down as "unexplored," although that was +scarcely accurate; the route was well enough known to Greeks and +Arabs, and other had characters bent on smuggling or in some other way +defeating the ends of justice. + +We marched that night until midnight, slept until dawn, and were off +again. At noon we reached rising ground, and Kazimoto ran ahead of us +to the summit. We saw him standing at gaze for three or four minutes +with one hand shading his eyes before he came scampering back, as +excited as if his own fortune were in the balance. + +"Hooko-chini!" he shouted. "Hooko-chini--mba-a-a-li sana!"--(They're +down below there, very far away!) + +We hurried up-hill, but for many minutes could see nothing except a +plain of waving grass higher than a man's head and almost as +impenetrable as bamboo-country that carried small hope in it for man or +beast, that would be a holocaust in the dry season when the heat set +fire to the grass, and was an insect-haunted marsh at most other times. + However, path across it there must be, for the Greeks had driven +Brown's cattle that way that very morning, and Kazimoto swore he could +see them in the distance, although Brown, and Will, and I--all three +keen-sighted--could see nothing whatever but immeasurable, worthless +waving grass. + +At last I detected a movement near the horizon that did not synchronize +with the wind-blown motion of the rest. I pointed it out to the +others, and after a few minutes we agreed that it moved against the +wind. + +"They're hurrying again," said Brown, peering under both hands. +"There's no feed for cattle on all this plain. They're racing to get +to short grass before the cattle all die. Come on--let's hurry after +'em!" + +For the second time on that trip we essayed a short cut, making as +straight as a bee would fly for the point on the horizon where we knew +the Greeks to be. And for the second time we fell into a bog, nearly +losing our lives in it. We had to pull one another out, using even our +precious rifles as supports in the yielding mud, and then spending +equally precious time in cleaning locks and sights again. + +After that we hunted for the cattle trail and followed that closely; +and that was not so easy as it reads, because the trampled grass had +risen again, and cattle and mounted men can cross easily ground that +delays men on foot. + +The heat was that of an oven. The water--what there was of it in the +holes and swampy places--stank, and tasted acrid. The flies seemed to +greet us as their only prospect of food that year. The monotony of +hurrying through grass-stems that cut off all view and only showed the +sky through a waving curtain overhead was more nerve-trying than the +physical weariness and thirst. + +We slept a night in that grass, burning some of it for a smudge to keep +mosquitoes at bay, and an hour after dawn, reaching rising ground +again, realized that we had our quarry within reach at last. + +They were out in the open on short good grazing. The Greeks' tent was +pitched. We could see their mules, like brown insects, tied under a +tree, and the cattle dotted here and there, some lying down, some +feeding. + +"At last!" said Brown. "Boys, they're our meat! There's a tree to +hang the Greeks and the Goa to! When we've done that, if you'll all +come back with me I'll send to Nairobi for an extra jar of Irish +whisky, and we'll have a spree at Lumbwa that'll make the fall of Rome +sound like a Sunday-school picnic! We're in German territory now, all +right. There's not a white man for a hundred miles in any +direction--except your friend that's coming along behind. There's +nobody to carry tales or prevent! I'm no savage. I'm no degenerate. +I don't hold with too much of anything, but--" + +"There'll be no dirty work, if that's what you mean," said Will quietly. + +Brown stared hard at him. + +"D'you mean you'll object to hanging 'em?" + +"Not in the least. We hang or shoot cattle thieves in the States. I +said there'll be no dirty work, that's all." + +"Shall we rest a while, and come on them fresh in the morning?" I +proposed. + +"Forward!" snorted Brown. "Why d'you want to wait?" + +"Forward it is!" agreed Will. "When we get a bit closer we'll stop and +hold council of war." + +"One minute!" said I. "Tell me what that is?" + +I had been searching the whole countryside, looking for some means of +stealing on the marauders unawares and finding none. They had chosen +their camping place very wisely from the point of view of men unwilling +to be taken by surprise. Far away over to our right, appearing and +disappearing as I watched them, were a number of tiny black dots in +sort of wide half-moon formation, and a larger number of rather larger +dots contained within the semicircle. + +"Cattle!" exploded Brown. + +"And men!" added Will. + +"Black men!" said I. "Black men with spears!" + +"Masai!" said Kazimoto excitedly. He had far the keenest eyes of all +of us. + +We were silent for several minutes. The veriest stranger in that land +knows about the feats and bravery of the Masai, who alone of all tribes +did not fear the Arabs, and who terrorized a quarter of a continent +before the British came and broke their power. + +"Mbaia cabisa!" muttered Kazimoto, meaning that the development was +very bad indeed. And he had right to know + +He explained it was a raid. The Masai, in accordance with time-honored +custom, had come from British East to raid the lake-shore villages of +German territory, and were driving back the plundered cattle. None can +drive cattle as Masai can. They can take leg-weary beasts by the tail +and make them gallop, one beast encouraging the next until they all go +like the wind. For food they drink hot blood, opening a vein in a +beast's neck and closing it again when they have had their fill. Their +only luggage is a spear. Their only speed-limit the maximum the cattle +can be stung to. On a raid three hundred and sixty miles in six days +is an ordinary rate of traveling. + +Just now they did not seem in much hurry. They had probably butchered +the fighting men of all the villages in their rear, and were well +informed as to the disposition of the nearest German forces. There +were probably no Germans within a hundred miles. There was no +telegraph in all those parts. To notify Muanza by runner and Bagamoyo +on the coast from there by wire would take several days. Then Bagamoyo +would have to wire the station at Kilimanjaro, and there was no earthly +chance of Germans intercepting them before they could reach British +East. + +Nor was there any treaty provision between British and German colonial +governments for handing over raiders. The Germans had refused to make +any such agreement for reasons best known to themselves. The fact that +they were far the heaviest losers by the lack of reciprocal police +arrangements was due to the fact that most of the Masai lived in +British East. The Masai would have raided across either border with +supreme indifference. + +"Masai not talking. Masai using spear and kill!" remarked Kazimoto. + +"One good thing our gov'ment's done," said Brown. "Just one. It has +kept those rascals from owning rifles! But lordy! They've got spears +that give a man the creeps to see!" + +He began looking to his rifle. So did Will and I. + +"Now this here is my fight," he explained. "Them's my cattle. They're +all the wealth I own in the world. If I lose 'em I'm minded to die +anyhow. There's nothing in life for a drunkard like me with all his +money gone and nothing to do but take a mean white's job. You chaps +just wait here and watch while I 'tend to my own affairs." + +"Exactly!" Will answered dryly. "I've a hundred rounds in my pockets. +That ought to be enough." + +While we made ready, leaving our loads and porters in a safe place and +giving the boys orders, I saw two things happen. First, the Masai +became aware of the little Greek encampment and the two hundred head of +cattle waiting at their mercy; and second, the Greeks grew aware of +the Masai. + +The Greeks had boys with them; I saw at least half a dozen go +scattering to round up the cattle. The tents began to come down, and I +saw three figures that might be the Greeks and the Goanese holding a +consultation near the tree. + +"And now," remarked Will, "I begin to see the humor in this comedy. +Which are we--allies of the Greeks or of the Masai? Are we to help the +Greeks get away with Brown's cattle, or help the Masai steal 'em from +the Greeks? Are your cattle all branded, Brown?" + +"You blooming well bet they are!" + +"Masai know enough to alter a brand?" + +"Never heard o' their doing it." + +"Then if the Masai get away with them to British East, if you can find +'em you can claim 'em, eh?" + +"Claim 'em in court wi' the whole blooming tribe o' Masai--more'n a +quarter of a million of 'em--all on hand to swear they bought 'em from +me; an' the British gov'ment takin' sides with the black men, as it +always does? Oh, yes! It sounds easy, that does!" + +"But if the Greeks get away with 'em," argued Will, "you've no chance +of recovering at all." + +"I'll not take sides with Masai--even against Greeks!" Brown answered +grimly, and Will laughed. + +"If we attack the Greeks first," I said, "perhaps they'll run. We're +nearer to them than the Masai are. The Masai, will have to corral +their own cattle before they can leave them to raid a new lot. We can +open fire at long range begin with. If that scares the Greeks away, +then we can, round up Brown's cattle and drive them back northward. We +may possibly escape with them too quickly for the Masai to think it +worth while to follow." + +Brown laughed cynically. + +"We can try it," he said. "An' if the Greeks don't run pretty quick +they'll never run again--I'll warrant that!" + +Nobody had a better plan to propose, so we emptied our pockets of all +but fifty rounds of ammunition each, and gave the rest to Kazimoto to +carry, with orders to keep in hiding and watch, and run with cartridges +to whoever should first need them. + +Then, because instead of corraling their cattle the Masai were already +dividing themselves into two parties, one of which drove the cattle +forward and the other diverged to study the attack, we ducked down +under a ridge and ran toward the Greeks. The sooner we could get the +first stage of the fighting off our hands the better. + +It proved a long way--far longer than I expected, and the going was +rougher. Moreover, the Greeks' boys were losing no time about rounding +up the cattle. By the time they were ready to make a move we were +still more than a mile away, and out of breath. + +"If they go south," panted Brown, throwing himself down by a clump of +grass to gasp for his third or fourth wind, "the Masai'll catch 'em +sure, an' we'll be out o' the running! Lord send they head 'em back +toward British East!" + +He was in much the worst physical condition because of the whisky, but +his wits were working well enough. The Greeks on the other hand seemed +undecided and appeared to be arguing. Then Brown's prayer was +answered. The Greeks' boys decided the matter for them by stampeding +the herd northward toward us. They did not come fast. They were lame, +and bone-weary from hard driving, but they knew the way home again and +made a bee line. Within a minute they were spread fan-wise between us +and the Greeks, making a screen we could not shoot through. + +"Scatter to right and left!" Brown shouted. "Get round the wings!" + +But what was the use? He was in the center, and short-winded. I +climbed on an ant-hill. + +"The Greeks are on the run!" I said. "They are headed southward! +They've got their boys together, and have abandoned the cattle! +They're off with their tent and belongings due south!" + +"The cowards!" swore Brown, with such disappointment that Will and I +laughed. + +"Laugh all you like!" he said. "I've a long job on my hands! I'll +have revenge on 'em if it takes the rest o' my life! I'll follow 'em +to hell-and-gone!" + +"Meanwhile," I said, still standing on the ant-hill, "the Masai are +following the cattle! They're smoking this way in two single columns +of about twenty spears in each. The remainder are driving their own +cattle about due eastward so as to be out of the way of trouble." + +"All right," said Brown, growing suddenly cheerful again. "Then it'll +be a rear-guard action. Let the cattle through, and open fire behind +'em! Send that Kazimoto o' yours to warn our boys to round 'em up and +drive 'em slow and steady northward!" + +Kazimoto ran back and gave the necessary orders. He lost no time about +it, but returned panting, and lay down in a hollow behind us with +cartridges in either fist and a grin on his face that would have done +credit to a circus clown. I never, anywhere, saw any one more pleased +than Kazimoto at the prospect of a fight. + +We let the cattle through and lay hidden, waiting for the raiders. +They were in full war dress, which is to say as nearly naked as +possible except for their spears, a leg ornament made from the hair of +the colobus monkey, a leather apron hung on just as suited the +individual wearer's fancy, a great shield, and an enormous +ostrich-feather head-dress. They seemed in no hurry, for they probably +guessed that the cattle would stop to graze again when the first scare +was over; yet they came along as smoke comes, swiftly and easily, +making no noise. + +Suddenly those in the lead caught sight of our boys getting behind the +cattle to herd them northward. They halted to hold +consultation--apparently decided that they had only unarmed natives to +deal with--and came on again, faster than before. + +"Better open fire now!" said Brown, when they were still a quarter of a +mile away. + +"Wait till you can see their eyes!" Will advised. "An unexpected +volley at close quarters will do more havoc than hours of long-range +shooting. + +"This ain't a long range!" Brown objected. "As for unexpected--just +watch me startle 'em! My sight's fixed at four hundred. Watch!" + +He fired--we wished he had not. The leading Masai of the right-hand +column jerked his head sidewise as the whistling bullet passed, and +then there was nothing for it but to follow his lead and blaze away for +all we were worth. If Brown had been willing to accept Will's advice +there is nothing more likely than that the close-quarter surprise would +have won the day for us. We would have done much more execution with +three volleys at ten-yard range. As it was, we all missed with our +finest shots, and the Masai took heart and charged in open order. + +The worst of it was that, although we dropped several of them, now the +others had a chance to discover there were only three of us. Their +leader shouted. The right-hand column continued to attack, but changed +its tactics. The left-hand party made a circuit at top speed, +outflanked us, and pursued the cattle. + +Supposing my count was right, we had laid out, either wounded or dead, +seven of the crowd attacking us. This left perhaps fourteen against +us, to be dealt with before the others could come back with the cattle +and take us in the rear. + +Will brought another man down; I saw the blood splash on his forehead +as the bullet drilled the skull cleanly. Then one man shouted and they +all lay prone, beginning to crawl toward us with their shields held +before, not as protection against bullets (for as that they were +utterly worthless) but as cover that made their exact position merest +guesswork. + +I fell back and took position on the ant-hill from which I had first +seen them, thus making our position triangular and giving myself a +chance to protect the other two should they feel forced to retire. The +extra height also gave me a distinct advantage, for I could see the +legs of the Masai over the tops of their shields, and was able to wound +more than one of them so severely that they crawled to the rear. + +But the rest came on. Kazimoto began to be busy supplying cartridges. +In that first real pinch we were in he certainly lived up to all +Courtney had said of him, for without the stimulus of his proper +master's eye he neither flinched nor faltered, but crawled from one to +the other, dividing the spare rounds equally. + +The Masai began to attempt to outflank us, but my position on the +ant-hill to the rear made that impossible; they found themselves faced +by a side of the triangle from whichever side they attacked. But in +turning to keep an eye on the flank I became aware of a greater danger. + The cattle were coming back. That meant that the other Masai were +coming, too, and that in a few moments we were likely to be +overwhelmed. I shouted to Will and Brown, but either they did not hear +me, or did not have time to answer. + +I fired half a dozen shots, and then distinctly heard the crack of a +rifle from beyond the cattle. That gave matters the worst turn yet. +If one of the raiders had a rifle, then unless I could spot him at once +and put him out of action our cause was likely lost. I stood up to +look for him and heard a wild cheer, followed by three more shots in +quick succession. Then at last I saw Fred Oakes running along a +depression in the ground, followed at a considerable distance by the +advance-guard of his porters. He was running, and then kneeling to +fire--running, and kneeling again. And he was not wasting ammunition. +He was much the best shot of us all, now that Monty was absent. + +The terrified cattle stampeded past us, too wild to be cheeked by any +noise. Seeing them, and sure now of their booty, the party attacking +us hauled off and took to their heels. Will and Brown were for +speeding them with bullets in the rear, but I yelled again, and this +time made myself heard. Those who had got behind the cattle and were +driving them were coming on with spears and shields raised to slay us +in passing. The other two joined me, and we stood on the ant-hill +three abreast. They charged us--seven or eight of them. Three bit the +dust, but the rest came on, and if it had not been for two swift shots +from Fred's rifle in the very nick of time we should have all been dead +men. + +As it was, one seized me by the knees and we went over together, +rolling down the ant-hill, he slashing at me with his great +broad-bladed spear, I ahold of his wrist with one hand, and with the +other fist belaboring him in the face. He was stronger than +I--greasier--sweatier--harder to hold. He slipped from under me, +rolled on top, wrenched his wrist free, and in another second grinned +in my face as, with both knees in my stomach, be raised the spear to +kill. I shut my eyes. I had not another breath left, nor an effort in +me, I thought I would deny him the pleasure of watching my death agony. + But I could not keep my eyes shut. Opening them to see why he did not +strike, I saw Kazimoto with my rifle in both hands swing for his skull +with the full weight of the butt and all his strength. Kazimoto +grunted. The Masai half turned his head at the sound. The butt hit +home--broke off--and my face and breast were deluged with blood and +brains. + +When I had wiped off that mess with Kazimoto's help I saw Fred and Will +and Brown pursuing the retreating Masai, kneeling to shoot every few +yards, at every other shot or so bringing down a victim, but being +rapidly out-distanced. Cattle are all the Masai care about. They had +the cattle. They had hold of tails and were making the whole herd +scamper due east, where they no doubt knew of a trail not in maps. +They made no attempt to defend themselves--left their dead lying--and +ran. I saw two or three wounded ones riding on cows, and no doubt some +of those who ran holding to the cows' tails were wounded, too. + +I was useless now, as far as fighting was concerned, for the butt of my +rifle was broken clean off at the grip, but I ran on, and heard Brown +shout: +"Shoot cattle! Don't let the brutes get away with them all!" + +He was shooting cows himself when I came up, but it was Fred who +stopped him. + +"Never mind that, old man. We'll follow 'em up! Our time's our own. +We'll get your cattle back, never fear. Dead ones are no use." + +Brown stopped shooting and began to blubber. Whisky had not left him +manhood enough to see his whole available resources carried away before +his eyes, and he broke down as utterly as any child. It was neither +agreeable nor decent to watch, and I turned away. I was feeling sick +myself from the pressure of the Masai's knees in my stomach. That, and +the sun, and the long march, and hunger (for we had not stopped to eat +a meal that day) combined in argument, and I hunted about for a soft +place and a little shade. It happened that Fred Oakes was watching me, +although I did not know it. He suspected sunstroke. + +I saw a clump of rushes that gave shade enough. I could crush down +some, and lie on those. I hurried, for I was feeling deathly sick now. + As I reached the grass my knees began giving under me. I staggered, +but did not quite fall. + +That, and Fred's watchfulness, saved my life; for at the moment that +my head and shoulders gave the sudden forward lurch, a wounded Masai +jumped out of the rushes and drove with his spear at my breast. The +blade passed down my back and split my jacket. + +He sprang back, and made another lunge at me, but Fred's rifle barked +at the same second and he fell over sidewise, driving the spear into my +leg in his death spasm. + +The twenty minutes following that are the worst in memory. Kazimoto +broke the gruesome news that the spear-blade was almost surely +poisoned--dipped in gangrene. The Masai are no believers in wounded +enemies, or mercy on the battlefield. + +We doubted the assertion for a while--I especially, for none but a +hypochondriac would care to admit without proof that gangrene had been +forced into his system. Kazimoto grew indignant, and offered to prove +the truth of his claim on some animal. But there was no living animal +in sight on which to prove it. We asked him how long gangrene, +injected in that way, took to kill a man. + +"Very few minutes!" he answered. + +Then it occurred that none of us knew what to do. Kazimoto announced +that he knew, and offered to make good at once if given permission. He +demanded permission again and again from each one of us, making me +especially repeat my words. Then be gathered stems of grass a third of +an inch thick from the bed of the tiny watercourse, and proceeded to +make a tiny fire, talking in a hurry as he did it to several of Fred's +string of porters, who were now arriving on the scene. + +While I watched with a sort of tortured interest what he was doing at +the fire, five of the largest boys with whom be had been speaking +rushed me from behind, and before I could struggle, or even swear, had +me pinned out on my back on the ground. One sat on my head; one on my +poor bruised stomach; the others held wrists and ankles in such way +that I could not break free, nor even kick much, however hard I tried. + +Then Kazimoto came with glowing ends of grass from the fire, blowing on +them to keep them cherry-red, and inserted one after another into the +open spear-wound. I could not cry out, because of the man sitting on +my face, but I could bite. And to the everlasting glory of the +man--Ali bin Yema, his name was--be it written that he neither spoke +nor moved a muscle, although my front teeth met in his flesh. + +I do not know how long the process lasted, or how many times Kazimoto +returned to the fire for more of his sizzling sticks, for I fainted; +and when I came round the agony was still too intense to permit +interest in anything but agony. They had my leg bandaged, how and with +what I neither knew nor cared. And it was evident that unless they +chose to leave me in camp where I was they would have to abandon all +thought of pursuing Masai for the present. Even Brown saw the force of +that, and he was the first to refuse flatly to leave me there. + +For a while they hunted through the grass for more wounded men, but +found none. There must have been several, but they probably feared the +sort of mercy from us that they habitually gave to their own enemies, +and crawled away--in all likelihood to die of thirst and hunger, unless +some beast of prey should smell them out and make an earlier end. + +Then there was consultation. It was decided a doctor for me was the +most urgent need; that Muanza, the largest German station on Victoria +Nyanza, was probably as near as anywhere, and that German East being +our immediate destination anyway, the best course to take was forward, +roughly south by west. So I was slung in a blanket on a tent-pole, and +we started, I swearing like a pirate every time a boy stumbled and +jolted me. (There is something in the nature of a burn that makes bad +language feel like singing hymns.) + +Our troubles were not all over, for we passed through a country where +buck were fairly plentiful, and that meant lions. They did no damage, +but they kept us awake; and one night near the first village we came +to, where our porters all quartered themselves with the villagers for +sake of the change from their crowded tents, the fires that we made +went out, and five lions (we counted their foot-prints afterward) came +and sniffed around the pegs of the tent in which Fred and I lay, we +lying still and shamming dead. To have lifted a rifle in the darkness +and tried to shoot would have been suicide. + +Then there were trees we passed among--baobabs, whose youngest tendrils +swung to and fro in the evening breeze like snakes head-downward. And +taking advantage of that natural provision, twenty-foot pythons swung +among them, in coloring and marking aping the habit of the tree. One +of them knocked Fred's helmet off as he marched beside me. They are +easy to kill. He shot it, and it dropped like a stone, three hundred +pounds or more, but the sweat ran down Fred's face for half an hour +afterward. + +(Since then I have seen pythons kill their prey a score of times. I +never once saw one kill by crushing. The end of their nose is as hard +as iron, and they strike a terrific blow with that, so swift that the +eye can not follow it. Then, having killed by striking, they crawl +around their prey and crush it into shape for swallowing.) + +But the worst of the journey was the wayside villages--dirty beyond +belief, governed in a crude way by a headman whom the Germans honored +with the title of sultani. These wayside beggars (for they were no +better)--destitute paupers, taxed until their wits failed them in the +effort to scrape together surplus enough out of which to pay--were +supplied with a mockery of a crown apiece, a thing of brass and +imitation plush that they wore in the presence of strangers. To add to +the irony of that, the law of the land permitted any white man passing +through to beat them, with as many as twenty-five lashes, if they +failed to do his bidding. + +On arriving at such a village, the first thing we did was to ask for +milk. If they had any they brought it, not daring to refuse for fear +lest a German sergeant-major should be sent along to wreak vengeance +later. But it was always too dirty to drink. + +That ceremony over, the headman retired and the village sick were +brought for our inspection. Gruesome sores, running ulcers, wounds and +crippled limbs were stripped and exposed to our most reluctant gaze. +There was little we could do for them. Our own supply of medicines and +bandages was almost too small for our own needs to begin with. By the +time we passed three villages we scarcely had enough lint and liniment +left to take care of my wound; but even that scant supply we cut in +half for a particularly bad case. + +"Don't the Germans do anything for you?" we demanded, over and over +again. + +The answer was always the same. + +"Germani mbaia!" (The Germans are bad!) + +They were lifeless--listless--tamed until neither ambition nor courage +was left. When their cattle had brought forth young and it looked as +if there might be some profit at last, the Masai came and raided them, +taking away all but the very old ones and the youngest calves. The +Germans, they said, taxed them and took their weapons away, but gave +them no protection. + +At one place we passed a rifle, lying all rusted by the track. At the +next village we asked about it. They told us that a German native +soldier had deserted six months before and had thrown his rifle away. +Since that day no one had dared touch it, and they begged us to send +back and lay it where we found it, lest the Germans come and punish +them for touching it. So we did that, to oblige them, and they were +grateful to the extent of offering us one of their only two male sheep. + +I forget now for how many days we traveled across that sad and +saddening land, Fred always cheerful in spite of everything, Will more +angry at each village with its dirt and sores, Brown moaning always +about his lovely herd of cows, and I groaning oftener than not. + +My leg grew no better, what with jolting and our ignorance of how to +treat it. Sometimes, in efforts to obtain relief, I borrowed a cow at +one village and rode it to the next; but a cow is a poor mount and +takes as a rule unkindly to the business. Now and then I tried to walk +for a while, on crutches that Fred made for me; but most of the time I +was carried in a blanket that grew hotter and more comfortless as day +dragged after day. + +At last, however, we topped a low rise and saw Muanza lying on the +lake-shore, with the great island of Ukereweto the northward in the +distance. From where we first glimpsed it it was a tidy, tree-shaded, +pleasant-looking place, with a square fort, and a big house for the +commandant on a rise overlooking the town. + +"Now we'll wire Monty at last!" said Fred. + +"Now we'll shave and wash and write letters!" said Will. + +"Now at last for a doctor!" said I. + +But Brown said nothing, and Kazimoto wore a look of anxious discontent. + + + + +CHAPTER SEVEN + +THE DARKNESS COMPREHENDED IT NOT + + When Kenia's peak glows gold and rose + A dawn breeze whispers to the plain + With breath cooled sweet by mountain snows - + "The darkness soon shall come again!" + Stirs then the sleepless, lean Masai + And stands o'er plain and peak at gaze + Resentful of the bright'ning sky, + Impatient of the white man's days. + +Oh dark nights, when the charcoal glowed and falling hammers rang! +When fundis* forged the spear-blades, and the warriors danced and +sang! +When the marriageable spearmen gathered, calling each to each +Telling over proverbs that the tribal wisemen teach, +Brother promising blood-brother partnership in weal and woe - +Nightlong stories of the runners come from spying on the foe - +Nights of boasting by the thorn-fire of the coming tale of slain - +Oh the times before the English! When will those times come again! + +Oh the days and nights of raiding, when the feathered spearmen strode +With the hide shields on their forearms, and the wild Nyanza road +Grew blue with smoking villages, grew red with flaring roofs, +Grew noisy with the shouting and the thunder of the hoofs +As we drove the plundered cattle--when we burned the night with +haste - +When we leapt at dawn from ambush--when we laid the shambas waste! + +---------------- +*Fundis--skilled workman. +---------------- + +Oh the new spears dipped in life-blood as the women shrieked in +vain! +Oh the days before the English! When will those days come again! +Oh the homeward road in triumph with the plunder borne along +On the heads of taken women! Oh the daughter and the song! +Oh the tusks of yellow ivory--the frasilas of beads - +And, best of all, the heifers that the marriageable needs! +The yells when village eyes at last our sky-line feathers see +And the maidens run to count how many marriages shall be - +Ten heifers to a maiden (and the chief's girl stands for twain)-- +Oh the days before the English! When will those days come again! + +Now the fat herds grow in number, and the old are rich in trade, +Now the grass grows green and heavy where the six-foot spears were +made. +Now the young men walk to market, and the wives have beads and wire - +Brass and iron--glass and cowrie--past the limit of desire. +There is peace from lake to mountain, and the very zebra breed +Where a law says none may hurt them (and the wise are they who heed!) +Yea--the peace lies on the country as our herds oerspread the plain - +But the days before the English--when shall those days come again! + + When Kenia's peak glows gold and rose + A dawn breeze whispers to the plain + With breath cooled sweet by mountain snows - + "The darkness soon shall come again!" + Stirs then the sleepless, lean Masai + And stands o'er plain and peak at gaze + Resentful of the bright'ning sky, + Impatient of the white man's days. + + +What first looked like a pleasant place dwindled into charmlessness and +insignificance as we approached. There was neatness--of a kind. The +round huts were confined to certain streets, and all inhabited by +natives. Arabs, Swahili, Indians, Goanese, Syrians, Greeks and so on +had to live in rectangular huts and keep to other streets. On one +street, chiefly of stores, all the roofs were of corrugated iron. And +all the streets were straight, with shade trees planted down both sides +at exactly equal intervals. + +But the German blight was there, instantly recognizable by any one not +mentally perverted by German teaching. The place was governed--existed +for and by leave of government. The inhabitants were there on +suffrance, and aware of it--not in the very least degree enthusiastic +over German rule, but awfully appreciative. + +The first thing we met of interest on entering the township was a +chain-gang, fifty long, marching at top speed in step, led by a Nubian +soldier with a loaded rifle, flanked by two others, and pursued by a +fourth armed only with the hippo-hide whip, called kiboko by the +natives, that can cut and bruise at one stroke. He plied it liberally +whenever the gang betrayed symptoms of intending to slow down. + +Those Nubiains, we learned later, were deserters from British Sudanese +regiments, and runaways from British jails, afraid to take the +thousand-mile journey northward home again, scornful of all foreign +black men, fanatic Muhammedans, and therefore fine tools in the German +hand. They worked harder than the chain-gang, for they had to march +with it step for step and into the bargain force it to do its appointed +labor. The chain-gang kept the township clean--very clean indeed, as +far as outward appearance went. + +The boma, or fort, was down by the water-front and its high eastern +wall, pierced by only one gate, formed one boundary of the drill-ground +that was also township square. Facing the wall on the eastern side of +the square was a row of Indian and Arab stores. At the north end was +the market building--an enormous structure of round stucco pillars +supporting a great grass roof; and facing that at the southern end +were the court-house, the hospital, and a store owned by the Deutch +Oest Africa Gesellschaft, known far and wide by its initials--a concern +that owned the practical monopoly of wholesale import and export trade, +and did a retail business, too. + +We went first to the hospital. Fred and Will lifted me out of the +hammock, for my wound had grown much worse during the last few days, +and the door being shut they set me down on the step. Then we sent +Kazimoto into the fort with a note to the senior officer informing him +that a European waited at the hospital in need of prompt medical +treatment. + +The sentry admitted Kazimoto readily enough, but he did not come out +again for half-an-hour, and then looked glum. + +"Habanah!" he said simply, using the all-embracing native negative. + +"Isn't any one in there?" we demanded all together. + +"Surely." + +"How many?" + +"Very many." + +"Officers?" + +He nodded. + +"Is a doctor there?" + +He told us he had asked for the doctor. A soldier had pointed him out. + He had placed the note in the doctor's hand. + +"Did he read it?" we asked. + +"Surely. He read it, and then showed it to the other officers." + +"What did they say?" + +"They laughed and said nothing." + +It seemed pretty obvious that Kazimoto had made a mistake in some way. +Perhaps he had visited the non-commissioned officers' mess. + +I'll go myself," announced Will. "I can sling the German language like +a barkeep. Bet you I'm back here with a doctor inside of three +minutes!" + +He strode off like Sir Galahad in football shorts, and was passed +through the gate by the sentry almost unchallenged. But he was gone +more than fifteen minutes, and came back at last with his ears crimson. + Nor would he answer our questions. + +"Shall I go?" suggested Fred. + +"Not unless you like insolence! We passed the camping-ground, it +seems, on our way in. We've leave to pitch tents there. We'd better +be moving." + +So we trailed back the way we had come to a triangular sandy space +enclosed by a cactus hedge at the junction of three roads. There were +several small grass-roofed shelters with open sides in there, and two +tents already pitched, but we were not sufficiently interested just +then to see who owned the other tents. We pitched our own--stowed the +loads in one of the shelters--gave our porters money for board and +rations--and sent them to find quarters in the town. Another of the +shelters we took over for a kitchen, and while our servants were +cooking a meal we four gathered in Fred's tent and began to question +Will again. + +"They've got a fine place in there," he said. "Neat as a new pin. +Officers' mess. Non-commissioned officers' quarters. Stores. +Vegetable garden. Jail--looks like a fine jail--hold a couple of +hundred. Government offices. Two-story buildings. Everything fine. +The officers were all sitting smoking on a veranda. + +"'Is one of you the doctor?' I asked in German, and a tall lean one +with a mighty mean face turned his head to squint at me: but he didn't +take his feet off the rail. He looked inquisitive, that's all. + +"'Are you the doctor?' I asked him. + +"'I am staff surgeon,' he answered. 'What do you want?' + +"I told him about your wound, and how we'd marched about two hundred +miles on purpose to get medical assistance. He listened without asking +a question, and when I'd done he said curtly that the hospital opens +for out-patients at eight in the morning. + +"Well, I piled it on then. I told him your leg was so rotten that you +might not be alive to-morrow morning. He didn't even look interested. +I piled it on thicker and told him about the poisoned spear. He didn't +bat an eyelid or make a move. So I started in to coax him. + +"I did some coaxing. Believe me, I swallowed more pride in five +minutes than I guessed I owned! A ward-heeler cadging votes for a +Milwaukee alderman never wheedled more gingerly. I called him 'Herr +Staff Surgeon' and mentioned the well-known skill of German medicos, +and the keen sense of duty of the German army, and a whole lot of other +stuff. + +"'Tomorrow morning at eight!' was all the answer I got from him. + +"I reckon it was somewhere about that time I began to get rattled. I +pulled out money and showed it. He looked the other way, and when I +went on talking he turned his back. I suspect he didn't dare keep on +lookin' at money almost within reach. Anyhow, then I opened on him, +firin' both bow guns. I dared him to sit there, with a patient in need +of prompt attention less than two hundred yards away. I called him +names. I guaranteed to write to the German government and the United +States papers about him. I told him I'd have his job if it cost me all +my money and a lifetime's trouble. He was just about ready to +shoot--I'd just about got the red blood rising on his neck and +ears--when along came the commandant--der Herr Capitain--the officer +commanding Muanza--a swag-bellied ruffian with a beard and a beery look +in his eye, but a voice like a man falling down three stories with all +the fire-irons. + +"'What do you want?' he demanded in English, and I thanked him first +for not having mistaken me for one of his own countrymen. Then I told +him what I'd come for. + +"'To-morrow at eight o'clock!' he snapped, after he'd had a word with +the medico. 'Meanwhile, make yourself scarce out of here! There is a +camping-ground for the use of foreigners. You and your party go to it! + If you do any damage there you will hear from me later!' + +"I didn't come as easy as all that. I stood there telling him things +about Germany and Germans, and what I'd do to help his personal +reputation with the home folks, until I guessed he had his craw as near +full as he could stand it without having me arrested. Then I did +come--whistling Yankee-doodle. And say--Fred! Where's that concertina +of yours?" + +Fred patted it. His beloved instrument was never far from hand. + +"Why don't you play all the American and English tunes you know +to-night? Play and sing 'em, Britannia Rule the Waves--Marching +Through Georgia--My Country 'tis of Thee--The Marseillaise -The Battle +Hymn of the Republic--and anything and everything you know that +Squareheads won't like. Let's make this camp a reg'lar--hello--see +who's here!" + +Fred had begun fingering the keys already and the first strains of +Marching Through Georgia began to awake the neighborhood to recognition +of the fact that foreigners were present who held no especial brief for +German rule. The tent-door darkened. Brown leapt to his feet and +swore. + +"Gassharamminy!" said a voice we all recognized instantly. "That tune +sounds good! I've lived in the States! I'm a United States citizen! +A man can't forget his own country's tunes so easily!" + +Cool and impudent, Georges Coutlass entered and, without waiting for an +invitation, took a seat on a load of canned food. Brown grabbed the +nearest rifle (it happened to be Fred's)--snapped open the +breach--discovered it was loaded--and took aim. Coutlass did not even +blink. He was either sure Fred and Will would interfere, or else at +the end of his tether and indifferent to death. + +"Don't be an ass, Brown!" + +Fred knocked the rifle up. Will took it away and returned it to the +corner. + +"All very easy for you men to take high moral ground and all that sort +of rot," Brown grumbled. "It's my cattle he took! It's me be's +ruined! What do I care if the Germans hang me? Let me have a crack at +him--just one!" + +"Use your fists all you care to!" grinned Will. + +But Brown was no match for the Greek without weapons--very likely no +match for him with them. Coutlass sat still and grinned, while Brown +remained in the back of the tent, glaring. + +"Bah!" sneered Coutlass. "Of what use is being sulky? I found cattle +in a village. How should I know whose cattle they were? Why blame me? + The Masai got the cattle, not I! They took them from me, and they'd +have taken them from you just the same! You lost nothing by my lifting +them first! Gassharamminy! By blazes! We're all in the same boat! +Let's be friendly, and treat one another like gentlemen! We're all in +the power of the Germans, unless we can think of a way to escape! I +and my party are under arrest. So will you be by to-morrow! I shall +tell a tale to-morrow that will keep you by the heels for a month at +least while they investigate! Wait and see!" + +"Get out of this tent!" growled Fred in the dead-level voice he uses +when he means to brook no refusal. + +"Presently!" + +Fred made a spring at him, but Coutlass was on his feet with the speed +of a cat, and just outside the tent in time to avoid the swing of +Fred's fist. He withdrew about two yards and stood there grinning +maliciously. + +"You'll be glad to make terms with me by this time to-morrow!" he +boasted. "By James, you'll be glad to have me for a friend! Listen, +you fools! Make terms with me now; let us all go together and unearth +that Tippoo Tib ivory, and I can arrange with these Germans to let us +go away! Otherwise, you shall see how long you stop here! By the +Twelve Apostles! You shall rot in a German jail until your joints +creak!" + +His Greek friend and the Goanese, supposing him in trouble perhaps, +came and stood in line with him. Very comfortless they looked, and of +the three only Coutlass had courage of a kind. + +"They stole the cattle on the British side of the border," Will said +sotto voice. "No earthly use threatening them with German law." + +"Keep away from our camp," Fred Ordered them, "or take the +consequences! Mr. Brown here is in no mood for pleasantries!" + +"That drunkard Brown?" roared Coutlass. "He is in no mood for--oh, +haw-hah-hee-ho-ha-ha-ha-ha! Drunkard Brown of Lumbwa wants to avenge +himself, and his friends won't let him! Oh, isn't that a joke! Oh, +ha-ha-ha-hee-hee-ha-ho-ho!" + +His two companions made a trio of it, yelling with stage laughter like +disgusting animals. Fred took a short quick step forward. Will +followed, and Brown reached for the rifle again. But I stopped all +three of them. + +"Come back! Don't let's be fools!" I insisted. "I never saw a more +obvious effort to start trouble in my life! It's a trap! Keep out of +it!" + +"Sure enough," Will admitted. "You're right!" + +He returned into the tent and the Greeks, perhaps supposing he went for +weapons, retreated, continuing to shout abuse at Brown who, between a +yearning to get drunk and sorrow for his stolen cattle, was growing +tearful. + +"They got here first," I argued. "They've had time to tell their own +story. That may account for our cold reception by the Germans. He +says they're under arrest. That may be true, or it may be a trick. +It's perfectly obvious Coutlass wanted to start a fight, and I'm dead +sure he wasn't taking such a chance as it seemed. Who wants to look +behind the cactus hedge and see whether he has friends in ambush?" + +"Drunkard Brown is on the town--on the town--on the town!" roared +Coutlass and his friends from not very far away. + +"Oh, let me go and have a crack at 'em!" begged Brown. "I tell you I +don't care about jail! I don't care if I do get killed!" + +Fred kept a restraining hand on him. Will left the tent and walked +straight for the gap in the cactus hedge by which we had entered the +enclosure. It was only twenty yards away. + +Once through the gap he glanced swiftly to right and left--laughed--and +came back again. + +"Only six of 'em!" he grinned. "Six full-sized Nubians in uniform, +with army boots on, no bayonets or rifles, but good big sticks and +handcuffs! If we'd touched those Greeks they'd have jumped the fence +and stretched us out! What the devil d'you suppose they want us in +jail for?" + +"D'you suppose they think," I said, "that if they had us in jail in +this God-forsaken place we'd divulge the secret of Tip-poo's ivory?" + +"Why don't we tell 'em the secret!" suggested Will, and that seemed +such a good idea that we laughed ourselves back into good temper--even +Brown, who had no notion whether we knew the secret, being perfectly +sure we would not be such fools as to tell the true whereabouts of the +hoard in any case. + +"I want to get even with all Africa!" he grumbled. "I want to make +trouble that'll last! I'd start a war this minute if I knew how! If +it weren't for those bloody Greeks laughing at me I'd get more drunk +to-night than any ten men in the world ever were before in history! +Yes, sir! And my name's Brown of Lumbwa to prove I mean what I say!" + +After a while, seeing that no trouble was likely, the Nubian soldiers +came out of ambush and marched away. We ate supper. The Greeks and +the Goanese subsided into temporary quiet, and our own boys, squatting +by a fire they had placed so that they could watch the Greeks' +encampment, began bumming a native song. Their song reminded Fred of +Will's earlier suggestion, and he unclasped the concertina. + +Then for three-quarters of an hour he played, and we sang all the tunes +we knew least likely to make Germans happy, repeating The Marseillaise +and Rule Britannia again and again in pious hope that at least a few +bars might reach to the commandant's house on the hill. + +Whether they did or not--whether the commandant writhed as we hoped in +the torture of supreme insult, or slept as was likely from the +after-effect of too much bottled beer with dinner--there were others +who certainly did hear, and made no secret of it. + +To begin with, the part of the township nearest us was the quarter of +round grass roofs, where the aborigines lived; and the Bantu heart +responds to tuneful noise, as readily as powder to the match. All that +section of Muanza, man, woman and child, came and squatted outside the +cactus hedge. (It was streng politzeilich verboten for natives to +enter the European camping-ground, so that except when they wanted to +steal they absolutely never trespassed past the hedge.) + +Enraptured by the unaccustomed strains they sat quite still until some +Swahili and Arabs came and beat them to make room. When the struggle +and hot argument that followed that had died down, Indians began +coming, and other Greeks, until most of the inhabitants of the eastern +side of town were either squatting or standing or pacing to and fro +outside the camping-ground. + +At last rumor of what was happening reached the D.O.A.G.--the store at +the corner of the drill-ground, where it seemed the non-commissioned +officers took their pleasure of an evening. Pleasure, except as laid +down in regulations, is not permitted in German colonies to any except +white folk. No less than eight German sergeants and a sergeant-major, +all the worse for liquor, turned out as if to a fire and came down +street at a double. + +They had kibokos in their hands. The first we heard of their approach +was the crack-crack-crack of the black whips falling on naked or +thin-cotton-clad backs and shoulders. There was no yelling (it was not +allowed after dark on German soil, at least by natives) but a sudden +pattering in the dust as a thousand feet hurried away. Then, in the +glow of our lamplight, came the sergeant-major standing spraddle-legged +in front of us. + +He was a man of medium height, in clean white uniform. The first thing +I noticed about him was the high cheek-bones and murderous blue eyes, +like a pig's. His general build was heavy. The fair mustache made no +attempt to conceal fat lips that curled cruelly. His general air was +that most offensive one to decent folk, of the bully who would +ingratiate by seeming a good fellow. + +"'nabnd, meine Herren!" he said aggressively, with a smile more than +half made up of contempt for courtesy. "Ich heiess Schubert-Feldwebel +Hans Schubert." + +"Wass wollen Sie?" Will asked. He was the only one of us who knew +German well. + +But Schubert, it seemed, knew English and was glad to show it off. + +"You make fine music! Ach! Up at the D.O.A.G. very near here we +Unteroffitzieren spend the evening, all very fond of singing, yet +without music at all. Will you not come and play with us?" + +"I only know French and English tunes!" lied Fred. + +"Ach! I do not believe it! Kommen Sie! There is beer at the +D.O.A.G.--champagne--brandy--whisky--rum--?" + +"I'm going, then, for one!" announced Brown, getting up immediately. + +"Cigars--cigarettes--tobacco," the sergeant-major continued. "There is +no closing time." He saw that the line of argument was not tempting, +and changed his tactics. "Listen! You gentlemen have not too many +friends in Muanza! I speak in friendship. I invite you on behalf of +myself and other Unteroffitzieren to spend gemuthlich evening with us. +That can do you no harm! In the course of friendly conversation much +can be learned that official lips would not tell! + +"Kommen Sie nun!" + +"Let's go!" I said. "My leg hurts like hell. If I stay here I can't +sleep. Anything to keep from thinking about it! Besides, some one +must go and look after Brown!" + +"Who'll watch those Greeks?" Fred demanded. "They'd as soon steal as +eat!" + +"We'd better all stay here together," said Will, "and take turns +keeping watch till morning." He said it with a straight face, but I +did not think he was in earnest. + +"Ach!" exclaimed Schubert. "That is all ganz einfach! You shall have +askaris!" + +He turned and shouted an order. A non-commissioned officer went +running back up-street. + +"You shall have three askaris to guard your camp. So nothing whatever +shall be stolen! Then come along and make music--seien Sie gemuthlich! +Yah?" + +Brown had already gone, jingling money in his pocket. We waited until +the Nubian soldiers came--saw them posted--and then walked up-street +behind the sergeants, Schubert leading us all, and I limping between +Fred and Will. They as good as carried me the last half of the way. + +The sergeants marched with the air peculiar to military Germans, of men +who are going to be amused. They said nothing--did not smile--but +strode straight forward, three abreast, swinging their kibokos with a +sort of elephantine sporty air. They were men of all heights and +thicknesses, but each alike impressed me with the Prussian military +mold that leaves a man no imagination of his own, and no virtue, but +only an animal respect for whatever can make to suffer, or appease an +appetite. + +The D.O.A.G. proved a mournful enough lounging place in which to spend +convivial evenings. However, it seemed that when the sergeant-major +had decreed amusement the non-commissioned officers' mess overlooked +all trifles in brave determination to obey. They marched in, humming +tunes (each a different one, and nearly all high tenor) and took seats +in a room at the rear of the building with their backs against a +mud-brick wall that was shiny from much rubbing by drill tunics. + +Down the center was a narrow table, loaded with drinks of all sorts. A +case of bottled beer occupied the place of pride at one end; as +Schubert had boasted, nothing was lacking that East Africa could show +in the way of imported alcohol. Under the table was an unopened case +of sweet German champagne, and on a little table against one wall were +such things as absinth, chartreuse, peppermint, and benedictine. +Soda-water was slung outside the window in a basket full of wet grass +where the evening breeze would keep it cool. + +"Now for Gesang!" shouted Schubert, knocking the neck off a bottle of +beer, and beginning to sing like a drunken pirate. + +A man whom he introduced as "a genuine Jew from Jerusalem" came out +from a gloomy recess filled with tusks and sacks of dried red pepper, +and watched everything from now on with an eye like a gimlet, writing +down in a book against each sergeant's name whatever he took to drink. +They appeared to have no check on him. Nobody signed anything. Nobody +as much as glanced at his account. + +"What is the use?" said Schubert, noticing my glance and interpreting +the unspoken question. "There is just so much drink in the whole +place. We shall drink every drop of it! All that matters is, who is +to pay for the champagne? That stuff is costly." + +They all took beer to begin with, knocking the necks from the bottles +as if that act alone lent the necessary air of deviltry to the whole +proceedings. A small, very black Nyamwesi came with brush and pan and +groped on the floor all night for the splinters of glass, sleeping +between times in a corner until a fresh volley of breaking bottle necks +awoke him to work again. + +"Die Wacht am Rhein!" yelled Schubert. "Start it up! Sing that +first!" He began to sing it himself, all out of tune. + +Fred cut the noise short by standing up to play something nobody could +sing to a jangling clamor of chords and runs on which he prides +himself, that he swears is classical, but of which neither he nor +anybody knows the name. Then he drank some beer and sang a comic song +or two in English, we joining in the choruses. + +Meanwhile, Brown was soaking away steadily, taking whatever drink came +first to hand, and having no interest whatever in anything but the task +of assuaging the thirst he had accumulated in the course of all that +long marching since he left home. He had forgotten his cattle +already--the Greeks who stole them--the Masai who stole from the +Greeks. He paid for all he took, to the Jew's extreme surprise and +satisfaction, and grumbled at the price of everything, to the Jew's +supremest unconcern. + +"An' my name's Brown o' Lumbwa, just in proof of all I say!" he +informed the room at large at intervals. + +When Will had exhausted all the American songs he knew, and Fred had +run through his own long list there was nothing left for it but to make +up accompaniments to the songs the sergeants had been raised on. Fred +made the happy discovery that none of them knew The Marseillaise, so he +played that as an antidote each time after they had made the hard-wood +rafters ring and the smoke-filled air vibrate with Teutonic jingoism. +The Jew, who probably knew more than he cared to admit, grew more and +more beady-eyed each time The Marseillaise was played. + +There was a pause in the proceedings at about ten o'clock, by which +time all the sergeants except Schubert were sufficiently drunk to feel +thoroughly at ease. Schubert was cold-eyed sober, although scarcely +any longer thirsty. + +A native was brought in by two askaris and charged before Schubert with +hanging about the boma gate after dark. He was asked the reason. The +Jew, sitting beside me with his book of names and charges, poured cool +water over my bandages and translated to me what they all said. He +spoke English very well indeed, but in such low tones that I could +scarcely catch the words, drawing in his breath and not moving his lips +at all. + +The native explained that he had waited to see the bwana makubwa--the +commandant. He had nowhere to go and no money with which to pay for +lodging, so he proposed to wait outside the gate and watch for the +coming of the commandant next morning. He would intercept him on his +way down from the white house on the hill. + +He was asked why. To beg a favor. What favor? Satisfaction. For +what? For his daughter. He was the father of the girl whom the +commandant had favored with attentions. She had been a virgin. Now +she was to have a child. It would be a half-black, half-white child. +Who would now marry a woman with such a child as that? Yet nothing bad +been given her. She had been simply sent back home to be a charge on +her parents and an already poverty-stricken village. Therefore he had +come to ask that justice be done, and the girl be given at least a +present of money. + +The sergeants roared with laughter, all except Schubert, who seemed +only appalled by the impudence of the request. He sat back and ordered +the story repeated. + +"And you dare ask for money from the bwana makubwa!" he demanded. +"You dog of a Nyamwesi! Is the honor not sufficient that your black +brute of a daughter should have a baby by such a great person? You +cattle have no sense of honor! You must learn! Put him down! Beat +him till I say stop!" + +There was no need to put him down, however. The motion of the hand, +voice inflection, order were all too well understood. The man lay +face-downward on the floor without so much as a murmur of objection, +and buried his face in both hands. The askaris promptly stripped him +of the thin cotton loin-cloth that constituted his only garment, +tearing it in pieces as they dragged it from him. + +"Go on!" ordered Schubert. "Beat him!" + +Both the askaris had kibokos. The longest of the two was split at the +nether end into four fingers. The shortest was more than a yard long, +tapering from an inch and a half where the man's fist gripped it to +half an inch thick at the tip. They stood one each side of their +victim and brought the whips down on his naked skin alternately. + +"Slowly!" ordered Schubert. "Slowly, and with all your strength! The +brute doesn't feel it when you beat so fast! Let him wait for the +blow! Don't let him know when it's coming! So--so is better!" + +Not every blow drew blood, for a native's skin is thick and tough, +especially where he sits. But the blows that fell on the back and +thighs all cut the skin, and within two minutes the native's back was a +bloody mass, and there was blood running on the floor, and splashes of +blood on the whitewashed wall cast by the whips as they ascended. + +I made up my mind the man was going to be killed, for Schubert gave no +order and the askaris did not dare stop without one. The victim +writhed, but did not cry out, and the writhing grew less. Even Brown +sobered up for a time at the sight of it. He came and sat between me +and the Jew. + +"It's a shame!" he grumbled. "Up in our country twenty-five lashes is +the masshimum, an' only to be laid on in the presence of a +massishtrate. You beat a black man an' they'll fine you first offense, +jail you second offense, an' third offense God knows what they'll do! +Poor ole Brown o' Lumbwa! They fined me once a'ready. Nessht time +they'll put me in jail! Better get quite drunk an' be blowed to it!" + +He staggered back to his chair by the farther wall, leering at Schubert +as he passed. + +"You're no gentleman!" he asserted aggressively. "You're no better 'n +a black man yourself! You ought-to-be-on-floor 'stead o' him! +Dunno-how-behave-yourself! Take your coat off, an' come outside, an' +fight like a man!" + +Schubert gave the order to stop at last. The askaris stood aside, +panting from the effort. + +"Get up!" ordered Schubert. + +The miserable Nyamwesi struggled to his feet and stood limply before +Schubert, his back running blood and his face drawn with torture. + +"Don't you know how to behave!" demanded Schubert. + +The native made no answer. + +"If you don't salute properly I'll order you thrown down and thrashed +again!" + +The native saluted in a sort of imitation of the German military manner. + +"Now, will you lie in wait for the bwana makubwa to trouble him with +your pig's affairs again?" + +"No." + +"Will you go back home?" + +"Yes." + +"You've learned a lesson, eh?" + +"Yes. + +"Then say thank you!" + +"Thank you!" + +"Rrruksa!"* [*Ruksa, you have leave to go.] + +The poor wretch turned and went, staggering rather than walking, to the +door and disappearing into outer darkness without a backward glance. + +"Now for some more songs and a round of drinks!" Schubert shouted. + +But Fred was no longer in mood to make music, or even to be civil. He +shut the concertina up, and asked the Jew how much he owed. The +sergeants went on singing without music, and while we waited for the +Jew to reckon up Fred's score Schubert came over to us, sat down +between me and Fred, and proceeded to deal with the new situation in +proper German military manner, by direct assault. + +"Always you English criticize!" he began. "Can you never travel +without applying your cursed standards to everything you behold? I +tell you, we Germans know how to rule these black people! We +understand! We employ no sickly sentiment! We give orders--they obey, +or else suffer terribly and swiftly! In that manner we arrive at +knowing where we are!" + +"Are you well loved by the people?" Fred asked him politely. + +"Bah! Sie wollen wohl beliebt werden!* Not I! Not we! Of what value +is the love of such people? Their fear is what we cultivate! Having +made them afraid of us, we successfully make them work our will! But +why should I trouble to explain? In a few years there will only be one +government of Africa! One, I tell you, and that German! You English +are not fit to govern colonies! You are mawkishly sentimental! You +think more of the feelings of a black man and of the rights of his +women than of progress--advancement--kultur! Bah! I tell you they +have no feelings a real man need consider! They are only fit for +furthering the aims of us Germans! And their women have no rights! +None whatever! You know, I suppose, that it is the policy of the +German government to encourage the spread of Muhammedanism in Africa? +Well, under the Muhammedan law as given in the Koran women have no +souls! That is good! That is as it should be! No women have souls!" + +------------ +*You want to be popular, don't you! +------------ + +"How about your own mother?" Fred suggested. + +"She was a good Prussian! She was a super-woman! Not to be mentioned +in the same breath with women of any other race! Yet even she--the +good Prussian mother--could not hold a candle to a man! Her business +was to raise sons for Prussia, and she did it! I have eight brothers, +all in the army, and only one sister; she has four sons already!" + +"Strange that your nation should breed like that!" said Fred. + +"Not strange at all!" answered Schubert. "We are needed to conquer the +world! Think, for instance, when we have conquered the Congo Free +State, and taken away East and South Africa from England--to say +nothing of Egypt and India!--how many Prussian sergeant-majors we shall +want! Donnerwetter! Do you think we Germans will long be satisfied +with this miserable section of East Africa that was all the English +left to us on this coast? We use this for a foothold, that is all! We +use this to gain time and get ready! You think perhaps I do not know, +eh? I am only feldwebel--non-commissioned officer, you call it. Well +and good. I tell you our officers talk all the time of nothing else! +And they don't care who hears them!" + +The Jew gave Fred his bill, scrawled on a piece of wrapping paper. +Schubert snatched it away and crumpled it into a ball. + +"Kreutzblitzen! You are my guests to-night! I invited you!" + +"Thanks" Fred answered, "but we don't care to be your guests. Here," +he said, turning to the Jew, "take your, money!" + +Schubert said nothing, but eyed the Jew with a perfectly blank face, as +if he watched to see whether the man would damn himself or not. + +"Take your money!" repeated Fred. But the Jew turned his back and +busied himself with bottles at the side-table. + +"He knows better!" Schubert laughed. "He understands by this time our +German hospitality!" + +"All right," answered Fred. "We'll go out without paying!" + +"Not at all," retorted Schubert. "The mess shall pay bill in full! +You stay here until I have said what I have to say to you! The rest of +your party may go, but you stay! You can explain to the others +afterward." + +He leaned forward, reached a bottle of beer off the table, knocked off +the neck, and emptied the contents down his throat at a draught. +Behind his back we exchanged glances. + +"I'll listen," said Fred. + +"You alone?" + +"No, we all stay. All or none!" + +Schubert made a contemptuous gesture with his thumb toward Brown, who +had fallen dead drunk on the floor. + +"Will that one stay, too?" + +"He is not of our party really," Fred answered. "He knows nothing of +our affairs." + +"You men are in trouble--worse trouble than you guess!" + +Schubert looked with his cruel blue eyes into each of ours in turn, +then stared straight in front of him and waited. + +"I don't believe it," Fred answered. "We have done nothing to merit +trouble." + +"Merit in this world is another name for chance!" said Schubert. + +"What are we supposed to have done?" demanded Fred. + +Schubert at once assumed what was intended to be a sly look, of +uncommunicable knowledge. + +"None of my business to tell what my officers know," he answered. "As +for that, time will no doubt disclose much. The point is--trouble can +be forestalled." + +"Aw--show your hand!" cut in Will, leaning in front of Fred. "I've +seen you Heinies fishing for graft too often in the States not to +recognize symptoms! Spill the bait can! There's no other way to tell +if we'll bite! Tell us what you're driving at!" + +"Ivory!" said Schubert savagely and simply, shutting his jaws after the +word like a snap with a steel spring. It would have broken the teeth +of an ordinary human. + +"What ivory?" + +We all did our best to look blank. + +"You know! Tippoo Tib's ivory! It belongs to the German government! +Emin Pasha, whom that adventurer Stanley rescued against his will, +agreed to sell the secret to us, but we never agreed on a price and he +died without telling. +Gott! He would have told had I had the interviewing of him! It was +known in Zanzibar that you and a certain English lord shared the +secret. You have been watched. You are known to be in search of the +stuff." + +"The deuce you say!" Fred murmured, with a glance to left and right at +us. + +"If you were to go to the office to-morrow, and tell our commandant +what you know," said Schubert, "you might be suitably compensated. You +would certainly be given facilities for leaving the country in comfort +at your leisure." + +"Who told you to promise us that?" Fred demanded, turning on him. + +The feldwebel did not answer, but sat with his legs straight out in +front of him, his heels together, and the palms of his hands touching +between his knees. The sergeants were all singing, smoking and +drinking. The Jew was back at his old post, watching every one with +gimlet eyes. + +"Think it over!" said Schubert, getting up. "There is time until +morning. There is time until you leave this building. After that--" +He shrugged his square shoulders brutally. + +There was no sense in going out at once, as we had intended, with that +combination of threat and promise hanging over us. + +"Why not do what we said--admit that we know what we don't know--and +put 'em on the wrong scent?" Will whispered. + +"I wish to God Monty were here!" groaned Fred. + +"Rot!" Will answered. "Monty is all you ever said of him and then +some; but we're able to handle this ourselves all right without him. +Tell 'em a bull yarn, I say!" + +Fred relapsed into a sort of black gloom intended to attract the Muse +of Strategy. He was always better at swift action in the open and +optimism in the face of visible danger, than at matching wits against +something he could not see beginning or end of. + +"Tell 'em it's in German East!" urged Will. "Offer to lead them to it +on certain conditions. Think up controversial proposals! Play for +timer!" + +Fred shook his head. + +"What if it turns out true? Monty's in Europe. Suppose he should +learn while he's there that the stuff is really in German East--we'd +have spoiled his game!" + +"If the stuff should really be in German East," Will argued, "we've no +chance in the world of getting even a broker's share of it, Monty or no +Monty! Take my advice and tell 'em what they want to know!" + +Meanwhile an argument of another kind had started across the room. +Schubert had related with grim amusement to Sergeant Sachse, who was +sitting next him, our disapproval of the flogging of the father of the +commandant's abandoned woman. + +"At what were they shocked?" wondered Sachse. "At the flogging, or the +intercourse, or because he sent the female packing when she proposed to +have a child? Do they not know that to have children about the +premises would be subversive of military excellence?" + +"They were shocked at all three things," grinned Schubert, "but +chiefly, I think, at the flogging." + +"Bah! Such a tickling of a native's hide doesn't hurt him to speak of! + Wait until they see our court in the morning!" + +It was that that raised the clamor. Even Schubert, who might be +supposed to have won promotion because he could stay sober longer than +the others, was beginning to grow noisy in his speech and to laugh +without apparent reason. The rest were all already frankly drunk, and +any excuse for dispute was a good one. They one and all, including +Schubert, denied Sachse's contention that a flogging did not hurt +enough to matter. + +"I bet I could take one without winking!" Sachse announced. + +Schubert's little bright pig-eyes gleamed through the smoke at that. + +"Kurtz und gut!" he laughed. "There is a case of champagne unopened. +I bet you that case of champagne that you lie! That you can not take a +flogging!" + +There was an united yelp of delight. The sergeants rose and gathered +round Sachse. Schubert cursed them and drove them to the chairs again. + +"Open that case of champagne!" he roared, and the Jew obeyed, setting +the bottles on the table in two rows. + +"I bet you those twelve bottles you dare not take a regular flogging, +and that you can not endure it if you dare try!" + +"I can stand as much as you!" hedged Sachse. + +"Good! We will see! We will both take a flogging--stroke for stroke! +Whoever squeals first shall pay for the champagne!" + +Sachse could not back out. His cheeks grew whiter, but be staggered to +his feet, swearing. + +"I will show you of what material a German sergeant is made!" he +boasted. "It is not only Prussians who are men of metal! How +shall it be arranged?" + +The arrangement was easy enough. Schubert shouted for an askari, and +the corporal who was doing police duty outside in the street came +running. He had a kiboko in his hand almost a yard and a half long, +and Schubert examined it with approval. + +"How would you like to flog white men?" he demanded. + +"I would not dare!" grinned the corporal. + +"Not dare, eh? Would you not obey an order?" + +"Always I obey!" the man answered, saluting. + +"Good. I shall lie here. This other bwana shall lie there beside me. +You shall stand between. First you shall strike one, then the +other--turn and turn about until I give the order to cease! And +listen! If you fail once--just one little time!--to flog with all your +might, you shall have two hundred lashes yourself; and they shall be +good ones, because I will lay them on! Is it understood?" + +"Yes," said the corporal, the whites of his eyes betraying doubt, fear +and wonder. But he grinned with his lips, lest the foldwebel should +suspect him of unwillingness. + +"Are the terms understood?" demanded Schubert, and the sergeants yelped +in the affirmative. + +"Then choose a referee!" + +One of the sergeants volunteered for the post. Schubert lay down on +the floor, and Sachse beside him about four feet away. The corporal +took his stand between. He was an enormous Nubian, broad of chest, +with the big sloping shoulder muscles that betray double the strength +that tailors try to suggest with jackets padded to look square. + +"Nun--recht feste schlagen!"* ordered Schubert. Then he took the sleeve +of his tunic between his teeth and hid his face. [*Now, hit good and +hard!] + +"One!" said the referee. Down came the heavy black whip with a crack +like a gun going off. Schubert neither winced nor murmured, but the +blood welled into the seat of his pants and spread like red ink on +blotting-paper. + +"'One!" said the referee again. The corporal faced about, and raised +his weapon, standing on tiptoe to get more swing. Sachse flinched at +the sound of the whip going up, and the other sergeants roared delight. + But he was still when it descended, and the crack of the blow drew +neither murmur nor movement from him either. Like the feldwebel, he +had his sleeve between his teeth. + +"Two!" said the referee, and the black whip rose again. It descended +with a crack and a splash on the very spot whence the blood flowed, +this time cutting the pants open, but Schubert took no more notice of +it than if a fly had settled on him. There was a chorus of applause. + +"Two!" said the referee. Again the corporal faced about and balanced +himself on tiptoe. Sachse was much the more nervous of the two. He +flinched again while waiting for the blow, but met it when it did come +without a tremor of any kind. He was much the softer. Blood flowed +from him more freely, but his pants seemed to be of sterner stuff, for +they did not split until the eight-and-twentieth lash, or thereabouts. + +>From first to last, although the raw flesh lay open to the lash, and +the corporal, urged to it by the united threats and praise of all the +other sergeants, wrought his utmost, Schubert lay like a man asleep. +He might have been dead, except for the even rise and fall of his +breathing, that never checked or quickened once. Nine-and-forty +strokes he took without a sign of yielding. At the eight-and-fortieth +Sachse moaned a little, and the referee gave the match against him. +Schubert rose to his feet unaided, grinning, red in the face, but +without any tortured look. + +"Now you can say forever that you have flogged two white men!" he told +the askari. + +"Who will believe me?" the man answered. + +Sachse had to be helped to his feet. He was pale and demanded brandy. + +"What did I tell you?" laughed Schubert. "A Prussian is better than +any man! Look at him, and then at me!" + +He shouted for his servant, who had to be fetched from the boma--a +smug-faced little rascal, obviously in love with the glory reflected on +the sergeant-major's servant. He was made to produce a basin and cold +water--he discovered them somewhere in the dim recesses of the +store--and sponge his master's raw posterior before us all. Then he +was sent for clean white pants and presently Schubert, only refusing to +sit down, was quite himself again. + +Sachse on the other hand refused the ministrations of the boy--was +annoyed by the chaff of the other sergeants--refused to drink any of +the sweet champagne he would now have to pay for--and went away in +great dudgeon, murmuring about the madness that takes hold of men in +Africa. + +Meanwhile, while Schubert strutted and swaggered, making jokes more raw +and beastly than his own flogged hide, the Jew came and poured more +cool water on my hot bandages, touching them with deft fingers that +looked like the hairy legs of a huge spider--his touch more +gentle--more fugitive than any woman's. + +"You should not tell zat dam feldwebel nozink!" he advised in nasal +English. "Nefer mind vat you tell heem he is all ze same not your +frien. He only obey hees officers. Zey say to cut your troat--he cut +it! Zey say to tell you a lot o' lies--he tell! He iss not a t'inker, +but a doer: and hees faforite spectacle iss ze blood of innocence! Do +not effer say I did not fell you! On ze ozzer hand, tell no one zat I +did tell! Zese are dangerous people!" + +He resumed business with his account book, and I whispered to Fred and +Will what advice he had given. Seeing us with our heads together, +Schubert crossed the room, beginning to get very drunk now that the +shock of the flogging had had time to reinforce the alcohol. (The +blows had sobered him at first.) + +"What have you decided?" he asked, standing before us with his legs +apart and his hands behind him in his favorite attitude--swaying gently +back and forward because of the drink, and showing all his teeth in a +grin. + +"Nothing," Fred answered. "We'll think it over." + +"Too late in the morning!" he answered, continuing to sway. "I can do +nothing for you in the morning." + +"What can you do to-night?" Fred asked. + +He shrugged his shoulders. "I can report. The report will go in at +dawn." + +"You may tell your superiors," Fred answered, rising, "that if they +care to make us a reasonable offer, I don~t say we won't do business!" + +Schubert leered. + +"To-morrow will be too late!" he repeated. + +It was Fred's turn to shrug shoulders, and he did it inimitably, +turning his back on Schubert and helping Will support me to the door. +The feldwebel stood grinning while I held to the doorpost and they +dragged Brown to his feet. He made no offer to help us in any way at +all, nor did any of the sergeants. + +There was no getting action from Brown. He was as dead to the world as +a piece of wood, and there being no other obvious solution of the +problem, Will hoisted him upon his back and carried him, he snoring, +all the way home to camp. Fred hoisted and carried me, for the pain of +my wound when I tried to walk was unbearable. + +We reached camp abreast and were challenged by the sentries, who made a +great show of standing guard. They took Brown and threw him on the bed +in his own tent--accepted Fred's offer of silver money--and departed, +marching up-street in their heavy, iron-bound military boots with the +swing and swagger only the Nubian in all the world knows just how to +get away with. + +I lay on the bed in Fred's tent, and then Kazimoto came to us, hugely +troubled about something, stirring the embers of the fire before the +tent and arranging the lantern so that its rays would betray any +eavesdropper. He searched all the shadows thoroughly, prodding into +them with a stick, before he unburdened his mind. + +"Those askaris were not put here to guard our tents," he told us. (The +really good native servant when speaking of his master's property +always says our, and never your.) "As soon as you were gone the Greeks +and the Goa came. They and the askaris questioned me. It was a trick! + You were drawn away on purpose! One by one--two by two--they +questioned us all, but particularly me." + +"What about?" Fred demanded. + +"About our business. Why are we here. What will we do. What do we +know. What do I know about you. What do you know about me. Why do I +serve you. How did I come to take service with you. To what place +will we travel next, and when. How much money have we with us. Have +we friends or acquaintances in Muanza. Do you, bwana, carry any +letters in your pockets. Of what do you speak when you suppose no man +is listening. Bwana, my heart is very sad in me! Those Greeks tell +lies, and the Germans stir trouble in a big pot like the witches! I +know the Germans! I am Nyamwezi. I was born not far from here, and +ran away as soon as I was old enough because the Germans shot my father +and let my mother and brothers starve to death. I did not starve, +because one of them took me for a servant; but I ran away from him. +My heart is very sad to be in this place! They ask what of a hoard of +ivory. I tell them I do not know, and they threaten to beat me! This +place is bad! Let us go away to-night!" + +There was no sleep that night for any of us. My wound hurt too much. +The others were too worried. By the light of the lantern in Fred's +tent we cooked up a story to tell that we hoped would induce the +Germans to let us wander where we chose. + +"Sure, they'll watch us!" Will admitted. "But as our only real reason +for coming down here--leaving Brown's cattle out of the reckoning--was +to throw people off the scent, in what way are we worse off? The lake +is big enough to lose ourselves in! What is it--two hundred and fifty +miles long by as many broad? D'you mean we can't give their sleuths +the slip? We can't beat that for a plan: let 'em keep on thinking we +know where Tippoo hid the stuff. If we succeed in losing 'em they'll +think we're at large in German East and keep on hunting for us--whereas +we'll really be up in British East. Let's send a telegram in code to +Monty!" + +Then Fred thought of an idea that in the end solved our biggest +problem, although we did not think much of it at the time. + +"They may refuse to take a telegram in code," he said. "It's likely +they'll open letters. (We can try the code, of course. They'll +probably take our money, and put their experts on deciphering the +message. They'll say it was lost if there are any inquiries +afterward.) I propose we send a straight-out cablegram advising Monty +of our whereabouts (they'll let that go through) and warning him to ask +for letters at the Bank in Mombasa before he does anything else." + +"Yes, but--" Will objected. + +"Wait!" said Fred. "I haven't finished. Then write two letters: one +full of any old nonsense, to be sent in the regular way by mail. +They'll open that. The other to go by runner. Kazimoto can find us a +runner. He knows these Wan-yamwezi. He can pick a man who'll get +through without fail." + +We could think of nothing to say against the plan. The argument that +the German government would scarcely stoop to opening private mail did +not seem to hold water when we examined it, so we wrote as Fred +suggested--one letter telling Monty that we hoped to make some +arrangement with the Germans, and at all events to wait in German East +until he could join us--and the other telling him the real facts at +great length, laboriously set out in the code we had agreed +upon. + +We sealed the second letter in several wrappers, and sewed it up +finally in a piece of waterproof silk. Then we sent for Kazimoto and +ordered him to find the sort of messenger we needed. + +"Send me!" he urged. "I will start now, before it is light! I will +hide by day and travel by night until I reach the British border! Give +me only enough cooked food and my pay and I will take the letter +without fail!" + +We refused, for he was too useful to us. He begged again and again to +be sent with the letter, promising faithfully to wait for us afterward +on the British side of the border at any place we should name. But we +upbraided him for cowardice, ordered him to find another messenger, and +promised him he need have no fear of Germans as long as he remained our +servant. + +Before high noon we would each have given many years of Kazimoto's pay +if only we could have recalled that decision and have known that he was +speeding away from Muanza toward a border where white men knew the use +of mercy. + +Just as the first peep of dawn began to color the sky Schubert came +swaggering down-street to us, wiping his mouth with the back of his +hand. + +"How have you slept?" he asked us, laughing. + +We answered something or other. + +"I did not trouble to sleep! I stayed and finished the drinks. I have +just swallowed the last of the beer! Whoever wants a morning drink +must wait for it now until the overland safari comes!" + +We displayed no interest. Brown, the only one likely to yearn for +alcohol before breakfast, snored in his still. + +"What of it now? I go drill my troops. Parade is sharp! There remain +twenty minutes. Come with me tell your secret at the boma now, before +it is too late!" + +"Explain why it would be too late after breakfast!" demanded Fred. + +"All right," said Schubert. "I will tell you this much. There will +come a launch this morning from Kisumu in British East. There will be +people on that launch, one of whom has authority that overrides that of +the commandant of this place. The commandant desires to know your +information--and get the credit for it--before that individual, whose +authority is higher, comes. Is that clear?" + +"Perfectly," Fred answered. + +"See if this is clear, too!" cut in Will. "You go and ask your +commandant what price he offers for the secret! Nothing for nothing! +Tell him we're not afraid of him!" + +"It is none of my business to tell him anything," sneered Schubert, +spitting and turning on his heel. He swaggered out of the +camping-ground and up-street again, leaving the clear impression behind +him that he washed his hands of us for good and all. + +"Let's watch him drill his men," said I. "I'll wait on the hospital +steps until they open the place." + +So we ate a scratch breakfast and Fred and Will helped me up-street, +past where the Jew stood blinking in the morning sun on the steps of +the D.O.A.G. He seemed to be saying prayers, but beckoned to us. + +"Trouble!" he said. "Trouble! If you have any frien's fetch +them--send for them!" + +"Can yon send a letter for us to British East?" Fred asked him. + +"God forbid!" He jumped at the very thought, and shrugged himself like +a man standing under a water-spout. "What would they do to me if I +were found out?" + +"What is the nature of the trouble?" Fred asked him. + +"Ali, who should tell! Trouble, I tell you, trouble! Zat cursed +Schubert sat here drinking until dawn. I heard heem say many t'ings! +Send for your friens!" + +He turned his back on us and ran in. There was a lieutenant arrayed in +spotless white with a saber in glittering scabbard watching us all from +the boma gate. A little later that morning we knew better why the Jew +fled indoors at sight of him. + +Schubert was standing in mid-square with a hundred askaris lined up +two-deep in front of him. There were no other Germans on parade. The +corporals were Nubians, and the rest of the rank and file either Nubian +or some sort of Sudanese. He was haranguing them in a bastard mixture +of Swahili, Arabic, and German, they standing rigidly at attention, +their rifles at the present. + +Not content with the effect of his words, he strode up presently to a +front-rank man and hit him in the face with clenched fist. In the +effort to recover his balance the man let his rifle get out of +alignment. Schubert wrenched it from him. It fell to the ground. He +struck the man, and when he stooped to pick the rifle up kicked him in +the face. Then he strode down the line and beat two other men for +grinning. All this the lieutenant watched without a sign of +disapproval, or even much interest. + +Meanwhile the chain-gang emerged from the boma gate, going full-pelt, +fastened neck to neck, the chain taut and each man carrying a +water-jar. The minute they had crossed the square Schubert commenced +with company drill, and for two hours after that, with but one interval +of less than five minutes for rest, he kept them pounding the gravel in +evolution after evolution--manual exercise at the double--skirmishing +exercise--setting up drill--goose-step, and all the mechanical, +merciless precision drill with which the Germans make machines of men. + +His debauch did not seem in the least to have affected him, unless to +make his temper more violently critical. By seven o'clock the sun was +beating down on him and dazzling his eyes from over the boma wall. The +dust rose off the square. The words of command came bellowing in swift +succession from a throat that ought to have been hard put to it to +whisper. If anything, he grew more active and exacting as the askaris +wearied, and by the time the two hours were up they were ready to a man +to drop. + +But not so he. He dismissed them, and swaggered over to the +marketplace to hector and bully the natives who were piling their wares +in the shade of the great grass roof. Then he went into the boma to +breakfast just as a sergeant in khaki came over and unlocked the +hospital door. I followed the sergeant in, but he ordered me out again. + +"I have come to see the doctor," I said. "I need attention." + +He was not one of the sergeants who had been drunk in the D.O.A.G. the +night before, but a man of a higher mental type, although no less surly. + +"It will be for the doctor to say what you need when he has seen you!" +he answered, turning his back and busying himself about the room. Will +translated, and I limped out again. + +By and by the doctor came, and passed me sitting on the steps amid a +throng of natives who seemed to have all the imaginable kinds of sores. + He took no notice of me, but sent out the sergeant to inquire why I +had not stood up as he passed. I did not answer, and the sergeant went +in again. + +Fred by that time was simply blasphemous, alternately threatening to go +in and kick the doctor, and condemning Will's determination to do the +same thing. Finally we decided to see the matter through patiently, +and all sat together on the steps watching the activity of the square. +There was a lot going on--bartering of skins and hides--counting of +crocodile eggs, brought in by natives for sake of the bounty of a few +copper coins the hundred--a cock-fight in one corner--the carrying to +and fro of bunches of bananas, meat, and grain in baskets; and in and +out among it all full pelt in the hot sun marched the chain-gang, doing +the township dirty work. + +By and by Schubert emerged from the boma gate followed by natives +carrying a table and a soap-box. He set these under a limb of the +great baobab that faced the boma gate not far from the middle of the +square. I noticed then for the first time that a short hempen rope +hung suspended from the largest branch, with a noose in the end. The +noose was not more than two feet below the branch. + +Schubert's consideration of the table's exact position, and the placing +of the soap-box on the table, was interrupted by the arrival of +Coutlass, his Greek companion and the Goanese arm in arm, followed +closely by two askaris who shouted angrily and made a great show of +trying to prevent them. One of the askaris aimed his rifle absurdly at +Coutlass, both Greeks and the Goanese daring him gleefully to pull the +trigger. + +They purposely came close to us, not that we showed signs of meaning to +befriend them. They were simply unable to understand that there are +degrees of disgrace. To Coutlass all victims of government outrage +ought surely to be more than friendly with any one in conflict with the +law. Personal quarrels should go for nothing in face of the common +wrong. + +"There is going to be a hanging!" Coutlass shouted to us. "They +thought we would remain quietly in camp with that going on! Give us +chairs!" he called to Schubert. "Provide us a place in the front row +where we may see!" + +Schubert grinned. He returned to the boma yard and presumably +conferred with an officer, for presently he came out again and gave the +Greeks leave to stand under the tree, provided they would return to +camp afterward. Later yet, Brown came along and joined us on the +steps, looking red-eyed and ridiculous. + +"Goin' to be a hangin," he announced. "I been askin' natives about it. + Black man stole the condemned man's daughter an' refused to pay cows +for her accordin' to custom or anythin'--said he could do what the +white men did an' help himself. Father of the girl took a spear and +settled the thief's hash with it--ran him through--did a clean job. +Serve him right--eh--what? Germans went an' nabbed him, though--tried +him in open court--goin' to hang him this mornin' for murder! How does +it strike you?" + +We were not exactly in mood to talk to Brown--in fact, we wished him +anywhere but with us, but he thought self perfectly welcome, and +rambled on: + +"Up in British East we don't hang black men for murder unless it's what +they call an aggravated case--murder an' robbery--murder an' +arson--murder an' rape. Hang a white man for murderin' a black sure as +you're sitting here, an' shoot a black man for murderin' a white; but +the blacks don't understand, so when they kill one another in such a +case this, why we give 'em a short jail sentence an' a good lo lecture, +an' let 'em go again. These folks have it t'other way round. They +never hang a German, whether he's guilty or not, but hang a poor black +man, what doesn't understand, for half o' nothin'!" + +A great crowd began gathering about the tree, and was presently driven +by askaris with whips into a mass on the far side of the tree from us. +Whether purposely or not, they left a clear view from the hospital +steps of all that should happen. Evidently warning had been sent out +broadcast, for the inhabitants of village after village came trooping +into town to watch, each lot led by its sultani in filthy rags and the +foolish imitation crown his conquerors had supplied him at several +times its proper price. The square was a dense sea of people before +nine o'clock, and the askaris made the front few hundreds lie, and the +next rows squat, in order that the men and women behind might see. + +Then at last out came the victim with his hands tied behind him and a +bright red blanket on his loins. He was a proud-looking fellow. He +halted a moment between his guard of German sergeants and eyed the +crowd, and us, and the tree, and the noose. Then he looked down on the +ground and appeared to take no further interest. + +The sergeants took him by the arms and led him along to the table +between them. Out came the commandant then, in snow-white uniform, +with his saber polished until it shone--all spruced up for the +occasion, and followed by a guard of honor consisting of lieutenant, +two sergeants, and six black askaris. + +There was a chair by the table. At sight of the commandant the +sergeants made their victim use that as a step by which to mount the +table and soap-box, and there he stood eying his oppressors as calmly +as if he were witnessing a play. A murmur arose among the crowd. A +number of natives called to him by name, but he took no notice after +that one first steady gaze. + +"They're sayin' good-by to him," said Brown, breathing in my ear. +"They're telling him they won't forget him!" + +The crack of askaris' whips falling on head and naked shoulders swiftly +reduced the crowd to silence. Then the commandant faced them all, and +made a speech with that ash-can voice of his--first in German, then in +the Nyamwezi tongue. Will translated to us sentence by sentence, the +doctor standing on the top step behind us smiling approval. He seemed +to think we would be benefited by the lecture just as much as the +natives. + +It was awful humbug that the commandant reeled off to his silent +audience--hypocrisy garbed in paternal phrases, and interlarded with +buncombe about Germany's mission to bring happiness to subject peoples. + +"Above all," he repeated again and again, "the law must be enforced +impartially--the good, sound, German law that knows no fear or favor, +but governs all alike!" + +When he had finished he turned to the culprit. + +"Now," he demanded, "do you know why you are to be hanged?" + +There was a moment's utter silence. The crowd drew in its breath, +seeming to know in advance that some brave answer was forthcoming. The +man on the table with his hands behind him surveyed the crowd again +with the gaze of simple dignity, looked down on the commandant, and +raised his voice. It was an unexpected, high, almost falsetto note, +that in the silence carried all across the square. + +"I am to die," he said, "because I did right! My enemy did what German +officers do. He stole my young girl. I killed him, as I hope all you +Germans may be killed! But hope no longer gathers fruit in this land!" + +"Ah-h-h-h!" the crowd sighed in unison. + +"Good man!" exploded Fred, and the doctor tried to kick him from +behind--not hard, but enough to call his attention to the proprieties. +His toe struck me instead, and when I looked up angrily he tried to +pretend he was not aware of what he had done. + +Under the trees the commandant flew into a rage such I have seldom +seen. Each land has a temper of its own, an the white man's anger +varies in inverse ratio with his nearness to the equator. But furor +teutonicus transplanted is the least controllable least dignified, +least admirable that there is. And that man's passion was the apex of +its kind. + +His beard spread, as a peacock spreads its tail. His eyes blazed. His +eyebrows disappeared under the brim of his white helmet, and his +clenched fists burst the white cotton gloves. He half-drew his +saber--thought better of that, and returned it. There was an askari +standing near with kiboko in hand to drive back the crowd should any +press too closely. He snatched the whip and struck the condemned man +with it, as high up as he could reach, making a great welt across his +bare stomach. The man neither winced nor complained. + +"For those words," the commandant screamed at him in German, "you shall +not die in comfort! For that insolence, mere hanging is too good!" + +Then he calmed himself a little, and repeated the words in the native +tongue, explaining to the crowd that German dignity should be upheld at +all costs. + +"Fetch him down from there," he ordered. + +Schubert sprang on the table and knocked the condemned man off it with +a blow of his fist. With hands bound behind him the poor fellow had no +power of balance, and though he jumped clear he fell face-downward, +skinning his cheek on the gravel. The commandant promptly put a foot +on his neck and pinned him down. + +"Flog him!" he ordered. "Two hundred lashes!" + +It was done in silence, except for the corporal's labored breathing and +the commandant's incessant sharp commands to "beat +harder--harder--harder. A sergeant stood by counting. The crack of +the whip divided up the silence into periods of agony. + +When the count was done the victim was still conscious. Schubert and a +sergeant dragged him to his feet, and hauled him to the table. Four +other men--two sergeants and two natives--passed a rope round the table +legs. Schubert lifted the victim by the elbows so that his head could +pass through the noose, and when that was accomplished the man had to +stand on tiptoe on the soap-box in order to breathe at all. + +"All ready!" announced Schubert, and jumped off with a laugh, his white +tunic bloody from contact with the victim's tortured back. + +"Los!" roared the commandant + +The men hauled on the rope. Table and soap-box came tumbling away, and +the victim spun in the air on nothing, spinning round, and round, and +round--slower and slower and slower--then back the other way round +faster and faster. +They say hanging is a merciful death--that the pressure of rope on two +arteries produces anesthesia, but few are reported to have come back to +tell of the experience. At any rate, as is not the case with shooting, +it is easy to know when the victim is really dead. + +For seconds that seemed minutes--for minutes that seemed hours the poor +wretch spun, his elbows out, his knees up, his tongue out, his face +wrinkled into tortured shapes, and his toes pointed upward so sharply +that they almost touched his shins. Then suddenly the toes turned +downward and the knees relapsed. The corpse hung limp, and the Crowd +sighed miserably, to the last man, woman and child, turning its back on +what to them must have symbolized German rule. + +They left the corpse hanging there. It was to be there until evening, +some one said, for an example to frequenters of the market-place. The +crowd trailed away, none glancing back. The pattering of feet ceased. +The market-place across the square resumed its hum and activity. Then +a native orderly came down the steps and touched me on the elbow. I +struggled to my feet and limped after him up the steps. + +Practically at the mercy of the doctor, I made up my mind to be civil +to him whether that suited me or not. I rather expected he would come +to meet me, perhaps help me to chair, and I wondered how, in my +ignorance of German, I should contrive to answer his questions. + +But I need not have worried. I did not even see him. He had left by +the back door, and the orderly washed the wound and changed my +bandages. That was all. There was no charge for the bandages, and the +orderly was gentle now that his master's back was turned. + +"Didn't he leave word when he would see me?" I asked. + +"Habandh!" he answered--meaning, "He did not--there is not--there is +nothing doing!" + + + + +CHAPTER EIGHT + +IPSOS CUSTODES + +We were an ignorant people. Out of a gloom we came +Hungering, striving, feasting--vanishing into the same. +Came to us your foreloopers, told us the gloom was bad, +Spoke of the Light that might be--simply it could be had - +Knowledge and wealth and freedom, plenty and peace and play, +And at all the price of obedience. "Listen and learn and obey," +We were told, "and the gloom shall be lifted. Ignorance surely +is shame." +We listened to your foreloopersy till presently Cadis* came. + +We were an ignorant people. Our law was "an eye for an eye," +And he who wronged should right the wrong, and he who stole should die - +Bad law the Cadis told us, based on the fall of man; +And they set us to building law-courts on the Pangermanic plan-- +Courts where the gloom of ages should be pierced, said they, with +Light +And scientific theory displace wrong views of Right. +The Cadis' law was writ in books that only they could read, +But what should we know of the strings to that? 'Twas gloom when we +agreed. + +We were an ignorant people. The Offizieren came +To lend to law eye, tooth, and claw and so enforce the same. +Now nought are the tribal customs; free speech is under ban; +Displaced are misconceptions that were based on fallen man, +And our gloom has gone in darkness of the risen German's night, +Nor is there salt of mercy lest it sap the hold of Might. +They strike--we may not answer, nor dare we ask them why. +We sold ourselves to supermen. If we rebel, we die. + +----------------- +* Cadi--judge. +----------------- + + +I sat down once more on the hospital steps, and listened while Fred and +Will relieved themselves of their opinions about German manners. +Nothing seemed likely to relieve me. I had marched a hundred miles, +endured the sickening pain, and waited an extra night at the end of it +all simply on the strength of anticipation. Now that the surgeon would +not see me, hope seemed gone. I could think of nothing but to go and +hide somewhere, like a wounded animal. + +But there were two more swift shocks in store, and no hiding-place. +The path to the water-front led past us directly along the southern +boma wall. Before Fred and Will had come to an end of swearing they +saw something that struck them silent so suddenly that I looked up and +saw, too. Not that I cared very much. To me it seemed merely one last +super-added piece of evidence that life was not worth while. + +Plainly the launch had come from British East, of which Schubert had +spoken. Hand in hand from the water-front, followed by the obsequious +Schubert, all smiles and long black whip (for the chain-gang trailed +after with the luggage, and needed to be overawed), walked Professor +Schillingschen and Lady Isobel Saffren Waldon. They seemed in love--or +at any rate the professor did, for he ogled and smirked like a bearded +gargoyle; and she made such play of being charmed by his grimaces that +the Syrian maid fell behind to hide her face. + +None of us spoke. We watched them. Personally I did not mind the +feeling that the worst had happened at last. I was incapable of +sounding further depths of gloom--too full of pain bodily to suffer +mentally from threats of what might yet be. But the other two looked +miserable--more so because Fred's bearded chin perked up so bravely, +and Will set his jaw like a rock. + +Not one of us had said a word when the biggest askari we had seen yet +strode up to us--saluted--and gave Fred a sealed envelope. It was +written in English, addressed to us three by name (although our names +were wrongly spelled). We were required to present ourselves at the +court-house at once, reason not given. The letter was signed +"Liebenkrantz,--Lieutenant." + +The askari waited for us. I suppose it would not be correct to say we +were under arrest, but the enormous black man made it sufficiently +obvious that he did not intend returning to the court without us. The +court-house was not more than two hundred yards away. As we turned +toward it we saw Lady Saffren Waldon being helped into the commandant's +litter, borne by four men, the commandant himself superintending the +ceremony with a vast deal of bowing and chatter, and Professor +Schillingschen looking on with an air of owning litter, porters, +township, boma, and all. As we turned our backs on them they started +off toward the neat white dwelling on the hill. + +The court was a round, grass- roofed affair, with white-washed walls of +sun-dried brick. For about four-fifths of the circumference the wall +was barely breast-high, the roof being supported on wooden pillars +bricked into the wall, as well as by the huge pole that propped it up +umbrella-wise in the center. + +The remaining fifth of the wall continued up as high as the roof, +forming a back to the platform. Facing the platform was the entrance, +and on either side benches arranged in rows followed the curve of the +wall. There was a long table on the platform, at which sat the +lieutenant who had summoned us, with a sergeant seated on either hand. +The sergeants were acting as court clerks, scribbling busily on sheets +of blue paper, and in books. + +Behind the lieutenant, in a great gilt frame on the white-washed wall, +was a full-length portrait of the Kaiser in general's uniform. The +Kaiser was depicted scowling, his gloved hands resting on a saber +almost as ferocious-looking as the one the lieutenant kept winding his +leg around. + +All the benches were crowded with spectators, prisoners, witnesses, and +litigants. Outside, at least two hundred Arabs, Indians, and natives +leaned with elbows on the wall and gazed at the scene within. The +lieutenant glared, but otherwise took no notice of our entry; he gave +no order, but one of the two sergeants came down from the platform and +kicked half a dozen natives off the front bench to make room for us. + +We were mistaken in supposing our case would be called first, or even +among the first. The floor in the midst of the court was clear except +for a long single line of natives and six askari corporals, each with a +whip in his hand. It was evident at once that these natives were all +ahead of us, even if those on the benches were not to be heard and +dealt with before our turn came. + +"Look at the far end of the line!" whispered Fred. + +Lo and behold Kazimoto, looking rather drawn and gray, but standing +bravely, looking neither to the right nor left. I judged he knew we +were in court--he could hardly have failed to notice our coming in--but +he sturdily refused to turn his head and see us. + +"What has he done?" I wondered. + +"Nothing more than told some Heinie to go to hell--you can bet your +boots!" said Will. + +The lieutenant was in no hurry to enlighten us. Our boy stood at the +wrong end of the line to be taken first. The lieutenant called a name, +and two great askaris pounced on the trembling native at the other end +and dragged him forward, leaving him standing alone before the desk. + +"Silence!" the lieutenant shouted, and the court became still as death. + +He had a voice as mean as a hyena's--a voice that matched his face. +The insolent, upturned twist of his fair mustache showed both corners +of a thin-lipped mouth. He had the Prussian head, shaped square +whichever way you viewed it. There was strength in the +jaw-bones--strength in the deep-set bright eyes--strength in the +shoulders that were square as box-corners without any padding--strength +in the lean lithe figure; but it was always brute strength. There was +no moral strength whatever in the restless fidgeting--the savage +winding and unwinding of his left foot around the saber scabbard, or +the attitude, leaning forward over the table, of petulant pugnacity. +And the cruel voice was as weak as the hand was strong with which he +rapped on the table. + +He questioned the boy in front of him sharply--told him he stood +charged with theft--and demanded an answer. + +"With theft of what thing, and whose thing?" + +The answer was bold. The trembling had ceased. Now that he faced +nemesis the strength of native fatalism came to his rescue, bolstering +up the pride that every uncontaminated Nyamwezi owns. He was not more +than seventeen years old, but he stood there at last like a veteran at +bay. + +"Put him down and beat him!" ordered the lieutenant. + +"Impudent answers to this court shall always be soundly punished! Call +the next case while that one is being taught good manners. + +A woman was stood in front of the line, fidgety with fear, in doubt +whether to lay her suckling baby on the bench before she faced military +justice. She laid it on the floor at her feet, hesitated, and then +picked it up again and wrapped it in a corner of the red blanket that +constituted her only dress. + +"Take that brat away from her!" the lieutenant ordered. "She must pay +attention to me. With that in her arms she will only think of +mothering!" + +An askari seized the baby by the arm and leg and gave it with a laugh +to another woman to hold, its mother whimpering with fright until she +saw it safely nestled. + +"Quick, now! What about this one?" + +It seemed there was no charge against her. The two sergeants searched +through the piles of blue sheets in vain. + +"Then what the devil is she here for? What do you want, you?" + +The trembling woman pointed to her baby, but was dumb. It needed +courage to answer that lieutenant, and the crack--crack--crack of a +thick kiboko descending at measured intervals on the naked back of the +boy who had answered boldly was no help toward reassurance. + +"Speak!" the lieutenant ordered, "or I shall have you compelled to +speak!" + +She burst into sudden volubility. The dam once down, she poured forth +a catalogue of wrongs that seemed endless, switching off from one +dialect to another and at intervals inserting, apropos apparently of +nothing, the few words of German she had picked up. The lieutenant +yelled for an interpreter, and a Nyamwezi who knew German rose from the +front bench and came and stood beside her. + +"That baby is a white man's," he explained. + +"What does she want?" + +"She says the white man is the bwana dakitari (the doctor!)." + +"Oh! Then I am glad she came here. It is time these loose women were +taught a lesson! They tell the same tale. They say a white man passed +through the village, gave their father a present, and carried them off. + Is that her tale, too?" + +"Yes." + +"Well--what of it? The father agreed at the time when he accepted the +present, didn't he? The consequence is a baby--not for the first time! + Instead of going back to her village, she comes here and tries to +blackmail the officer! She is young. It's the first time she has been +in this court. This time I will be lenient. One hundred lashes!" + +The interpreter translated, and the woman screamed. An askari seized +her by the shoulders. She clung to him, but he threw her to the +ground, and another one tore off the blanket that would have deadened +the blows to some extent. She begged, and clung to their feet, but the +blows began to rain on her, and presently she lay still, her breasts +flattened against the earth floor, her mouth full of dust, and her +naked body paralyzed by fear of the descending lash. + +"Now bring up number one again!" the lieutenant ordered. + +The askaris ceased from flogging him. One of them kicked him to his +feet, and he resumed his stand in front of the lieutenant, looking up +at him as proudly as ever, for all that his back was bruised and bloody. + +"Did you steal or did you not?" asked the lieutenant. + +"Steal what from whom?" + +"Oh, go on beating him! Next case!" + +The next man escaped the whip, but his witnesses were less +fortunate. He brought two men and a woman with him to prove an alibi +on a charge of attempted theft, and the glibness of their answers +convinced the lieutenant they were lying. In the absence of all +evidence for the prosecution except the unsupported word of a police +askari who admitted a personal grudge against the defendant, the +lieutenant resorted to the whip to change the witnesses' convictions, +but without avail. + +The woman yelled under the lash like a demented thing, but, far from +withdrawing her statements, tried to spit in the lieutenant's face when +jerked to her feet and stood again before him--an impossible feat +because the platform on which he sat at the table was too high. He had +her beaten a second time for spitting. + +The next man was a fat Baganda from British territory, charged with +trading without a license. He pleaded ignorance of the law, and denied +having traded. He was flogged for telling lies in court, and changed +his testimony under the lash, whereat he was promptly sentenced to a +hundred and fifty lashes and a month on the chain-gang. Under the lash +a second time, he recanted--swore that his first statements had been +true and that he had done no trading--a mistake in tactics that only +caused the tale of lashes to be increased by fifty and the term on the +chain-gang to be doubled. + +"You must learn that the methods taught you on British territory are of +no use here!" remarked the lieutenant. + +By the time Kazimoto was called and stood out alone in front of him the +lieutenant was in a boiling rage, and the floor of the court was +actually crowded by prone natives being beaten. Extra askaris had been +sent for in order that proceedings might not be delayed, and the +audience could scarcely hear the evidence and sentences because of the +crack of whips and the moans of victims. (Not that they all moaned by +any means. By far the most of them submitted to the torture in grim +proud silence: but the few who did make a noise--especially the +women--made lots of it.) + +As Kazimoto faced the lieutenant he turned once and looked at us. His +eyes sought Fred's. + +"Oh, bwana!" he said--and now for the first time we learned why he had +chosen Fred to be his particular master. "I have been faithful! +Stroke, then, that beard of yours as Bwana Courtney, my former master, +used to stroke his. Then we shall both know what to do!" + +Fred stroked his beard promptly, for the man needed comfort, not +ridicule: but the concession to his superstition did none of us any +good. + +"Face this way!" the lieutenant shouted at him. "You are charged with +being a deserter from German service. Also with giving information to +foreigners. Also with serving foreigners in their effort to exploit +the country, and with refusing to give proper answers when questioned +by those in authority. Do you understand?" + +"No," said Kazimoto in the most melancholy tone I ever heard from him. + +"Are you a Nyamwezi? Now don't dare to lie to me!" + +"Yes." + +"You were born in this country?" + +"Yes." + +"Then you belong in this country!" + +"I belong where my master takes me. My spirit is good. I am a true +man," Kazimoto answered. + +"Your spirit is rotten! You are a traitor! What do you mean by +talking to me of your master, you reptile! Your master is the German +government, of which His Majesty the Kaiser is supreme overlord! There +is a picture of your master!" He pointed with a thumb over his +shoulder to the full-length atrocity in oils behind him. "Salute it!" + +The boy obeyed. + +"Answer now! Who is your master?" + +Kazimoto hesitated. + +"Answer, I order you!" + +He turned and pointed a finger at Fred, who nodded. + +"That English bwana is my master," he said stoutly. It was a forlorn +hope, though. He did not seem to believe that the statement of fact +would do him any good. + +Fred jumped to his feet. + +"That is perfectly correct," he said in English. "The boy is my +servant, engaged on British territory, under a contract for wages to be +paid in English money. He is to be paid off in British East at the end +of my journey." + +"Who asked you to speak?" demanded the lieutenant angrily, sitting up +like a startled scorpion. "Do you not know this is a court?" + +"It looks like a shambles!" Fred answered, glancing to right and left +and indicating the victims of the whip writhing in the name of German +justice. + +"Shut up, you fool!" counseled Will in a stage whisper, but either Fred +did not hear him, or was too worked up to care. + +"Silence! Sit down!" + +"I warn you!" Fred answered. "That boy has claimed British protection. + I shall see he has it!" + +Then he sat down. The lieutenant glared at Kazimoto, the glare +changing to a cold grin as he realized how fully we were all at his +mercy for the moment. + +"You are sentenced," he said, "to two hundred lashes for making +impudent answers to the court, and to six months on the chain-gang for +deserting from this country and entering foreign service. Further +evidence against you will be assembled in the meanwhile, and other +charges against you will be tried on completion of the chain-gang +sentence!" + +"I protest!" shouted Fred, jumping up again. "I give notice of appeal +to whatever higher court there is. I am ready to give bonds!" + +"What does this delay mean?" snapped the lieutenant. "Put him down at +once and lay the lashes on!" + +The unfortunate Kazimoto was pounced on by two askaris and thrown +face-downward on the floor. One of them tore off his clothes, ripping +up his good English jacket. + +"Did you hear my protest?" shouted Fred. "Did you hear my notice of +appeal?" + +"I did," said the lieutenant. "Appeals are heard at the coast. You +must give notice by mail, and receive an acknowledgment from the higher +military court before I grant stay of execution. Lay on the lashes!" + +"I will hold you personally liable for this outrage," Fred told him, +"if it costs me all my money and all the rest of my years! I defy you +to continue!" + +"You have yourself to blame!" the lieutenant grinned. "But for your +uninvited interruption the Nyamwezi would have had a better hearing! +Lay those lashes on harder and more slowly!" + +Kazimoto was taking his gruel like a man. Two askaris were beating +him. The blows fell at random anywhere below the neck and above the +heels, raising a great welt where they did not actually cut the skin. +He had buried his face in his forearms, and Will had gone to stand near +him, stooping down to encourage him with any words at all that might +seem to serve. + +"Stick it out, Kazi! We'll stand by! We won't leave you down here! +Remember you've got friends who won't desert you!" + +Probably in his agony Kazimoto did not understand a word of it, but the +lieutenant did,--and swiftly took steps to interfere. + +"Call the Europeans' cases next!" he shouted, and promptly the German +sergeants stepped down from the platform to marshal us in line. The +lieutenant went through the form of studying the blue papers, and +called out our names. That of Brown was included, but Brown was not in +court and we were kept standing there until he had been fetched from +his tent. He had retired immediately after the hanging to sleep off +the effects of his debauch, and being now deprived of that luxury +arrived between two askaris in a volcanic temper. He insulted the +lieutenant to begin with. + +"A diet o' beer an' sausage don't seem to have filled you full o' good +manners, do it?" + +The lieutenant scowled, but for the moment chose to ignore the +pleasantry. + +"You people are charged," he said, "with entering German territory +otherwise than by a regular road and without reporting at a customs +station. Further, with intending to defraud the customs--with carrying +and possessing arms without a license--with being in possession of +ammunition without a permit--with shooting game without a license--with +filibustering--with intentional homicide, in that you shot and killed +certain men of the Masai tribe within German territory--with wandering +at large without permits and with felonious intent; and last, and this +is the most serious charge, with being spies within the military +meaning of that term. Do you plead guilty or not guilty?" + +We were dumb. Even the crack of the heavy whips on poor Kazimoto's +skin ceased to make impression on us. Suffering already from my wound +to the point of nausea, I actually reeled before this new deluge of +trouble, and had to hold on to Fred and Will. They each put an arm +under mine. It was Brown who spoke and stole from our sails what +little wind there might have been. + +"Decline to plead!" he shouted boisterously. "You're no judge, you're +a pirate! You're not fit to try natives, let alone white men! You're +a disgrace, that's what you are! All you're fit for is to make a +decent fellow glad he needn't know you!" + +"Silence!" roared the lieutenant, banging on the table with his open +palm--then with his fist--then with a mallet. + +"Silence yourself!" retorted Brown as soon as the hammering ceased. +"You ought to be ashamed o' yourself! Your court's a bally disgrace, +an' you're the worst thing in it! You and your Kaiser can go to hell, +and be damned to both of you!" + +"One month in jail for contempt of court and Majestaets-beleidigung!" +snapped the lieutenant. "Take him away!" + +Quite clearly that was not the first time that a white man had been +imprisoned in Muanza. There was no hesitation about the way in which +an askari seized Brown's wrists or a sergeant snapped the handcuffs. +He was hustled out expostulating, kicked on the shins by the sergeant +when he faced about to argue, and shoved into a run by both sergeant +and askari. + +"You others would better be careful what you say!" said the lieutenant. + +"I've a mind to share Brown's cell!" said Will, but the lieutenant +affected not to hear that. + +"Since you refuse to plead in this court, you shall be held until the +arrival of Major Schunck from the coast. Your arms and ammunition are +to be handed over to the askaris, who will be sent to the rest-camp to +receive them. The askaris will search your belongings thoroughly to +make sure they have all your weapons. You are ordered confined within +the limits of this township, and if you are detected making any attempt +to trespass outside township limits you will be confined as the Greeks +are within the rest-camp under observation. The porters you brought +into the country are all to be paid their full wages by you until Major +Schunck shall have dealt with you; the porters are refused permission +to leave Muanza, being needed as witnesses. Next case!" + +He scrawled his signature at the foot of each sheet of blue paper, and +made a motion with his arm that we should leave court. But we sat down +and waited until the two Nubian giants had finished flogging Kazimoto, +and when they dragged him to his feet Will and Fred walked over to give +him a few words of comfort. That act of ordinary kindness threw the +lieutenant into another fury. + +"Bring the Nyamwezi here!" he ordered, and the askaris hustled him up +in front of the table. + +"What do you do? Have you no manners? Return proper thanks for the +lesson you have received!" + +Kazimoto stood silent. + +"For God's sake--" Will began. + +"Say 'Thank you' to him, Kazimoto!" Fred whispered. + +There is no native word for "Thank you"--only a bastard thing +introduced by tyrants from Europe who never understood the African +contention that the giver rewards himself if his gift is worth anything +at all. + +"Asente," said Kazimoto meekly. + +"Why don't you salute? Don't you know where you are?" + +"For the love of God salute him!" Will almost shouted. + +Kazimoto obeyed. + +"Take him and put him on the chain-gang!" ordered the lieutenant. "You +Europeans leave the court!" + +"I'm no European!" Will shouted back. "Thank the Lord I was born in a +country you'll never set foot in!" + +"Take them away before I have to make an example of them!" the +lieutenant ordered. + +Obediently the askaris gathered about us and hustled us out into the +open, poking at my bandaged wound to get swifter action, and going as +far as to threaten us with their hippo-hide whips. I trod on the naked +toe of one of them with sufficient suddenness and weight to deprive him +of the use of it for all time, and luckily for me he did not see who +did it. The askari next to him had boots on, and got the blame. + +The black men who were to search our belongings tried to induce us to +hurry, but we insisted on seeing the iron ring riveted to Kazimoto's +neck. The ring had a shackle on it, and through that they passed the +long chain that held him prisoner in the midst of a gang of forty men. +Nobody washed the wounds on his back. We bought water from a woman who +was passing with a great jar on her head, and did that much for him. +He was naked. His clothes that the askaris had torn from him had been +thrown outside the court, and some one had stolen them. Later they +gave him a piece of cheap calico to bind round his waist, but during +all that hot afternoon he had nothing to keep the sun from his tortured +back; nor would they permit us to give him anything. + +The mortification of having one's private belongings gone through by +black men in uniform was made more exasperating still by the fact that +Coutlass and the other Greek and the Goanese were spectators, amusing +themselves with comments that came nearer to causing murder than they +guessed. + +The real motive of the search was evident within two minutes from the +commencement. The askaris could not read, but they showed a most +remarkable affinity for paper that had been written on. They took the +guns and ammunition first, but after that they emptied everything from +our bags and boxes on to the sand, and confiscated every scrap of +paper, shaking our books to make sure nothing was left between the +leaves. + +They even took away our writing material in their zeal to find +information likely to prove useful to their masters. But they forgot +to search our pockets, so that they overlooked the letter we had +written in code to Monty and had not yet sent away by messenger. + +That letter became our most besetting problem. How to find a runner +who would take it to British East and mail it for us up there without +betraying us first to the Germans was something we could not guess. +Even Fred grew gloomy when we realized there was probably not a native +on the whole countryside with sufficient manhood left in him to dare +make the attempt. The first overture we might make would almost +certainly be reported to the commandant at once. + +"What fools we were not to send Kazimoto with it when he begged us to!" + +"What worse than fools!" + +"What brutes! Think what we might have saved him!" + +We were unanimous as to that, but unanimity brought no comfort, until +we all together hit on a notion that did ease our feelings a trifle. +Coutlass and his two friends were sitting on camp-stools in the open +where they could have a full view of our doings. Assuming the +camping-ground to be equally divided between their party and ours, they +were well within our portion. We decided their curiosity was insolent, +declared inexorable war, and there and then felt better. + +Fred went out with a tent-peg and scored in the sand a deep line to +denote our boundary, the Greeks watching, all eyes and guesswork. + +"Over the other side with you!" Fred ordered when he had finished. + +They refused. He charged at them, and they ran. + +"Whichever of you, man or servant, sets foot on our side of that line +shall be a dead-sure hospital case!" Fred announced. "We'll +reciprocate by leaving your side of the camp to you!" + +"Who made you men rulers of this rest-camp?" Coutlass demanded. + +"We did," Fred answered. "We've lost our rifles just as you have. +We'll fight you with bare hands and skin you alive if you trespass!" + +"Gassharamminy!" shouted Coutlass. "By hell and Waterloo, you mistake +me for a weakling! Wait and see!" + +We had to wait a very long and weary time, but we did see. In the days +that followed, when my wound festered and I grew too ill to drag myself +about, Fred and Will were able to leave me alone in the camp without +any fear of a visit from the Greeks. It was not that there was much +left worth stealing, but a mere visit from them might have had +consequences we could never have offset. Alone, unable to rise, I +could not have forced them to leave, and their lingering would surely +have been interpreted by the guard, who always watched them from the +corner of the road, as evidence of collusion of some sort between them +and us. + +Just at that time Coutlass, as it happened, would have liked nothing +better in the world than the chance to persuade the Germans that he was +in our councils. Fred's mere irritable determination to divide the +camp in halves saved us in all human probability from a trap out of +which there would have been no escape. + + + + +CHAPTER NINE + + +"SPEAK YE, AND SO DO" + +Ok Thou, who gavest English speech + To both our Anglo-Saxon breeds, +And didst adown all ages teach + That Art of crowning words with deeds, +May we, who use the speech, be blest + With bravery, that when shall come +In thy full time our hour of test - + That promised hour of Christendom, +We may be found, whate'er our need, + How grim soe'er our circumstance, +Unwilling to be fed or freed, + Or fame or fortune to enhance +By flinching from the good begun, + By broken word or serpent plan, +Or cruelty in malice done + To helpless beast or subject man. + Amen + + +There was method, of course, behind the difference in treatment +extended to us and to the Greeks. The motive for making Coutlass sell +his mules and stay within the miserable confines of the rest-camp was +to make sure be had money enough to feed himself, and to cut off all +opportunity for swift escape. Not for a second were the Germans +sufficiently unwary to admit collusion with him. + +The real ownership of the three mules was left in little doubt when +they were sold at public auction and bought in by Schillingschen. Fred +and Will attended the auction the day following our scene in court, and +extracted a lot of amusement from bidding against Schillinschen, +compelling him finally to pay a good sum more than the mules were worth. + +Coutlass was in a strange predicament. The looting of Brown's cattle +had been a bid for fortune on his own account. Yet by causing us to +give chase he had brought us into the German net more handily than ever +they had hoped. So it was reasonable on his part to suppose that if he +could betray us more completely still, he might get rewarded instead of +treated as a broken tool. + +Yet he did not dare to approach our camp, for fear lest Fred should +carry out his threat and fight. The fight would certainly be reported +by the askari on watch at the crossroads, and that would destroy his +chance of making believe to be in our confidence. So he kept sending +notes to me when the others were absent, even the native boy who +brought them--not daring to enter our camp, but fastening the message +to a stone and throwing it in through the tent door. + +They were strange, illiterate messages, childishly conceived, varying +between straight-out offers to help us escape and dark insinuations +that he knew of something it would pay us well to investigate. + +It was an English missionary spending three days in Muanza on his way +to Lake Tanganika, who came to see what he could do for my wound and +cleared up the mystery quite a little by reporting what he had heard in +the non-commissioned mess, where he had been invited to eat a meal. + +"The Greek," he said, "is trying to curry favor by pretending he knows +your plans. If he succeeds in worming into your confidence and +persuading you to make plans to escape with him, they will feel +justified in putting you in jail--and that, I understand, is where they +want you." + +"Will you do me a favor?" I asked. + +He hesitated. It was kindness that had sent him down to ease my pain, +if possible, not anti-Germanism; it was part of German policy to pose +as the friend of all missionaries, and if anything he was prejudiced +against us--particularly against Brown, whom he had visited in jail, +and who assured him the only hymn he ever sang was "Beer, glorious +beer!" + +"That depends," he answered. + +"We are quite sure any letters we write will be opened," I said. + +He answered that he could hardly believe that. + +"If we could send a letter unopened to British East it would solve our +worst problem," I told him. "If you know of a dependable messenger who +would carry our letter, I would contribute fifty pounds out of my own +pocket to the funds of your mission." + +I made a mistake there, and realized it the next moment. + +"What kind of letter is worth fifty pounds?" he asked me. "Isn't it +something illegal that you fear might get you into worse trouble if +opened and read?" + +I argued in vain, and only made my case worse by citing as an instance +of German official turpitude the staff surgeon's neglect of me. + +"But be tells me you refuse to be treated by him!" he answered. "He +says you enter his hospital and are insolent if he happens to be too +busy to attend to you at once. He says you refuse to let a native +orderly dress your wound!" + +He had been entertained to one meal at the commandant's house on the +bill, and regaled by awful accounts of our ferocity. I did not succeed +in inserting as much as the thin end of a different view until he asked +me how a man's name could be professor Schillingschen and his wife's +Lady Isobel Saffren Waldon. + +"I don't understand about titles," he said. "Shouldn't she take his +name, or else he hers, or something?" + +I assured him that marriage had never as much as entered the head of +either of them. + +"They're simply living together," I said. "He's a cynical brute. She's +a designing female!" + +The missionary mind recoiled and refused to believe me. But after he +had thought the matter over and seen the probability, he swung over to +a sort of lame admission that a few more of my statements might perhaps +be true. + +"I will take your letter and guarantee its delivery in British East, +provided I may read it and do not disapprove of its contents." he +volunteered. + +"That's not unreasonable," I said, "but the letter is in code." + +"I should have to see it decoded." + +I told him to find Fred and Will. He came on them sitting smoking +under the great rock near the waterfront that bad been inset with a +bronze medallion of Bismarck, and startled them almost into committing +an assault on him, by saying that he wanted our secret code at once. +They had been trying to get tobacco to Brown, and sweetmeats to +Kazimoto, had failed in both efforts and were short-tempered. He +explained after they had insulted him sufficiently, and they walked +down to the camp one on either hand, apologizing all the way. I +imagine they had criticized missions of all denominations pretty +thoroughly. + +In the end he decided not to read the letter at all. + +"I have reached the conclusion you three men are gentlemen," he said, +"and would not take advantage of me. I will take your letter to Ujiji, +and send it to the south end of Lake Tanganika, to be put in the +British mail bag for Mombasa by way of Durban. It will take a long +time to reach its destination--perhaps two months; but I will have it +registered, and it will undoubtedly get there." + +That he kept his word and better we had ample proof later on, but I did +not bless him particularly fervidly at the time, for he went straight +to the doctor and repeated my complaints. He left for Ujiji the next +day, and the net result of his friendly interference was that the +doctor refused me any sort of attention at all--even a change of +bandages. + +Fred and Will did their best for me, but it was little. I read in +their faces, and in their studied cheerfulness when speaking in my +presence, that they had made up their minds I was going to lose the +number of my mess. They went to the commandant and the lieutenant +besides the doctor in efforts to secure for me some sort of +consideration, but without result; and they wrote at least six letters +to the British East African Protectorate government that we ascertained +afterward never reached their destination. They tried to register one +letter, but registration was refused. + +"Why don't they jail us simply, and have done with it?"--Will kept +wondering aloud. + +"They will when it suits their books," said I. "For the present they +scarcely dare. Word might reach the British government. They're +breaking no international law by holding us here and keeping tabs on +us." + +Before many days I grew unable to leave the hard cork mattress on the +camp-bed in Fred's tent. They went again to the commandant, this time +determined to force the issue. + +"I will send some one," he told them, and they came away delighted that +strong language should succeed where politeness formerly had failed. + +But all the commandant did send was an askari twice a day, to lean on +his rifle in the tent door, leer at me, and march away again. + +"He comes to see if I'm dead," said I. "It would be inconvenient to +have me die in jail; there might be inquiries afterward from British +East. After I'm dead and buried they'll jail you two healthy ones, and +keep you until you 'blab'!" + +"Why don't we straight out tell 'em we don't know a thing about the +ivory?" wondered Will. + +"Because they wouldn't believe us!" Fred answered. + +Seven days after the sentry's first call the doctor took to coming in +person to look at me. He never except once stepped inside the tent, +but was satisfied to give me a glance of contempt and go away again, +once or twice taking pains to inspect the Greeks' camp before leaving. +He usually had Schubert trailing in his wake, and gave him stern orders +about sanitation which nobody ever carried out. The sanitary +conditions of that rest-camp were simply non-existent until we came +there, and we had gone to no pains on the Greeks' account. + +But the Greeks did us an unexpected good turn, though it looked like +making more trouble for us at the time. They began to complain of lack +of exercise, and to grow actually sick for want of it. Because of +that, and jealousy, they raised a clamor about our freedom to go +anywhere within township limits as against their strict confinement to +the camp. The commandant came down to the camp in person to hear what +they had to say, and being in a good humor saw fit to yield a point. +Being a military German, though, he could not do it without attaching +ignominious conditions. + +There was a band attached to the local company of Sudanese--an affair +consisting of four native war-drums and two fifes. They knew eight +bars of one tune, and were proud of it, the fifers blowing with beef +and pluck and the drummers thundering native fashion, which means that +the only difference between their noise and a thunder-storm was in the +tempo. + +Day after day, twice a day, whether it rained or shone, it seemed to be +the law that this "band" should patrol the whole township limits, +playing its only tune, lifting the tops of men's heads with its +infernal drumming, and delighting nobody except the players and the +township urchins, who marched in its wake rejoicing. + +The Greeks and the Goanese were given leave to march with the band +twice a day for the sake of exercise. They refused indignantly. The +commandant flew into the rage that is the birthright of all German +officials, but suddenly checked himself; he had a brilliant idea. + +He withdrew the permission and changed it to an order that Coutlass and +his two friends should march with the band twice daily for the sake of +their health, on pain of imprisonment should they refuse. + +"And I will prove to you," he said, "that the good German rule is +impartial. All aliens awaiting trial and confined within the township +limits shall march with the band if they are able!" As an afterthought +he added magnanimously: "Those in the jail, too, provided they have +not been sentenced for serious crimes!" + +So Coutlass, his Greek friend, the Goanese, Fred, Will, and Brown of +Lumbwa marched about the town twice daily, at seven in the morning and +three in the afternoon, a journey of five miles, Fred and Will making +no objection because it gave them a chance to talk with Brown. There +were strict orders against talking, and four askaris armed with rifles +marched behind to enforce the rule as well as keep guard over Brown. +But the drums were so thunderous and the shrill fifes so lusty that the +askaris could not hear conversation pitched in low tones. + +"Brown says," said Fred, returning from the first march, "that he +sleeps with only a sheet of corrugated iron between him and the ward +where the chain-gang lies. He can talk with Kazimoto when be happens +to be at that end of the chain. They've nothing but planks to lie on, +any of them. He says Kazimoto seems determined to kill the lieutenant +who sentenced him, and as soon as he's off the chain we'd better grab +him and hurry him out of the country." + +"Six months!" said I. "Splendid advice! How many of us will be alive +or at liberty six months from now? Not I, at any rate!" + +"How d'you suppose they discipline the chain-gang?" Fred asked, +ignoring my growing hopelessness. + +"With the lash," said I. "I've seen!" + +"That's by day," said Fred. "They've better ways at night. One plan +is no supper or breakfast; but the champion scheme is the doctor's. +On complaint by the askaris that a man on the chain has shirked his +work, or answered back, or been obstreperous, the doctor serves him out +a handful of strong pills and sees him swallow them. They don't +unchain them at night. D'you get the idea?" + +"Not yet." + +"Every time the man has to go outside he must wake the whole gang and +take them with him! They're weary after working twelve hours at a +stretch. After the second or third time up they begin to object pretty +strenuously. After the third or fourth time he's so unpopular that +he'd almost rather die than wake them. Imagine the result, and what he +suffers!" + +Despondency began to have hold of me, and I no longer wished to live. +The doctor's momentary daily visits increased my loathing for the crew +who tyrannized there in the name of Progress, and I could see no way of +retaliating. I became seized with a sort of delirious conviction that +if only I could die and be out of the way my friends would be far +better able to contrive without me. There is no convalescence in a +mood of that sort, and each morning found me nearer death than the +last. Then malaria developed, to give me the finishing touch, and +although strangely enough I grew less instead of more delirious, Fred +and Will at last made no secret of their belief that I was doomed. + +I myself was as sure of death as they were of dinner, and had better +appetite for my fate than they for the meal, when one morning the +doctor came earlier than usual. He had Schubert with him, and they +both peered through the tent door. I was alone, for Fred and Will were +in the other tent. The doctor stepped inside and examined me closely, +drawing up the mosquito net to see my face. I did not trouble to speak +to him, or even to open my eyes after the first glimpse. He spoke to +Schubert in German, let the net fall again, and went away. Schubert +spat and rubbed his hands, and swung along after him. + +Then I heard Will and Fred arguing. + +"Don't be a fool!" That was Fred's voice. + +"I tell you I'll tell him!" + +"Fine thing to tell a poor devil that's dying! Let him die in peace!" + +"No. He has guts, for I've seen him use 'em. I shall tell him. You +wait here!" + +But they both came in, and sat one on either side of my bed. + +"Did you hear what that doctor person said to the sergeant-major?" +asked Will. + +"I don't talk his beastly language," I answered. + +"He said you'll be dead by this evening! He told Schubert to go and +get the chain-gang and have them dig your grave at noon instead of +laying off for dinner. He added they'll have you buried and out of the +way by four or five o'clock. Then Schubert asked him--" + +"No need to tell him that!" Fred objected. But Will was watching my +face keenly, and went on. + +"Schubert asked him who was to say whether you are dead or not. What +d'you suppose the answer was?" + +Fred objected again, but Will waved him aside. + +"The answer he gave Schubert was: 'Once he is covered with two meters +of earth, I shall not hesitate to sign a certificate!'--So now you know +what to expect!" + +Will smiled as he watched me. His face was as keen and calm as Fred's +was troubled. + +"Take more than his guesswork to put you where he'd like to have +you--eh?" he laughed. And I sat up. + +Fred began to grin too. "You were right, Will!" he admitted. + +It was not anger that swept over me and gave me new strength. Anger, I +think, would have hastened the end. It was sudden recognition of my +own superiority to the devils who knew so little mercy. It was simple +inability in the last recourse to admit myself able to be their victim. + Even my leg felt better. I demanded food; and by the time they +returned from their morning march around the township I had made my boy +dress me and was sitting up. + +We dated the turn of the tide of our fortunes from that hour. +Certainly from that day we began to prosper--at first gradually, but +after a while in the old swift way that had made all our ventures with +Monty such amazingly amusing work + +We saw the chain-gang--Kazimoto last, with a shovel over his +shoulder--march away at noon to dig me a grave in the sand close to +where they burned the township refuse. Fred and Will went and watched +them a while, contriving to slip a paper of snuff into Kazimoto's hand +while he rested and let the pick-men labor. (Snuff to a Nyamwezi is as +comforting as an old sweet pipe to nine white men out of ten.) + +When Schubert came that evening at five with an old sack to put my body +in, and plenty of askaris to help decide disputes, I was standing up. +He could not very well make even himself believe that a man who could +speak and walk was dead, but he could be immensely enraged by what he +was pleased to call my schweinspiel.* He cursed me in every language he +knew, including several native ones, and ended by threatening to make +sure of me before going to so much trouble a second time. [*Literally, +pig-play.] + +We enraged him still further by laughing at him, and Fred got out his +concertina that for many days past had lain idle. The first few notes +of it made me realize more than any other thing could have done what +depths of despondency we must have plumbed, for hitherto, for as long +as I had known Fred, he had always been able with that weird instrument +of his to rouse his own spirits and so stir the rest of us. He resumed +old habits now, and gloom departed. + +That evening I went to bed like a new man, and for the first night for +long weeks slept until dawn, awaking hungry. My leg began to mend. We +all saw the absurdity, if nothing else, of the treatment meted out to +us, based on no better grounds than our supposed possession of a +secret. Laughter brought good hope. Hope gave us courage, and courage +set Fred and Will hunting for a means of escape. We decided there and +then that to wait for this Major Schunck to come from the coast and +pass judgment on us was a ridiculous waste of time as well as highly +dangerous. + +The first discovery Fred and Will made was that there were footholds +cut in the great granite rock in which the Bismarck medallion was set. +They climbed it, and discovered that from the summit they could see all +Muanza harbor from the shore line to the island in the distance. +Sitting up there, they presently spotted a native dhow drawn up with +bow to the beach with the indefinable, yet unescapable air of rather +long disuse. + +Resisting the first temptation to hurry along the shore and examine it, +they returned to camp to tell me of the find, and sent Simba, +Kazimoto's understudy, to find out whose the dhow was and why it lay +there. They explained it was a fairly big dhow, and might be laid up +there on account of leakiness. + +But Simba came back grinning with the news that the dhow belonged to an +Indian from British East who had been jailed for smuggling. The dhow +had been sold to pay his court fine, and was now owned by a Punjabi who +had bought it as a speculation and repented already of his bargain, +because the Germans would grant him no license to use it and nobody +else would buy. + +They went off again to have another distant view of it and to try and +invent some means of inspecting it closely without betraying their +purpose. I was already able to walk with the aid of a stick, although +not fast enough to keep up with them, and curiosity taking hold of me I +called two of our servants to give me a supporting arm and limped off +to see the grave the chain-gang had recently dug for me. + +It was a struggle to get there, but it seemed to me the trip was worth +it. I found the grave about a foot too short, but otherwise +commensurate, and sat down on a stone beside it to consider a number of +things. A convalescent man sitting beside his own grave may be +forgiven for amusing himself with a lot of near-philosophy, and if I +trespassed over the borders of common sense on that occasion I claim it +was not without excuse. + +My meditations were disturbed by the arrival on the scene of the very +last man I expected. We had been told that Professor Schillingschen +had gone out on a journey, leaving his "wife" in the care of the +commandant; yet I looked up suddenly to see him standing on the other +side of the grave with both hands in the pockets of his knickerbockers +and a grin of malevolent amusement showing through the tangled mass of +hair that hid his lower face. + +"Yours?" he asked. + +I nodded. + +"A close call! I have seen closer! I have stood so close to the brink +of death that the width of an eyelash would have damned me!" + +"Piffle!" I answered rudely. "How can the already damned be damned +again?" + +He laughed. + +"You are sick still. You are petulant. Never mind. I was coming to +call on you. I watched you leave the camp from the top of that hill +behind you, and followed. It is better. We can talk here without +being overheard. Send those natives away!" + +"Certainly not!" I answered, but I reckoned without the professor and +the fear his hairy presence instilled in them. + +"Go!" he said simply in the native tongue; and although I ordered them +at once to stay by me they ran back to the camp as fast as their legs +could carry them. + +"How do you feel now?" the professor asked. + +I stared at him, wondering just what he meant. + +"I mean, without a pistol!" + +I saw the point. The rest-camp was not far away, but as far as I could +judge we were quite out of sight from it, and unless there should +happen to be some one hiding among the rocks at the foot of the hill +behind me we were quite alone, unless, as was probable, he had placed +one or two of his own hangers-on in hiding within call. + +"This grave should be a lesson to you!" he grinned. + +"It has been," I answered. + +"An illustration," he suggested. + +"A period," said I. + +"To your youth?" he asked maliciously. "To the age of folly?" + +"To the time," I said, "when any man could blackmail me. I would go +into that grave ten times rather than tell you what you want to know!" + +"There are worse places than the grave!" he said, beginning to leer +savagely. His eyes glittered. He could scarcely find patience for +argument. The thin veneer of his first mock-friendliness was gone +utterly. + +"I imagine that German colonial life is far worse than death," said I. + +"German will be the only rule in Africa," he answered. "You fools of +English have set your hopes on the Christian missionary. No +weaker-backed camel could exist! The German Michael is wiser! Islam +is the key to the native mind--Islam and the lash--they understand +that! In a few years there will be nothing in Africa that is not +German from core to epidermis! As to whether you shall live to see +that day or not depends on yourself, my young friend!" + +Being quite sure that he had a plan in mind that nothing would prevent +him from unfolding, I did not waste effort or words on prompting him, +but sat still. My silence and apparent lack of curiosity disturbed +him; there is nothing your bully likes better than to force his victim +into a war of words. + +"I will be short and blunt with you!" he began again. "I know your +history! You were in Portuguese Africa with Lord Montdidier. There he +came in possession of the secret of Tippoo Tib's ivory; how, I do not +yet know, but you shall tell me that presently! You and your friends +came with him to Zanzibar, where you made certain inquiries--sufficient +to set the Sultan of Zanzibar by the ears. You left Zanzibar for +Mombasa, and for some reason that you shall also tell me presently, +Lord Montdidier did not leave the ship at Mombasa but continued the +voyage toward London. Certain individuals decided that it would be +better not to permit Lord Montdidier to reach Europe alive. There were +agents charged with the duty of attending to that. It was considered +safest to throw him overboard into the Mediterranean; men were ordered +by cable to board the ship at Suez. Yet when the ship reached Suez +nobody knew anything about him! Tell me where he left the ship, and +why!" + +He glared with eyes accustomed to extorting facts from savages, +depending on physical weakness so to undermine my will that I would +give my secret away, perhaps without knowing it. + +I lowered my eyes, not being minded to match the strength of my +eye-muscles against his. The news that Monty had not reached Suez as a +matter of fact made me feel physically sick. If it were true, it meant +most likely that he had been the victim of foul play, for that steamer +was not scheduled to stop anywhere before reaching the Suez Canal. As +for the people on the ship knowing nothing about him they no doubt +preferred not to talk to strangers. That sort of news is easily kept +under cover for a while. Schillingschen grew angry at my silence, and +changed his tactics. + +"Where did he leave the ship?" he shouted--suddenly--savagely. + +I did not answer. He came round to my side of the grave, and laid a +heavy clenched fist on my shoulder. It seemed to weigh like lead in +the weak condition I was in. + +"You shall tell me what Lord Montdidier is doing now, or that grave +shall resemble in your imagination a bed of roses!" + +He seized my neck in a grasp like iron, and squeezed it. I rose +suddenly and struck him in the stomach with my elbow. Strength had +returned more swiftly than I had guessed, or perhaps it was indignation +at the touch of his fingers. At any rate he staggered clear of me, and +I thought he would assault me now in real earnest; but perhaps he +suspected me of having weapons concealed somewhere. Instead of rushing +at me like an angry bull he calmed himself and laughed. + +"You are strong for a man they thought of burying!"' he said. "Never +mind! You shall see reason presently! It is well understood that you +and your friends know where Tippoo Tib's ivory is hidden. You imagine +you can keep the secret. If you keep it, you shall never make use of +it, my young friend! If you choose to tell, you shall be suitably +rewarded! Come now--I thought you were going to look for it down in +these parts. I admit you fooled me. You simply made a false move to +draw attention off from Lord Montdidier. Tell me where he is and what +he does--and--or--" + +"And what? Or what?" I demanded, as insolently as I knew how. I saw +no sense in answering him gently. + +"I will show you!" + +I had begun to feel weak again, but he offered me an arm, and since he +seemed in no hurry I was able to struggle along beside him. We took to +the main road and when we reached the D.O.A.G. he called for a hammock +and some porters. Being carried in that way was sheer luxury after the +walk in my weak state, and I lay back feeling like a tripper on +vacation. I saw Fred and Will climbing down from their observation +post on top of the Bismarck monument, but he did not notice them. + +Every German sergeant, and every askari we passed saluted us with about +twice as much respect as I had ever seen them show the commandant; and +Schillingschen returned salutes much less carefully than he, merely by +a curt nod, or one raised finger. Apparently the military feared him, +for when we passed the commandant, who was personally superintending +the flogging of two natives in the market-place for not saluting +himself, he took several paces forward to make sure Schillingschen +should see his act of homage. The professor merely nodded in return, +and I began to I wonder whether there was a rift in the lute of +Muanza's official good relations. Surely I hoped so. Anything +calculated to set the Germans' garrison life at odds looked to me like +the gift of heaven! + +Schillingschen, striding beside the hammock, directed our course along +the shore-front under palm-trees, planted in stately rows with +meticulous precision. He kept far enough to one side to avoid the +charge of being seen walking with me, but from time to time tossed me +remarks calculated to keep my nerves on edge. + +"What I shall show you is by way of warning!" was a remark he repeated +two or three times. Then: "A native can always be made to talk by +flogging him. Some white men need sterner measures!" + +We left the commandant's house on the hill far behind and followed the +curve of the lake shore, toward a rocky promontory with a clump of +thick jungle behind it. Fear began to get its work in, until the +thought came that what he most desired was to make me afraid; then I +managed to summon sufficient contempt for him and his tribe to regain +my nerve and once more almost enjoy the promenade. + +He halted the hammock bearers at a spot about three hundred yards away +from the promontory and, leaving them standing there, turned inland +with a hand on my arm to give me support and direction. We followed a +path that was fairly well marked out and trodden, but rough, and +several times I should have fallen but for his help. My legs still +refused any sort of strenuous duty. + +"The staff surgeon at this station is a man of ideas," he announced as +we rounded a big rock and passed down a narrow glade in the jungle. +"He is original. He is not like some of our official fools. He +studies." + +I refused to seem curious, and walked beside him in silence. + +"He studies sleeping sickness. If he can find the key to the solution +of that scourge it will mean promotion for him. He has noticed that +the sleeping sickness is always at its worst beside the lake, and +putting two and two together like a sensible man has reached the +conclusion that the disease may be propagated in some way in the blood +of these things." + +We emerged into a clearing in which a pool more than a hundred yards +long and nearly as many wide was formed naturally by a hollow in the +surface of a great sheet of granite. The pool was fed by a trickle of +water from a jumble of rocks at one end. At the other end the bottom +of the pond sloped upward gradually, so that a ramp of smooth rock was +formed, emerging out of shallow water. A stone wall had been built +about three feet high to enclose that end of the pond, and all the way +along both sides the granite had been broken and chipped until the +edges were sheer and unclimbable. + +"Look!" he said, pointing. + +I looked and grew sick. On the ramp, half in the water and half out +lay about a hundred crocodiles basking in the sun, their yellow eyes +all open. They were aware of us, for they began to move slowly higher +out of water as if they expected something. + +"You see that post?" asked Schillingschen. + +The stump of a dead tree that he referred to stood up nearly straight +out of a crack in the rock, and a few yards above water level. The +crocodiles all lay nose toward it, some of them twelve or fourteen feet +long, some smaller, and some very small indeed, all interested to +distraction in the dead tree-trunk. + +"That is where he feeds them," Schillingschen announced. "He has +tested them for hearing, smell, and eyesight. By making fast a living +animal to that post be has been able to convince himself that from +about nine in the morning until five in the afternoon their senses are +limited. Only occasionally do they come and take the bait between +those hours. They are hungriest in the early morning just before +daylight. Recently a large ape tied to the post at midday was not +killed and eaten until four next morning, and that is about the usual +thing, although not the rule. Now my proposal is--" + +He stepped back and eyed me with the coldest look of appraisal I ever +sickened under. I blenched at last--visibly suffered under his eye, +and he liked it. + +"--that you tell your secret or be fastened to that post from noon, +say, until the crocodiles make an end of you!" + +He stepped back a pace farther, perhaps to gloat over my discomfort, +perhaps from fear of some concealed weapon. + +"You have not much time to arrive at your decision!" + +He took another pace backward. It occurred to me then that he was +looking for some one he expected. Nobody turning up, he began to +gather loose stones and throw them at the reptiles, driving them down +into deep water, first in ones and twos and then by dozens. Most of +them swam away to the far side of the pool, and hid themselves where it +was deep. + +Then, panting with having run, there came a native who looked like a +Zulu, for he had enormous thighs and the straight up and down carriage, +as well as facial characteristics. + +"You are late!" shouted Schillingschen in German "Warum? What d'ye +mean by it?" + +The man opened his mouth wide and made grimaces. He had no tongue. +Schillingschen laughed. + +"This is a servant who does no tattling in the market-place!" he said, +turning again toward me. "He and I can tie you to that post easily. +What do you say?" + +There was nothing whatever to say, or to do except wonder how to +circumvent him, and nothing in sight that could possibly turn into a +friend--except a little tuft of faded brown that out of the corner of +my eye I detected zigzagging toward me in the direction from which we +had come. A moment later I knew it really was a friend. "Crinkle," a +mongrel dog that Fred bad adopted the day after our arrival, breasted +the low rise, saw me, gave a yelp of delight and came scampering. + +The dog sniffed my knee to make sure of me, and then trotted over to +sniff Schillingschen. The professor stooped down to pat him, rubbed +his ear a moment to get the dog's confidence, and then seized him +suddenly by both hind legs. I saw what he intended too late. + +"Stop, or I'll kill you!" I shouted, and made a rush at him. But he +swung the yelping dog and hurled him far out into the pool. + +A second later my fist crashed into his face and be staggered backward. + A second later yet the dumb Zulu pinned my elbows from behind and set +his knee into the small of my back with such terrific force that I +yelled with pain. Then Schillingschen approached me and began to try +to drive my teeth in with unaccustomed fists. He loosened my front +teeth, but cut his own knuckles, so began looking about for a stick. + +Strangely enough my own attention was less fixed on Schillingschen than +on the wretched "Crinkle" swimming frantically for shore. Dog-like he +was making straight for me, and there was no possibility whatever of +his being able to scramble up the steep side. I shouted to call his +attention, and tried to motion to him to swim toward shallow water, but +the Zulu would not let my arms free, and the dog only thought I was +urging him to hurry. + +Schillingschen found a stick and came back to give me a hammering with +it just at the moment when a crocodile saw "Crinkle." A blow landed on +my head, cut my forehead, and sent the blood down into my eyes at the +same moment that I heard the dog's yelp of agony; and next time I +looked at the pond there was a tiny whirlpool on the surface, slightly +tinged with red. + +"You swine!" I shouted at Schillingschen, trying to break loose and +attack him. For answer he raised his cudgel in both hands and stood on +tiptoe to get leverage. If that blow had landed it must have broken +something, for he was strong as a gorilla; but somebody shouted--I +recognized Fred's voice, and in another second he and Will charged down +on us. Schillingschen turned about to strike Fred instead of me, but +Will's fist hit him on the ear and split it. The professor staggered +backward, and a moment later Fred had felled the Zulu. +I reeled from weakness and excitement, and nearly fell down. + +"Throw him to the crocks, you men!" I urged madly. "He threw Crinkle +in. Throw him! Nobody'll ever know! He'd have dared throw me in! +Nobody comes here! Throw him in and trust the crocks to leave no +trace!" + +"Shut up, you fool!" growled Fred. + +"Did you see him throw that dog in?" I retorted. + +"No," " he answered, "but I saw him strike you. That's enough! I'll +deal with him!" + +I suppose Fred intended to knock the professor down and belabor him +with the same stick be had used on me, but the plan died stillborn. +Schillingschen bethought him of his hip-pocket, produced a repeating +pistol, and leveled it. + +"Any nonsense, and I shoot you all!" he announced. + +That ended the battle as far as we were concerned. We had no firearms. + Schillingschen wasted no time on explanations, but beckoned his Zulu +and walked off, striding at a great pace and only looking back over his +shoulder once or twice to make sure we were not in pursuit. + +Fred and Will lent me an arm apiece and we followed slowly, I +recounting as fast as I could all that had happened, and they trying to +chaff me back into a sensible frame of mind. + +"That was a decent dog!" I insisted. "He slept on my bed those nights +when I had fever!" + +"I know it," Fred answered. "Will and I lay and scratched, while you +rested, with proper flea-food for protection! Don't worry, we'll find +you another dog!" + +Schillingschen's consideration for my wound had vanished with the +chance of making use of me. As we emerged into the open we saw him in +the distance lolling in the hammock he had brought me in. + +"Never mind!" grinned Will. "I'll bet the brute has an earache!" + +"And teeth-ache!" added Fred. + +"And I'll bet he has gone to prepare us a hot reception!" said I. "He +owns this town!" + +But nothing happened immediately on our return into the town. Actually +Fred and Will had been outside township limits and could be arrested; +suspecting foul play as soon as they saw me with Schillingschen, they +had followed at once. They were as mystified as I when no swift +vengeance lit on them. We saw Schillingschen carried in the hammock up +the steep path leading to the commandant's house; but no one came down +again. After we got back to camp we spent all the rest of the day +waiting for the vengeance we felt sure was overdue, but none came. +Toward evening we even began to grow hopeful again and to talk about +the dhow. Fred and Will had examined it through field-glasses from the +top of the rock, and were optimistic 'regarding its size and general +condition. + +"Even if it leaks rather badly," said Will, "we could reach some +island, and beach it there, and caulk it." + +"How about that launch, that brought the professor and Lady Saffren +Waldon?" I asked. + +"What about it?" + +"Couldn't they follow us with that?" + +"You bet they could!" said Will. "We've either got to spike the +launch's boilers, or give them the complete slip on a dark night!" + +"We might steal the launch!" suggested Fred, but that was too wild a +proposal to be taken seriously. The launch was the apple of the German +governmental eye, and the engine crew slept on it always. + +The prospect was unpromising as ever, yet I went to bed and listened to +the strains of Fred's concertina in the next tent with less foreboding +than at any time since reaching Muanza, and fell asleep to the tune of +Silver Hairs among the Gold, a melancholy piece that Will liked to sing +when hope or courage stirred him. + +I was awakened near midnight of a moonless black night by a hand on my +bedclothes and the light of a lantern in my eyes. + +"Hus-s-s-h!" said some one. "Don't speak yet! Listen!" + +It was a woman's voice, and it puzzled me indescribably, for a sick +man's wits don't work swiftly as a rule when he lies between sleeping +and waking. + +"Listen!" said the voice again. "I must come to terms with you three +men! You are the only hope left me! I have no friends in Muanza--and +none whom I trust! Those Greeks and that Goanese would sell me to the +first bidder, and these Germans are worse than dogs!" + +"But who are you?" I asked stupidly. + +For answer she held the lantern so that I could see her face. Her hand +trembled, and the unsteady light threw baffling shadows, but even so I +could see she looked drawn and aged. + +"Where is your maid, then, Lady Waldon?" I asked, for it seemed to me +that was one friend who had served her through thick and thin. + +"Ask the commandant!" she answered. "The poor foot thinks he will +marry her! Little she knows of the German method! I am alone! I have +not even a servant any longer! I have walked through the shadows from +the commandant's house, only lighting this lantern after I was inside +the hedge. Nobody knows I am here. One watchman was asleep; the +others did not see me. All you need fear is those Greeks. As long as +they don't suspect I am here we can talk safely." + +I tumbled out of bed on the far side, and went to waken the other two. +After a hurried consultation we decided my tent was the best for the +interview, because of the light that had burned in it nearly always +while I was so deathly ill. We wrapped ourselves in blankets, and Fred +went and shook Simba awake. + +"Watch those Greeks!" be ordered him. "If they show signs of life, +come and give the alarm!" + +Then we set Lady Waldon's lantern on the ground in the back of my tent, +closed the tent up, and foregathered. There was one chair. We three +sat on the bed. + +"Before we begin," said Fred, "we'd like some kind of proof, Lady +Waldon, that your overture is honest! I've no need to labor the point. + Until now you have been our implacable enemy. Why should we believe +you are our friend to-night ?" + +She sighed. "I don't expect friendship," she answered. "You and I are +in deep water, and must find a straw that may float us all! If I can +help you to escape out of the country I will. If you can help me, you +must! If you don't escape there are worse things in store for you than +you imagine! If you tell your secret now, they intend to prevent your +telling it to any one else afterward! And unless you tell they intend +to take terrible steps to compel you! As for me--they have discovered +that after all I know nothing, and am of no further use to them! They +have not said so, but it is very clear to me how the land lies. +Professor Schillingschen is drunk to-night; he came home with his car +and mouth bleeding, and has plied the whisky bottle freely ever since +until he fell asleep an hour and a half ago. He boasted over his cups. + They are simply using this long wait for Major Schunk, who is supposed +to be coming from the coast, to gather additional evidence against you. + They have men out following your trail back by the way you came, and +if they can find no genuine evidence they will invent what they need; +the purpose is to get you legally behind the bars; and if you ever +come out again alive that would not be their fault!" + +"What do you propose?" asked Fred. + +"Escape!" she answered excitedly. Then another thought made her clench +her fists. "Is it possible you told Professor Schillingschen your +secret to-day? Did one of you tell him? Is that why he is drunk?" + +She saw by our faces that that fear was groundless, but a greater one, +that she might not be able to convince us, seized her next and she made +such an excited gesture that the shawl she wore over her head and +shoulders fell away and her long hair came tumbling down like a witch's. + + "Listen! There is nothing that you men from your point of view +could say too bad about me! I know! I have been in the pay of Germany +for many years, but what you don't know is how they got me in the toils +and kept me in, dragging me down from one degradation to another! They +have dragged me down so far at last that I am not much more use to +them. If we were in British territory they would simply expose me to +the British government and save themselves the trouble of ending my +career. They did that to Mrs. Winstin Willoughby, and Lord James Rait, +and fifty others; it was so easy to put incriminating evidence against +them in the hands of the public prosecutor. Lord James Rait died in +Dartmoor Prison--a common felon. I shall not! But believe me--I am +certain as I sit here that they only wait for my return to British +East! To have me murdered here might start inconvenient rumors that +would lead to unanswerable questions! It was proposed to me to-day +that I should return to British East on the launch!" + +"Then why talk about escaping?" Fred wondered. "Why not go?" + +"Because," she hissed emphatically, "don't you see, you stupid!--if +they send me back it will be to my doom! My one chance is to escape +from their clutches--get into touch with British officials--and save +the situation by telling my own tale first!" + +Fred was in no hurry to be convinced. I was already for accepting her +story and helping her out; but that was perhaps because I was a sick +man, too recently recovered from the gates of death to care to be hard +on any one. + +"I still don't see your danger," Fred told her. "In all my life I fail +to recall a single instance of the British courts passing a severe +sentence on a spy. If you'll excuse my saying so, your story about +Lord James Rait is incorrect. I recall the case well. He got a +twenty-year sentence for forgery." + +"True!" she answered. "And Mrs. Winstin Willoughby was sentenced to +fifteen years for theft! Lord James did forge--in the way of business +for the German government! Jane Winstin Willoughby did steal--for the +same blackguard masters! Do you think they will expose me as a spy? +That would be too clumsy, even for such bullies as they are! Do you +suppose they could have dragged me down to this without some sword held +over me? They can prove that I committed a crime in England several +years ago. Oh, yes, I am a criminal! I raised a check. It was a +check on a German bank, given to me by a German on behalf of a +countryman of his. I needed money desperately, and the man who brought +the check to me suggested I should raise it! Since then I have tried +to repay that money with interest a dozen times, but they have always +laughed and told me they preferred to leave matters as they are." + +"What would be the use of returning to British territory, then?" asked +Fred. "If they hold that over you, they can denounce you at any time." + +"Not they!" she answered. "Not if I get there first! I know too much! + I can tell too much! I can prove too much! If I were once arrested +on the charge of raising that check, no government in the world would +listen to me. But if I can tell my story first, and confess about the +check, and explain why the charge is likely to be brought against me, +then there will be Downing Street officials who know how to whisper to +the German Embassy words that will frighten them into silence! I can +prove too much against the German government, if only I can tell my +tale before they crush me!" + +"Why not write it?" asked Fred, and it seemed to me there was humor in +his eye, but she only detected stubbornness, and laughed scornfully. + +"My own maid even gave them the letters written to me by my sister! If +I should be suspected of writing they would never rest until they had +the letter!" + +"Give me your letter to mail!" suggested Fred maliciously. + +"Deluded man!" she sneered. "All the letters you have written since you +came to Muanza lie in a drawer in the commandant's desk! I myself have +read them!" + +In the dark, with shifting shadows thrown by the cheap trade lantern, +it was difficult to judge what was going on behind that beard of +Fred's. I had begun to suspect he was coming over to my way of +thinking and would yield to her presently, but he returned to the +attack--very directly and abruptly. + +"What is it you know against the German government?" he demanded, and +sat with his jaw in the palm of his hand waiting for her answer. + +"Why should I tell you? Why should I put myself completely in your +power?" + +"Why not?" asked Fred. + +"What would prevent you from stealing my thunder, and telling my story +as your own--leaving me at the Germans' mercy?" + +"Something very potent that I think you would not understand if I +talked of it," Fred answered. "Listen to me now a minute. I haven't +conferred with my friends here, as you know. Whatever I tell you is +subject to their agreeing with me. The only condition on which I, for +one, would consent to taking part with you in anything--after all our +experience of you!--would be that you should put yourself so completely +in our power that we could feel we had your safekeeping. On those +terms I would be willing to do my best to help you out." + +"I agree to that like a shot!" said Will; and I nodded. + +"You mean--?" + +"All or nothing!" Fred insisted. + +"You mean that you also, just like these Germans, must have a sword to +hold over me?" + +"I thought you wouldn't understand!" Fred answered. "What we demand, +Lady Saffren Walden, is proof that you really do give us your +confidence. Without that we have nothing to say to you, and nothing to +do with you!" + +She broke down then and cried a little, tearing herself with sobs she +hated to release. Suddenly she raised her head and glared at us +wildly, dry-eyed; not a tear had accompanied the sobbing. + +"If I tell you--if you fail me after that--I shall kill myself in such +way that you shall know--my blood is on your heads!" + +Fred laughed. It was no doubt the best thing to do, but I wondered how +he managed it. + +"Suppose you begin by telling us," he said. "We can discuss the +blood-stains afterward!" + +Then she suddenly burst into her tale, as if she had rehearsed it a +hundred times in readiness to pour into the ears of the first British +official who had power enough to shield her. She told it dramatically, +in few words, wasting no breath on side-issues, and without once +pausing to explain, letting her words smash down the barriers of +unbelief and pave their own way for explanations afterward. + +"Germany is planning to conquer the world!--not now, but ten or a dozen +years from now! She is getting ready ceaselessly! Part of the plan is +to undermine British rule in Africa by means of a religious influence +among the natives. That is the special duty of Professor +Schillinschen. As soon as possible a great native army is to be +trained, and thoroughly schooled in the fanatical precepts of Islam. +But the German people are too heavily taxed already, and refuse to vote +money for this miserable colony, where the great beginning must be made +because it is only here that they can work unsuspected. So funds must +be found in some other way!" + +She paused for breath. No woman pleading at the bar of justice could +have seemed more in earnest. Of one thing I was quite sure: she had +found it worth her while to convince us if that were possible. She was +playing no half-hearted game. + +"Do you begin to see now why the Germans are so set on finding Tippoo +Tib's hoard of ivory? Do you begin to understand why they are +determined, not only to prevent your finding it, but to learn your +secret? If rumor is one-half true, the Arab buried somewhere enough +ivory to finance this plan of theirs! They have been going about the +search systematically, and sooner or later they feel they must stumble +on it. They will not let you forestall them!" + +She paused again. Her very earnestness exhausted her more than the +walk through the dark in danger had done. + +"Take your time," Fred advised her. "We're all listening!" + +"When I told you in Nairobi that Lord Montdidier had been murdered, I +believed I was so near the truth that you would never know the +difference. I knew the order had been given to have him killed on +board ship--given by men who are accustomed to be obeyed--who do not +excuse failure on any ground. They feared he might be going to divulge +the secret of the ivory to his government in London. Oh, I tell you +they stop at nothing! To-day London is the ivory market of the world, +but they have their arrangements made for transferring that center of +trade to Hamburg! They mean first to crush competitors, and then +monopolize! They hope the ivory is in this country. In that case +their task will be easy. But if it should be found in British East, +they are all ready with the necessary men of influence to apply for a +mining or agricultural concession, and they will fence that place off +so thoroughly that no one will ever be the wiser until they have +carried the ivory out of the country!" + +"They could never get it out of British East without the government +knowing," objected Fred; but she laughed at him. + +"If worse came to the worst, they are ready with an offer to exchange +ten times the territory elsewhere for just that small section of the +country. They would give up German New Guinea, or Southwest +Africa--anything! They have fooled the French and Russian governments +until they are ready to bring pressure to bear on England +diplomatically to induce her to make almost any bargain of that kind +that the Germans want. They are even willing to concede to England the +whole of Abyssinia, which nobody owns yet, and to back her up against +the claims of France and Italy! Why should they not be willing to make +temporary concessions, when all Africa is to be theirs in ten years' +time! They will give to-day, and with the help of the money that ivory +will bring they will create an army that shall take away to-morrow!" + +"But how can you prove all this?" Fred asked her. + +"How? I know the names of the men who are preaching Germany's sermons +all through British East! I know all Schillingschen's secrets! Why +should I not? I have suffered enough! He is a drunken brute nearly +always after the sun goes down, and his caresses are disgusting; I +have endured them until I know all he knows! Now he realizes that I +know his secrets and have none of my own to tell, so he hopes to send +me to my doom at the hands of the government I have betrayed too many +times! What is the use of my pretending to be better than I am? I am +a spy--a traitress--a divorced woman with worse than no reputation! I +am not a person likely to be shown much mercy! I never would have +recanted unless the end of my rope had come! Now I know I must buy my +pardon--I must earn it--I must pay for it with solid value! Luckily I +can do that! I do not ask you men for mercy. I know what is in store +for you if you do not escape! I offer to help you to escape, in +exchange for helping me!" + +"Better be more precise!" suggested Fred. "Exactly what is in store +for us?" + +She pointed her finger at me. "You went out of bounds to-day with +Schillingschen! Well and good; he was with you. But you, and you--" +She pointed at Fred and Will. "--went without permission. Why do you +suppose they over-looked such a splendid chance of jailing you legally? + Schillingschen came up to the commandant's house in a towering +passion, demanding the immediate arrest and close confinement of all +three of you. He was only persuaded to wait a few days longer because +a runner has come in with word that the bodies of several Masai whom +you shot on this side of the German border have been found! The +bones--the bullets found among the bones--and cartridge cases that will +fit your rifles are being brought to Muanza! After that--the deluge, +my friends! That is why Professor Schillingschen gets drunk and sings +himself to sleep in spite of your being still at liberty! Either +escape before that evidence reaches Muanza, or make up your minds for +the worst! It is growing late--answer me--do you agree?" + +Fred glanced once at each of us. We both nodded. + +"We agree with reservations," he said. + +"What are they? Man--don't be a fool! Don't fritter the lives of all +of us away!" + +"They're simple. We've a friend in the jail here. His name's Brown." + +"That drunkard? Leave him! He's worthless!" + +"We've a servant on the chain-gang. His name is Kazimoto." + +"A nigger? You'd risk another day in this place for a nigger? How +absurd! They're never grateful. They don't see things from the white +man's standpoint. They don't expect ideal treatment. Leave him his +wages and tell him to follow when they let him off the chain!" + +"And we have a string of porters," Fred continued. "We will not leave +Muanza without the porters, our man Kazimoto, and Mr. Brown of Lumbwa!" + +"You are mad! You are crazy!" + +"We are the men you have invited to trust you," Fred answered kindly. + "Those are our conditions. We will not 'bate one iota! Take +'em or leave 'em, Lady Waldon!" + + + + +CHAPTER TEN + + +IN HOC SIGNO VADE + +Lean, loveless, hungry lanes are these! + The longest has an end. +Ill luck tasted to the bitter lees + Soonest shall mend. +>From out the foe's ranks if Heaven please + Shall come your friend. + + +We came to no fixed decision that night, although we knew there was no +alternative. She held out, in the vain hope of making us agree to +leave Kazimoto and Brown behind. The porters, she agreed, might come +in very handy, although it was at least doubtful that we should be able +to slip out of Muanza by land. The Germans had taken latterly to +counting our porters every morning, to supplying them with ration money +once every day, and to sending the bill to us by an askari, who waited +for the cash. At any rate, she conceded the porters, provided we would +leave the two others behind. And of course we were adamant. + +She left us an hour and a half before dawn, we letting her return alone +because of the greater danger of detection if we had tried to escort +her. It was after she had gone, while we sat listening for the sound +of a challenge that would have ruined all her hopes, if not ours, that +Will conceived the bright idea which finally saved us. + +"The Heinies don't know that we're wise to their game," he said +cheerfully. His ears were sticking out from his head and he had the +naughty boy look that always presaged wisdom. "Why don't we play that +card for all it's worth?" + +"We need five cards to make even a poker hand," Fred objected. + +"Will a full house suit you--aces and queens?" he answered. "I've +named you one ace already. Ace number two is the fact that these +German officials are brutes pure and simple--brutes who don't +understand how to be anything else, with brutal low cunning and no +other cleverness." + +"That sounds like the joker!" said Fred. + +"It's ace number two, I tell you! The third is the fact that Brown of +Lumbwa can talk with Kazimoto in the night through that corrugated iron +partition! Three aces--count 'em--one, two, three! Queens? One of +'em left a few minutes ago! The other's the dhow! We'll call that +blessed boat the Queen of Sheba for luck! The Queen of Sheba got to +her journey's end, and found more than she expected, and by the lights +of little old Broadway, so shall we! I've dealt the cards--is it up to +me to play them?" + +"Your hand, America! Talk it over first, though! There's an awful lot +hangs on the game!" said Fred. + +I fell asleep while they argued over the points of Will's strategy. +Africa is a land of sudden death and swift recoveries, but for a +convalescent man I had been through a strenuous day and had right to be +tired out. It was broad daylight when I awoke, and breakfast was +ready. Fred and Will had returned from their march around the township +with the native band, and to my surprise the commandant was standing in +front of their tent, talking with them. I threw on a jacket and joined +them at table. + +"I don't understand you," said the commandant. "Either talk German or +speak more slowly!" + +Will took a purchase on his stock of patience and began again. + +"If our porters run away, you'll blame us. We don't care to be blamed +for what is none of our fault. So if you don't put 'em all on a chain +and lock 'em up nights, we're going to discontinue paying for their +keep. That's flat! You can work 'em if you like. Let 'em help keep +the township clean. We'll pay their board and wages as long as you're +responsible for their not escaping! And say! If you want to get real +work out of 'em I'll give you a tip. There never was a savage like +that Kazimoto of ours for getting results out of that gang. Put him on +the same chain with the lot of 'em, and we'll all be satisfied! I +don't presume to be running your jail, but I'm telling you facts +that'll hurt nobody. Those porters 'ud be a darn sight better off with +plenty of exercise." + +"Do I understand you to ask that your porters be made prisoners?" asked +the commandant. + +"You get me exactly!" said Will. + +The commandant grunted, nodded, waited for us to get up and salute him, +grunted again with disgust when we did nothing of the sort, turned on +his heel, and walked off. We spent an hour on tenterhooks, and I began +to believe the German had simply become more suspicious than ever and +would keep closer watch on us without troubling at all about the men. +But at the end of an hour we saw the porters rounded up, and a chain +fetched out that was long enough to hold them all. They disappeared +within the boma wall. Ten minutes later suddenly Will pointed toward +the southward. + +"Look! See what happens when the roofs of shanty-town take fire!" + +Flames went up from the dry grass roof of one of the rectangular +Swahili huts. Within thirty seconds the askaris on guard at the boma +began firing their rifles in the air as fast as they could pull the +trigger and reload. Within two minutes the chain-gang was headed for +jail, where it was locked behind doors, in order that every askari in +Muanza might be free to pile arms and hurry to the fire. +It was not only askaris; the whole township turned out as to the +circus, with Schubert and his long kiboko ruling the riot. The other +sergeants were in evidence, but quiet, imperturbable men compared to +their feldwebel, plying their kibokos without wasting words, stirring +the whole world within their reach into action--if not orderly and +purposeful, action, at least. + +Schubert climbed on a roof well to windward and safe from the sparks, +and directed proceedings in a voice that out-thundered the mob's roar +and crackling flames. To illustrate his meaning he seized handsful of +the thatch on which he stood and tore them out, to the huge discontent +of the owner. The crowd saw what he wanted and began at once tearing +off roofs in a wide circle around the fire so as to isolate it, +Schubert demonstrating until scarcely a handful of thatch remained on +the roof he honored and he had to stand awkwardly on the crisscross +poles, while the owner and his women wept. + +Within ten minutes after the commencement of the fire there was under +way a regular orgy of roof pulling. Whoever had an enemy ran and tore +his roof off, and there were several instances of reciprocity, two +families tearing off each other's roofs, each believing the other to be +at the fire. + +Muanza was a furious place--a riot--a home of din and tumult while the +fire lasted, and when it was put out it took another hour to stop the +fights between victims of the flames and unofficial salvage-men. + +"D'ye get the idea of it?" asked Will. "D'ye see the Achilles heel?" + +In that second, I believe, Fred Oakes and I betrayed ourselves genuine +adventurers. Any fool could have talked glibly about setting the town +on fire; any coward could have yelped about the danger of it, and +improbability of success. It needed adventurers to size up instantly +all the odds against the idea, recognize the one infinitesimal chance, +and plump for it. And we were there! + +"It's the only chance we've got!" agreed Fred. "I'm for it! Lead on +America!" + +"I believe we can pull it off!" said I. "I'm game!" + +After that it seemed like waste of time to talk, yet every single +detail of our plan had to be thought out beforehand and mentally +rehearsed, if we hoped to have even the one slim chance we built on. +Luckily Professor Schillingschen continued drunk, which meant that he +would sleep early and give Lady Waldon another chance to pay us a +nocturnal visit. One of our boys told us that according to market +gossips the commandant was drinking with him and the two of them were +watching a sort of prolonged native nautch they had staged in seclusion +on the hill. + +The next day we learned there was to be a murder trial of no less than +nine men--an event likely to keep the whole garrison's attention drawn +away from us. And after the trial would come the hanging (it would +have been impossible to convince any one, German or native, that the +verdict and sentence were not foregone conclusions). The stars in +their courses appeared to be on our side. For several nights to come +the worst the moon could do would be to show a sliver of silver +crescent for an hour or two. + +Lady Waldon came earlier that night. When we outlined our plan to her +roughly she argued against it at first--and it was impossible +far-fetched--ridiculous. She insisted again on our simply sneaking +away by night with her. But Fred wasted no time on argument, and took +the upper hand. + +"Take us or leave us, Lady Waldon, as we are! We've an unwritten rule +that none of us has ever thought of breaking, that binds us to obey the +member of the party whose plan we have adopted. On this occasion we +have agreed to Mr. Yerkes' plan, and you've got to obey him implicitly +if you want to have part with us! We will not leave our men or Brown +of Lumbwa behind, and we will not change the plan by a hair's breadth! +Will you or won't you obey?" + +She yielded then very quickly. It seemed a relief to her at last to +subject her views to those of men whose purpose was merely honest. +Will took up the reins at once. + +"We've talked over buying the boat," he said, "but that's hopeless. +The more we paid for it the louder the owner would brag. The Germans +would be 'on' in a minute. We've simply got to steal it. It's up to +you to find out the man's proper name and address, and we'll send him +the money from the first British post-office we reach." + +"Don Quixote de la Mancha!" she said critically. "Well--we steal the +boat and you pay for it afterward. The owner will think you are crazy, +and if the Germans ever discover it they will take the money away from +him by some legal process. But go on!" + +"We've plenty of money," said Will, "so there's no need to worry about +too many supplies to begin with. But we'll need scant rations for +ourselves and all our men until we reach some place where more are to +be bought. And we've got to get them on board the dhow secretly. The +first question is, how to do that." + +She told us at once of a path going round by the back of the hill +behind us, that would make the trip to the dhow in the dark a matter of +over two miles, but that avoided all sentries and habitations. We +agreed that all three of us should climb to the top of the hill, which +was not out of bounds--and study the track next morning. On the +fateful night we must take our chance, just as she had done, of +avoiding the sleepy-eyed sentry who kept watch over the Greeks. + +"We'll talk to Brown of Lumbwa on the morning and afternoon march +around the township," Will went on. "Brown must whisper to Kazimoto +through the corrugated iron partition in the jail at night, and have +them all ready to break loose at the signal and bring him along with +them. We must be careful to show Brown just where the dhow is. He has +been sober quite a while. Maybe he'll remember if we direct him +carefully." + +"What is to be the signal?" she asked. + +"Just what I'm coming to," said Will. "A fire-alarm on the first windy +night! The next question is, who is to start the fire? We'll need a +good one! Yet if we do it, we're likely to be caught by the crowd +coming running to deal with it." + +"Coutlass!" she answered suddenly. "Coutlass and his two friends!" + +"You'll perhaps pardon me," Fred answered, "but none of us would trust +those Greeks as far as a hen could swim in alcohol!" + +"Yet you must! Leave them to me! They don't know that the sand in my +glass has run down. Let me go to them presently, pretending that I +went direct to them and am afraid of being seen by you. I will tell +them that the Germans want a good excuse for putting you three men in +jail and that they will he sent away free as a reward if they will +start a fire and charge you afterward with arson! I will tell them to +choose the first windy night, so as to have a really spectacular blaze +worth committing perjury about!" + +"Better arrange a signal," Will advised. "They might otherwise fire +before we were ready!" + +"Very well. You men give me the word at midday of the day of the +start, and I will spread red, white and blue laundry on the roof of the +commandant's house for the Greeks to see." + +"Good enough!" agreed Will. "Now one more stunt! We simply must have +firearms. The Germans have taken ours away and locked them up. At a +pinch I suppose we could manage with one rifle, provided we had lots of +ammunition. We would rather have one each. In fact, the more the +merrier. One we must have! What about it?" + +She thought for several minutes. At last she told us that one of the +commandant's rifles and one of Schillingschen's stood leaning in a +corner of the living-room beside a book-case. Whether she could make +away with one or both of those without detection she did not know, and +she would have to use her wits regarding ammunition. It was always +kept locked up. + +"Why not kill an askari and take his rifle and cartridges?" she asked. +"The sentry on duty watching the Greeks will be in the way. Knock him +on the head from behind!" + +"Thank you!" grinned Will, exchanging glances with us. "We shall have +about enough on our consciences setting fire to half the township. +We'll not kill except in self-defense." + +"But you won't set the town on fire! The Greeks will do that!" + +"Don't let's argue ethics!" Fred interrupted, for Will's cars were +getting red. "Can you tell us for certain, Lady Waldon, whether all +the askaris and German sergeants really run to a fire? Or do a certain +number remain in the boma?" + +"Oh, I know about that," she answered. "Until the prisoners are all +locked in--that is to say, in case of fire in the daytime--six or eight +askaris remain inside the boma. The minute they are locked in, if the +fire is serious, and in case of fire by night, they all go except two, +who stand on the eastern boma wall, one at each corner. From there +they are supposed to be able to see on every side except the +water-front. Nobody guards the water-front; I don't know why, unless +it is that the gate on that side is kept locked almost always and the +wall runs along the water's edge." + +"As a matter of fact," said I, "those two sentries on the wall will be +too busy staring at the fire, if the Greeks really make a big one, to +see anything else unless we march by under their noses with a brass +band." + +"Bah!" sneered Lady Waldon. "If I get that rifle I would dare shoot +them both for you myself!" + +"If you overstep one detail of Will's plan, I guarantee to put you +ashore on the first barren island we come to!" said Fred. "Leave +shooting to us!" + +The next problem was to draw away from the Greeks the attention of the +askari at the cross-roads. We could not see him, for it was one of +those black African nights when the stars look like tiny pin-pricks and +there are no shadows because all is dark. To go out and look what he +was doing would have been to arouse his suspicion. Yet there was +always a chance that he might be patrolling down near the Greek camp; +doubtless acting on orders, he had a trick of approaching their tents +very closely once in a while. + +So when Lady Waldon had slipped out into the darkness we lit half a +dozen lamps and started a concert, Fred playing and we singing the sort +of tunes that black men love. He took the bait, hook, sinker, and all; + in the silence at the end of the first song we heard his butt ground +on the gravel just beyond the cactus hedge in front of us; and there +he stayed, we entertaining him for an hour. By that time we were quite +sure that Lady Waldon had passed along the road behind him; so Fred +went out and gave him tobacco. + +"It's time you went and looked at those Greeks again!" he advised him. +"You would be in trouble if they slipped away in the night!" + +Now that a plan of campaign was finally decided on, there seemed much +less to do than we had feared. Mapping out in our minds the way round +the back of the hill to the dhow was perfectly simple; we went and +smoked on the hilltop, and within an hour after breakfast had every +turn and twist memorized. Fred drew a chart of the track for safety's +sake. + +Persuading Brown of Lumbwa proved unexpectedly to be much the most +difficult task. Added to the fact that the askaris who marched behind +and the Greeks who marched in front were unusually inquisitive, Brown +himself was afraid. + +"We'll all be shot in the dark!" he objected. + +"Would you rather," Will asked, "be shot in the dark with a run for +'your money, or fed to the crocks in the doctor's pond?" And be told +him about the crocodiles to encourage him. + +"They'll have to let me out of jail at the end of the month," Brown +argued. + +"Don't you believe it! In less than a week from now we'll all be in on +one and the same charge of filibustering! They'll not let you go back +to British East to tell tales about their treatment of the rest of us," +Will assured him. + +But Brown proved tinged with a little streak of yellow somewhere. It +was not until the afternoon march that Fred and Will, one on either +side of him, by appeals to his racial instinct and recalling the +methods of the military court, induced him to do his part. Once having +promised he vowed he would see the thing through to the end; but he +was the weak link; he was afraid; and he disbelieved in the wisdom of +the attempt. + +It was Kazimoto in the end who kept Brown up to the mark, and shamed +him into action by superior courage. Fred found a chance to speak to +him as the long string rested al noon under the narrow shade of a +cactus hedge, and warned him in about fifty words of what was intended. + (The askaris, almost as leg-weary as the gang, were sprawling at the +far end of the line, gambling at pitch-and-toss.) + +"Be sure you sleep as near to the partition as you can. Get details of +the plan from Mr. Brown, and then drill the porters one by one! Don't +let them tell one another. You tell each one of them yourself!" + +Then he walked down the line and ordered the porters in a loud voice to +obey the askaris implicitly, and to work harder in return for the good +food and care they were getting, winking at the same time very +emphatically, with the eye the askaris could not see. + +The night work was the hardest., because, although we were quite sure +about direction, even in the dark, it was another matter to feel our +way and carry unaccustomed loads. By day we decided what to take and +what to leave behind, and we cut down what to take with us to the +irreducible, dangerous minimum. Then we broke that up into thirty- or +forty-pound packages, so that when we all three made the trip to the +dhow the most we took at one time was about a hundred pounds' weight. +In the condition I was in I could take not more than one trip to the +others' two; after the first it was agreed that I would better stay +behind and keep an eye on the askari. The minute he showed symptoms of +becoming inquisitive I was to invent some way of keeping his attention; + so all unsuspected by him I lay in the sand by the roadside within +three yards of him, while the ants crawled over me and he dozed leaning +on his rifle. Once a long snake crawled over my wrist and my very +marrow curdled with fear and loathing; but except for mosquitoes, who +were legion and sucked their fill, there was no other contretemps. I +don't know what I would have done if the askari had taken alarm and set +off to investigate. I trusted to intuition should that happen. + +The work of arranging the stuff in the dhow was the most difficult of +all, because we dared not light a lantern, yet we also dared not stow +things carelessly for fear of confusion when the hour of action came. +The space was ridiculously small for ourselves and all those men, and +every inch had to be economized. In addition to that the dhow had to +be worked backward off the mud far enough to be shoved off easily, and +then made fast by a rope to the bushes in such way as not to be +noticeable. Most of the ropes turned out to be rather rotten, and we +could only guess at the condition of the sails; the feel of them in +the dark gave us small assurance. But fortunately we had a couple of +hundred feet of good half-inch manila in camp with us, and that Fred +and Will took out and stowed in the hold the night following. + +We bought such things at the D.O.A.G. as we could without arousing +suspicion, as, for instance, a quantity of German dried pea-soup--not +that the porters would take to it kindly, but it would go a long way +among them at a pinch. Live stock we did not dare buy, for fear of the +noise it would make; but we laid in some eggs and bananas. Most of +the thirty-pound loads were rice. + +It troubled us sorely to leave our good tents, beds, and equipment +behind, yet all we could take was the blankets and one gladstone bag +packed with clothes for us all. Kettles and pots and pans were a noisy +nuisance, yet we had to have them, and blankets for all those porters, +who would escape from jail practically naked, were an essential; but +fortunately we had a sixty-pound bale of trade-blankets among our loads. + +Not one word did we exchange all this while with Coutlass and his +friends. Not one overture did we make to them, or they to us. But +there was no doubt of their intention to do their worst. They gloated +over us --eyed us with lofty disdain and scornful superior knowledge. +They were so full of the notion of having us jailed for their misdeed +that they positively ached to come and jeer at us, and I believe were +only saved from doing that by the shortness of the time. + +At last, three days after decision had been reached, we threw our +blankets with a red one uppermost over the top of both tents in the +sun; and within thirty minutes after that Lady Saffren Waldon had +spread on the commandant's roof a blue cotton dress, a white petticoat, +and a blazing red piece of silken stuff. There and then the Greeks and +the Goanese pledged one another out in the open with copious draughts +in turn from the neck of one whisky bottle, and we began to pray they +might not get too drunk before night. Judging by their meaning glances +at us, they considered us their mortal and cruel enemies whom it would +be an act of sublime virtue to bring to book. + +The trial of the natives for murder had taken place, accompanied by the +usual amount of thrashing of witnesses and the usual stir throughout +the countryside. These were charged with having murdered an askari +near their village--a big bully sent to arrest a man, who had taken +leave to help himself to more than rations, and had made a lot too free +with the village women. So German military honor had to be upheld +exemplarily. Condign vengeance was sure and swift. The execution was +to take place on the drill-ground on the day we chose for our departure. + +There was no risk of investigations that day. Had we known it, we +could have gone away in all likelihood in broad daylight, so busy was +the garrison in marshaling into place and policing the swarms of +villagers brought in from as far as sixty miles away to witness German +justice. Even the customary parade of the band was canceled for that +occasion, and that was our only real ground for uneasiness, for it +prevented our having a last talk with Brown of Lumbwa and assuring +ourselves that courage would not fail him in the pinch. + +We worried in plenty without cause, as it seems that humans must do on +the eve of putting plans, however well laid, to the test. We had a +thousand scares--a thousand doubts--and overlooked at least a thousand +evidences that fortune favored us. Toward the end our hearts turned to +water at the thought that Kazimoto would probably fail to do his part, +although why we should have doubted him after his faithful record, and +knowing his hatred of German rule, we would have found it hard to say. + +Several times that morning we showed ourselves about the town, with the +purpose of allaying any possible suspicion and saving the authorities +the trouble of asking what we were up to. With the same end in view we +attended the execution in the afternoon, and sincerely wished before it +was over that we had stayed away. + +On this occasion even the chain-gangs were included among the +spectators, in the front row, on the ground that, being proved +criminals, they needed the lesson more than the hempen-noose-food not +yet caught and tried and brought to book. + +The same sort of sermon, only this time more fiery and full of ranting +humbug about German righteousness, was preached by the commandant. The +miserable victims had received a simple death sentence, but he +explained that in virtue of his superior office be had seen fit to add +to it. "Death" he explained, "would certainly rid the German +protectorate of such conscienceless scalawaps as these, but might not +be enough to discourage the bad element that disliked German rule. +Natives must be taught that the very name of all that is German must be +reverenced, and that German punishment is as terrible and sure as the +German arm is long! And be sure of this!" he continued. "The ear of +the German government is as far-reaching as its arm! In your +villages--in your homes--in your families--there is always an agent of +the government listening! Your own brother--your wife--your child may +be that agent of the government! Now, watch carefully and see what +happens to men with bad hearts--aye, and to women with bad hearts, who +conspire against German rule!" + +What followed was more impressive because of the determination we had +heard of to bring all Africa under the German yoke. In vain should the +wretched natives in after years escape by the hundreds northward in the +hope of living under British government. The fools--the "easy +people"--the "folk who gave without a price"--the "truth tellers"--the +"men who wish to forget"--the unwise, cocksure, cleaner-living, +unbelievably credulous, foolishly honest British officials would be all +gone. The pikelhaube and the lash, blackmail and coercion would take +the place of generosity. Africa would better be back under the Arabs +again, for the Arabs had no system to speak of and were inefficient. +Some Arabs have a heart--some a very soft heart. + +The crowd grew bright-eyed, little children straining forward between +their elders in the bull-fight frenzy--that same intoxication of the +senses that held the Roman freemen spellbound at the sight of suffering. + +One at a time, that the last might see the torture of the first, the +victims were noosed by the heel (one heel)--thrown with a jerk--hauled +heel-first to the overhanging branch--and flogged into unconsciousness +with slow blows, the lieutenant standing by to reprove the askaris if +they struck too fast, for that would have been merciful. Not until the +victims ceased to struggle were they lowered and thrown on the ground, +to lie bleeding, awaiting their turn to be hanged. + +The last two--supposed to have been the culprits who actually held the +spear that pierced the marauding askari's heart--were hauled up +heel-to-heel together, and hanged presently in the same noose, the +commandant laughing at their struggles and Professor Schillingschen +studying their agony with strictly scientific interest. + +When the last had ceased struggling Schillingschen permitted himself +one more pleasure. He strolled over to us and blocked Fred's way, +standing with hands behind him and out-thrust chin. + +"You flatter yourself, don't you!" he sneered. He was just drunk +enough to be boastful, while thoroughly sure of what he was saying. +"You expect to tell a fine tale! I know the psychology of the English! + I know it like a book! Let me tell you two things: First, your +English would not believe you. They are such supremely cocksure fools +that they can not be made to believe that another so-called civilized +nation would act as they, in their egoism, would be ashamed to act! +Civilization! That is a fine word, full of false meanings! +Civilization is prudery--sham--false pride--veneer! Only the Germans +are truly civilized, because they alone are not afraid to face naked +animalism without its mask! The British dare not! They hide from +it--shut their eyes! The fools! If you could tell them their story +they would never listen! + +"Second: You will never tell the story! Being English, you were such +dull-witted fools that you did not even hide the cartridge cases, or +the bones of the Masai you shot! Bah-ha-ha-ha-hah! You can escape +hanging yet by telling your secret. Jail you can not escape! Try it +if you don't believe me! Try to escape--go on!" + +He turned on his heel and left us, striding heavily with the strength +of an ox and about the alertness of a traction engine, turning his head +every once in a while to enjoy the spectacle of our discomfort. + +We judged it best to appear concerned, as if that was indeed our first +realization of the extent of the case against us and the nature of the +evidence. But we did not find it difficult. We were all three +startled by the fear that in some way he had got wind of our plans, and +that he meant to play with us cat-and-mouse fashion. + +That night it stormed--not rain, but wind from east to west, blowing +such clouds of dust that one could scarcely see across the narrow +streets. Every element favored us. Even the askari at the +cross-roads, supposed to be watching the Greeks, turned his back to the +wind, and what with rubbing sand in and out of smarting eyes and +fingering it out of his ears, heard and saw nothing. It was scarcely +sunset when we saw both Greeks and the Goanese sneak out of the camping +place in Indian file with their pockets full of cotton waste. They had +soaked the stuff in kerosene right under our eye that afternoon. + +There ought to have been a sliver of moon, but the wind and dust hid +it. Fifteen minutes after sundown the only light was from the lamps in +windows and the cooking fires glowing in the open here and there. +Thirty minutes later there began to be a red glow in three directions. +Less than one second after we saw the first indications of the +holocaust a regular volley of shots broke out from the boma as the +sentries on duty gave the general alarm. Less than five minutes after +that the whole of the southern, grass-roofed section of the town was +going up in flames, and every living man, black, white, gray, mulatto, +brown and mixed, was running full pelt to the scene of action. + +We waited ten minutes longer, rather expecting the Greeks to double +back and begin denouncing us at once. In that case we intended to +stretch them out with the first weapons handy. I sat feeling the +weight of an ax, and wondering just how hard I could hit a Greek's head +with the back of it without killing him. Fred had a long tent-peg. +Will chose a wooden mallet that our porters carried to help in pitching +tents. + +But the Greeks did not come, and there streamed such a perfect screen +of crimson dust, sparkling in the reflected blaze and more beautiful +than all the fireworks ever loosed off at a coronation, that it was +folly to linger. We each seized the load left for that last trip +(Fred's included the hammer, Pincers, and cold chisel for striking off +the porters' chain) and started off quietly round the hill, not +beginning to hurry until the hill lay between us and the burning town. + +There was not much need for caution. The roar of flames, the shouting, +the excitement would have protected us, whatever noise we made, however +openly we ran. Over and above the tumult we could hear Schubert's +bull-throated bellowing, and then the echo to him as the sergeants took +up the shout all together, ordering "Off with the grass roofs! Off +with the roofs!" + +The white officials were more than interested, and had no time for +anything but thought for the blaze. As we crossed the shoulder of the +far side of the hill we could see them standing on the drill-ground all +together, clearly defined against the crimson flare. Schillingschen +was with them. + +There was no sign of what had happened at the boma. The gang would +have to emerge from a little-used gate at the northern end, provided +they could break the lock or secure the key to it; otherwise their +only chance was to climb the wall by the cook-house roof and jump +twenty feet on the far side. I was for running to the little gate and +bursting it in from the outside, but Fred damned me for a mutineer +between his panting for breath, and Will, who was longer-winded, agreed +with him. + +"Have to leave their end of the plan to them! Let's do our part right!" + +As it turned out, we were last at the rendezvous. We heard the chain +clanking in the dark just ahead of us, and try how we might, could not +catch up. Then, near the boat bow, Kazimoto suddenly recognized Fred +and nearly throttled him in a fierce embrace, releasing all his pent-up +rage, agony, resentment, misery, fear in one paroxysm of affection for +the man who cared enough to run risks for the sake of rescuing him. +Fred had to pry him off by main force. + +"Into the boat with you!" Will ordered them. "Chain-gang first! Get +down below, and lie down! The first head that shows shall be hit with +a club! Quickly now!" + +Clanking their infernal chain like all the ghosts from all the haunted +granges of the Old World, they climbed overside and disappeared. There +were more figures left on shore then than we expected. Brown we could +make out dimly in the dark: he was chattering nervously, and admitted +that but for Kazimoto he would not be there. The faithful fellow had +broken down the corrugated iron partition and had dragged him out by +main force. He was rather resentful than grateful. + +"Hauled here by a nigger--think of it!" + +We ordered Brown on board and below, pretty peremptorily. Lady Saffren +Waldon stepped out of the darkness next, holding a rifle and two +bandoliers so full of cartridges that she could hardly raise her arms. +We took the load from her, and helped her overside. Fred took the +rifle and succumbed to the hunter's habit of opening the breach first +thing. It was a German sporting Mauser, with a hair trigger attachment +and magazine, as handy and useful a weapon as the heart of man could +wish. He had scarcely snapped the breach to again when a voice we all +recognized made the hair rise on my neck. Fred jumped and raised the +rifle. Will swore softly--endlessly. + +"Gassharrrrammminy! You men took us for damned fools, didn't you? You +thought to get away and leave us! By hell, no! We go or you stay! +Birds of a feather fly together! One of you is American--I am +American! Two of you are English--I am English, and can prove it! My +friends come with me!" + +Fred leveled the rifle at him. + +"About face! Off back to town with you!" he barked. + +"Not on your tin-type!" Coutlass yelled. "I'm no man's popinjay! +Shoot if you dare, and I'll spoil the whole game! Help! He-e-e-lp! +He-e-e-e-lp!" + +The other Greek and the Goanese joined in the shout, the dark man +setting up such an ululating screech that the very storm dwindled into +second place in comparison. It was true, the unearthly yelling was +carried out over the water, and very likely not a sound of it reached +twenty yards inland; but it rattled our nerves, nevertheless. The +skin grew prickly all up and down my backbone, and the men on the +chain-gang inside the hull began shouting to know what the matter was. + +Will remembered then that he was captain for the day, and made virtue +of necessity. + +"In with you!" he ordered. "Quick!" + +With a grin that was half-triumph, half-cunning, and wholly glad, +Coutlass helped his companions over the bow, and had the civility to +stand there with hand outstretched to help us in after him. We sent +him below with his friends, but be came up again and insisted on +leaning his weight on the poles with which we began shoving off into +deeper water. It was hard work, for with her human cargo and several +hundred gallons of water that had leaked through her gaping seams, the +dhow was down several inches. Her hull had just begun to feel the wind +and to rise and fall freely, when a white figure ran screaming down +toward the water's edge and stood there waving to us frantically. + +"Leave her!" said Lady Waldon excitedly, clutching my arm. I was up on +the bow, just about to lay the pole along the deck and haul on the +halyards. She spoke very slowly right in my ear. "That, is my maid +Rebecca. The faithless slut--" + +Coutlass began to shout, trying to pole the dhow back to land +single-handed. + +"We can't leave that woman behind there!" Fred shouted, hardly making +himself heard against the wind. + +"Can't we!" shouted Lady Waldon. "Give me that rifle, and I'll solve +the problem for you!" + +But Coutlass solved it in another way by jumping overboard, over his +head in deep water, taking our hempen warp with him (I had made one end +of it fast to the bitts, meaning to be able to find it in the dark). + +There was quite a sea running, even as close inshore as that, and for a +moment I doubted whether the Greek would make it. By that time it was +all we could do to see the woman's white figure, still gesticulating, +and screaming like a mad thing. Presently, however, the warp +tightened, and then by the strain on it I knew that Coutlass was trying +to haul us back inshore. Failing to do that, for the strength of the +wind was increasing, he seized the Syrian woman by the waist and +plunged into the water with her. I saw them disappear and hauled on +the warp hand-over-hand with all my might, Lady Waldon leaning over to +strike at my hands until I shouted to Fred to come and hold her. Then +she begged Fred again for the rifle, promising to kill the two of them +and reduce our problem to that extent if we would only let her. + +Will and I hauled the dripping pair on board, and Coutlass carried the +maid to the stern. She had fainted, either from fright or from being +half-drowned, there was no guessing which. Then in pitch blackness +with Will's help I got the ship beam to the wind and began to make sail. + +Now danger was only just beginning! I was the only one of them all who +knew anything whatever about sails and sailing. I was too weak to get +the sail up single-handed, had no compass, knew nothing whatever of the +rocks and shoals, except by rumor that there were plenty of both. +There appeared to be no way of reefing the lateen sail, which was made +of no better material than calico, and I was entirely unfamiliar with +the rigging. + +Behind us, as we payed before the gaining wind, was brilliant blaze +that showed where Muanza was. Against the blaze stood out the lakeward +boma wall. I stood due east away from it, and discovered presently +that by easing on the halyard so as to lower the long spar I could +obtain something the effect of reefing. + +I set Fred and Will to making a sea-anchor of buckets and spars in case +the sail or rotten rigging should carry away, leaving us at the mercy +of the short steep waves that fresh-water lakes and the North Sea only +know. The big curved spar, now that it was hanging low, bucked and +swung and the dhow steered like an omnibus on slippery pavement. +Luckily, I had living ballast and could trim the ship how I chose. +They all began to grow seasick, but I gave them something to think +about by making them shift backward and forward and from side to side +until I found which way the dhow rode easiest. + +When Fred had finished the sea-anchor he got out the tools and began +striking off the iron rings on the porters' necks through which the +chain passed. The job took him two hours, but at the end of it we +owned a good serviceable chain, and a crew that could be drilled to +take the brute hard labor off our shoulders. + +Coutlass meanwhile was busy on the seat in the stern beside me making +Hellenic inflammatory love to Lady Waldon's maid, whom he had wrapped +in his own blanket and held shivering in his arms. Lady Waldon herself +sat on the other side of me, affecting not to be aware of the existence +of either of them. The other Greek and the Goanese had been driven +below, where they started to smoke until I saw the glow of their pipes +and shouted to Will to stop that foolishness. He snatched both pipes +and threw them overboard. The thought of being seen from shore was +almost incitement enough for murder. They refused to turn a hand to +anything that night, but sat sulking below the sloping roof of reeds +and tarpaulin that did duty for a deck, wedged alongside of seasick +Wanyamwezi. + +It was Kazimoto who chose the least disheartened of the gang, beat them +and stung them into liveliness, and set them to bailing. There was a +trough running thwartwise of the ship into which the water had to be +lifted from the midship well. It took the gang of eight men, working +in relays, until nearly dawn to get the water out of her; and to keep +her bottom reasonably dry after that two men working constantly. + +I knew vaguely that the great island of Ukerewe lay to the +northwestward of us. Between that and the mainland, running roughly +north, was a passage that narrowed in more than one place to less than +a hundred yards. That would have been the obvious course to take had +we not been afraid of pursuit, had we dared get away by daylight, and +provided I had known the way. As it was I intended to add another +hundred miles to the distance between us and the northern shore of the +lake, by sailing well clear of and around Ukerewe, trusting to the less +frequented water and the wilder islands to make escape easier. + +I judged it likely that the moment we were missed, the launch would be +sent off in search of us, and that the Germans would search the narrow +passage first. They would expect us to take the narrow passage, as the +shortest, and depend on their ability to steam a dozen miles an hour to +overhaul us, even should we get a long start on the outside course. + +With gaining wind, a following sea, a little ship crowded to +suffocation, and a sail that might blow to shreds at any minute, it was +not long before I began to pray for the lee of Ukerewe, and to stand in +closer toward where I judged the end of the island ought to be than +perhaps I should have done. It was lucky, though, that I did. + +In making calculations I had overlooked the obvious fact that, steaming +three miles to our one, the launch could very well afford to take the +outside course to start with. Then they could take a good look for us +in the open water next morning, and, failing to find us, steam all +around Ukerewe, come back down the inside passage, and catch us between +two banks. + +It was Lady Saffren Waldon on my left hand, looking anywhere but at her +maid and sweeping the dark waste of water with eyes as restless as the +waves themselves, who gave the first alarm. + +"What is that light?" she asked me. + +Following the direction of her hand I saw a red glow on the water to +our left, not more than a mile behind. + +"Reflection from the burning town," I answered, but I had no sooner +said it than I knew the answer was foolish. It was the glow that rides +above hot steamer funnels in the night. + +"Fred!" I shouted, for fear took hold of the very roots of my heart, +"for the love of God make every one keep silence! Show no lights! +Don't speak above a whisper! Keep all heads below the gunwale! That +cursed German launch is after us!" + +We were in double danger. I could hear surf pounding on rocks to +starboard. I did not dare to come up into the wind because nobody but +I knew how the spar would have to be passed around the mast, and in any +case the noise and the fluttering sail might attract attention. + +"Look out for breakers ahead!" I ordered. "I'm going to hold this +course and hope they pass us in the dark!" + + + + +CHAPTER ELEVEN + +"DAVID PREVAILED" + (I. Sam. 17:50) + +Be glad if ye know the accursed thing + And know it accurst, for the Gift is yours +Of Sight where the prophets of blindness sing + By the brink of death. And the Gift endures; +Ye shall see the last of the sharpened lies + That rivet privilege's gripe. +Be still, then, ye with the opened eyes, + Come away from the thing till the time is ripe. + +Be glad that ye loathe the accursed thing, + It is given to you to foreknow the end. +But they who the unwise challenge fling + Shall startle foe at the risk of friend +As yet unready to endure - + And can ye fend Goliath's swipe? +The slowly grinding mills are sure, + Let terror alone till the time is ripe. + +Be glad when the shout for the spoils, and the glee, + The hoofs and the wheels of the prophets of wrong, +Out thunder the warning of what shall be; + Be still, for the tumult is not for long. +The Finger that wrote, from a polished wall + As surely the closed account shall wipe; +The accursed thing ye feared shall fall + To a boy with a sling when the time is ripe. + + +If the dhow had been seaworthy; if the crew had understood the rigging +and the long unwieldy spar; if we had had any chart, or had known +anything whatever of the coast; if nobody had been afraid; and, above +all, if that incessant din of surf pounding on rocks not far away to +starboard had not threatened disaster even greater than the Germans in +the steam launch, our problem might have been simple enough. + +But every one was afraid, including me who held the tiller (and the +lives of all the party) in my right hand. Lady Saffren Waldon +disguised fear under an acid temper and some villainously bad advice. + +"Steer toward them!" she kept shouting in my ear. "Steer toward them! +Ram them! Sink them!" + +Coutlass, on my other hand, made feverish haste with his love-affair, +fearful lest discovery by the Germans should postpone forever the +assuaging of his hungry heart's desire. + +"Steer toward shore!" he urged me. "Who cares if we run on rocks? +Can't we swim? Gassharamminy! Take to the land and give them a run +for it!" + +He seized the tiller to reinforce the argument, and wrenched at it +until I hit him, and Fred threatened him with the only rifle. + +"Get up forward!" Fred ordered; but Georges Coutlass would not go. + +"Gassharamminy!" he snarled. "You want my girl! I will fight the whole +damned crew before I let her out of the hollow of my arm. + +"All right, touch that tiller again and I'll kill you!" Fred warned him. + +"Touch my girl, and you kill me or get out and swim!" Coutlass retorted. + +Will was up forward with Brown, looking out for breakers through the +spray that swept over us continually. I watched the glow that rode +above the launch's funnel, marveling, when I found time for it, at the +mystery of why the cotton sail should hold. The firm, somewhere in +Connecticut, who made that export calico, should be praised by name, +only that the dye they used was much less perfect than the stuff and +workmanship; their trademark was all washed out. + +Suddenly Will dodged under the bellying sail, throwing up both hands, +and he and Brown screamed at me: "To your left! Go to your left! +Rocks to the right!" + +The Germans had passed us, but not by much, for the short steep seas +were tossing their propeller out of the water half the time. Because +of the course I had taken the wind was setting slightly from us toward +them, and I could have sworn they heard Will's voice. Yet there was +nothing for it but to put the helm over, and as I laid her nearly +broadside to the wind a great wave swept us. At that the Greek, the +Goanese, and all the natives in the hold set up a yell together that +ought to have announced our presence to the Seven Sleepers. + +I held the helm up, and let her reel and wallow in the trough. Now I +could see the fangs of rock myself and the white waves raging around +them. See? I could have spat on them! There was a current there that +set strongly toward the rocks, for a backwash of some sort helped the +helm and we won clear, about a third full of water, with the crew too +panicky to bail. + +"Hold her so!" yelled Fred in my ear. "Don't ease up yet! If we get +too close and they see us, I've the rifle! They haven't seen us yet!" + +"Rocks ahead again!" yelled Will. "To the left again!" + +We were in the gaping jaws of a sort of pocket, and it was too late to +steer clear. + +"Throw the anchor over!" I roared, "and let go everything. + +Will attended to the anchor. Fred was too anxious for the safety of +the only rifle to trust it out of hand, and he hesitated. Georges +Coutlass saved the day by letting go the shivering Syrian maid and +slashing at the halyard with his knife. Down came the great spar with +a crash, and as the dhow swung round in answer to anchor and helm, +Fred, Will and Brown, between them, contrived to save the sail, Brown +complaining that we were the first sailors he ever heard of who did not +have rum served them for working overtime in dirty weather. + +So we lay, then, wallowing in the jaws of a crescent granite reef, and +watched the red glow above the German launch move farther and farther +away from us. We waited there, wet and hungry, until dawn dimmed the +flame from the burning roofs of Muanza, Lady Isobel Saffren Waldon +loudly accusing us all at intervals of being rank incompetents unfit to +be trusted with the lives of fish, and Coutlass afraid of nothing but +interruption. The things he said to the maid, in English--the only +language that they had apparently in common--would have scandalized a +Goanese harbor "guide" or a Rock Scorpion from the lower streets of +Gib. He did not mention marriage to her, beyond admitting that he had +half a dozen wives already, and had been too bored by convention ever +to submit to the yoke again. The maid seemed enraptured--delirious in +the bight of his lawless arm, forgetful of her wetting, and only afraid +when he left her for a minute. + +We dared not try to cook anything, even supposing that had been +possible. Forward was a box full of sand to serve as hearthstone, but +the little scraps of fuel we had brought with us were drenched and +unburnable, even if the risk of being seen were not too great. Lady +Saffren Waldon told us we were "toe-rag contrivers." In fact, now that +she was out of reach of the men she feared and hated most, she reverted +to type and tried to domineer over us all by the simple old +recipe--audacious arrogance. Luckily, she slept for an hour or two. + +A little before dawn, when it began to be light enough to let us see +the outline of the shore, we sent Kazimoto aloft to reeve our hemp rope +through the hole that did duty for block, and by the time the sun had +pushed the uppermost arc of his rim above the sky-line we once more had +the sail set. + +The wind was still blowing a gale; the seamanlike precaution would +have been to lie where we were at anchor until fairer weather; but +daring is forced on the fearfullest, and there was nothing for it but +to study out the method by which the unwieldy spar should be made to +pass the mast when tacking, drill Fred, Will, Brown and Kazimoto, and +then haul up the anchor and sail away before people on shore could see +us. + +We had to tack toward Muanza for a quarter of a mile with fear in our +arms to make them clumsy before I dared believe we were clear of the +reefs; but when I put the helm down at last there was neither launch +in sight nor any other boat that might contain an enemy. The southern +spur of Ukerewe stuck out like a wedge into boiling water not many +miles ahead, and once around that we should be sheltered. The only fly +in the ointment then was the probability that the launch would be +waiting for us just around the spur, or else under the lee of another +smaller island in the offing to our left, but what we could not see in +that hour could not upset us much. + +Every one clamored for food. The porters, already forgetful of the +chain that had galled them, and the whips that had flayed them day and +night, demanded to be set ashore to build a fire and eat. Lady Saffren +Waldon awoke to fresh bad temper, and Coutlass, too, grew villainously +impatient. His Greek friend, from under the shelter of the leaky +reed-and-tarpaulin deck, offered him Greek advice, and was cursed for +his trouble. One curse led to another, and then they both had to be +beaten into subjection with the first thing handy, because when they +fought Lady Saffren Waldon egged them on and the maid tried to savage +the other Greek with a brooch-pin, which brought out the Goanese to the +rescue. That crowded dhow was no place for pitched battles, plunging +and rolling between the frying-pan of Muanza and the fire of unknown +things ahead. + +"One more outbreak from you, and I shoot!" Fred announced, patting the +rifle. But, he did not mean it, and Coutlass knew he did not. The +English temperament does not turn readily on even the most rascally +fellow beings in distress. Besides, it was an indubitable fact that we +all much preferred Coutlass, with his daring record, and now a most +outrageous love-affair on hand, to the other Greek or the Goanese, who +were now disposed to bid for our friendship by abusing him. Georges +Coutlass was no drawing-room darling, or worthy citizen of any land, +but he had courage of a kind, and a sort of splendid fire that made men +forget his turpitude. + +We were a seasick, cold and sorry company that rounded the point at +last and came to anchor in a calm shallow bay where fuel grew close +down to the water's edge. Having no small boat, we had to wade ashore +and carry the women, Coutlass attending to his own inamorata. Lady +Saffren Waldon's picric acid rage exploded by being dropped between two +porters waist-deep into the water. It was her fault. She insisted one +was not enough, yet refused to explain how two should do the work of +one. Sitting on their two shoulders, holding on by their hair, she +frightened the left-hand man by losing her balance and clutching his +nose and eyes. She insisted on having both men flogged for having +dropped her, and Fred's refusal was the signal for new war, our rescue +of her being flung at once on to the scrap heap of her memory. + +She counted with cold cynicism on our unwillingness to leave her again +at the mercy of the Germans, and had no more consideration of our +rights or feelings than the cuckoo has for the owner of the nest in +which she lays her eggs. + +"Beat those fools!" she ordered. "Beat them blue and give them no +breakfast!" + +"Do you see that rock over there, Lady Waldon?" Fred answered. "Go and +spread your clothes to dry. When we've cooked food we'll send Rebecca +to you with your share." + +"If you send that slut to me I will kill her!" she answered, flying +into a new fury. + +"Whom do you call slut?" demanded Coutlass (and he had no compunctions +of any kind--particularly none about women, and calling names. He was +simply feeling gallant after his own fashion, and alert for a chance to +show off.) Lady Waldon backed away from him. + +"Of course," she sneered, "if you loose your bully at me, I am no match +at all!" + +Fred promptly kicked Coutlass until he ran limping out of range, to sit +and nurse his bruises with polyglot profanity. The Syrian Rebecca went +over to comfort him, and eying the two of them with either malice or +else calculation (it was impossible to judge which) Lady Waldon +retreated toward the rock that Fred had pointed out. + +We cooked a miserable meal, neither daring to make too great inroad +into our stores before making sure we could replenish them, nor caring +to make more smoke than we could help. We hoped to escape being seen +even by natives, but Lady Waldon upset that part of our plan by setting +up such a scream when she saw three islanders crossing a ridge three +hundred yards away, that they could not help hearing her, and came to +investigate. She was forced to dress faster than ever in her life +before, and came running to demand that we flog all three "to teach +them manners." She had perfectly absorbed the German attitude toward +all black men. + +>From the natives we learned that there was no telegraph wire along +that coast, and that the only German settlements were semi-permanent +camps where they were cutting wood, for fuel for their own launch and +for the steamers the British were building to serve the lake ports, +Muanza included. + +With that good news for encouragement we made the three natives a small +present in the vain hope that they might be induced not to talk about +us, and put to sea again. The weather was fairer and growing +intolerably hot. Even before the sun grew high the dhow was a +comfortless indecent thing, more crowded than anything Noah can have +had to tolerate: and we lacked Noah's faith in omniscient guidance, in +addition to sailing in a hotter latitude, and having more fleas on +board than the pair he is reported to have carried. + +As we crept up-coast, leaning to this or that side when the gusts of +wind varied, the only enviable ones were the three in the bow, posted +there to keep a look-out for the launch or any other enemy. They had +room enough to sit without touching one another, and air to breathe +that mostly had not been tasted half a dozen times. Fred, Will and +Brown took turns commanding the foredeck look-out, keeping it awake and +its units from quarreling. The rest of us found no joy in life, and +not too much hope even when Fred's concertina lifted the refrain of +missionary hymn-tunes that even the porters knew, and most of us sang, +the porters humming wordless melancholy through their noses. (When +that happened Lady Saffren Waldon's scorn was something the +arch-priests of Babylon would have paid to see.) + +There was never room on the tiny after-deck for more than six people +sitting elbow to elbow and back to back or knee to knee. Lady Waldon +simply refused to yield her corner seat on any account at any time to +any one. Coutlass refused to leave his new sweetheart, for the +freely-voiced reason that then Brown might make love to her; and we +did not care to send both of them below for obvious reasons. That +reduced open-air accommodation to a minimum, because the +reed-and-tarpaulin deck was scarcely strong enough to bear the weight +of two men at a time, and we did not care to throw the whole deck +overboard for fear of rain. + +And by-and-by the rain came--out of season, but no less violent because +of that. It rained three days and nights on end--three windless days +and starless nights, during which we had to linger alongshore close to +the papyrus. In order to keep mosquitoes out we had to light a smudge +in the sand-box below. The smudge added to the heat, and the heat +drove men to the open air to gasp a few minutes in the rain for breath +and go down again to make room for the next in turn. + +Sleep on shore was impossible, for thereabouts were crocodile and snake +swamps, fuller of insect life than dictionaries are of letters. Poling +was next to impossible, because the soft mud bottom gave no purchase. +And the oars we made out of poles were clumsy affairs; there was not +room for more than two boys to try to use them at a time, even if the +deck would have stood the strain of more feet, which it certainly would +not have done. + +Lady Waldon slept seated in her corner, with her head wrapped in a veil +over which the mosquitoes prospected in gangs. Coutlass and his +lady-love endured rain and insects in the open, too, but suffered less, +because of mutual distraction. The rest of us took turns with the +natives below, lying packed between them, much as sardines nestle in a +can, wondering whether the famous Black Hole of Calcutta was really +such a record-breaker as they say. Brown was of the opinion that the +Black Hole was a nosegay compared to our lot --"Besides which, they +probably had rum with 'em!" he added. + +Some of the porters grew sick under the strain of heat, fear, +excitement and inactivity. The native suffers as much from +unaccustomed inconvenience as the white man, and more from close +confinement. The third night out the man next me began coughing, +shaking my frame as much as his own as he racked himself, for we were +wedged together with only the thickness of his blanket and mine between +us, and I was jammed tight against the ship's side. Toward morning he +grew quiet--grew colder, too. When dawn came we found that he had +coughed up the most of his lungs on my white English blanket. + +I gave them the blanket to bury him in, and we poled the Queen of Sheba +inshore to find a place to dig a hole, leaving the body stretched on +some tree-roots while we prospected. We should have known enough by +that time to leave four or five men on guard close by; as it was, when +the men still on board the dhow began kicking up a babel, Fred and I +came running and jumping back through the marsh just in time to see a +crocodile wriggle off into the water, with the corpse in his jaws feet +first. Fred fired a shotted salute, but missed, and that ended that +funeral. + +By day we passed villages on higher ground, where we might have +procured more food if we had dared run the risk of meeting Germans. It +was likely enough the villagers were so used to dhows that they would +not trouble to report having seen us in the distance; but it was +perfectly certain that if we paid them a visit they would pass word +along from mouth to mouth with that astonishing, undiscoverable ease +that is at once the blessing and bane of governments. + +So Fred wasted hot hours with the only rifle, trying to hunt meat on a +shore where all the four-legged game had been ran down by the natives, +or butchered by the German machine-guns long ago (for to teach Sudanese +mercenaries the art of rapid fire in action their officers marched them +out to practise on herds of antelope. There was game in plenty away +from the lake, but none where the German officer could conveniently +practise his profession.) + +We tried to shoot ducks and geese; but a rifle at long range is not +the best weapon for that sport. We shot very few, and then only to +discover the invincible repugnance natives have to eating "dagi" as +they call all birds. We kept ourselves alive, but did not solve the +problem of the ever-diminishing supplies of rice for our men. + +Somebody thought of fishing. We found hooks in a crevice in the Queen +of Sheba's bow, and made lines from a frayed rope. But although the +shore was lined with traps in which the inhabitants no doubt took fish +in proper season, all that we caught was one miserable finny specimen, +all head and mouth and tail, that the natives said would poison any one +who ate it. The truth was, of course, that they preferred rice to +anything, and, African native-like, would eat nothing else as long as +rice was to be had, having no earthly notions of economy. When the +rice was all gone on the fifth day out of Muanza they raided a banana +plantation before we knew what they were up to, and came back gorged, +with bunches enough to feed them for two or three more days. + +The fat was in the fire then, of course. We paid the owners +handsomely, giving them their choice of money or blankets when they +bore down on us in long canoes demanding vengeance. They voted for +blankets and money, but vowed they would far rather have the bananas, +because now their own people would be on short commons to make up for +the surfeit of ours. + +We left them never doubting that they would send word to the nearest +German officer. (They told us there was a wood-cutting station within a +"few hours," and we prayed he might be only a non-commissioned man in +charge of it, but knew that prayer was too sweetly reasonable to be +answered where the German Gott makes war on foreigners.) Kazimoto +assured us he heard them telling one another they would make complaint +against us within the day. + +It remained, then, only to guess where that steam launch might be. We +were approaching the northern end of Ukerewe, not a day's sail, if the +light wind held, from the narrow mouth of the channel between Ukerewe +and the mainland. That was the likeliest place for the launch to lie +in wait; it was where we would have waited had we been pursuers and +they the pursued. So we decided after a council of war to put the helm +over and sail almost due westward, hoping to meet with an island where +we might stop for a few days, catch fish and dry them, and caulk the +leaky dhow, without the risk of letting the Germans know our +whereabouts. (It is a peculiar fact that whatever the native secret +system of transferring messages may be, it does not work across water.) + +Not all the little gods of Africa were fighting for the Germans, +although it began to seem so. An hour after putting up the helm we +sighted a school of hippopotami--fifty at least, and for half a day we +chased them, Fred trying to shoot one until Will and I objected to +further waste of ammunition. A dead hippo would have provided us with +meat enough for a month for the whole ship's company. We could have +towed the carcass ashore somewhere and dried the meat in slabs. But +the glare on the water made shooting very nearly impossible (Fred's +eyes were sore from it); and if we should meet the Germans those +remaining cartridges would be our only hope. But the diversion took us +out of sight of land, and that stood us in better stead presently than +tons of fresh meat. + +Whether the Germans heard us, or were merely quartering that part of +the lake in wait, we never knew. Probably they heard the shooting in +the distance and gave chase. At any rate, within ten minutes of Fred's +last wasted shot Coutlass caught sight of smoke and announced the fact +with his favorite oath. + +"Gassharamminy! The launch!" + +At first we were all in a stew because there was no land near, where we +might have beached the dhow and scattered. It was an hour before our +advantage of position dawned on us, and all the while the launch +approached us leisurely. She had plenty of fuel; the wood was piled +high above her gunwale in a stack toward the stern; but those on board +her seemed to take more pleasure in contemplation of our +defenselessness than in speed. She steamed twice around us slowly +before closing in; and then we made out Schillingschen's hairy shape, +leaning against the cord-wood with a rifle between his hands. + +"Shoot him! Shoot him, by Jiminy!" urged Coutlass, but Fred was not so +previous as that. We were not yet on the defensive. We counted five +rifles, in addition to Schillingschen's protruding above the launch's +side, and we all took cover in the hope either that they might decide +we were not the dhow they waited for, or else that they might come very +close out of curiosity. For Fred had a plan of his own. Rifle in +hand, he crawled under the hot tarpaulin and lay flat on the reed deck, +Will crawling after him to snatch the rifle in case Fred should be hit. + +"Steer straight toward 'em!" Fred called to me, as soon as it was +evident that the launch did not intend to pass us by. "Keep headed +toward them!" + +That was not easy in the light wind, until Schillingschen tired of +staring at us and gave an order to the engineer. Then they laid the +launch broadside on to our bow at about two hundred yards' range, and +without a word of warning opened fire on us from all six rifles, +Schillingschen devoting his first attention to myself at the helm. + +Our lone rifle cracked in reply, but they could not see Fred and did +not guess where to shoot in order to search him out. They came no +nearer, but circled slowly around us, only Schillingschen's bullets +appearing to come anywhere near the target, until a yell from below +showed what their real plan was and I understood why the sail was not +ripped and no bullets whistled overhead. They were shooting +through the planking of the dhow, endeavoring to massacre the helpless +crowd below, and no doubt to sink her and drown us as soon as she was +full enough of holes. + +A wounded Nyamwezi came scrambling on deck, spouting blood from his +neck and crazed with fear. He jumped overboard and tried to swim +toward the launch, but one of the Germans hit him in the head at the +third shot and he disappeared. Then one of Schillingschen's elephant +bullets slit my sleeve, and the next one pierced my helmet. + +"Put one into Schillingschen, Fred!" I shouted, but Fred did not +answer. He kept up a very steady succession of shots that were doing +no good at all that I could see. + +Another German bullet found its mark below deck in the thigh of the +Goanese. He might have known enough to lie quiet, having some alleged +white blood in him, but instead he, too, came struggling to the +after-deck, bellowing like a mad-man. Coutlass knocked him back below +with a blow on the chin, and he there and then threw the whole crowd +into a panic by screaming and kicking. They all began to try to swarm +together through the narrow opening, and those in the rear tore at the +reed deck. + +Into that pandemonium went Coutlass, armed with nothing but Hellenic +fury, thoughtful of nothing but his lady-love--surely reckless of his +own skin. He beat, kicked, bit, scragged, banged their foolish heads +together, cursed, spat, gouged, and strangled as surely no catamount +ever did. Brown leaped in to lend a hand, and into the midst of that +inferno three more bullets penetrated, each wounding a man. Lady +Waldon, mad with some idiotic strategy of her own sudden devising, +seized the tiller and tried to wrench it from my hand. The Syrian +Rebecca, imagining new treachery and fearful for her Greek lover, tried +to prevent her with teeth and nails. The Germans raised a war-whoop of +wild enjoyment. And just at the height of all that, Fred's +three-and-twentieth shot went home. + +There was a loud report, followed by instant nothing except stampede on +the part of the Germans to get out of reach of something. Then the +something grew denser; invisible hot vapor became a pall of steam that +bid the launch from view, three more shots from Fred's rifle finding +the proper mark by sheer accident, for there was another explosion; +the cloud increased and the launch stopped dead. + +"That gray sheet of metal wasn't her boiler at all!" Fred shouted back +to me. "The first shot pierced the boiler when I found out where to +aim! I think three of them are scalded badly--hope so!--high pressure +steam--superheated--did you see? Now leave 'em to find their own way +home!" + +"See if you can't get Schillingschen!" said I. + +But Schillingschen was invisible in the white cloud, and Fred refused +to waste one of the half-dozen cartridges remaining. The light wind +that bore us away from the launch also spread the screen of steam +between us and them. A shot or two from Schillingschens rifle proved +him to be still alive, and still determined, but missed us by so much +that we began to dare to sit upright. Then Fred went below to sort out +wounded men, plug holes in the dhow, and stop the panic, and we all +prayed for wind with a fervor they never exceeded in Nelson's fleet. + +When Will had gone below to help Fred, the panic had ceased, two dead +men had been thrown overboard, and six of the crew had been set to work +bailing in deadly earnest to keep ahead of the new leaks, there was +time to consider the position and to realize how hugely better off we +were than if the launch had caught us somewhere close inshore. Now we +could sail safely northward, every puff of wind carrying us nearer to +British water and safety, whereas unless they could mend that +high-pressure boiler, they would have to lie there for a week, or a +month--die unless some one came in search of them. Had we holed their +boiler near the shore they would have been able to take to the land +until they found canoes. Good canoes, well manned, could have +overhauled us hand over fist like terriers after a rat. + +It was fifteen minutes yet before we were out of rifle range, and +Schillingschen tried to make the most of them when the steam thinned, +exposing his beefy carcass recklessly. But by the time it had thinned +down sufficiently to let him really see us we were too far away to make +sure shooting. He slit the sail, giving us half a night's work to mend +it, and made three more holes in our planking, but hurt nobody. + +That was the only launch the German government had on the lake in those +days, an almost perfect toy with an aluminum hull and more up-to-date +gadgets on her machinery than a battleship's engineer could have +explained the purpose of in a watch. They had lavished a whole +appropriation on one show. From the minute we were out of range of +Schillingschen's big-bore elephant gun we ran risk of starvation, and +perhaps surprise, but no longer of pursuit, and we headed the Queen of +Sheba as nearly as we could guess for British East with feelings that +even Lady Waldon shared, for she grew distantly polite again, and +complimented Fred on his cool nerve and accurate shooting. + +We should have suspected treachery, for she made no attempt to +retaliate on Rebecca for scratching her face. Unnatural inaction +should have put us on our guard. She even went so far as to compliment +the maid on "finding such a great, strong, brave man as Coutlass to +cherish her." The Greek simply cooed at that--threw out his great +chest and rearranged with his fingers the whiskers that had almost +totally disguised him. + +(There was not one of us but looked like a pirate by that time. The +natives of that part of Africa shave every particle of hair from their +bodies whenever they get the chance, and prefer their heads as shiny +and naked as any other part of them. But the German prison system, +devised to break the spirit of whoever came within its clutches, +included prohibition of shaving, so that we had the woolliest crowd of +passengers imaginable.) + +We found it impossible to help being sorry for Lady Waldon, or even for +the maid, who suffered in spite of Coutlass's kisses and strong arms. +The obvious fact that the dhow was no place for a woman made us +overlook the conduct of both of them over and over again, shutting eyes +and ears to Lady Waldon's meanness and the maid's increasing impudence. + +Lady Waldon actually began to set her own cap at Coutlass, encouraging +him to boast to the porters, and pretending to admire the gift with +which he told them tales in Kiswahili that would have made even her +blush if she had understood the half of them. At intervals the maid +grew jealous, and had to be kissed back to serenity by Coutlass, who +was no less in love with her because of any mere addition to the number +of his interests. He could have made hot love to six women, and have +enjoyed it. There were times when he really flattered himself that +Lady Waldon admired his looks and fine physique. + +Food was now the chief concern. We trailed a fishing line behind us, +but caught nothing. Brown said there were too many crocodiles for fish +to be plentiful, but on the other hand, Kazimoto, who surely should +have known, swore that the water was full of big fish, and that the +islanders lived on little else. Whatever the truth of it, we caught +nothing; and when we reached an island whose shore was lined with +fish-traps made of stakes and basket-work we searched all the traps in +vain. The natives we saw in the distance all ran away from us, and +there were no crops that we could see of any kind, which rather bore +out Kazimoto's story. + +"Crocks' eggs are what those savages eat, I tell you!" Brown insisted. +"They're wholesome and don't taste worse than a rotten hen's egg." We +offered him his own price if he would eat one himself in the presence +of us all; but hungry though we were all beginning to be, he refused, +and we needed his example. + +After that first island we began to sail among a regular archipelago, +most of them scarcely better than granite rocks on which the crocodiles +could crawl to sun themselves, but some of them a half-mile long, or +longer. Nearly all of them were barren, but at last, when we judged +ourselves well inside the British portion of the lake, we came on a +very large one that had a mountain in the middle of it, and contained a +fair-sized village hidden among trees. + +It was dark, and we were all famished when we reached it, so when we +had poled the dhow into a little bay between granite boulders big +enough to hide her, mast and all, we went ashore, made fires, and +served out the last handfuls of rice, skimping our own allowance to +increase those of the porters, whose larger stomachs afforded vaster +yearning power. They were pitiably meager rations--a mere jest--an +insult to hungry men; but we found before we had cooked and finished +them that we had witnesses who thought us fortunate. + +They came so silently that even the porters did not notice them at +first--gaunt black shadows flitting in the deeper shadows, and coming +presently to squat outside the edge of the circle of firelight, until a +tribe, men, women and little children, were all gathered around us +burning up the darkness with their eyes. + +They were hungrier than we! Our food, that looked so scant to us, to +them was a very feast of the gods! They all had pieces of leather or +plaited grass drawn tight around their middles to lessen the pangs of +hunger, and the chief, who sat rather apart from the rest, gnawed at a +piece of bark. + +None of them wore any clothes. Those that had goat-skin aprons had +them on behind, and they were as free from self-consciousness as the +trees in winter. Some of them had spears, and they all had knives, yet +none offered violence, or as much as begged. There were three or four +hundred of them, at the lowest reckoning, yet they allowed us to finish +our meal in the dark in peace. + +There was nothing to say when we had finished. We knew what the matter +was, and they knew we knew. We had nothing to share with them, and +they knew that, for they could see the empty rice bags that the porters +had shaken and beaten to get out the very dust. We did not know their +language; even Kazimoto professed himself ignorant of any dozen words +that could unlock their understanding. + +Presently, under the eyes of all of them, Fred got out the rifle from +its wrappings and proceeded to clean and oil it carefully, as every +genuine hunter should before he sleeps. + +Then it was evident at once that new hope for some reason had been born +among that silent crowd. The chief, uninvited, drew nearer and watched +every detail of Fred's husbandry with glittering eye. + +"Give him the oily rag to suck!" suggested Brown, but that proved not +to be the key to his interest, for he thrust the rag back into Fred's +hand and motioned to him to continue cleaning. + +Finally Fred examined the last handful of cartridges carefully one by +one, and filled the magazine. Then, after making sure the sights were +in order, he began to wrap the rifle again. + +But at that the chief held out a lean long arm and stopped him. +Coutlass sprang to his feet in a hurry, imagining that was a signal to +attack at last, but Fred ordered him to sit down, and Lady Waldon, who +seemed possessed for the once by uncanny calmness, asked him to give +her an arm to the dhow, where she proposed to try to sleep. Coutlass +felt flattered, and obeyed. The maid got up and followed them both in +a fury of jealousy, and they three were lost to view in a moment among +the shadows cast by our four flickering fires. The other Greek got up +and followed them, leaving the Goanese already snoozing by the fire. + +Then, just as the half of a brilliantly pale moon rose above the +papyrus, the chief came a pace nearer and touched Fred's hand. Then he +beckoned. Then he touched the hand again and retreated backward. +Glancing around I saw the shadows that were his tribe leaning toward us +in strained attention, with eyes for nothing but their chief and Fred. +Understanding there was something that the chief desired him to go and +do, Fred passed the rifle to Will and rose to his feet. + +With patience that was simply pathetic the chief shook his head and +tried to explain something in weary-motioned pantomime. Fred took the +rifle back from Will. The chief nodded. Fred started to follow him, +and then the whole tribe sighed, with a sound like the evening wind +rustling through the papyrus. + +It being clear now that he was to shoot something, Fred took the +wrappings off the rifle, threw them to me, and walked into the dark, +the chief trotting ahead like a phantom and glancing back to beckon +about once a minute. Not caring to miss the play, we followed in +Indian file, I bringing up the rear. + +The whole tribe rose at once and flitted along beside us on our +landward side. We could not hear a footfall, or a breath. They passed +through dry grass without rustling, neither stumbling nor crowding one +another, but all so governed by one all-absorbing thought that they +acted in absolute unison. That the thought was food did not, even in +their starving state, make them forget the crowning need for silence. +We with our leather boots made more noise than all they together. + +We passed along the lake shore for half a mile, until suddenly the +chief, looking tall as a stripped tree in the pale uncertain light, +threw up an arm and waved it in a circle. Instantly the whole tribe +vanished. It was as if a puff of wind had blown them; or as if they +had been figures thrown on a screen by a magic lantern and suddenly +switched off at the performer's whim. Then the chief continued forward, +we marching more carefully. + +Now he turned to the half-right and followed a narrow track across a +neck of land that jutted out into the lake. We approached a low rise, +and as he drew near the top of that he went down on hands and knees, +crawling up the last few yards so cautiously that I had to stare hard +to be sure he was there at all. + +As soon as Fred came near he made frantic signals to him to get down +and crawl too; so we all knelt down and crawled behind Fred, striving +to make no noise and filling the unhappy chief so full of fury at the +noise we did make that he writhed in nervous torment. + +On top of the rise Fred stopped and in imitation of the chief thrust +his head forward very gradually. One by one we followed suit until, +lying prone in line along the ridge within thirty paces of the water, +we saw at last what we were after. + +Bathed in the moonlight, head and shoulders clear of the mirror-like +water, a great bull hippopotamus surveyed the scenery, drinking in +contentment through his little placid eyes. Out there nothing troubled +him, as for instance the mosquitoes troubled us. He had eaten his +fill, for some sort of green stuff hung from his jaws; and he was +beginning to feel sleepy, for be opened his enormous mouth and yawned +straight toward us--three tons of meat on the hoof, less than a hundred +yards away, stock-still, and unsuspicious! + +The chief began whispering unintelligible warnings in a voice so low +that it sounded like the drone of insects. Fred thrust the rifle +forward inch by inch and, taking his time about it, settled himself +comfortably for the shot. It was no easy shot in that uncertain light +at a downward angle. The glare of the sun on the lake had troubled his +eyes during the last few days. The shimmer of the moonlight was +deceptive now. I wished he would pass the rifle to Will, or even to +Brown of Lumbwa, who was digging his fingers into the earth beside me +in almost uncontrollable excitement. But Fred was unperturbed, and the +chief, who was nervous enough to detect the slightest sign of +nervousness in Fred, did not seem to mistrust him for one second. + +Three times I saw Fred breathe deeply, as if about to squeeze the +trigger, but each time he was only "makkin' sikkar," and eased his +lungs again. The target a hippo offers to a Mauser rifle bullet is not +much more than half the size of a man's hand, including only the ear +and eye and the narrow space between them. By daylight at a hundred +yards that is nothing for a cool shot to complain about, but in +half-moonlight, at that angle, it is none too much. I swore silently, +wishing again and again that Fred would pass the rifle to Will, or to +Brown--or to me! Yet if he had passed it to me I should have trembled +worse than any one. + +Visions began to haunt me of what would happen if Fred should miss! +What would the effect be on wild folk tortured by hunger and keyed to +the pitch of frenzy by suspense? Then, even while we watched, another +problem added itself. Over on the water there began to come a wind, +driving ripples and little waves in front of it. The moment those came +near the hippo be would vanish from view, for they only care for +moonlight when they can see it mirrored on a perfectly still surface + +I cursed Fred between set teeth, almost loud enough for him to hear me; + for the hippo did move. His head was a foot nearer water-level; he +had seen or heard something that alarmed him. He was in the act of +sinking under water when Fred made sure of the sights at last and the +rifle spoke, ringing out into the still night like the crack of +Judgment Day, more startling because we had waited so long for it in +such suspense. + +Instantly the amazing happened. A yell burst out behind us that split +the night apart. Where stilly blackness had been, now four or five +hundred crazy shadows leaped and danced, murdering the silence with +marrow-curdling noises intended to express joy. + +Out on the water the stricken hippo pitched head downward and plunged +like a mountain of meat gone mad, thrashing up great waves that were +darkened with his life-blood. A whole herd, several hundred strong, +emerged shoulder-high from the water to take one swift look at him and +flee. The arriving wind overswept the little whirlpools they all made +in the moonlight, as they dived to seek seclusion somewhere and no +doubt to choose themselves a new bully after terrific fighting. + +Our quarry plunged a last time, and stayed under. Now was new anxiety. + In twenty minutes or half an hour he should rise to the surface again, +but no man could guess where, and the wind and currents would very +swiftly hide his great carcass somewhere amid the acres of papyrus +unless sharp eyes were alert. + +But the papyrus was friend as well as foe. In a space of time to be +measured by seconds the yelling young men of the tribe had uncovered +three canoes, hidden from marauding enemies among the +more-than-man-high reeds, and the rest of the tribe--men, women and +young ones--scattered along the shore to watch from between the stalks. + +In less than fifteen minutes some one yelled, and even the very old +men, who had stayed beside us to gape at Fred's rifle and our clothes +and boots, began running like hares toward the sound. In twenty +minutes after that, with the aid of grass ropes and leather thongs, +they had hauled the huge carcass to the shore and rolled it out of the +water, where it lay glistening in moonlight, stumpy, foolish, legs +uppermost. + +The butcher's work----the feast--did not begin yet. There was +time-honored custom to obey, which Kazimoto knew all about even if +those ignorant wachenzie* would have fallen to without ceremony. He +drove them off. A white man had slain that animal; therefore the +white man's choice of meat was first, and he very leisurely and +skillfully cut out the enormous tongue for us and fifty pounds of meat +for our following before he would let them as much as touch the carcass +with a dagger. [* Plural of machenzie, "man from 'way back,'" +"rube," "simp."] + +Then, though, the tribe fell to, naked, with little naked +knives--tearing off the thick hide in foot-wide strips, and hacking the +red flesh into lumps that they ate, raw and quivering, while they +worked. The little bits of children, each chewing raw bloody meat, +brought baskets for the overflow, dragging them to wherever they could +find a space between the legs of struggling men, the women emptying the +baskets almost as fast as the children filled them, and chewing until +their jaws ran blood. + +Nothing was wasted. The blood was caught in pools in part of the hide, +spread like an apron on the earth, and lapped up by whoever could get +to it. The very guts were gathered up in baskets to be cooked. And +where the last little soft iron dagger had done its work, the blood had +been drunk, and the last scrap of hide bad been cut into strips, to be +chewed when the meat and its memory were things of the past, the +enormous ribs lay glistening in the moonlight like those of an +abandoned wreck, picked as clean as if the kites had done it. + +"Have we done a commendable thing?" laughed Fred, looking at the +crowd's distended paunches. "There's a good bull hippo the less. +We've saved the lives for a time of several hundred gluttons. They +know neither grace nor gratitude." + +But he was wrong. They did. They brought Fred a woman--their fattest, +ugliest; which means she was skin and bone and uglier than Want, also +she was more afraid of Fred than Satan is said to be of shriving. The +chief led her by the hand, she hanging back and hiding her face under +one arm (which left the rest of her nakedness unprotected). He seized +Fred's hand and put the woman's in it. + +"Now you're spliced!" Brown explained. "Married to the gal forever in +presence of legal witnesses!" + +Kazimoto confirmed the fearful news. + +"Married in regular form an' accord with tribal custom!" Brown +continued, nodding solemnly. + +"Divorce me--soon and swiftly, somebody!" Fred demanded. + +We appealed to Kazimoto for information, but only threw him into a +quandary, and he proceeded to add to ours. The usual price for a +woman, it seemed, was cows--many or few according as she was lovely or +her father rich. In case of divorce, custom decreed that the cows with +their offspring should be given back. The objection to any other +property than cows changing hands to bind or loose in wedlock was that +food, for instance, when eaten was not returnable. + +"Married to the gal for good an! all!"' Brown grinned, nudging Will and +me to note Fred's consternation. "You'd better stay here an' take the +chief's job when he kicks the bucket--possibly you can speed the day by +overfeedin' him!" + +"Some men's luck," Will murmured, but stopped in mid-sentence, for +interruption came in the form of a weird figure, gesticulating like a +windmill, stumbling and careening through the gloom, shouting as it +came. Not until it was thirty yards away did an intelligible sound +explain at least who the apparition was. + +"Gassharamminy! Give me that gun!" + +Coutlass burst in among us so out of breath that he could not force +through his teeth another rational syllable, but he made his intentions +partly clear by snatching at Fred's rifle, persisting until Will and I +pulled him off. + +"The dhow's gone!" he panted at last. "Give me that rifle, or come +yourself! Hurry! There's a wind! You'll be too late!" + +"You're dreaming or drunk!" Fred answered, but Coutlass refused to be +disbelieved, and in another moment we were all running as fast as we +dared through the darkness toward the camp-fires, where we had left the +Goanese snoozing and the dhow snugly moored among the rocks. + +The chief and his followers far outdistanced us in spite of their +gorged condition--all except the woman, who jogged dutifully, although +unhappily, behind Fred. When we reached the campfires they were +standing gazing out on the lake, where we could just make out the +bellying sail of the Queen of Sheba leaning like a phantom away from +the gaining wind. The distance was not to be judged in that weak +uncertain light. We all shouted together, but there came no answer and +we could not tell whether the sound carried as far as the dhow or not. + +"Gassharamminy!--why don't you shoot!" shouted Coutlass, dancing up and +down the bank in frenzy. "Give me that rifle! I'll show you! I'll +teach them!" + +I believe I would have fired if the rifle had been in my hands. Brown, +last to arrive and most out of breath, joined with Coutlass in angry +shouts for vengeance. Will offered no argument against sending them a +parting shot. Fred set the butt of the rifle down with a determined +snort, walked over toward the fire, stirred the embers, threw on more +fuel, and looked about him when the dry wood blazed. + +"If she has left as much as one blanket among the lot of us, I don't +see it anywhere!" he said, taking his seat on a rock. + +"A blanket?" sneered Coutlass. "She has even your money! Worse than +that--she has my woman! You were a gum-gasted galoot not to shoot at +her!" + +Fred patted the bulging pocket of his shooting jacket. + +"Most of the money is here" he said quietly, and we all sighed with +relief. + +"Take canoes and chase them!" shouted Coutlass, beginning to dance up +and down again. + +"There's time enough" Fred answered. "We know the winds of these parts +well enough by this time. This will blow until midnight. Then calm +until dawn. After dawn a little more wind for an hour or two, then +doldrums again until late afternoon. They'll run on a rock in all +likelihood. If they do we can catch them at our leisure, supposing we +can get these islanders to paddle. If it should blow hard, then we +can't catch them anyhow. Sit down and tell us what happened, Coutlass!" + +The Greek cursed and swore and pranced, but all in vain. Fred was +inexorable. We others grew calmer when the problem of who should +paddle the canoes solved itself suddenly with the arrival of fourteen +of our own men. Discovering themselves left behind, they had run along +the bank in vain hope of catching the dhow somehow--perchance of +swimming through the crocodile-infested water, and returned now +disconsolate, to leap and laugh with new hope at sight of us and of the +red meat that Kazimoto had thrown on the ground near the fire. They +came near in a cluster. Will hacked off a lump of meat for them, and +they forthwith forgot their troubles, as instantly as the birds forget +when a sparrow-hawk has done murder down a hedge-row and swooped away. + +Not everything was gone after all. Kazimoto found the pots we had +cooked the rice in, and started to boil the hippo's tongue for us. + +"Come, Coutlass--sit down before we eat and tell us what happened," +Fred suggested. + +The Greek paced up and down another time or two, and at last calmed +himself sufficiently to laugh at Fred's woman, who had squatted down +patiently in the shadow behind him. + +"Easy for you!" he grinned savagely, squatting on the far side of the +fire. "You have a woman! Mine is God knows where! She said to +me--that hell-damned Lady Saffren Waldon said to me--we sat all three +together in the stern of the dhow, I with my arm around Rebecca, and +she said to me--" + +"I'll see if I can't make a dicker for the chief's canoes," Will +interrupted. "We can hear the Greek's tale any old time." + +"Trade my woman for them!" Fred suggested cheerfully. "Go on, +Coutlass!" + +The Greek gritted his teeth savagely. "She said--that hell-damned Lady +Saffren Waldon said, as we sat there in the dhow, 'How about the +kicking Fred Oakes gave you on the island, Mr. Coutlass? Where is your +Greek honor?'--Do you see? She worked on my bodily bruises and my +spiritual courage at the same time--the cunning hussy! 'That Fred +Oakes will win this Rebecca away from you very soon!' she went on. 'I +have watched him."' + +Fred smiled about as comfortably as a martyr on the grid. The presence +of the dusky damsel, confirmed by her smell behind him, made him touchy +on the subject of sex. + +"Presently she said to me, 'I have my own affairs that will adjust +themselves all the better for their absence when I get to British East. + As for you, they will simply report you to the authorities for raiding +those cattle of Brown's. Can you imagine that creature Brown forgiving +you? He will have you thrown in jail! Why wait? But we must not +leave the Goanese or the other porters, and we must hurry! You go,' +she said, 'and send the Goanese and the rest of the porters on board!' + +"So I did go. I kicked de Sousa awake, and he cursed me, because my +toe landed once or twice on his thigh where the bullet wounded him. I +drove him on board, and she put him to work with Kamarajes getting up +the sail. Then I went off to get those cursed porters. I could not +find them! The dogs had gone to the village, to find women I don't +doubt! I tell you what I would do to them if they were mine!" + +"Never mind that!" Fred cut in. We could all guess what form the +punishment would take. "Get on with the tale! You couldn't find the +porters. What next?" + +"I decided to leave the dogs behind, and serve them right! I went back +to the dhow in a great hurry. She was gone! Vanished! Disappeared as +if the lake had opened up and swallowed her! I could just see the sail +in the distance. I shouted! No answer! I shouted again. I heard +Rebecca call to me! Then I heard laughter--Lady Isobel Saffren +Waldon's laughter! Gassharamminy! I will run red-hot skewers into +that woman when I catch her! Do you see how she has vengeance on +Rebecca? Do you see now why she took sides between me and Kamarajes +and de Sousa? Do you see how she has plotted? What will she do now? +What Will she do?" + +He began to pace up and down again furiously, shaking both fists at the +unresponsive stars. + +"She will do Rebecca an injury! She will give that girl to de Sousa or +to that old Kamarajes! We shall never catch them! Gassharamminy! Oh, +Absalom! You should have fired when I told you! That she-dog has a +trick of some kind up her sleeve yet! How shall we catch her? Why do +we wait? Give me that rifle! I will take a canoe and go after them +alone! You do not know what Greek spirit is! I am American +sometimes--English when it suits me--always Greek when I am wronged!" + +"You certainly have been put upon" Fred answered. "Tell us how your +Greek spirit justified deserting us." + +"Why not?" snarled Coutlass. "Do you love me? What would you do to me +if you could get me to British East in your power? You would hand me +over as a cattle thief!" + +"You bet I will!" admitted Brown of Lumbwa. "You dog, you've ruined +me!" + +"What did I tell you?" demanded Coutlass. "Why, then, should I not +look out for myself?" + +"I think we'd better leave you on this island," Fred told him quietly. +"We can't trust you out of sight. The only way to prevent you from +stealing this rifle and murdering us all would be to lie awake in +turns." + +"Bah!" grinned the Greek, striding back toward the fire. "How many +cartridges have you left? Five, eh? After I had murdered all of you, +how many would remain?" + +"You'll have to think of a better argument than that," smiled Fred, and +for the first time I suspected he was speaking in deadly earnest. +Coutlass suspected it, too, and grew still. The sweat burst out on his +face, and his eyes bulged from their sockets. + +"You will leave me here?" he stammered. + +Fred nodded, smiling up at him. + +"You see, you're such on all-in scoundrel!" Brown assured him. + +"You! You poor drunkard!" Coutlass turned his back on Brown, and faced +Fred squarely. "You are a man, Mr. Oakes! I can speak to you as to my +brother." + +Fred smiled blandly. + +"I will speak to you God's truth!" + +Fred grinned. + +"I will tell you where the ivory is!" + +Fred threw his head back and laughed outright. + +"I speak to you on my honor! That mother of misery, Lady Saffren +Waldon, stole a map from Shillingschen. Before I would agree to set +the town on fire I made her give me that for a hostage, lest she should +prove treacherous and leave me behind after all! I have it now! It is +marked with a circle to show where Schillingschen believes the stuff +must be, because he has searched everywhere else!" + +"If that map is worth anything," Fred countered, "how did Lady Saffren +Waldon care to leave you behind with it?" + +"The harridan forgot it!" answered Coutlass. "She was so delighted to +get vengeance on Rebecca by taking her away from me that she did not +care for anything else! She hates you! She hates me! She hates +Rebecca! Those who hate--as I can hate!--would rather have revenge +than all the riches of Africa! Do you think I would hesitate between +money and revenge on her?" + +"All right," Fred answered. "The map, then--what about it?" + +"Take me with you and the map is yours!" + +"Show it to me, then!" + +"I must have a share of the ivory!" + +"Show me the map first!" + +Coutlass searched inside his flannel shirt--swiftly--more +swiftly--angrily. His jaw dropped. Even between the fire-light and +the moonlight one could judge that his color changed--and changed again. + +"Show me the map before we bargain!" Fred insisted. "Hurry, man! +There's Mr. Yerkes with the canoe. We can't wait here all night!" + +"It is gone!" admitted Coutlass. "Some one stole it!" + +"I could have told you that in the first place," Fred informed him, +rising to his feet. "I have the map in my pocket." + +"You stole it?" Coutlass gasped. + +"Certainly not. Rebecca stole it while she was supposed to be sleeping +in your arms!" + +"Gassharamminy! I might have known it! Those Syrians--she meant to +give us all the slip and find the ivory herself!" + +"Nothing of the Sort!" said Fred. "She stole it from you, to give it +to Lady Saffren Waldon! Kazimoto saw her do it--saw where Lady Waldon +hid it--and stole it from her while she slept to give to me, believing +it to be something of mine. Here it is!" + +Fred let the end of a folded map protrude from his inner pocket just +far enough for Coutlass to recognize it by the fire-light. The Greek +turned on his heel. + +"All right!" be said ruefully, swinging suddenly round again. "If you +were alone I would fight you, my knife against your rifle! I can not +fight all four of you! Go away then, and be damned! I have nothing to +offer. There is nothing I can do. Leave me, and I will look after +myself!" + +"Now you're talking like a man." said Fred. + +"Leave me that woman of yours, and go to hell, all of you!" laughed the +Greek. + +Fred seemed suddenly possessed of a bright idea. He turned to the +woman and beckoned her to rise. Then in unmistakable pantomime he went +through the motions of presenting her to Coutlass. The woman +gasped--stammered something that was positively not consent--stared +with frightened eyes at Coutlass--shook her shaven head violently--and +ran away into the darkness, pursued by roars of laughter that speeded +her on her way. + +"A clear case of desertion!" announced Fred judicially. "You men are +witnesses!" Then he turned once more to Coutlass. "I don't think +we'll leave you to raise Cain on this island. It depends on you +whether we find you a lonelier island--turn you loose or hand you over +to the authorities in British East!" + +"Good!" Coutlass shouted. "By Jingo, you are a gentleman! You are the +best man in the world! I will treat you as my brother!" + +"Thanks!" said Fred dryly. + +"Aren't you men ever coming?" asked Will, striding out of the shadows. +"I've made the dicker--found a man who'd been on the mainland and knows +Swahili. The chief's agreeable to loan us two canoes in place of +deeding you the woman. I took your name in vain, Fred, and consented +to that while your back was turned--kick all you like--the deed is +done! Four of his savages come with us as far as we want to go, we +feeding 'em meat and paying 'em money. It's agreed they're to eat just +as often as we do. They paddle the canoes back home when we're through +with them. Are you all ready? Then all aboard! Let's hurry!" + + + + +CHAPTER TWELVE + +"MANY THAT ARE FIRST SHALL BE LAST; AND THE LAST FIRST'-' + +When the last of the luck has deserted and the least of the chances +has waned, +When there's nowhere to run to and even the pluck in the smile that +you carry is feigned; +When grimmer than yesterday's horror to-morrow dawns hungry and +cold, +And your faith in the coming unknown is denied in regret for the +known and the old, +Then you're facing, my son, what the Fathers from Abraham down to +to-day +Have looked on alone, and stood up to alone, and each in his several +way +O'ercame (or he shouldn't be Father). So ye shall o'ercome: while +ye live, +Though ye've nothing but breath and good-will to your name ye must +stand to it naked, and give! + +Ye shall learn in that hour that the plunder ye won by profession is +nought - +And false was the aim ye aspired with--and dross was the glamour +ye sought - +The codes and the creeds that ye cherished were shadows of clouds +in the wind, +(And ye can not recall for their counsel lost leaders ye dallied +behind!) +Ye shall stand in that hour and discover by agony's guttering flame +How the fruits of self-will, and the lees of ambition and +bitterness all are the same, +Until, stripped of desire, ye shall know that was death. Then the +proof that ye live +Shall be knowledge new-born that the naked--the fools and the felons, +can give! + +Then the suns and the stars in their courses shall speedily swing +to your aid, +And nothing shall hinder you further, and nothing shall make you +afraid, +For the veriest edges of evil shall challenge your joy, and no more, +And room for the right shall shine clear in your vision where wrong +was before. +Then the stones in the road shall be restful that used to be traps +for your feet, +Then the crowd shall be kind that was cruel before, and your +solitude sweet +That was want to be gloomy aforetime and gray--when the proof that ye +live +Is no longer the pain of desire, but the will--and the wit--and +the vision, to give! + + +The canoes were the usual crazy affairs, longer and rather wider than +the average. The bottom portion of each was made from a tree-trunk, +hollowed out by burning, and chipped very roughly into shape. The +sides were laboriously hewn planks, stitched into place with thread +made from papyrus. + +Some of the men left behind were our personal servants. Counting them +and Kazimoto, there were twenty natives remaining with us, making, with +the four men lent us by the chief, an allowance of twelve to each +canoe. If we had had loads as well it would have been a problem how to +get the whole party away; but as Lady Saffren Waldon had left us +nothing but three cooking-pots, we just contrived to crowd the last man +in without passing the danger point, Fred taking charge of the first +canoe with Brown of Lumbwa and Kazimoto, and leaving Coutlass with the +other canoe to Will and me. We agreed it was most convenient to keep +the Greek and the rifle separated by a stretch of water. + +There is one inevitable, invariable way of starting on a journey by +canoe in Africa. Somebody pushes off. The naked paddlers, seated at +intervals down either side, strain their toes against a thwart or a +rib. The leading paddler yells, and off you go with a swing and a +rhythmic thunder as they all bring their paddles hard against the +boat's side at the end of each stroke. Fifty--sixty--seventy--perhaps a +hundred strokes they take at top speed, and the passenger settles down +to enjoy himself, for there is no more captivating motion in the world. + Then suddenly they stop, and all begin arguing at top of their lungs. +Unless the passenger is a man of swift decision and firm purpose there +is frequently a fight at that stage, likely to end in overturned canoes +and an adventure among the crocodiles. + +Our voyage broke no precedents. We started off in fine style, feeling +like old-time emperors traveling in state; and within ten minutes we +were using paddles ourselves to poke and beat our men into +understanding of the laws of balance, they abusing one another while +the canoes rocked and took in water through the loosely laid on planks. + +The fiber stitching began to give out very soon after that, because +when not in use the canoes were always hauled out somewhere and the +dried-out fiber cracked and broke. We had all to sit to one side while +some one restitched the planking. Later, when a wind came up and the +quick short sea arose peculiar to lakes, we were very glad we had done +that job so early. + +It was only the first mile that as much as suggested enjoyment. Never +accustomed to much paddling in any case, our own men had suffered from +hunger and confinement in the reeking hot dhow. Then, hippo meat needs +hours of cooking to be wholesome (our own share of it was still in the +pot, waiting to be boiled more thoroughly at the next halting place). +They had merely toasted their tough lumps in the camp-fire embers and +gobbled it. The result was a craving for sleep, noisily seconded by +the chief's four men, who had eaten the stuff without cooking at all, +and in enormous quantities. + +We began with a keen determination to overhaul the dhow, that dwindled +as we had time to think the matter over; wondering what we should do +with two such women in case we should capture them, and how we should +prevent Coutlass in that case from acting like a savage. + +"Why don't we leave 'em to make their own explanations?" I proposed at +last. "We can claim our few belongings at any time if we see fit." +But the suggestion took time to recommend itself. + +That night until nearly morning we fretted at every rest the paddlers +took--drove them unmercifully--ran risks of overturning on the slippery +shoulders of partly submerged rocks--took long turns ourselves to +relieve the weary men, Coutlass working harder than the rest of us. It +would have been a bad night's work if we had overhauled the dhow and +loosed him to do his will. + +"Think of the baggage!" he kept shouting to the night at large. "Lying +in the arms of Georges Coutlass, kissing and being kissed, simply to +rob him--Coutlass--me! Think of it! Only think of it. She lay in the +hook of my right arm and only thought of how to win back the favor of +the other she-hellion! And I was deceived by such a cabbage! Wait +though! Nobody ever turned a trick on Georges Coutlass more than once! + Wait till we catch them! See what I do to them! I don't forget +Kamarajes either, or that bastard de Sousa, also pretending they were +friends of mine! Heiah! Hurry! Drive the paddles in, you lazy black +men!" + +It was more his hunger for revenge than any other one thing that tipped +the scales of indecision and called us off the chase. A little before +morning, at about that darkest hour, when the stars have seen the +coming sun but the world is not yet aware of it, Fred called to us to +turn in toward a barren-looking hill of granite that rose almost sheer +out of the water but at one corner offered a shelving landing place. +There we all clambered out to stretch cramped muscles and make a fire +to cook the hippo's tongue, Coutlass cursing us for letting what he +called idleness come between us and revenge. + +Kazimoto had scarcely more than gathered an armful of wood, thrown it +down, and gone to hunt for more; one of the other boys had struck a +match, and the first little flicker of crimson fire and purple smoke +was starting to curl skyward, when Fred jumped on it and stamped it out. + +"Silence!" he ordered. "Keep still every one!" and repeated it twice +in Kiswahili for the natives' benefit. + +We could not see at first which way he was staring through the +darkness. It was more than two minutes before I knew what had alarmed +him, and then it was sound, not sight that gave me the first clue. +There came a purring from the lake; and when I had searched for a +minute for the source of it I saw the glow we had watched from the dhow +in the storm the first night out--the telltale crimson stain on the +dark that rides above a steamer's funnel, and at intervals a stream of +sparks to prove they were burning wood and driving her at top speed. + +"It can't be the German launch," said I. + +"Why not?" demanded Fred irritably. He knew I knew it was the German +launch as certainly as he did. + +"How can they have patched her boiler?" I asked. + +"How many beans make five? They've done it, and there she goes! No +other launch on the lake can make that speed! I've heard the British +railway people have a launch or two, but they're small enough to have +traveled down the line on ordinary trucks. That's the German launch +and Schillingschen as surely as we stand here!" + +We waited there until dawn, arguing at intervals, not daring to light a +fire, nor caring to sleep, Coutlass sitting apart and laughing every +now and then like a hyena. + +"If the men weren't so dead beat I'd be for carrying on, said Fred. + +"What's the use?" argued Brown. "We can't catch the bally launch, can +we? Soon as it's daylight they'd see us, like as not. I hope to get +drunk once more before I die! Schillingschen 'ud run us down, an' +good-by us!" + +"I'd say follow them if the men could make it," Will agreed. "But +what's the odds? It's us they're after. They'll dare do nothing to +the women on the dhow--in British waters." + +"That's so," I agreed, not believing a word of it, any more than they. +One had to calm one's feelings somehow; the men were too weary to +drive the canoes another mile at anything like speed. Coutlass, who +had heard every word of the argument, burst out into such yells of +laughter that Fred threw a rock at him. "Curse you, you ghoul!" + +Coutlass changed his tone from demoniacal delight to quieter, grim +amusement. + +"They will do nothing, eh? It is I, Georges Coutlass, who need do +nothing! I have my revenge by proxy! Wait and see!" + +Fred threw a second rock, and hit him squarely. + +"Gassharamminy!" swore the Greek. "Do you know that rock is harder +than a man's head?" + +Fred let the boys light a fire when the sun had risen high enough to +make the little blaze not noticeable. Most of the men were asleep, but +though our eyes ached with the long vigil we could not have copied +them. About three hours after daylight we breakfasted off slices of +hot boiled hippo tongue and cold lake water, without salt or condiments +of any kind, and with discontent increased by that unpleasing feast we +aroused the boys and drove them into the canoes. + +We forced the pace again, and picked up smoke on the sky-line an hour +before noon, but it was not from a steamer's funnel. It was lazy, +flat-flowing, spreading smoke with a look of iniquity about it that +sent our hearts to our mouths. We paddled toward it with frenzied +energy, and long before any of us could make out details Coutlass, +standing balancing himself amidships, told us what we knew was true and +flatly refused to believe. + +"It's the Queen of Sheba burning to the water-line!" + +"Sit down, you fool, or you'll upset us!" + +"She's gutted already--the flame is about finished! nothing now but +smoke!" + +"Sit down, you lying idiot, and hold your tongue!" + +"I can see the smoke of the German launch now! Don't you all see it? +Straight ahead beyond the smoke of the dhow! They've burned the dhow +and steamed away! I'll bet you a million pounds they've killed +everybody--shot 'em, or burned 'em alive, or drowned 'em!" + +"Did you hear me tell you to sit down? I'll tip you overboard and make +you swim for shore--d'ye see those crocodiles? Ugh! Look at the +brutes! In you go among the crocks if you don't sit down at once!" + +Coutlass took no notice of the threat, but rocked the canoe recklessly +as he stood on tiptoe. + +"Think of their gall! By Bacchus, they're steaming for British East! +I bet you five million pounds to a kick they think they've drowned the +lot of us! They're going to steam in and report the accident!" + +We got him to sit down at last by ordering the paddlers nearest him to +throw him overboard, but nothing would stop his evil croaking any more +than flat refusal to admit the truth of what he gloated over lessened +our real conviction. + +Long before we reached the dhow there was no room left for unbelief. +The stern planks were charred, but stood erect, unburned yet, and the +blue and white paint smeared on them was surely that of the Queen of +Sheba. When we came within fifty yards the water was full of loathsome +reptiles; our paddles actually struck them as they swarmed after the +prey, snapping at one another and at our canoes--long, slimy-looking +monsters, as able to smell carrion in the distance as kites are to see. + +There were garments on the water--blankets--and one soaked, torn, lacy +thing that certainly had been a woman's. More than a dozen crocodiles +fought around that. We tried to go close enough to see whether there +were dead bodies in the dhow's charred hull, but as if the very ripple +from our paddles were the last straw, the wreck dipped suddenly ten +feet from us and plunged, the crocodiles following it down into deep +water with lashing tails--swifter than fish. + +We paddled about for an hour in the blistering sun, searching stupidly +for what we knew we could never find; crocodiles remove traces of +identity more swiftly than kites and crows. + +"I'll bet you they thought we were on board!" gleed Coutlass. "I'll +bet you they opened fire, and when we didn't answer came to the +conclusion we had no ammunition. Then they steamed close enough to +throw kerosene on board and light it! I bet you they steamed round and +round and watched the people jump as the flames drove them overboard! +Or d'you think they shot them all, and then threw them overboard and +fired the dhow? No--then they'd have known we weren't on the dhow; +they'd have steamed back then to find us; they thought we were in the +dhow!" They thought we were hiding below deck! They're going to +British East to take their Bible oaths they saw us burn and drown! +Isn't that a joke! Isn't that a good one! Gassharamminy! But I'd +give my hope of heaven to know whether they shot the women first or +watched them jump among the crocodiles when the heat grew fierce!" + +We paddled to another rocky island--one that had trees on it, and +rested through the heat of the day when we had killed all the snakes +that had forestalled us in the shade. There, after again eating +hippo-tongue unseasoned and ungarnished, we held a council of war, and +Fred produced the map that Rebecca stole from Coutlass. + +"If we make for a township now--Kisumu is the nearest--about five and +twenty miles away," said Fred, "we can give ourselves the pleasure of +surprising Schillingschen, and of course we can get a square meal and +some clothes and soap and so on--incidentally perhaps some rifles and +ammunition. But we can't prove a thing against Schillingschen, and he +has enough pull with British officials to make things deuced unpleasant +for us, for a time at least. Consider the other side of it. Suppose +we don't make for a station. Schillingschen reports us dead. Nobody +looks for us--unless perhaps out on the lake for a hat or some scrap of +clothing by way of corroborative evidence. Suppose we paddle out of +this gulf and take to shore somewhere along the north end of the lake. +We've no food, no tents, only one gun, next to no ammunition, nothing +but money and a purpose. We don't know what chance we have of getting +supplies, and particularly rifles, without letting any one know where +we are, but we do know we've a clear field and a straight mark for +Elgon, where rumor says--and Courtney said--and Schillingschen +thinks--and this map says the ivory ought to be! The odds are against +us--climate --starvation--wild beasts--savages--last and not least, the +government, if they ever get wind of our being beyond bounds. Are we +willing to take the chance, or are we not?" + +We talked it over for an hour, Coutlass listening all ears to most of +what we said, although we drove him to the farthest limit of the shade +trees. We were in two minds whether or not it mattered if he listened, +and made the usual two-minds hash of it. Finally we put it to a vote, +letting Brown have a voice with the rest of us. He was in favor of +anything that offered prospect of a gamble; and we remembered the +letter in code we had given the missionary to mail to Monty. We had +told him in that that we should make tracks for Elgon, and we all voted +the same way. + +"In other words" grinned Fred, "we're perfect idiots, and ready and +willing to prove it! Good! If you fellows had voted the other way I'd +have gone forward to Elgon alone!" + +It was then that Georges Coutlass took a hand in the game again. He +came striding through the trees with something of his old swagger, and +sat down among us with an air. + +"Count me in!" he demanded. + +"D'you mean in the lake?" suggested Fred. + +"In on the trip to Mount Elgon!" + +"We've had nearly enough of you!" Fred answered. "I know what's +coming! If you don't come with us you'll tell tales? Blackmail, eh? +Well, it won't work! We'll set you ashore on the mainland, and if you +dare show yourself to Schillingschen or any British official, we'll run +that risk cheerfully!" + +But Coutlass was imperturbable for once. He laid a hand on Fred's +knee, and changed his tone to one of gentle persuasion between friend +and friend. + +"Ah! Mr. Oakes, I know you now too well! You are not the man to leave +me in the lurch! These others perhaps! You never! You know me, too. +You have seen me under all conditions. You are able to judge my +character. You know how firm a friend I can be, as well as how savage +an enemy! You know I would never be false to a friend such as you--to +a man whom I admire as I do you!" + +Will Yerkes, who had tried to keep a straight face, now went off into +peals of laughter, rolling over on his back and rocking his legs in the +air--a performance that did not appear to discourage Coutlass in the +least. Brown was far from amused. He advised throwing the Greek into +the lake. + +"Remember those cattle o' mine!" he insisted. + +"Yes!" agreed Coutlass. "Remember those cattle! Consider what a man +of quick decision and courage I am! How useful I can be! What a +forager! What a guide! What a fighting man! What a hunter! What a +liar on behalf of my friends! What a danger for my friends' enemies! +What are the cattle of a drunkard like Brown--the poor unhappy +sot!--compared to the momentary needs of a gentleman! Ah! By the +ordeal! I am a gentleman, and that is the secret of it all! You, Mr. +Oakes, as one brave gentleman, can not despise the right hand of +friendship of Georges Coutlass, another gentleman! I know you can not! + You haven't it in you! You were born under another star than that! I +have confidence! I sit contented!" + +"You good-for-nothing villain!" Fred grinned. "I'll take you at your +word!" and Brown of Lumbwa gasped, the very hairs of his red beard +bristling. + +"I knew you would!" said Coutlass calmly. "These others are not +gentlemen. They do not understand." + +"If your word is good for anything," Fred continued. + +"My word is my bond!" said the Greek. + +"And you really want to prove yourself my friend--" + +"I would go to hell for you and bring you back the devil's favorite +wife!" + +"I will set you on the mainland, to go and recover those cattle of Mr. +Brown's from the Masai who raided them! Return them to Lumbwa, and +I'll guarantee Brown shall shake hands with you!" + +"Pah! Brown! That drunkard!" + +"See here!" said Brown, getting up and peeling off his coat. "I've had +enough of being called drunkard by you. Put up your dukes!" + +But a fight between Brown and the Greek with bare fists would have been +little short of murder. Brown was in no condition to thrash that wiry +customer, and we in no mood to see Coutlass get the better of him. + +"Don't be a fool, Brown! Sit down!" ordered Fred, and having saved his +face Brown condescended readily enough. + +"What you said's right," he admitted. "Let him get my cattle back +afore he's fit to fight a gentleman!" + +And so the matter was left for the present, with Georges Coutlass under +sentence of abandonment to his own devices as soon as we could do that +without entailing his starvation. We had no right to have pity for the +rascal; he had no claim whatever on our generosity; yet I think even +Brown would not have consented to deserting him on any of those barren +islands, whatever the risk of his spoiling our plans as soon as we +should let him out of sight. + +>From then until we beached the canoes at last in a gap in the papyrus +on the lake's northern shore, we pressed forward like hunted men. For +one thing, the very thought of boiled meat without bread, salt, or +vegetables grew detestable even to the natives after the second or +third meal, although hippo tongue is good food. We tried green stuff +gathered on the islands, but it proved either bitter or else +nauseating, and although our boys gathered bark and roots that they +said were fit for food, it was noticeable that they did not eat much of +it themselves. The simplest course was to race for the shore with as +little rest and as little sleep as the men could do with. + +However, we were not noticeably better off when we first set foot on +shore. There was nothing but short grass growing on the thin soil that +only partly hid the volcanic rock and manganese iron ore. Victoria +Nyanza is the crater of a once enormous, long ago extinct volcano, and +we stood on a shelf of rock about a thousand feet below what had been +the upper rim--a chain of mountains leading away toward the north +higher and higher, until they culminated in Mount Elgon, another +extinct volcano fourteen thousand feet above sea level. + +It was not unexplored land where we stood, but it was so little known +that the existence of white men was said to be a matter of some doubt +among natives a mile or two to either side of the old safari route that +passed from east to west. We could see no villages, although we +marched for hours, the loaned canoe-men tagging along behind us, +hungrier than we, until at last over the back of a long low spur we +spied the, tops of growing kaffir corn. + +At sight of that we broke into a run and burst on the field of grain +like a pack of the dog-baboons that swoop from the hills and make +havoc. We seized the heads of grain, rubbed them between our hands, +and had munched our fill before we were seen by the jealous owners. A +small boy herding hump-backed cattle down in the valley watched us for +a minute, and then deserted his charge to report to the village hidden +behind a clump of trees. Ten minutes after that we were surrounded by +naked black giants, all armed with spears and a personal smell that +outstank one's notions of Gehenna. + +We had nothing to offer them, except money, for which they obviously +had not the slightest use. None of us knew their language. From their +point of view we were thieves taken in the act, all but one of us +unarmed as far as they knew, to be judged by the tribal standard that +for more centuries than men remember has decreed that the thief shall +die. They were most incensed at the four unhappy islanders, probably +on the same principle that dogs pick on the weakest, and fight most +readily with dogs of a more or less similar breed. + +It was Coutlass who saved that situation. He instantly went crazy, or +the next thing to it, wrinkling up his black-whiskered face into a +caricature, yelling a Greek monologue in a refrain consisting of five +notes repeated over and over, and dancing around in a wide ring with +one leg shorter than the other and his arms executing symbols of +witchcraft. + +The chief was the biggest man--not an inch less than seven feet--black +as ebony, from the curly hair, into which his patient wives had plaited +fiber to hang in a greasy lump over his neck, all down his naked body +to the soles of his enormous feet. Each time he came in front of that +individual Coutlass paused and executed special finger movements, like +the trills of a super-pianist, ending invariably in a punctuation point +that made the savage shiver. + +The fifth time round, to avoid the accusing fingers, the giant dodged +behind a smaller man, who dodged behind a woman, who promptly turned +and ran, swinging in the wind behind her a bustle like a horse's tail +that was her only garment. Her flight was the touch that settled the +decision in our favor. We all began to do a mumbo-jumbo dance around +Coutlass, and in five seconds more the whole armed party was in full +retreat, holding their spears behind them as some sort of protection +against magic. + +"After that," said Coutlass proudly, "will you still dismiss me from +your party, gentlemen?" + +"You've got to go and find Brown's cattle and return them to him!" Fred +answered firmly. But we none of us felt like sending him packing until +he was better fed and some provision could be made for his safety on +the road. It was wonderful, the number of excuses that flocked through +my mind for befriending the ruffian, and later on I found it was the +same with Fred and Will. Brown, on the other hand, affected +indignation at his being allowed to go with us another yard. + +"Make a rope o' grass an' hang the swine!" he grumbled. + +We decided to march on the village, retreat being obviously far too +dangerous, and the only likely safe course being to follow up the +chance success. Sleep another night in the open among the mosquitoes +and wild beasts, besides making us wretched at the mere suggestion, was +likely to bring us all down with fever. We preferred the thought of +fever to the loneliness; for man is unlike all other nomads, and that +is why the dog takes kindly to him; he must have a home of his own--a +portable one, if you will--a tub like Diogenes--a Bedouin's tent--a +cave, or a hole in the ground--something, so be he may rent it or own +it or know for a fact he may sleep there when night comes. Life in the +open is only good fun when there is cover to take to at will. + +All the way along the winding foot-track leading in every imaginable +direction except toward the village, and only turning suddenly toward +it when we had grown disgusted and decided to leave it and try to find +another, Brown kept pointing out trees with suitable overhanging arms +to which we might hang Coutlass. The Greek, with eyes for nothing but +the fat, hump-backed village cattle in the distance, seemed to think +only of them, until Will commented on the fact, and Fred saw fit to +drop a hint. + +"Steal as much as a young calf, Coutlass, and we'll let Brown choose +the tree! Try it on if you don't believe me!" + +The villagers closed their gate against us by dragging great piles of +thorn across the gap in the rough palisade, but, as Coutlass pointed +out, they would have to open it up again to let the cattle in before +dark, so we sat down and ate the remaining fragments of the hippo +tongue--no ambrosia by that time; it had to be eaten, to save it from +utter waste! + +Then Coutlass once more did a first-class devil dance backward and +forward this time before the gate, putting genius into it and fear into +the hearts of the defenders. Kazimoto helped even more than he by +discovering a native within the palisade who could speak a common +tongue. + +Their villagers held a very noisy council on their side of the thorn +obstruction, under the apparent impression that it was sound- and +bullet-proof. It was beginning to be pretty obvious that a man who +advised volleying through the crevices with spears was winning the +argument when Kazimoto detected familiar accents and raised his voice. +After that the barricade was dragged aside within ten minutes and we +entered, if not in honor, at least in temporary safety. + +Luxury is a question of contrast. That evening in a hut assigned to us +by the chief, squatting on the trodden cow-dung floor, leaning against +the dried-mud sides, with a little fire of sticks in the midst to give +us light and keep mosquitoes at a distance at the expense of almost +unbearable heat, we ate porridge made from mtama as they call their +kaffir corn, and washed it down with milk--good rich cows' milk, milked +by Kazimoto into our own metal pot instead of their unwashed gourds. +Lucullus never dined better. + +The feast was only rather spoiled by two things: we all had chiggers +in our feet--the minute fleas that haunt the dust of native villages +and insert themselves under toe-nails to grow great and lay their eggs. + (Nearly every native in the village had more than one toe missing.) +And the chief felt obliged to insert his smelly presence among us and +ask innumerable idiotic questions through the medium of his interpreter +and Kazimoto. He received some astonishing answers, but would not have +been satisfied with anything more reasonable. We wanted him satisfied, +and gave our interpreter free rein. + +The main trouble was we had nothing of value to offer him. Money was +something he had no knowledge of. He wanted beads of a certain size +and color; for two handfuls of them he expressed himself willing to be +our friend for life. We had to educate him about money, and Kazimoto +assured him that the silver rupees Fred produced from a bag were so +precious that governments went to war to get them away from other +governments. + +But the impression still prevailed that we were wasikini--poor men; +and that is a fatal qualification in the savage mind. + +"Why have you only one gun?" + +In vain Kazimoto assured him that we had dozens of guns "at home"--that +Fred's landed possessions were so vast that two hundred strong men +walking for a month would be unable to march across them--that Fred's +wives (Fred seemed to live under a cloud of sexual scandal in those +days) were so many in number they had to be counted twice a day to make +sure none was missing. + +The chief had eighteen wives of his own to show. He could prove his +matrimonial felicity. Why had Fred left his behind? How did he dare? +Who looked after them? Had he left the guns behind to guard the women? + Why did such a rich man travel without food for his men? The chief +had seen us with his own eyes devour porridge as if we were starving. + +To have told him the truth would have been worse than useless. To have +mentioned such a thing as shipwreck would only have stirred the savage +instinct to prey off all unfortunates. Failing evidence of wealth in +our possession, the only feasible plan was to claim so much that he +might believe some of it, and it was Coutlass, drawing a bow at a +venture, who ordered Kazimoto to tell him that we expected a party in a +few days bringing tents, provisions and more guns. + +"There will be blue-and-white beads of the sort you long for among +those loads," added Kazimoto on his own account; and that eased the +chief's mind for the night. Fred gave him a half-rupee, and promised +him to exchange it when the loads should come for as many of the beads +as he could seize in his two fists. The chief went out to brag to the +village, opening and closing his fists to see how huge their compass +was; and later that night his wives had to be beaten for fighting. +They were jealous because the fattest and the youngest new one had both +been promised double shares. + +There was another fight because our porters emerged from their hut and +demanded that a barren cow out of the village herd be butchered. They +made their meaning perfectly clear by taking the cow by the horns and +tail and throwing her on her back. Fred decided that argument with a +thick stick about four feet long. + +The unusual spectacle of some one taking sides against his own men, +whatever the rights or wrongs of it, so affected the chief that he +entered our hut next morning disposed to hold us up for double promises +of beads. It was evident we had to deal with a born extortioner. He +would increase his demands with every fresh concession. + +"Oh, what's the odds!" laughed Coutlass. "Promise him anything! The +only loads likely to come along this way for a year or two are +Schillingschen's!" + +Fred told the chief he would think the matter over, and chased him out +of the hut. Coutlass had given us all a new idea in an instant, and he +was the only one who did not see its point--he, the only one who did +not give a snap of the fingers for the laws of any land! + +"D'you suppose--" + +"Too good to hope for!" + +"If he thinks we're dead--?" + +"And if he believes in that map--" + +"He'll not need the map. He'll have memorized it. There's only a +circle drawn on it to mark the Elgon district. All the old pencil +marks have been rubbed out as he searched the other likely places and +drew them all blank." + +"He'll travel without military escort?" + +"Sure! He won't want witnesses! He'll make believe it's a scientific +trip. Remember, he's a professor of ethnology. That's how he puts it +all over the British and goes where he pleases without as much as +by-your-leave." + +"Say, fellows! It's a moral cinch that when we broke away from Muanza +he made up his mind in a flash to return to British East and destroy us +on the way. He thinks he made a clean job of that. I'll bet he loaded +the launch down with stuff for a long safari, and thinks now he has a +clear run and can take his time!" + +"If that's how the cards lie, the game's ours!" + +Coutlass saw the point at last and offered himself on the altar of +forgiveness and friendship. + +"Make me your partner, gentlemen, and if he travels within a hundred +miles of this I will crawl into that Schillingschen's tent in the night +and slit his throat! I would murder him as willingly as I eat when I +am hungry!" + +"Your job has been assigned you!" answered Fred. "When Mr. Brown's +cattle are back in Lumbwa perhaps we'll give you something else to do!" + +Nevertheless, Coutlass had outlined in a flash the limits of the plan. +We would draw the line at murdering even Schillingschen, but must help +ourselves to his outfit as our only chance of re-outfitting without +betraying our presence in British East. But the plan was not without +rat-holes in it that a fool could see. + +"Schillingschen's boys will escape and run to the nearest British +official with the story!" + +"And the British official will be so full of the importance of +Schillingschen and the need of protecting his beastly carcass--to say +nothing of the everlasting disgrace of letting him be scoughed on +British territory--and the official reprimand from home that's sure to +follow--that he'll come hot-foot to investigate!" + +"We'll have to provide against that," said Fred, and we all laughed, +including Coutlass. Talk of provisions is easy when you have no means +out of which to provide. It did not occur to include Coutlass in the +calculations, or to dismiss him from them; but without exchanging any +remarks on the subject it was clear enough to all of us that no such +plan could hope to succeed with the Greek at large, at liberty to spoil +it. We saw we should have to keep him in our party for the present. + +"Don't forget," said Coutlass, more accustomed than we to seizing the +strategic points of desperate situations, "that Schillingschen will +have his own boys with him from German East." + +"I didn't see any with him on the launch," I objected. + +"He would never have come without them" Coutlass insisted. "He made +them lie below the water-line out of reach of bullets at the only time +when you might have seen them! He wouldn't trust himself to British +porters. My word, no! That devil knows natives! He knows some of +them might be British government spies! He'll have his own boys,--if +they can't carry all his loads he'll buy donkeys at Mumias; there are +always donkeys to be bought at that place, brought down from Turkana by +the Arab ivory traders. Do donkeys talk?" + +At any rate, we talked, and made no bones at all about including +Georges Coutlass in the conversation. It was his suggestion that we +should send natives to look out for Schillingschen, and Fred's +amendment that reduced the messengers to one, and that one Kazimoto. +Any of the others might decide to desert, once out of sight, and we +could scarcely have blamed them, for their path had not lain among +roses in our company. + +Kazimoto had a million objections to offer against going alone on that +errand, as, for instance, that the chigger fleas would invade our +toe-nails disastrously without his cunning fingers to hunt them out +again. He also prophesied that without him to interpret there would +swiftly be trouble between us and the chief; but we saw the other side +of that medal and rather looked forward to an interval when the chief +should not be able to talk to us at all. + +At last, on the second morning after our arrival at the village, +Kazimoto wrapped an enormous mound of cold mtama pudding in a cloth and +went his way, prophesying darkly of murder and sudden death lurking +behind rocks and trees, as unwishful to be alone as a terrier without a +master, but much too faithful to refuse duty. + +The chief saw a side of the medal that we had not guessed existed. He +came and sat beside us like an evil-smelling shadow, satisfied that now +we could not dismiss him, he being under no obligation to understand +gestures. Curiosity was the impelling motive, but he was not without +suspicion. Fred said he reminded him of a Bloomsbury landlady whose +lodgers had not paid their board and rooming in advance. + +Will solved that problem by taking the rifle, and one cartridge that +Fred doled out grudgingly, and after a long day's stalking among +mosquitoes in the papyrus at the edge of the lake five miles away, at +imminent risk of crocodiles and an even worse horror we had not yet +suspected, shooting a hippopotamus. Forthwith the whole village, chief +included, went to cut up and carry off the meat, and there followed +revelry by night, the chiefs wives brewing beer from the mtama, and all +getting drunk as well as gorged. Coutlass and Brown got more drunk +than any one. + +Will came back with flies on his coat--three large things like +horse-flies, that crossed their wings in repose, resembling in all +other respects the common tetse fly. He said the reeds by the +lake-side were full of them. + +Remembering tales about sleeping sickness, and suspicion of conveying +it said to rest on a tetse fly that crossed its wings, I went out the +following day and walked many miles east-ward, taking with me the only +two sober villagers I could find. They came willingly enough for five +miles, thinking, I suppose, that I intended to follow Will's example +and kill some more meat (although, as I did not take the rifle with me, +they were not guilty of much dead-weight reasoning). + +At the bank of the fifth stream we came to they stopped, and refused to +go another yard. Thinking they were merely lusting after the meat and +beer in the village, I took a stick to drive them across the stream in +front of me, but they dodged in terror and ran back home as if the +devil had been after them. + +I crossed the stream and continued forward alone about another mile +toward a fairly large village visible between great blue boulders with +cactus dotted all about. There was the usual herd of cattle grazing +near at hand, but the place had an unaccountable forlorn look, and the +small boy standing on an ant-hill to watch the cattle seemed too +listless to be curious, and too indifferent to run away. The big brown +tetse flies, that crossed their wings when resting, were everywhere, +making no noise at all, but announcing themselves every once in a while +by a bite on the back of the hand that stung like a whip-lash. They +seemed to have special liking for coat-sleeves, and a dozen of them +were generally riding on each side of me. One could drive them off, +but they came back at once, as horse-flies do when poked off with a +whip. + +When I drew near the village nobody came out to look at me, which was +suspicious in itself. Nobody shouted. Nobody blocked the way, or +dragged thorn-bushes across the gateway. There were black men and +women there, sitting in the shadows of the eaves, who looked up and +stared at me--men and women too intent on sitting still to care whether +their skins were glossy--unoiled, unwashed, unfed, by the look of +them--skeletons clothed in leather and dust, desiring death, but +cruelly denied it. + +One man, thin as a wisp of smoke, rushed at me from the shadow of a hut +door and tried to bite my leg. The merest push sent him rolling over, +and there he lay, too overcome by inertia to move another inch, his arm +uplifted in the act of self-defense. Nobody else in the village +stirred. There were more huts than people, more kites on the roofs +than huts. Some of the littlest children played in the hut doors, but +nearly all of them were listless like the grown folk. The only sign of +normal activity was the big black earthen jars that witnessed that the +women performed part at least of their daily round by bringing water +from the lake. + +I returned late that afternoon, walking, as it were, out of a belt of +tetse flies. On one side of a narrow stream they were thick together; +to the west of it there were scarcely any, although the wind blew from +east to west. + +"There's no fear of news about us reaching any government official," I +announced. "There's a curtain of death between us and the government +that even suspicion couldn't penetrate!" + + + + +CHAPTER THIRTEEN + +THE SLEEP THAT IS NO SLEEP* + +Ten were the plagues that Israel fled, and leaving left no cure, + Whose progeny self-multiplied a million-fold remain, +The cloak of each one ignorance, idolatry its lure, + And death the goal till, clarion-called, lost Israel come +again. +Till then that loaded lash that bade the tale of bricks +increase + (Eye for an eye, and limb for limb!) shall fail not though +ye weep; +The conqueror's heel for Africa!--The fear that shall not cease!-- + Desire, distrust, the alien law!--The sleep that is no sleep! + +------------------ +* It is a characteristic of the so-called Sleeping Sickness that is +decimating the tribes around Victoria Nyanza that the victim, although +he goes into a coma, never actually sleeps from the time of taking the +disease until the end, usually more than a year later. The natives, a +tribe that came originally down from Egypt, themselves say that the +dreaded sickness is a "visitation" by way of revenge on them for former +sins, although what sins, and whose vengeance, they are at a total loss +to explain. +------------------ + + +Kazimoto was gone five days, and then came preceded by proof of the +news he brought. He came in the evening. In the morning, +unaccountably from the northward, instead of from the westward where +Uganda lay,--avoiding the regular safari route and the belt of sleeping +sickness villages, came a genial, sleek, shiny Baganda, arrayed in +khaki coat, red fez, and bordered loin-cloth, gifted with tongues, and +self-confident beyond belief. + +He knew nothing of us at first, for we sat in our hut with a smudge +going, nervous about flies, even Coutlass, reckless as a rule of +anything he could not see, and perfectly indifferent to death for +others, now fidgety and afraid to swagger forth. + +One of our Nyamwezi porters suddenly made a great shout of "Hodi!"* and +came stooping through the low door, standing erect again inside to +await our pleasure. We could hear others outside, listening under the +eaves. When we had kept him waiting sufficiently long to prevent his +getting too much notion of his own importance, Fred nodded to him to +speak. [* Hodi! Equivalent to "May I come In!"] + +"Is it true, bwana," he asked, "that the Germans will come soon and +conquer this part of Africa?" + +"Certainly not!" said Fred. + +"There is one out here, a Baganda, who says they will surely come. He +says the religion of Islam will be preached from end to end of +everywhere, and that the Germans are the true priests of Islam. They +will come, says he, when the time is ripe, and call on all the converts +of Islam to rise and slay all other people, including all white folk, +like the English, who do not accept that creed. If that is true, +bwana, whither shall we go, and whither shall you go, to escape such +terrible things?" + +"Does the Baganda know there are white men in this village?" Fred asked. + +"Not yet, bwana." + +"Don't tell him, then, but bring him in here. Tell him there are folk +in here who say he is a liar." + +The Nyamwezi backed out, and we heard whispering outside. There is +precious little performance in Africa without a deal of talk. At the +end of about ten minutes the porter again shouted "Hodi!" and this time +was followed in by the stranger, seven other of our own men, uninvited, +bringing up the rear. + +"Jambo!"* said the Baganda, with a great effort at bravado, when his +eyes had grown accustomed to the gloom and the first severe surprise of +seeing white men had worn off. He was a very cool customer indeed. [* +Jambo! Kiswahili equivalent of "How d'you do?"] + +"Whose pimp are you?" demanded Fred, without answering the salutation. + +The man fell back on insolence at once. There is no native in Africa +who takes more keenly to that weapon than the mission-schooled Baganda. + +"I am employed by a gentleman of superior position," he answered in +perfectly good English. + +"In what capacity?" demanded Fred. + +"I am not employed to tell his secrets to the first strangers who ask +me!" + +"Do you obey him implicitly?" + +"I do. I am honorable person. I receive his pay and do his bidding." + +"Is his name Schillingschen?" + +The Baganda hesitated. + +"All right," said Fred. "I know his name is Schillingschen. You have +boasted that you do what he orders you. These men tell me you have +said that the Germans are coming to conquer the country and destroy all +people, including the English, who have not accepted Islam!" + +The man hesitated again, glancing over his shoulder to discover his +retreat cut off by our porters, and eying Fred with malignity that +reminded one of a cornered beast of prey. He could control his face, +but not his eyes. + +"Oh, no, sir!" he answered after swallowing a time or two. "How could +they tell such lies against me! I am a person born in Uganda, now a +British protectorate and enjoying all blessings of British rule. I am +educated at the mission college at Entebbe. How should I tell such a +tale against my benefactors?" + +"That is what you are here to explain!" Fred answered. "No! You can't +escape, you hellion! Squat down and answer!" + +"All this stuff is pretty familiar," Will interrupted. "In the States +there are always people going the rounds among our darkies preaching +some form of treason. Over there we can afford to treat it as a +joke--now and then an ugly one, and on the darkies!" + +"This is an ugly joke on a darkie, too!" grinned Fred. + +The Baganda made a sudden dive and a determined struggle to get through +the door, but our porters were too quick and strong for him. + +"Confession is your one chance!" said Fred. + +"Put hot irons to his feet!" advised Coutlass. (The native beer had +left him villainously evil-tempered.) "Gassharamminy! Leave me alone +with that fat Baganda for half an hour, and I will make him tell me +what is on the far side of the moon, as well as what his mother said +and did before she bore him!" + +"Shall I hand you over to this Greek gentleman?" suggested Fred. + +"Oh, my God, no!" the Baganda answered, trembling. "Hand me over to +the bwana collector! He will put me in jail. I am not afraid of +British jail! It will not be for long! The English do not punish as +the Germans do! You dare not assault me! You dare not torture me! +You must hand me over to the bwana collector to be tried in court of +law. Nothing else is permissible! I shall receive short sentence, +that is all, with reprieve after two-thirds time on account of good +conduct!" + +"Make him prisoner in the sleeping sickness village you told us about!" +advised Coutlass, lolling at ease on his elbow to watch the man's +increasing fear. + +"Oh, no, no! Oh, gentlemen! That is not how white Englishmen behave! +You must either let me go, or--" + +He made another terrific dive for liberty, biting and kicking at his +captors, and finally lying on his back to scream as if the hot irons +Coutlass had recommended were being applied in earnest. + +"What shall we do with the beast?" asked Fred. The hut was so full of +his infernal screaming that we could talk without his hearing us. + +"Tie him up," I said. "If we let him go he'll run straight to +Schillingschen." + +"Leave him here with Coutlass and me!" urged Brown. (He and Coutlass +had grown almost friendly since getting drunk together on the native +beer.) + +"I recommend," said Will, "that we take the law in our own hands--" + +The Baganda ceased screaming and listened. For some reason he suspected +Will of being the deciding factor in our councils--perhaps because Will +had said least. + +"--take the law in our own hands, and thrash him soundly. Later on we +can report what we have done to the British government, and ask for +condonation under the circumstances or pay whatever piffling fine they +care to impose for the sake of appearances. The point is, there's no +court of law in these parts to hand him over to, and he needs +punishing." + +"I agree," said Fred. "Let's thrash him to begin with." + +"Let's thrash him," went on Will, "as thoroughly as we've seen his +friends the Germans do the job!" + +"Both sides!" agreed Brown. + +"Oh, no, no, no! You can not do that, gentlemen!" + +"Lay him out!" ordered Fred. "Let's begin on him. Who shall beat him +first?" + +At a nod from Fred our porters stretched him face downward on the dry +dung floor, and knelt on his arms and legs. One of them staffed a good +handful of the dry dung into his mouth to stop his yelling. + +"Of course," said Will, rather slowly and distinctly, "if he told us +about Schillingschen, we'd have to let him off. Let's hope he holds +his tongue, for I never wanted to flog a man so much in all my life!" + +The most palpable absurdity at the moment was that there was nothing in +the hut to beat him with. There were dozens of strips of the recently +shot hippo hide hanging in the sun outside to dry, with stones tied to +the end of each, to keep them taut and straight, but nobody made a move +to bring one in. + +"Take off his loin-cloth!" ordered Fred. "It won't hurt him enough +with that thing on!" + +The Baganda spat the cow-dung from his mouth and struggled violently. + +"Oh, no, no!" he shouted. "I will tell! I will tell everything!" + +"Too late now!" said Will jubilantly. + +"No, gentlemen, no! Not too late! I tell all--I tell quickly! Only +listen! Bwana Schillingschen will shoot me if he knows! He is very +bad man--very kali--very fierce--and oh, too clever! You must protect +me!" + +He could hardly get the words out, for the knees of our porters pinned +him down, and his chin was pressed hard on the floor. + +"I ordered that loin-cloth removed!" was all Fred commented. One of +the porters attended to the task, and the Baganda hurried with his +tale, drawing in breath in noisy gasps like a man with asthma because +of the weight of his captors on him and the strained position of his +neck. + +"Bwana Schillingschen is sending me and many other men--not all +Baganda, but of many tribes--to go through all parts and say Islam is +the only good religion--all Germans are high-priests of Islam--soon the +Germans are coming with great armies to destroy the British and all +other foolish people who have not accepted Islam as their creed! All +are to get ready to receive the Germans." + +"Where is Schillingschen now?" demanded Fred. + +"Beyond Mumias." + +"How far beyond Mumias?" + +"Who knows? He is marching." + +"In which direction? What for?" + +"To Mount Elgon. I do not know what for." + +"How do you know he is going to Mount Elgon?" + +"He told me to go there and find him after my work is done." + +"How long were you to continue at what you call your work?" + +"A month or five weeks." + +"So he expects to stay a long time up there?" + +"Yes." + +"Why?" + +"I do not know." + +"Has he many loads with him?" + +"Very many provisions for a long time." + +"Guns?" + +"Several. I do not know how many. He gives guns to some of his men +when he gets to where the government will not know about it." + +"How many men has he?" + +"Not many. Ten, I think." + +"How can they carry all those loads?" + +"He brought a hundred porters from Kisumu to Mumias, and there bought +more than forty donkeys, sending the porters back again." + +"Then are the men he has with him his own?" + +"Yes." + +"From German East?" + +"Yes." + +"What orders did he give you besides to tell these lies about German +conquest?" + +"None. + +"Pass me that whip!" ordered Fred. There was no whip, but the Baganda +could not know that. + +"He gave the same order to all of us," he yelled. "We are to stay out +a month or five weeks unless we meet white men. If we meet white men +we are to discover the white men's plans by talking with their +servants, and then hurry to him and report." + +"Ah! How many other spies has he out in this direction?" + +"None." + +"Why don't you pass me that whip when I ask for it?" demanded Fred. + +"None! None! None, bwana! I am the only man in this direction! He +has sent them north, south, east and west, but I am the only one down +here." + +"He has a lot more to tell yet," said Coutlass. "Let me put hot irons +on his feet!" + +Fred demurred. "He couldn't march with us if we did that!" he said +with a perfectly straight face. + +"Who cares whether or not he marches!" answered Coutlass. "To tell all +he knows is his business! Wait while I heat the iron!" + +The Baganda began to scream again, babbling that he knew no more. He +assured us that Schillingschen had set the closest watch along the old +caravan route, and toward his own rear in the direction of Kisumu, +whence officials might come on chance errands. + +"All right," said Fred. "Truss him up tight and keep him prisoner +among our men in their hut." + +"Our men are likely to get drunk tonight," warned Will. + +"Let me watch him!" urged Coutlass. "Leave me with him alone!" + +To the Greek's disgust we decided to trust the prisoner with our own +men, and to keep very careful watch on them, threatening them with loss +of all their pay if they dared get drunk and lose him--a threat they +accepted at its full face value, but resented because of Brown's and +the Greek's behavior the night before. They begged to get a little +drunk--to get half as drunk as Brown had been--half as drunk as +Coutlass had been--not drunk at all, but just to drink a little. We +were adamant, and Brown added to their resentment by preaching them a +sermon in their own tongue on the importance of being respectful toward +white folk. + +Kazimoto came in toward dark, foot-weary, but primed with news, and +most of what he had to say confirmed the Baganda's story. +Schillingschen, he said, was making for Mount Elgon in very leisurely +stages, letting his loaded donkeys graze their way along, and spending +hours of his time in questioning natives along the way on every subject +under the sun. + +Besides the fact of his leisurely progress, which was sufficiently +important in itself, we learned from Kazimoto that Schillingschen's own +ten boys were unable to speak the language of the country beyond a few +of the commonest words--that they all slept in a tent together at +night, usually quite a little distance apart from Schillingschen's--and +that the donkeys were usually picketed between the two tents in a long +line. He also told us the ten men had five Mauser rifles between them, +in addition to the German's own battery of three guns, one of which he +carried all day and kept beside his bed at night; the other two were +carried behind him in the daytime by a gun-bearer. + +That was good news on the whole. Coutlass went out on the strength of +it and began to drink beer from the big earthenware crock in which the +women had just brewed a fresh supply. Brown joined him within five +minutes, and at the end of an hour, they were swearing everlasting +friendship, Coutlass promising Brown his cattle back, and Brown +assuring him that Greece and the Greeks had always held his warmest +possible regards. + +"Thermopylae, y'know, old boy, an' Marathon, an' all that kind o' +thing! How many miles in a day could a Greek run in them days? Gosh!" + +They two drank themselves to sleep among the gentle cattle in the +circular enclosure in the midst of the village, and we--going out in +turns at intervals to make sure our own boys were not drinking--matured +our plans in peace. + +We were too few to dare undertake the task in front of us without the +aid of Brown and the Greek. It was a case of who was not against us +must be for us, and the end must justify both men and means. We tried +to work out ways of managing without them, but when we thought of our +Baganda prisoner, and the almost certainty that both he and Coutlass +would race to give our game away to Schillingschen if let out of sight +for a minute, the necessity of making the best, not the worst, of the +Greek seemed overwhelming. + +Early next morning, before the village had awakened from its glut of +beer and hippo meat, we shook Coutlass and Brown to their feet none too +gently, and, with the Baganda firmly secured by the wrists between two +of our men, started off, Fred leading. + +The village awoke as if by magic before we bad dragged away the thorns +from the gate, and the chief leaped to the realization that the beads +he had promised his women were about as concrete as his drunken dreams. + He and a swarm of his younger men followed us, begging and +arguing--mile after mile--growing angrier and more importunate. It was +by my advice that we crossed the stream into the sleeping sickness zone +and left them shuddering on their own side. Our own men did not know +so much about the ravages of that plague, and in any case were willing +to dare whatever risks we despised. But we took a long bend back and +crossed the stream again higher up as soon as the chief and his beggars +were out of sight. It was a pity not to keep exact faith and give them +the promised beads, if only for the sake of other white men who might +camp there in the future; but more than two tons of hippo meat was not +bad pay for their hospitality. + +We wished we had as good price to offer at the villages on our way, for +sleep under cover we must, if we hoped to escape the ravages of fever; +and the primitive savage, at least in those parts, had the principle +down fine of nothing whatever for nothing. Yet as it turned out, the +very man whose company we looked on as a nuisance proved to be a key to +all gates. We marched along the track the Baganda had taken. The +chiefs of all villages knew him again; and the men who dared take such +a prophet of evil prisoner were looked upon as high government +officials at least. + +We accepted that description of ourselves, letting it go by silent +assent, and explained our lack of tents and almost every other thing +the white man generally travels with as due to haste. Heaven only knew +what lies Kazimoto told those credulous folk, to the perfectly worthy +end of making our lot bearable, but we were fed after a fashion, and +lodged after a worse one all along our road. And who should send in +reports about us--and to whom? Obviously white men with a prisoner, +marching in such a hurry toward the north, were government officials. +Who should report officials to their government? As for the tale about +our having left our loads behind--are not all white people crazy? Who +shall explain their craziness? + +>From being a nuisance the Baganda became a joke. When it dawned on +his fat intellect that we were hurrying toward Schillingschen with only +one rifle among us and no baggage at all, he jumped at once to the +conclusion we must be Schillingschen's friends; and his fear that we +intended to hand him over to that ruthless brute for summary punishment +was more melting to his backbone than the dread of our imaginary whip, +that had caused him to give Schillingschen away. + +He tried to bite through the thongs that held him, but Will twisted for +him handcuffs out of thick iron wire that we begged from a chief, who +had intended to make ornaments with it for his own legs. We did not +dare let the man escape, nor care to prevent our men from using force +when he threw himself on the ground and wept like a spoiled child. + +"I will tell you" he said at last, deciding he might as well be hanged +for mutton as for lamb, "what Bwana Schillingschen is searching for! I +will tell you who knows where to find it! I will tell you where to +find the man who knows! Only let me run away then to my own home in +Uganda, and I will never again leave it! I am afraid! I am afraid!" + +But that was only one more reason for keeping him with us, and no +ground at all for delay. He would not tell unless we loosed his hands +first, so we pressed on, camping late and starting early, until about +noon of the fourth day we caught sight of Schillingschen's tents in the +distance, and gathered our party at once into a little rocky hollow to +discuss the situation. + +Behind us the land sloped gradually for thirty or forty miles toward a +sharp escarpment that overlooked the level land beside the lake. At +times between the hills and trees we could glimpse Nyanza itself, +looking like the vast rim of forever, mysterious and calm. In front of +us the rolling hills, broken out here and there into rocky knolls, +piled up on one another toward the hump of Elgon, on which the blue sky +rested. In every direction were villages of folk who knew so little of +white men that they paid no taxes yet and did no work--marrying and +giving in marriage--fighting and running away--eating and drinking and +watching their women cultivate the corn and beans and sweet +potatoes--without as much as foreboding of the taxes, work for wages, +missionaries, law and commerce soon to come. + +Schillingschen was more than taking his time, he was dawdling, keeping +his donkeys fat, and letting his men wander at pleasure to right and +left gathering reports for him of unusual folk or things. We came very +close to being seen by one of them, who emerged from a village near us +with a pair of chickens he had foraged, followed by the owner of the +luckless birds in a great hurry and fury to get paid for them. + +Schillingschen's tent could fairly easily be stalked from the far side +in broad daylight, and I was for making the attempt. There was the +risk that one of our porters might grow restless and break bounds if we +waited, or that the Baganda might take to yelling. We gagged him as +soon as I talked of the danger of that. + +Coutlass and Brown, however, were the only two who would agree with me. + Like me, they were weary to death of mtama porridge, with or without +milk, and the sight of Schillingschen's distant campfire with a great +pot resting on stones in the midst of it whetted appetite for white +man's food. They and I were for supping as soon as possible from the +German's provender, and sleeping under his canvas roof. + +But Fred and Will insisted on caution, claiming reasonably that +surprise would be infinitely easier after dark. It was unlikely that +Schillingschen would post any sentries, and not much matter if he did. +His knowledge of natives and natural air of authority made him quite +safe among any but the wildest, and these were a comparatively peaceful +folk. In all probability he would sit and read by candle light, with +his boys all snoring a hundred yards away. There was no making Fred +and Will see the virtue of my contention that a sudden attack while his +boys were scattered all about among the villages would be just as +likely to succeed; so we settled down to wait where we were with what +patience we could summon. + +It was a miserable, hungry business, under a blazing hot sky, packed +tightly together among men who objected to our smell as strongly as we +to theirs. It is the fixed opinion of all black people that the white +man smells like "bad water"; and no word seems discoverable that will +quite return the compliment. That afternoon was reminiscent of the +long days on the dhow, when nobody could move without disturbing +everybody else, and we all breathed the same hot mixed stench over and +over. + +We posted two sentries to lie with their eyes on the level of the rim +and guard against surprise. But there was so little to watch, except +kites wheeling overhead everlastingly, that they went to sleep; and we +were so bored, and so sure of our hiding-place and Schillingschen's +unsuspicion that we did not notice them. I myself fell asleep toward +five o'clock, and when I awoke the sun was so low in the west that our +hollow lay in deep gloom. + +Fred was lying on his elbow, sucking an unfilled, unlighted pipe. Will +lay on his side, too, with back toward both of us, ruminating. +Coutlass and Brown were both asleep, but Coutlass awoke as I rolled +over and struck him with my heel. Nearly all the porters were snoring. + +It was a sharp exclamation from the Greek that caused me to sit up and +face due westward. The others lay as they were. It was the gloom in +our hollow--the velvety shadows in which we lay with granite boulders +scattered between us, and no alertness on our part that saved that day, +although Coutlass acted instantly and creditably, once awake. + +Schillingschen stood there looking down on us, with his feet planted +squarely on the rim of the hollow, and Mauser rifle under one arm. His +great splay beard flowed sidewise in the evening wind. One hand he +held over his eyes, trying to make out details in the dark, as stupid +as we were. He stood with his back to the setting sun, exposing +himself without any thought of the risk he ran, his huge, filled-out +head refusing stubbornly to take in the truth of what had happened. +Once convinced, the Prussian mind is not readily unconvinced. He had +assured himself long ago that our party was at the bottom of Victoria +Nyanza. + +The second he did make out details he was swift to act, but that was +already too late, although he did not know it at the moment. He threw +up his rifle and laughed--a great deep guffaw from the stomach, that +awoke every one. + +"So, so!" he gloated. "So Mr. Oakes and his fellow escaped convicts +are alive after all! Ha-ha-ho-ho! So you followed me all this way, +only to forget that kites are curious! A fine comfortless journey you +must have had, too! There were twenty kites wheeling over you. I +counted, and wondered. Curiosity drove me to come and see. The first +man who moves a finger, Mr. Oakes, will die that instant! Let your +rifle lie where it is!" + +It would be no use pretending the man had not courage, at all events of +the sort that glories in the upper hand of a fight. He chuckled, and +reveled in our predicament, taking in, now that his eyes had grown +accustomed to the darkness of our hollow, the utter lack of comforts or +provisions, and enjoying our disappointment. He certainly knew himself +master of the situation. + +"I suspect you have a man of mine down there with you!" he announced +presently. "Is not that my Baganda? Is he gagged? Is he bound? +Loose him, Mr. Oakes, at once!" I say at once! Otherwise you die now!" + +He pointed his rifle directly at Fred, and the next second fired it, +but not intentionally. Coutlass sprang from behind him, having crawled +out through a shadow, and hit him so hard with a stone on the back of +the skull that he loosed off the rifle and pitched head-foremost down +among us. The Greek promptly jumped on top of him with a yell like a +maniac's, failing to land with both heels on his backbone by nothing +but luck. As it was, he lost balance and sat down so hard on +Schillingschen's head that there was no need of the energy with which +we all followed suit, piling all over him to pin him down like hounds +that have rolled their quarry over. + +The German was stunned--knocked into utter oblivion--breathing like a +sleeping drunkard, and bleeding freely from the nose. Coutlass jumped +off him and began to execute a war dance up and down, yelling like a +madman until Fred threatened him with the rifle and Will gagged him +from behind. + +"Do you want his armed men down on us, you ass?" + +"Gassharamminy!" he laughed. "I forgot about them! Let us go and eat +their supper!" He spoke as a man who had full right now to be +considered a member in good standing. We all noticed it, and exchanged +glances; but that was no time for argument about men's rights. + +Brown was already over the rim of the hollow and making in the +direction of the tents. We called him back and compelled him to stay +on guard over the prisoners, to his awful disgust, for he suspected +there was whisky among Schillingschen's "chop-boxes." But so did we! +We left all our boys with him except Kazimoto, threatening them with +hitherto unheard of penalties if they dared as much as show a lock of +hair above the rim of the hollow while we were gone. + +Then the rest of us, with Fred leading and Kazimoto last of all, crept +out and sought the lowest level along which to reach the camp. Will +had taken Schillingschen's rifle and went next after Fred. Coutlass +followed so close on my heels that more than once he trod on them, and +once so nearly tripped me that Fred called a halt behind some bushes +and cursed me for clumsiness. + +But it turned out to be easy hunting. The ten boys had tied the +donkeys up to a rope in line and sat crooning while their supper cooked +at a long bright fire. We came up to Schillingschen's tent from +behind, crept around the side of it, and in a moment had three more +good weapons, I taking the big-bore elephant gun that had dealt with us +so savagely on the lake, Coutlass seizing another Mauser, and Kazimoto +adopting the shot-gun. + +The rest was child's play. We marched out of the tent all abreast and +called on the ten boys to surrender, making them put up their hands +until Coutlass had found their five rifles and ammunition. They were +too astonished even to ask questions. Accustomed to Schillingschen's +despotic orders, they obeyed ours silently, showing no symptoms of +trying to bolt, having nowhere to bolt to; but we took precautions. + +Kazimoto ran back to bring our party, and we took a coil of iron wire +from Schillingschen's trade goods and fastened every prisoner's hands +firmly behind his back, including the unconscious German's. That done, +we ate the meat, beans and vegetable supper that the ten had cooked. + +Brown and Coutlass found Schillingschen's whisky after that, and under +its influence again swore ceaseless friendship beneath the +non-committal stars. While they feasted we took Coutlass' rifle away +as a plain precaution. + + + + +CHAPTER FOURTEEN + +PARCERE SUBJECTIS? + +'When the devil's at bay +Ye may kneel down and pray +For a year and a day +To be spared the distress of dispatching him, +But the longer ye kneel +The more squeamish ye'll feel +'Cause the louder he'll squeal, +And at brotherly talk there's no matching him. +Discussion's his aim, +And as sure as you're game +To give heed to the same, +You regarding extremes with compunction, +You may bet he'll requite +Your compassion with spite, +Knifing you in the night +With much probonopublico unction. + + +For a while we looked like having trouble with Coutlass. We gave Brown +a rifle, and distributed the other Mausers among Kazimoto and our best +boys, but we did not dare trust the Greek with a weapon he might use +against us, and be resented that bitterly. He had an answer to Fred's +subterfuge that as a white man he would need a license before daring to +carry firearms. "I dare do anything! I care nothing for law!" he +argued, and Fred nodded. + +That night we reveled in luxury, for after the life we had led recently +it took time to reaccustom any of us to the common comforts. +Schillingschen traveled with every provision for his carcass and his +belly; and we plundered him. + +We put the prisoners and our own porters in a hut in the nearest native +village (less than half a mile away) under the watchful eye of Kazimoto +and the shot-gun, dividing Schillingschen's two large tents between +ourselves. The others offered me the camp-bed as a recent invalid, but +I refused, and Will won it by matching coins. We divided the blankets +in the same way, and all the spare underwear. Brown and Coutlass had +to be satisfied with cotton blankets from a bale of trade goods; but +when they had rifled enough to build up good thick mattresses as well +as coverings, there were still two apiece for our boys and all the +porters. + +The chop-boxes were a revelation. The man had with him food enough for +at least a year's traveling, including all the canned delicacies that +hungry men dream about in the wilderness. Before we slept we ate so +enormously of so very many things that it was a wonder that we were +able to sleep at all. + +We all hoped Schillingschen would die, for it was a hard problem what +to do with him. He had no papers in his possession, beyond a diary +written in German schrift that even Will could not make head or tail +of, for all his knowledge of the language; and a very vague map +bearing the imprint of the British government, filled in by himself +with the names of the villages he had passed on his way. There was no +proof that we could find that would have condemned him of nefarious +practises in a British court of law. + +"And believe me," argued Will, sprawling on the plundered bed, blowing +the smoke of a Melachrino through his nose, "your local British judges +would take the word of Professor Schillingschen against all of ours, +backed up by simply overwhelming native evidence! They're so in awe of +Schillingschen's professorial degree, and of his passports, and his +letters of introduction from this and that mogul that they wouldn't +believe him guilty of arson if they caught him in the act!" + +"Something's got to be done with him pretty soon, though," answered +Fred from the floor, lying at ease on a pillow and a folded Jaeger +blanket, smoking a fat cigar. + +Coutlass and Brown were singing songs outside the tent and I sat in a +genuine armchair with my feet on a box full of canned plum pudding. +(Nobody knows, who has not hungered on the high or low veld--who has +not eaten meat without vegetables for days on end, and then porridge +without salt or sugar--how good that common, export, canned plum +Pudding is! To sit with my feet on the case that contained it was the +arrogance of affluence!) + +"We have his stores and his papers," said I. "We have his Baganda; +and as time goes on, and his other spies begin to come in, we shall +have them, too, if we're half careful. Why don't we let him go, to +tell his own tale wherever he likes?" + +"Maybe he'll die yet!" said the optimist on the camp-bed, blowing more +cigarette smoke. + +"Suppose he doesn't. We've done our best to keep him alive. He's quit +bleeding. Suppose we let him go, and he lays a charge against us. +Suppose they send after us and bring us in. We've his diary and his +men--evidence enough," said I. + +"You bally ass!" Fred murmured. + +"Cuckoo!" laughed Will. + +"I don't believe he'd dare approach a British official with his story," +said I. + +"Incredible imbecile!" Fred answered. "He has the gall of a brass +monkey." + +"And magnetism--loads of it," Will added. "He'd make the Pope play +three-card monte." + +"To say nothing," continued Fred, "of the necessity of not letting the +government know we're here! Rather than turn him loose, I'd march him +into Kisumu and hand him over. But, as Will says wisely, our +proconsuls would believe him, and put us under bonds for outraging a +distinguished foreigner." + +"Well, then," said I, "what the devil shall we do with him? Offer +something constructive, you two solons!" + +"Have the four men we borrowed from the island bolted home yet?" +wondered Will. + +"They hadn't this evening," I answered. "I don't believe they'll +venture home until we stop feeding them. They were hungry on their +island. Our shortest commons then seemed affluence. Now they're in +heaven!" + +"Their canoes must be where they left them in the papyrus." + +"Sure. Who'd steal a canoe?" + +"Whoever could find them," Fred answered. "But they're skilfully +hidden. Why don't we put Schillingschen and his ten pet blacks into +those canoes, with a little food and no rifles--and show them the way +to German East?" + +"Because," said I, "they wouldn't go. They'd turn around and paddle +for Kisumu, to file complaint against us." + +"Don't you suppose," suggested Will, "that Schillingschen's own men 'ud +insist on going home? Out on the water, ten to one, without guns or +too much food, they wouldn't have the same fear of him they had +formerly." + +"That chance is too broad and long and deep," said Fred. "Altogether +too bulky to be taken. Let's sleep on it. This cigar's done, and I'm +drowsy. Are you quite sure Schillingschen's hands are fast behind him? + Then good night, all!" + +The problem looked no easier next morning, with Schillingschen +recovered sufficiently to be hungry and sit up. There was a look in +his eye of smoldering courage and assurance that did not bode well for +us, and when we untwisted the iron wire from his wrists to let him wash +himself and eat he looked about him with a sort of quick-fire cunning +that belied his story of headache. + +He was much too astute a customer to be judged superficially. I +whispered to Fred not to shackle him again too soon, and sat near and +watched him, close enough for real safety, yet not so close that he +might not venture to try tricks. He said nothing whatever, but I +noticed that his eye, after roving around the tent, kept returning +again and again to a chop-box that stood near the foot of the bed. + +Now I had unpacked that chop-box and repacked it the previous night. I +knew everything it contained--exactly how many cans of plum pudding. +It was the box I had rested my feet on. I felt perfectly sure he knew +as well as I what the box contained, and to suppose he would sit there +planning to recover canned food, however dainty, was ridiculous. + +Wherefore it was a safe conclusion he was trying to deceive me as to +his real intention. I put my foot on the box again, and he frowned, as +much as to say I had forestalled his only hope. Pretending to watch +the box and him, I examined every detail of the tent, particularly that +side of it opposite the box, away from where it seemed he wanted me to +look. + +The human eye is a highly imperfect piece of mechanism and the human +brain is mostly grayish slush. It was minutes before I detected the +edge of his diary, sticking out from the pocket of Fred's shooting coat +that itself protruded from under the folded blanket on which Fred had +slept. It was nearer to Schillingschen than to me. After watching him +for about fifteen minutes, during which he made a great fuss about his +headache, I was quite sure it was the diary that interested him. + +I stooped and extracted it from the coat pocket. The grimace he made +was certainly not due to headache. + +"Fred!" I called out, and he and Will came striding in together. + +"That diary's the key," I said. "It's important. It holds his +secrets!" + +Will was swift to put that to the test. + +"What will you offer?" he asked Schillingschen. "We want you to go +back direct to German East. Will you go, if we give you back your +diary?" + +Schillingschen blundered into the trap like a buffalo in strange +surroundings. + +"Ja wohl!" he answered. "Give me that, and yon shall never see me +again!" + +At that Fred threw himself full length on his blanket and took one of +Schillingschen's cigars. + +"Of course," he said, "you would give anything for leave to take those +words back! You needn't try to hide the wince--we fully appreciate the +situation! What do you say, you fellows? How about last night's idea? + Who mooted it? Shall we send him back by canoe to German East, with a +guarantee that if he doesn't go we'll hand over diary and him to our +government?" + +"Better send the book to the commissioner at Nairobi, or Mombasa, or +wherever he is," suggested Will. "Then if the 'prof' here doesn't get +a swift move on he's liable to be overtaken by the cops, I should say." + +"Let's make no promises," said I. "I vote we simply give him time to +get away." + +At that the Germain saw the weak side of our case in a flash. + +"If you dared give that diary to your government," be growled, "you +would do so without bargaining with me! Why do you propose to let me +go? Out of love for me? No! But because you dare not appeal to your +government! Give me that diary, and I will go at once to German East, +not otherwise! It is only a diary," he added. "Nothing +important--merely my private jottings and memoranda." + +Fred turned toward me so that Schillingschen could not see his face. + +"Are you willing to start for Kisumu at once with that book?" he asked, +and I nodded. He winked at me so violently that I could not trust +myself to answer aloud and keep a straight face. + +"Very well,"' he said. "Suppose you start with it to-morrow morning. +At the end of a week well turn the professor home to follow his own +nose!" + +Schillingschen shrugged his shoulders and refused to be drawn into +further argument. We gave him a good meal from his own provisions, and +then once more made his hands fast with wire behind him and left him to +sleep off his rage if he cared to in a corner of the tent. + +Later that morning we sent for the Baganda--gave him a view of +Schillingschen trussed and helpless--and questioned him about the man +he boasted he knew, who could tell us what Schillingschen was after. +He was so full of fear by that time that he held back nothing. + +He assured us the German was after buried ivory. There was a man, who +had promised to meet Schillingschen, who knew where to find the ivory +and would lead the way to it. He did not know names or places--knew +only that the man would be found waiting at a certain place, and was +not white. + +"How did you get that information?" Fred demanded. + +"By listening." + +"When? Where?" + +"At night, months ago, in Nairobi, outside the professor's tent. I lay +under the fly among the loads and listened. The man came in the dark, +and went in the dark. I did not see him. I did not hear him called by +name. He must have been an old man. Speaking Kiswahili, he admitted +he knew where the ivory is. He said he saw it buried, and that he +alone survives of all men who buried it. He promised to lead the +professor to the place on condition that the Germans shall release his +brother, and his brother's wife, and two sons whom they keep in prison +on a life-sentence. The professor agreed, but said, 'Wait! There are +first those people who also think they know the secret. Perhaps they +do! Wait until after I have dealt with them. Then you shall take me +to the place! After that your criminal relations shall be pardoned! +Here is money. Go and wait for me at the place we spoke of when we +talked before.'" + +We each cross-examined him in turn, but could not make him change his +story in any essential. He merely exaggerated the parts that he +guessed might please us, and begged to be allowed to run before +Schillingschen could break loose and get after him. + +By noontime, when we gave him his second meal, Schillingschen had made +up his own mind that his case was desperate and called for heroic +remedy. + +"All right," he growled. "I need that diary. Hand it to me and I'll +tell you how to find what you're after!" + +"You mean about the man who's to meet you?" suggested Fred blandly. + +Schillingschen started as if shot. + +"One of your men is an eavesdropper," Fred assured him with a cheerful +nod. "That plug has been pulled already, Professor!" + +"Ley's play the cards face up!" Will interrupted impatiently. "Listen, +Schillingschen. You're an all-in scoundrel. You're a spy. You're a +bloody murderer of women and defenseless natives. If we could prove +that we wouldn't argue with you. We know you burned that dhow with the +women in it, but we've got no evidence, that's all. We know the German +government wants that ivory, and we know why. We also want it. Our +only reason for secrecy is that we hope for better terms from the +British government. We've nothing to fear, except possible financial +loss. If you prefer to come with us to Kisumu and have the whole +matter out in court, all you need do is just say so. On the other +hand, if you want to get out of this country before your diary can +reach the hands of the British High Commissioner--you'd just better +slide, that's all!" + +"You've only until dawn to think it over," remarked Fred. "You poor +boob!" continued Will. "You imagine we're criminals because you're one +yourself! The difference between your offer and ours is that you're +bluffing and we know it, whereas we're not bluffing by as much as a +hair, and the quicker you see that the better for you!" + +"Oh, rats! Let's take him in with us to Kisumu!" said I, and at that +Professor Schillingschen capitulated. + +"Very well" he said. "Kurtz und gut. I will leave the country. Permit +me to take only food enough, and my porters, and one gun!" + +"No guns!" said Fred promptly. + +Schillingschen sighed resignedly, and we went out of the tent to talk +over ways and means. In spite of our recent experience of Germany's +colonial government we were still so ignorant of the workings of the +mens germanica that we took his surrender at face value. + +The problem of getting him down to the lake shore safely was none too +simple. I was soft hearted and headed enough to propose that we should +loose his hands, now that he had surrendered, and permit him reasonable +liberty. Will--least inclined of all of us to cruelty--was disposed to +agree with me. We might have overborne Fred's objections if Coutlass +and Brown, returning from walking off their overnight debauch together, +had not shouted and beckoned us in a mysterious sort of way, as if some +new discovery puzzled them. + +We walked about a hundred and fifty yards to where they stood by a row +of low ant-hills. Neither of them was in a sociable frame of mind. It +was obvious from the moment we could see their faces clearly that they +had not called us to enjoy a joke. They stood like two dumb bird-dogs, +pointing, and we had to come about abreast of them before we knew why +we were summoned. + +There lay five clean-picked skeletons, one on each ant-hill. One was a +big bird's; one looked like a dog's; the third was a snake's; the +fourth a young antelope's; and the fifth was certainly that of a +yellow village cur, for some of the hairs from the tip of its tail were +remaining, not yet borne off by the ants. + +The skeletons lay as if the creatures had died writhing. There were +pegs driven into the earth that had evidently held them in position by +the sinews. Most peculiar circumstance of all, there was a camp-chair +standing very near by, with its feet deep in the red earth, as if a +very heavy man had sat in it. + +I went back to the camp and told Kazimoto to bring one of the +professor's men. Kazimoto had to do the talking, for we did not know +the man's language, nor he ours. + +Yes, the professor always did that to animals. He liked to sit and +watch them and keep the kites away. He said it was white man's +knowledge (science?). Yes, the animals were pegged out alive on the +ant-hills, and the professor would sit with his watch in his hand, +counting the minutes until they ceased from writhing. It was part of +the duty of the ten to catch animals and bring them alive to him in +camp for that purpose. No, they did not know why he did it, except +that it was white maia's knowledge. No, natives did not do that way, +except now and then to their enemies. The professor always made +threats he would do so to them if they ran away from him, or disobeyed, +or misbehaved. Certainly they believed him! Why should they not +believe him? Did not Germans always keep their word when they talked +of punishment? + +We decided after that to let Schillingschen lie bound, whether or not +the iron wire cut his wrists. We did not trouble to go back to inquire +whether he needed drink, but let him wait for that until supper-time. +The remainder of that afternoon we spent discussing who should have the +disagreeable and not too easy task of taking the professor to the lake +and sending him on his way. We sat with our backs against a rock, with +the firearms beside us and a good view of all the countryside, very +much puzzled as to whether to leave Coutlass behind in camp (with Brown +and the whisky) or send him (with or without Brown) and one or two of +us on the errand. He was a dangerous ally in either case. + +Evening fell, and the good smell of supper came along the wind to find +us still undecided. We returned to the tent thinking that perhaps +something Schillingschen himself might say would help us to decide one +way or the other. + +"Better see if the brute wants a drink," said Fred, and I went in ahead +to offer him water. + +He was gone! Clean gone, without a trace, or a hint as to how he +managed it! I called the others, and we hunted. The sides of the tent +were pegged down tight all around. The front, it is true, was wide +open, but we had sat in full view of it and not so much as a rat could +have crept out without our seeing. There were no signs of burrowing. +He was not under the bed, or behind the boxes, or between the sides of +the tent and the fly. The only cover for more than a hundred yards was +the shallow depression along which we had come to the capture of the +camp, and that was the way he must have taken. But that, too, had been +practically in full view of us all the time. + +We counted heads and called the roll. Coutlass was close by. It did +not look as if he had played traitor this time. Brown was sleeping off +his headache in the shade. Kazimoto and all the boys were accounted +for. The prisoners were safe. No donkeys were missing--no +firearms--and no loads. The earth had simply opened up and swallowed +Schillingschen, and that was all about it! + +He had not made off with his pocket diary. Fred had that. There and +then we packed it in an empty biscuit tin and buried it under a rock, +Will and I keeping watch while Fred did the digging and covering up. +It was too likely that Schillingschen would come back in the night and +try to steal it for any of us to care about keeping it on his person. + +It was too late to look far and wide for him that evening. A hunter +such as he could have lain unseen in the dark with us almost stepping +on him. Gone was all appetite for supper! We nibbled, and swore, and +smoked--locked up the whisky--defied either Brown or Coutlass to try to +break the boxes open--and arranged to take turns on sentry-go all that +night, Will, Fred, and I--declining very pointedly offers by the other +two to have their part in keeping watch. In spite of lack of evidence +we suspected Coutlass; and we knew no particular reason for having +confidence in Brown. + + + + +CHAPTER FIFTEEN + + +THE SONG OF THE DARK-LORDS + +Turn in! Turn in! The jungle lords come forth + Cat-footed, blazing-eyed--the owners of the dark, +What though ye steal the day! We know the worth + Of vain tubes spitting at a phantom mark +With only human eyes to guide the fire! + Tremble, ye hairless ones, who only see by day, +The night is ours! Who challenges our ire? + Urrumph! Urrarrgh! Turn in there! Way! + +Ye come with iron lines and dare to camp + Where we were lords when Daniel stood a test! +Where once the tired safaris used to tramp + On noisy wheels ye loll along at rest! +Tremble, ye long-range lovers of the day, + 'Twas we who shook the circus walls of ancient Rome! +The dark is ours! Take cover! Way there! Way! + Urmmph! Urrarrgh! Take cover! Home! + + +The man who tries to explain away coincidences to men who were the +victims of them is likely to need more sympathy than he will get. The +dictionary defines them clumsily as instances of coinciding, apparently +accidental, but which suggest a casual connection. + +Lions paid us a visit that first night after Schillingschen's +escape--the first lions we had seen or heard since landing on the north +shore of the lake. We prayed they might get Schillingschen, yet they +and he persisted until morning--they roaring and circling never near +enough for the man on guard to get a shot--he also circling the camp, +calling to his ten men, whom we had transferred from the native village +to the second tent under guard of Kazimoto and our own men as a +precaution. + +Our boys slept as if drugged, but not his. He called to them in a +language that even Kazimoto did not understand, and they kept answering +at intervals. Once, when I was listening to locate Schillingschen if I +could, the lions came sniffing and snuffing to the back side of the +tent. I tried to stalk them--a rash, reprehensible, tenderfoot trick. +Luck was with me; they slunk away in the shadows, and I lived to +summon Fred and Will. We tried to save the donkeys, but the lions took +three of them at their leisure, and scared the rest so that they broke +out of the thorn-bush boma we had made the boys build (as a precaution +against leopards, not lions). Next morning out of forty we recovered +twenty-five, and wondered how many of them Schillingschen got. + +Remembering how we ourselves had managed, without ammunition or +supplies, we did not fool ourselves with the belief that +Schillingschen, with his brutal personal magnetism and profound +knowledge of natives, would not do better. The probability was he +would stir up the countryside against us. + +He had been doing missionary work; it might be the natives of that +part were already sufficiently schooled to do murder at his bidding. + +We decided to leave at once for a district where he had not yet done +any of his infernal preaching. + +"You should set a trap and shoot the swine!" Coutlass insisted. Will +was inclined to agree with him, but Fred and I demurred. The British +writ had never really run as far as the slopes of Elgon, and we could +see them ahead of us not very many marches away. If Schillingschen +intended to dog us and watch chances we preferred to have him do that +in a remote wilderness, where our prospect of influencing natives would +likely be as good as his, that was all. + +Part of our strategy was to make an early start and march swiftly, +taking advantage of his physical weariness after a night in the open on +the prowl; but after a few days in camp it is the most difficult thing +imaginable to get a crowd of porters started on the march. It was more +particularly difficult on that occasion because none of our men were +familiar with Schillingschen's loads, and the captured ten, even when +we loosed their hands and treated them friendly, showed no disposition +to be useful. We gave them a load apiece to carry, but to every one we +had to assign two of our own as guards, so that, what with having lost +the fifteen donkeys, we had not a man to spare. + +It was after midday when we got off at last. We had not left the camp +more than half a mile behind when I looked back and saw Schillingschen +where his great tent had stood, cavorting on hands and feet like an +enormous dog-baboon, searching every inch of the ground for anything we +might have left. We three stood and watched him for half an hour, +sweating with fear lest he chance on the place where his diary lay +buried in the tin box. We began to wish we had brought it with us. I +said we had done foolishly to leave it, although I had approved of +Fred's burying it at the time. + +"Suppose," I argued, "he sets the natives of that village to searching! + What's to prevent him? You know the kind of job they'd make of +it--blade by blade of grass--pebble by pebble. Where they found a +trace of loosened dirt they'd dig." + +"Did you bury something, then?" inquired a voice we knew too well. "By +the ace of stinks, those natives can smell out anything a white man +ever touched!" + +We turned and faced Coutlass, whom we had imagined on ahead with the +safari. If he noticed our sour looks, he saw fit to ignore them; but +he took an upperhanded, new, insolent way with us, no doubt due to our +refusal to shoot Schillingschen. He ascribed that to a yellow streak. + +"I was right. Gassharamminy! I could have sworn I saw two of you on +watch while the third man dug among the stones! What did you bury? I +came back to talk about Brown. The poor drunkard wants to head more to +the east. I say straight on. What do you say?" + +We told him to go forward. Then we looked in one another's eyes, and +said nothing. Whether or not the original decision had been wise, +there was no question now what was the proper course. + +Instead of tiring out Schillingschen we made an early camp by a +watercourse, and built a very big protection for the donkeys against +lions--a high thorn enclosure, and an outer one not so high, with a +space between them wide enough for the two tents and half a dozen big +fires. Before dark we had enough fuel stacked up to keep the fires +blazing well all night long. + +Neither Coutlass nor Brown had had a drink of whisky that day, so it +was all the more remarkable that Coutlass lay down early in a corner of +the tent and fell into a sound sleep almost at once. We were +thoroughly glad of it. Our plan was for two of us to creep out of camp +when it was dark enough, and recover the contents of that tin box +before Schillingschen or the blacks could forestall us. + +The lions began roaring again at about sundown, but they love +donkey-meat more than almost any except giraffe, and it was not likely +they would trouble us. We were so sure the task was not particularly +risky that Fred, who would have insisted on the place of greater danger +for himself, consented willingly enough to stay in camp while Will and +I went back. Our original intention was to take Schillingschen's +patent, wind-proof, non-upsettable camp lantern to find the way with +and keep wild beasts at bay; but just as Will went toward the tent to +fetch it (Fred's back was turned, over on the far side where he was +seeing to the camp-fires) we both at once caught sight of Coutlass +creeping on hands and knees along a shadow. We had closed the gap in +the outer wall of thorn, but he dragged aside enough to make an opening +and slipped through, thinking himself unobserved. + +To have followed him with a lantern would have been worse than my crime +of stalking lions in the dark. Will ran to tell Fred what had happened +while I followed the Greek through the gap, and presently Will and I +were both hot on his trail, as close to him as we could keep without +letting him hear us. + +"Fred says," Will whispered, "if we catch him talking with +Schillingschen, shoot 'em both! Fred won't let him into camp again +unless we bring back proof he's not a traitor!" + +We were pursuing a practised hunter, who at first kept stopping to make +sure he was not followed. He took a line across that wild country in +the dark with such assurance, and so swiftly that it was unbelievably +hard to follow him quietly. It was not long before we lost sound of +him. Then we ran more freely, trusting to luck as much as anything to +keep him thinking he had the darkness to himself. + +Our short day's journey seemed to have trebled itself! We were +leg-weary and tired-eyed when at last we reached, and nearly fell into +a hollow we recognized. Will went down and struck a match to get a +look at his watch. + +"There ought to be a moon in about ten minutes," he whispered. "We're +within sight of the place. Suppose we climb a tree and scout about a +bit." + +It was not a very big tree that we selected, but it was the biggest; +it had low branches, and the merit of being easy to climb. + +When the pale latter half of the moon announced itself we could dimly +make out from the upper branches all of the flat ground where the camp +had been. There was no sign of Coutlass. None of Schillingschen. A +lioness and two enormous lions stood facing one another in a triangle, +almost exactly on the spot where the larger tent had stood, not fifty +yards from us. + +"Gee!"' whispered Will excitedly. "We nearly stumbled on 'em!" + +"Shoot!" I whispered. My own position on the branch was so insecure +that I could not have brought my rifle into use without making a +prodigious noise. Will shook his head. + +"I can see Coutlass now! Look at that rock--he's hiding behind +it--see, he's climbing! And look, there's Schillingschen!" + +Neither man was aware of the other's presence, or of ours. They were +out of sight of each other, Coutlass on the very rocks against which we +had leaned to watch the tent the afternoon before, and neither man +really out of reach of anything with claws that cared to go after them +in earnest. + +The arrival of the dim moon seemed to give the lions their cue for +action. The lioness turned half away, as if weary of waiting, and then +lay down full-length to watch as one lion sprang at the other with a +roar like the wrath of warring worlds. They met in mid-air, claw to +claw, and went down together--a roaring, snarling, eight-legged, +two-tailed catastrophe--never apart--not still an instant--tearing, +beating--rolling over and over--emitting bellows of mingled rage and +agony whenever the teeth of one or other brute went home. + +Even as shadows fighting in the shadows they were terrible to watch. +They shook the very earth and air, as if they owned all the primeval +bestial force of all the animals. And the she-lion lay watching them, +her eyes like burning yellow coals, not moving a muscle that we could +see. + +Iron could not have withstood the blows; the thunder of them reached +us in the tree! Steel ropes could not have endured the strain as claws +went home, and the brutes wrenched, ripped, and yelled in titanic +agony. Their fury increased. Wounds did not seem to enfeeble them. +Nothing checked the speed of the fighting an instant, until suddenly +the lioness stood erect, gave a long loud call like a cat's, and turned +and vanished. + +She had seen. She knew. Like a spring loosed from its containing box +one of the lions freed himself in mid-air and hurtled clear, landing on +all-fours and hurrying away after the lioness with a bad limp. The +other lion fell on his side and lay groaning, then roared +half-heartedly and dragged himself away. + +The second lion had hardly gone when Coutlass descended gingerly from +the rock, peering about him, and listening. He evidently had no +suspicion of our presence, for he never once looked in our direction. +It was Schillingschen, not lions, he feared; and Schillingschen, +clambering over the top of another rock, watched him as a night-beast +eyes its prey. Another one-act drama was staged, and it was not time +for us to come down from the tree yet. + +Satisfied he was not followed and that Schillingschen was elsewhere, +Coutlass crept from rock to rock toward the little cluster of small +ones where, by his own confession, he had seen Fred bury the box. +Schillingschen stalked him through the shadows as actively as a great +ape, making no sound, as clearly visible to us as he was invisible to +Coutlass. + +There was not a trace of mist--nothing to obscure the dim pale light, +and as the moon swung higher into space we could see both men's every +movement, like the play of marionettes. + +Down on his knees at last among the small loose rocks, Coutlass began +digging with his fingers--grew weary of that very soon, and drew out +the long knife from his boot--dug with that like a frenzied man until +from our tree we heard the hard point strike on metal. Then +Schillingschen began to close in, and it was time for us to drop down +from the tree. + +We made an abominable lot of noise about it, for the tree creaked, and +our clothing tore on the thorny projections of limbs that seemed to +have grown there since we climbed. To make matters worse, I stepped +off the lowest branch, imagining there was another branch beneath it, +and fell headlong, rifle and all, with a clatter and thump that should +have alarmed the village half a mile away. And Will, not knowing what +I had done but alarmed by the noise I made, jumped down on top of me. + +We picked ourselves up and listened. We could hear the short quick +stabs of the knife as Coutlass loosed and scooped the earth out. Among +the myriad noises of the African night our own, that seemed appalling +to us, had passed unnoticed--or perhaps Schillingschen heard, and +thought it was the injured lion dragging himself away. (Nobody needed +worry about the chance of attack from that particular lion for many a +night to come; he would ask nothing better than to be left to eat mice +and carrion until his awful wounds were healed.) + +Reassured by the sound of digging we crept forward, knowing pretty well +the best path to take from having seen Schillingschen stalking. But it +was more by dint of their obsession than by any skill of ours that we +crept up near without giving them alarm. Coutlass was still on his +knees, throwing out the last few handfuls of loose dirt. +Schillingschen stood almost over him, so close that the thrown dirt +struck against his legs. + +We took up positions in the shadow, one to either side, almost afraid +to breathe, I cursing because the rifle quivered in my two hands like +the proverbial aspen leaf. The prospect of shooting a white man--even +such a thorough-paced blackguard white as Schillingschen--made me as +nervous as a school-girl at a grown-up party. + +At last Coutlass groped down shoulder-deep and drew the box out. + +"Give that to me!" Schillingschen shouted like a thunder-clap, making +me jump as if I were the one intended. + +The moonlight gleamed on the tin box. Coutlass did not drop it but +turned his head to look behind him. Schillingschen swung for his face +with a clenched fist and the whole weight and strength of his ungainly +body. He would have broken the jaw he aimed at had the blow landed; +but the Greek's wit was too swift. + +He kicked like a mule, hard and suddenly, ducking his head, and then +diving backward between the German's legs that were outspread to give +him balance and leverage for the fist-blow. Schillingschen pitched +over him head-forward, landing on both hands with one shoulder in the +hole out of which the box had come. With the other arm he reached for +the knife that Coutlass had laid on the loose earth. Coutlass reached +for it, too, too late, and there followed a fight not at all inferior +in fury to the battle of the lions. Humans are only feebler than the +beasts, not less malicious. + +Will reached for the tin box, opened it, took out the diary, closed it +again, put the diary in his own inner pocket, and returned the box; +but they never saw or heard him. The German, with an arm as strong as +an ape's, thrust again and again at Coutlass, missing his skin by a +bait's breadth as the Greek held off the blows with the utmost strength +of both hands. + +Suddenly Coutlass sprang to his feet, broke loose for a second, landed +a terrific kick in the German's stomach, and closed again. He twisted +Schillingschen's great splay beard into a wisp and wrenched it, forcing +his head back, holding the knife-hand in his own left, and spitting +between the German's parted teeth; then threw all his weight on him +suddenly, and they went down together, Coutlass on top and +Schillingschen stabbing violently in the direction of his ribs. + +Letting go the beard, Coutlass rained blows on the German's face with +his free fist. Made frantic by that assault Schillingschen squirmed +and upset the Greek's balance, rolled him partly over and, blinded by a +very rain of blows, slashed and stabbed half a dozen times. Coutlass +screamed once, and swore twice as the knife got in between his bones. +The German could not wrench it out again. With both hands free now, +the Greek seized him by the throat and began to throttle him, beating +with his forehead on the purple face the while his steel fingers +kneaded, as if the throat were dough. + +We were not at all inclined to stop Coutlass from killing the man. We +came closer, to see the end, and Coutlass caught sight of us at last. + +"Shoot him!" he screamed. "Gassharamminy! Shoot him, can't you, while +I hold him!" + +As he made that appeal the German convulsed his whole body like an +earthquake, wrenched the knife loose at last, and as Coutlass changed +position to guard against a new terrific stab rolled him over, freed +himself and stood with upraised hand to give the finishing blow. Then +suddenly he saw us and his jaw dropped, the beastly mess that had been +his well-kept beard dropping an inch and showing where the Greeks fist +had broken the front teeth. But that was only for a second--a second +that gave Coutlass time to rise to his knees, and dodge the descending +blow. + +I made up my mind then it was time to shoot the German, whatever the +crimes of the Greek might be; but Coutlass had not grown slower of wit +from loss of blood. As he dodged he rolled sidewise and seized my +rifle, jerking it from my hand. He jerked too quickly. The German saw +the move and kicked it, sending it spinning several yards away. We all +made a sudden scramble for it, Schillingschen leading, when the German +turned as suddenly as one of the great apes he so resembled, tripped +Will by the heel, wrenched the rifle from his right hand, pounced on +the empty tin box, and was gone! + +Too late, I remembered my own rifle and fired after him, emptying the +magazine at shadows. + +Will's rage and self-contempt were more distressing than the Greek's +spouting knife-wounds. + +"By blood and knuckle-bones! Give me that gun of yours, will you! I +go after the swine! I cut his liver out! Where is my knife? Ah, +there it is! Stoop and give it me, for my ribs hurt! So! Now I go +after him!" + +We held Coutlass back, making him be still while we tore his shirt in +strips, and then our own, and tried to staunch the blood, Will almost +blubbering with rage while his fingers worked, and the Greek cursing us +both for wasting time. + +"He has the box!" he screamed. "He has the rifle!" + +"He has no ammunition but what's in the magazine," said I; and that +started Will off swearing at himself all over again from the beginning. + +"You damned yegg!" he complained as be knotted two strips of shirt. +"This would never have happened if you hadn't sneaked out to steal the +contents of the box!" + +Suddenly Coutlass screamed again, like a mad stallion smelling battle. + +"There he is! There the swine is! I see him! I hear him! Give me +that--" + +He reached for my rifle, but I was too quick that time and stepped +back out of range of his arm. As I did that the blood burst anew from +his wounds. He put his left hand to his side and scattered the hot +blood up in the air in a sort of votive offering to the gods of Greek +revenge, and, brandishing the long knife, tore away into the dark. + +"I see him!" he yelled. "I see the swine! By Gassharamminy! To-night +his naked feet'll blister on the floor of hell!" + +We followed him, enthralled by mixed motives made of desire and a sort +of half-genuine respect for the courage of this man, who claimed three +countries and disgraced each one at intervals in turn. We did not go +so fast as he. We were not so enamored of the risks the dark contained. + +Suddenly there came out of the blackness just ahead a marrow-curdling +cry--agony, rage, and desperation--that surely no human ever +uttered--roar, yelp of pain, and battle-cry in one. + +"Help!" yelled Coutlass. "Help! Oh-ah! Ah!" + +We raced forward then, I leading with my rifle thrust forward. A +second later I fired; and that was the only time in my life I ever +touched a lion's face with a rifle muzzle before I pulled the trigger! +The brute fell all in a heap, with Coutlass underneath him and the +Greek's long knife stuck in his shoulder to the hilt. The lion must +have died within the minute without my shot to finish him. + +Coutlass lay dead under the defeated beast that had crawled away to +hide and lick his wounds. We dragged his body out from under, and in +proof that Schillingschen, the common enemy, lived, a bullet came +whistling between us. The flash of my shot had given him direction. +Perhaps he could see us, too, against the moon. We ducked, and lay +still, but no more shots came. + +"He's only got four left," Will whispered. "Maybe he'll husband those!" + +"Maybe he knows by now that box is empty!" said I. "He'll stalk us on +the way back!" + +"Us for the tree, then, until morning!" said Will. + +"Sure!" I answered. "And be shot out of it like crows out of a nest!" + +But Will had the right idea for all that. He was merely getting at it +in his own way. After a little whispering we went to work with fevered +fingers, stripping off the bloody bandages we had tied on the Greek's +ribs--stripping off more of his clothes--then more of ours--tying them +all into one--then skinning the mangled lion with the long knife that +had really ended his career, tearing the hide into strips and knotting +them each to each. In twenty minutes we had a slippery, smeary, smelly +rope of sorts. In five more we had dragged the Greek's dead body +underneath the tree. + +Then I went back to the vantage point among the rocks and waited until +Will had thrown the rope with a stone tied to its end over an upper +branch. Presently I saw Coutlass' dead body go clambering ungracefully +up among the branches, looking so much less dead than alive that I +thought at first Will must have tangled the rope in the crotch of the +tree and be clambering up to release it. + +The ruse worked. Georges Coutlass served us dead as well as living. +Out of the darkness to my left there came a flash and a report. I did +not look to see whether the corpse in the tree jerked as the bullet +struck. Before the flash had died--almost before the crack of the +report bad reached my ear-drums I answered with three shots in quick +succession. + +"Did you get him?" called Will. + +"I don't know," I answered. "If I didn't, he's only got three +cartridges left!" + +We left the Greek's body in the tree for Schillingschen to shoot at +further if be saw fit; it was safer there from marauding animals than +if we had laid it on the ground, and as for the rites of the dead, it +was a toss-up which was better, kites and vultures, or jackals and the +ants. We saw no sense that night in laboring with a knife and our +hands to bury a body that the brutes would dig up again within five +minutes of our leaving it. + +"Schillingschen has three cartridges,"' sad Will. "One each for you, me +and Fred Oakes! I'll stay and trick him some more. I'll think up a +new plan. I don't care if he gets me. I'd hate to face Fred without +my rifle, and have to tell him the enemy is laying for him with it +through my carelessness." + +It was my first experience of Will with hysteria, for it amounted to +that. I remembered that to cure a bevy of school-girls of it one +should rap out something sharply, with a cane if need be. Yet Will was +not like a school-girl, and his hysteria took the pseudo-manly form of +refusal to retreat. I yearned for Fred's camp-fires, and Fred's laugh, +hot supper, or breakfast, or whatever the meal would be, and blankets. +Will, with a ruthless murderer stalking him in the dark, yearned only +for self-contentment. All at once I saw the thing to do, and thrust my +rifle in his hands. + +"Take it," I said. "Hunt Schillingschen all night if you want to. I'm +going back to tell Fred I've lost my rifle, and was afraid to face you +for fear you'd laugh at me. Go on--take it! No, you've got to take +it!" + +I let the rifle fall at his feet, and he was forced to pick it up. By +that time I was on my way, and he had to hurry if he hoped to catch me. + I kept him hurrying--cursing, and calling out to wait. And so, hours +later, we arrived in sight of Fred's fires and answered his cheery +challenge: + +"Halt there, or I'll shoot your bally head off!" + +Lions had kept him busy making the boys pile thornwood on the fires. +He had shot two--one inside the enclosure, where the brute had jumped +in a vain effort to reach the frantic donkeys. We stumbled over the +carcass of the other as we made our way toward the gate-gap, and +dragged it in ignominiously by the tail (not such an easy task as the +uninitiated might imagine.) + +Once within the enclosure I left Will to tell Fred his story as best +suited him, Fred roaring with laughter as he watched Will's rueful +face, yet turning suddenly on Brown to curse him like a criminal for +laughing, too! + +"Go and fetch that Mauser of yours, Brown, and give it to Mr. Yerkes in +place of what he's lost! Hurry, please!" + +It was touch and go whether Brown would obey. But he happened to be +sober, and realized that he had committed tho unpermissible offense. +Fred might laugh at Will all he chose; so might I; either of us might +laugh Fred out of countenance; or they might howl derisively at me. +But Brown, camp-fellow though he was, and not bad fellow though he was, +was not of our inner-guard. He might laugh with, never at, especially +when catastrophe brought inner feelings to the surface. + +"Take the shot-gun if you care to," Fred told him, as he passed Will +the rifle. "I'll unlock the chop-box presently, and let you have some +whisky!" + +This last was the cruellest cut, but it did Brown good. When Fred kept +his promise and produced a whole bottle from the locked-up store Brown +refused to touch it, instead insulting him like a good man, cursing +him--whisky, whiskers, whims and all, using language that Fred +good-naturedly assured him was very unladylike. + +Before dawn the boys, peering through the gaps between the camp-fires, +to distinguish lions if they could and give the alarm before another +could jump in and do damage, swore they saw Schillingschen, rifle in +hand, stalking among the shadows. Nothing could convince them they had +not seen him. They said he stooped like a man in a dream--that big +beard was matted, and his shirt torn--that he strode out of darkness +into darkness like a man whose mind was gone. We purposely laughed at +their story, to see if we could shake them in it. But they laughed at +our incredulity. + +"My eyes are good eyes" answered Kazimoto. "What I see I see! Why +should I invent lies?" + +It was not pleasant to imagine Schillingschen, mind gone or not, with +or without three cartridges and a rifle, prowling about our camp +awaiting opportunity to do murder. + +"Come to think of it," said Fred, "we've no proof he hasn't a lot more +than three cartridges. It's hardly likely, but he might have cached +some in reserve near where we found his camp pitched. More unlikely +things have happened. But the bally man must go to sleep some time. +He seems to have been awake ever since he escaped. We'll be off at +dawn, and either tire him out or leave him!" + +"I'll bet he's got one or more of those donkeys," I answered. "He'll +not be so easy to tire." + +"Suppose you and Will go and sleep," suggested Fred. "Otherwise we'll +all go crazy, and all get left behind!" + +There did not remain much time for sleeping. The porters, being used +to the tents and their loads now, got away to a good start, heading +straight toward the frowning pile of Elgon that hove its great hump +against a blue sky and domineered over the world to the northward. + +There were plenty of villages, well filled with timid spear-men and +hard-working naked wives. Now that we had trade goods in plenty there +was no difficulty at all about making friends with them. They had two +obsessing fears: that it might not rain in proper season, and "the +people" as they called themselves would "have too much hunger"; and +that the men from the mountain might come and take their babies. + +"Which men, from what mountain?" + +"Bad men, from very high up on that mountain!" They pointed toward +Elgon, shuddered, and looked away. + +"Why should they take your babies?" + +"They eat them!" + +"What makes you think that?" + +"We know it! They come! Once in so often they come and fight with us, +and take away, and kill and eat our fat babies!" + +All the inhabitants of all the villages agreed. None of them had ever +ventured on the mountain; but all agreed that very bad black men came +raiding from the upper slopes at uncertain intervals. There was no +variation of the tale. + +One thing puzzled us much more than the cannibal story. We heard +shooting a long way off behind us to our right--two shots, followed by +the unmistakable ringing echo among growing trees. Had Schillingschen +decided to desert us? And if so, how did he dare squander two of his +three cartridges at once--supposing he were not now mad, as our boys, +and his, all vowed he was? His own ten men began to beg to be +protected from him, and the captured Baganda recommended in best +missionary English that we seek the services of the first witch doctor +we could find. + + + + +CHAPTER SIXTEEN + + +THE SONG OF THE ELEPHANTS + +Who is as heavy as we, or as strong? + Ho! but we trample the shambas down! +Saw ye a swath where the trash lay long + And tall trees flat like a harvest mown? +That was the path we shore in haste + (Judge, is it easy to find, and wide!) +Ripping the branch and bough to waste + Like rocks shot loose from a mountain side! +Therefore hear us: + +(All together, stamping steadily In time.) + + 'Twas we who lonely echoes woke + To copy the crash of the trees we broke! + Goad, nor whip, nor wheel, nor yoke + Shall humble the will of the Ivory Folk! + +Once we were monarchs from sky to sky, + Many were we and the men were few; +Then we would go to the Place to die-- + Elephant tombs* that the oldest knew,-- +Old as the trees when the prime is past, + Lords unchallenged of vale and plain, +Grazing aloof and alone at last + To lie where the oldest had always lain. +So we sing of it: + +----------------------------- +* The legendary place that every Ivory hunter hopes some day to stumble +on, where elephants are said to have gone away to die of old age, and +where there should therefore be almost unimaginable wealth of ivory. +The legend, itself as old as African speech, is probably due to the +rarity of remains of elephants that +have died a natural death. +------------------------------ + +(All together, swinging from side to side in time, and tossing trunks.) + + 'Twas we who lonely echoes woke + To copy the crash of the trees we broke! + Goad, nor whip, nor wheel, nor yoke + Shall govern the strength of the Ivory Folk! + +Still we are monarchs! Our strength and weight + Can flatten the huts of the frightened men! +But the glory of smashing is lost of late, + We raid less eagerly now than then, +For pits are staked, and the traps are blind, + The guns be many, the men be more; +We fidget with pickets before and behind, + Who snoozed in the noonday heat of yore. +Yet, hear us sing: + +(All together, ears up and trunks extended.) + + 'Twas we who lonely echoes woke + To copy the crash of the trees we broke! + Goad, nor whip, nor wheel, nor yoke + Have lessened the rage of the Ivory Folk! + +Still we are monarchs of field and stream! + None is as strong or as heavy as we! +We scent--we swerve--we come--we scream-- + And the men are as mud 'neath tusk and knee! +But we go no more to the Place to die, + For the blacks head off and the guns pursue; +Bleaching our scattered rib-bones lie, + And men be many, and we be few. +Nevertheless: + +(All together, trunks up-thrown, ears extended, and stamping in slow +time with the fore-feet.) + + 'Twas we who lonely echoes woke + To copy the crash of the trees we broke! + Goad, nor whip, nor wheel, nor yoke + Shall humble the pride of the Ivory Folk! + + +We had laughed at Fred's suggestion that Schillingschen might have +ammunition cached away. Fred had sneered at my guess that the German +might ride donkey-back and not be so easily left behind. Now the +probability of both suggestions seemed to stiffen into reality. + +Day followed day, and Schillingschen, squandering cartridges not far +away behind us, always had more of them. He seemed, too, to lose +interest in keeping so extremely close to us, as we raced to get away +from him toward the mountain. If he was really crazy, as his trembling +boys maintained, then for a crazy man blazing at everything or nothing +he was shooting remarkably little. On the contrary, if he was sane, +and shooting for the pot, be must have acquired a big following in some +mysterious manner, or else have lost his marksmanship when Coutlass +bruised his eyes. He fired each day, judging by the echo of the shots, +about as many cartridges as we did, who had to feed a fairly long +column of men, and make presents of meat, in addition, to the chiefs of +villages. It began to be a mystery how he carried so much ammunition, +unless he had donkeys or porters. + +Soon we began to pass through a country where elephants bad been. +There was ruin a hundred yards wide, where a herd of more than a +thousand of them must have swept in panic for fifteen miles. There +were villages with roofs not yet re-thatched, whose inhabitants came +and begged us to take vengeance on the monsters, showing us their +trampled enclosures, torn-down huts, and ruined plantations. They +offered to do whatever we told them in the way of taking part, and +several times we marshaled the men of two or three villages together in +an effort to get a line to windward and drive the herd our way. + +But each time, as the plan approached development, ringing shots from +behind us put the brutes to flight. It became uncanny--as if +Schillingschen in his new mad mood was able to divine exactly when his +noise would work most harm. Our fool boys told the local natives that +a madman was on our heels, and after that all offers of help ceased, +even from those who had suffered most from the elephants. We began to +be regarded as mad ourselves. Efforts to get natives to go scouting to +watch Schillingschen, and report to us, were met with point-blank +refusal. Rumor began to precede us, and from one village that had +suffered more than usually badly from passing elephants the inhabitants +all fled at the first sign of Brown, leading our long single column. + +We followed the herd. Its track was wide, and easier than the winding +native foot-paths; and we were willing enough to jettison loads of +trade-goods if only we could replace them with tusks. The chase led up +toward Elgon, over the shoulder of an outlying spur, and upward toward +the mountain's eastern slopes. + +As long as we kept in the wake of the herd the going presented no +difficulties. We knew by the state of the tracks and the dung that the +herd was never far ahead. Frequently we heard them crashing through +trees in front of us. Yet whenever we came so close as to hope for a +view, and a shot at a tusker, invariably a regular fusillade from the +eastward to our rear would start the herd stampeding with a din like +all the avalanches. + +Streams by the dozen flowed down from the mountain's sides, their banks +crushed into bog where the elephants had crossed. Our donkeys grew +used to being tied by the head in line and hauled across (for in common +with all herds of donkeys, there were a few of them that swam readily, +and many that either could not or refused). The flies in the wake of +the elephants were worse than the tetse that haunted the shore of +Nyanza. + +We had no trouble now from our boys. We could even let the Baganda's +hands loose. They feared the cannibals of the higher slopes, but were +much more afraid of the madman to our right rear. Our difficulty lay +in compelling them to keep a course sufficiently to eastward, and in +calling a halt each day before men and animals were too utterly tired +out. Yet for all their hurry, we did not gain on the man who made them +so afraid. + +Elephants, once thoroughly seared, will ran away forever. Our boys +openly praised the herd in front for its speed and stamina, hoping it +would continue on its course and oblige us to keep the madman with the +rifle at a safe distance to our rear. But it seemed he had an easier +line than we, or else his frenzy gave him seven-league boots, for he +even began to gain on us, keeping along our right flank at a distance +of several miles, and driving us nearly mad in the frantic effort to +keep our column from turning and running away to the westward. If we +had relaxed our vigilance for a moment they would have broken line and +fled. + +It was old volcanic country we were marching through, densely wooded, +virgin forest for the most part, with earth so warm at times that it +was not easy to believe the crater of Elgon quite extinct. Even at +that low level we came on blow-holes nearly filled in with dirt and +trash, serving as fine caves for beasts of prey. We went into one for +about three hundred paces before it narrowed into nothing, and would +have camped in it but for the stink. It smelt like a place where the +egg of original sin had turned rotten. Fred said that was sulphur, +with the air of a man who would like it believed that he knew. + +At last the enemy must have made a night march, for he passed us, and +the following dawn we heard him shooting to our right in front. That +morning it was simply impossible to make the boys break camp. They +swore that the ghost of Schillingschen had gone in league with the +elephants to destroy us, and they preferred to be shot by us rather +than murdered by witchcraft. + +Beyond doubt they would have bolted and left us had that camp not been +an almost perfect one, on rising ground with two great wings of rock +almost enclosing it, and a singing brook galloping through the midst. +There was only one gap by which elephant or man could enter (unless +they should fall from the sky), and they closed that by rolling rocks +and dragging up trunks of trees. + +After a useless argument, during which we all lost our tempers and they +were reduced to the verge of panic, we decided to leave them there in +charge of Brown and those porters, except Kazimoto, who had rifles. +The armed men promised faithfully to die beside Brown in the only place +of exit rather than permit a man to pass out; and the rest all agreed +it would be right to shoot them if they attempted to desert; but we +left the camp together--Fred, Will, I, and Kazimoto, with Will's +personal servant and mine bringing up the rear--wondering whether we +should ever see any member or part of the outfit again. It felt like +going to a funeral--or rather from it--more than likely Brown's. + +Kazimoto and the other two should have been carrying spare rifles; but +Brown had refused to remain behind unless we left him all but the one +apiece we absolutely needed. We took the boys more from habit than for +any use they were likely to be; and my boy and Will's bolted back to +the camp almost before we were out of sight of it, Kazimoto begging us +to shoot them in the back for cowards. + +"Huh!" he grunted. "They are afraid of death. Teach them what death +is!" + +We heard Brown challenge them as they approached the camp, and hoped he +thrashed them soundly. But it turned out he did not. He himself had +grown afraid; for the fear of a crowd is contagious, and spreads +nearly as readily from black to white as from white to black. He broke +open a chop-box and consoled himself with whisky. + +Forcing our way through vegetation that crowded around a spur of +volcanic rock, it soon became evident that the whole of the huge herd +was breakfasting not far in front of us, tearing off limbs of trees, +and crashing about as if noise were the only object. We climbed and +attempted to look down on them, only to discover that the part of the +forest where we were consisted of a narrow belt, with a mile-wide open +space beyond it between us and the elephants. The wind was from them +toward us, but that did not wholly account for the amount of noise that +reached us. It was the fact that the herd was twice as big as we +imagined. There were elephants in every direction. We could see and +hear branches breaking with reports like cannon-fire. + +Kazimoto was as steady as an old soldier, a great grin spreading across +his ugly honest face, and his eyes alight with enthusiasm. This was +the profession he had followed when he was Courtney's gun-bearer, and +he kept close to Fred with a handful of cartridges ready to pass to +him, whispering wise counsel. + +"Get close to them, bwana! Go close! Go close! Wind coming our +way--smell coming our way--noise coming our way--elephant very busy +eating--no hurry! No long shooting! Go right up close!" + +It was easier said than done. The elephants had spread broadcast +through the forest, and there was no longer one well-defined swath to +follow, but a very great number of twisting narrow alleys through +elastic undergrowth between great unyielding trees. We had to +separate, to gain any advantage from our number, so that we emerged +into the open more than a hundred yards apart, with Fred at the far +left and Will in the center. Fred, with Kazimoto close at his heels, +was more than fifty yards in front of either of us. + +And crossing that mile of open land was no simple business. It was a +mass of rocks and tree-roots, burned over in some swift-running forest +fire and not yet reseeded, nor yet rotted down. There were winding +ways all across it by the dozen that the elephants, with their greater +height and better woodcraft, could follow on the run, but great stumps +and rocks higher than a man's head (that from a distance had looked +like level land) blocked all vision and made progress mostly guesswork. + +However, the latter half-mile was more like level going--I emerged from +between two boulders, wondering whether I could ever find my way back +again, and envied Fred, who had found a better track and had the lead +of me now by several hundred yards. Will was as far behind him as I, +but had gone over more to the left, leaving me--feeling remarkably +lonely--away in the rear to the right. + +Kazimoto followed Fred so closely, stooping low behind him, that the +two looked like some strange four-legged beast. They were headed for +the forest in front of them at a great pace, increasing their lead from +Will, who, like me, was more or less winded. I stooped at a pool to +scoop up water and splash my face and neck. When I looked up a moment +later I could see none of them. + +At that instant, when I could actually smell the great brutes crashing +in the forest, unseen within a hundred yards of me, and would have +given all I had or hoped for just to have a friend within speaking +distance, a shot rang out in the forest ahead, and rattled from tree to +tree like the echo of a skirmish. It was not from Fred's gun, or +Will's. It was the phantom rifleman at work again. +Schillingschen--Schillingschen's ghost--or whoever he was, he could not +have timed his fusillade better for our undoing. The first shot was +followed by six more in swift succession. And then chaos broke loose. + +Toward where I stood, from every angle to my front, the whole herd +stampeded. No human being could have guessed their number. The forest +awoke with a battle-din of falling trees and crashing undergrowth, +split apart by the trumpeting of angry bulls and the screams of cows +summoning their young ones. The earth shook under the weight of their +tremendous rout. I heard Fred's rifle ring out three times far to my +left--then Will's a rifle nearer to me; and at that the herd swung +toward its own left, and the whole lot of them came full-pelt, blind, +screaming, frantic, straight for me. + +There was no turning them now. None but the very farthest on the flank +could have turned, given sense enough left to do it. It was a flood of +maddened monsters, crazed with fear, pent by their own numbers, forced +forward by the crowd behind, that invited me to dam them if I could! +As they burst into the open, more shots rang out in the forest to lend +their fury wings! + +I glanced behind, to right and left, but there was no escape, I had +come too far into the open to retreat! There were big rocks to the +rear to have scrambled on, but there was no time. There was one big +rock in front of me that divided their course about in halves; to pass +it they must open up, although they would almost surely close again. I +took my stand in line with that, as a man on trial for life takes +refuge behind an unestablishable alibi. + +They talk glibly about men's whole lives passing in review before them +in the instant of a crisis. That may be. That was a crisis, and I saw +elephants--elephants! I remembered some of what Courtney had told +us--some of the mad yarns Coutlass spun when liquor and the camp-fire +made him boastful. All the advice I ever heard; all my previous +imaginings of what I should do when such a time came, seemed to be +condensed into one concrete demand--shoot, shoot, shoot, and keep on +shooting! Yet my finger, bent around the trigger, absolutely would not +act! + +The oncoming gray wave of brutes split apart at the rock, as it must +do, some of them screaming as they crashed into it breast on and were +crushed by the crowd behind. In the van of the right-hand wing, +brushing the rock with his shoulder, charged an enormous bull with +tusks so large that the heavier had weighed down his head to a +permanent rakish angle. He caught sight of me--trumpeted like a siren +in the Channel fog--and came at me with raised ears and trunk +outstretched. I heard shooting to the left, and more shots from the +forest, where the very active ghost or madman was keeping up a battle +of his own. I felt the fear, that turns a man's very heart to ice, +grip hold of me--felt as if nothing mattered--imagined the whole +universe a sea of charging elephants--accepted the inevitable--and +suddenly received my manhood back again! My forefinger acted! I fired +point-blank down the throat of the charging bull. And it seemed to +have no more effect on him than a pea-shooter has on a railroad train! + +I had left Schillingschen's heavy-bored elephant gun behind with Brown, +considering it too cumbersome, and was using a Mauser with flat-nosed +bullets. I fired four shots as fast as I could pump them from the +magazine straight down the monster's hot red throat; and he continued +to come on as if I had not touched him, hard-pressed on either flank by +bulls nearly as big as he. + +Perhaps the reason why my past history did not flash review was that my +time was not yet come! I continued to see elephant--nothing but +elephant!--little bloodshot eyes aflame with frenzy--great tusks +upthrown--a trunk upraised to brain me--huge flat feet that raged to +tread me down and knead me into purple mud! I kept the last shot with +a coolness I believe was really numbness--then felt his hot breath like +a blast on my face, and let him have it, straight down the throat again! + +He screamed--stopped--quivered right over me--toppled from the +knees--and fell like a landslide, pushed forward as he tumbled by the +weight behind, and held from rolling sidewise by the living tide on +either flank. I tried to spring back, but his falling trunk struck me +to earth. On either side of me a huge tusk drove into the ground, and +I lay still between them, as safe as if in bed, while the herd crashed +past to right and left for so many minutes that it seemed all the +universe was elephants--bulls, cows and calves all trumpeting in mad +desire to get away--away--anywhere at all so be it was not where they +then were. + +Blood poured on me from the dead brute's throat--warm, slippery, sticky +stuff; but I lay still. I did not move when the crashing had all gone +by, but lay looking up at the monster that had willed his worst and, +seeking to slay, had saved me. Those are the moments when young men +summon all their calf-philosophy. I wondered what the difference was +between that brute and me, that I should be justified in slaying; that +I should be congratulated; that I should have been pitied, had the +touch-and-go reversed itself and he killed me. I knew there was a +difference that had nothing to do with shape, or weight, or size, but I +could not give it a name or lay my finger on it. + +My reverie, or reaction, or whatever it was, was broken by Fred's +voice, flustered and out of breath, coming nearer at a great pace. + +"I tell you the poor chap's dead as a door-nail! He's under that great +bull, I tell you! He's simply been charged and flattened out! What a +dog I was--what a green-horn--what a careless, fat-headed tomfool to +leave him alone like that! He was the least experienced of all of us, +and we let him take the full brunt of a charging herd! We ought to be +hung, drawn and quartered! I shall never forgive myself! As for you, +Will, it wasn't half as much your fault as mine! You were following +me. You expected me to give the orders, and I ought to have called a +halt away back there until we were all three in touch! I'll never +forgive myself--never!" + +I crawled out then from between the tusks, and shook myself, much more +dazed than I expected, and full of an unaccountable desire to vomit. + +"Damn your soul!" Fred fairly yelled at me. "What the hell d'you mean +by startling me in that way! Why aren't you dead? Look out! What's +the matter with the man? The poor chap's hurt--I knew he was!" + +But that inexplicable desire to empty all I had inside me out on to the +trampled ground could no longer be resisted, that was all. The +aftermath of deadly fear is fear's corollary. Each bears fruit after +its kind. + +To my one tusker Will and Fred had brought down five and six +respectively. That made twenty-three tusks, for one was an enormous +"singleton." We sent Kazimoto back alone to try to persuade some of +our porters to come and chop out the ivory with axes, bidding him +promise them all the hearts, and as many tail-hairs as they chose to +pull out to keep witches away with. Then, since my sickness passed +presently and left me steady on my legs, Fred made a proposal that we +jumped at. + +"Let's go and lay Schillingschen's ghost! If that was Schillingschen +shooting in the forest, we've a little account with him! If it wasn't +I want to know it! Come along!" + +We advanced into the forest and toiled up-hill along the tracks the +stampeding elephants had made, amid flies indescribable, and almost +intolerable heat. The blood on my clothing made me a veritable +feeding-place of flies, until I threw most of it off, and then began to +suffer in addition from bites I could not feel before, and from the +sharp points of beckoning undergrowth. My bare legs began to bleed +from scratches, and the flies swooped anew on those, and clung as if +they grew there. + +Will climbed a huge tree, at imminent risk of pythons and rotten +branches, and descried open country on our right front. We made for +it, I walking last to take advantage of the others' wake, and after +more than an hour of most prodigious effort we emerged on rolling rocky +country under a ledge that overhung a thousand feet sheer above us on +the side of Elgon. To our right was all green grass, sloping away from +us. + +There was a camp half a mile away pitched on the edge of the forest--a +white man's tent--a mule--meat hanging to dry in the wind under a +branch--two tents for natives--and a pile of bags and boxes orderly +arranged. We could see a man sitting under a big tent awning. He was +reading, or writing, or something of that kind. He was certainly not +Schillingschen. We hurried. Fred presently broke into a run; then, +half-ashamed, checked himself and waited for me, who was beyond running. + +When we came quite close we saw that the man was playing chess all by +himself with a folding board open on his knees. He did not look up, +although by that time he surely should have heard us. Fred began to +walk quietly, signaling to the camp hangers-on to say nothing. We +followed him silently in Indian file. As he came near the awning Fred +tip-toed, and I felt like giggling, or yelling--like doing anything +ridiculous. + +He who played chess yawned suddenly, and closed the chess-board with a +snap. He got up lazily, smiled, stretched himself like a great +good-looking cat, faced Fred, and laughed outright. + +"Glad to see you all! Did you get many elephants?" he asked. + +"Monty, you old pirate--I knew it was you!" said Fred, holding a hand +out. + +Monty took it, and forced him into the chair he had just vacated. + +"You damned old liar!" he said, nodding approvingly. + + + + +CHAPTER SEVENTEEN + +THEY TOIL NOT, NEITHER DO THEY SPIN + +Now for opulence and place + And the increment unearned + We will thieve and stab and cover it with perjury, +Contemptuous of grace + And the lesson never learned + That the Rules are not amenable to surgery. +We will steal a neighbor's tools + In the quest for easy cash, + Aye, jump his claim and burrow to the heart of it, +But the innocents and fools + Get all the goods, and we the trash, + And that's the most exasperating part of it! + + +Nobody in camp slept that night. When the tusks had been chopped out, +and our camp carried across and pitched beside Monty's--ivory +weighed--lion-proof boma built--and elephant-heart portioned out to the +men, who gorged themselves on it in order that their own hearts might +grow great and strong; when all the myriad matters had been seen to +that make camping in the tropics such a business, then there were tales +to be told. We demanded Monty's first; he ours; and because his was +likely to be much the shortest we won that argument. + +"Wait one minute, though," he insisted. "Before I begin, have you any +notion who a man with a beard could be--bruised face-broken front +teeth--Mauser rifle--big dark beard cut shovel-shape--enormously +powerful by the look of his shoulders and arms? I came on him three, +no, four days' march back." + +"Schillingschen!" we exclaimed with one voice. + +"Show me Schillingschen!" echoed Brown, who was very drunk by that +time, nearly ready to be put to bed. "Show me Schillingschen, an' I'll +show you a corpse!" + +"He's right," nodded Monty. "The man's dead. Blew his brains out with +his last cartridge. Looked to me to have lost himself. Slept in +trees, I should say. Clothing all torn. Hadn't been dead long when +some of my boys came on him and drove away the jackals. Had he been in +a fight, do you know?" + +But we would not tell him that tale until we had his own. + +"Mine's short and simple," he began. "Some ruffians boarded my ship at +Suez, who made such eyes at me, and so obviously intended to do me +damage at the first opportunity, that I talked it over with the captain +(giving him a hint or two of the possible reason) and he agreed to slip +me off secretly at Ismailia. It was easy--middle of the night, you +know--had the doctor isolate the ruffians on the starboard side while +the ship anchored--some cooked-up excuse about quarantine--and kept 'em +out of sight of what was happening until the ship went on again. Very +simple." + +"Go on, Didums--we'll be all night talking--what did you do with the +King of Belgium?" Fred demanded. + +"Nothing. Didn't go near the King of Belgium. I was quarantined at +Ismailia on wholly imaginary grounds for fourteen days; and who should +come smiling into the same lazaretto on the last day but Frederick +Courtney--a very old friend of mine!" + +"He was to go to Somaliland," I said. + +"So he told me. He's on his way there now. Decided for reasons of his +own to enter the country by way of Abyssinia. Told me of the advice +he'd given you fellows, and assured me he'd seen King Leopold himself +on the very matter scarcely a year before. Of course, he said, I might +succeed where he failed, using influence and all that sort of thing, +but he assured me Leopold was hard to deal with, and difficult to tie +down. His advice was, go back to Elgon, and hunt for the stuff there." + +"That's what he kept advising us," said Will. "But why should he give +away his information free? And if it's good, where did he get it?" + +"Courtney's no dog in the manger," Monty answered. "He told me of this +man Schillingschen. Said he had sent in a report about him to the Home +Government, but couldn't for the life of him get documentary evidence +with which to back up his charges." + +Will whistled, and drew out the diary he had rescued from the tin box. +Fred nodded. Will threw it to Monty, who caught it. + +"He told me this Schillingschen had searched the whole country over for +the stuff--had it straight from Schillingschen's boys--I dare say you +know how Courtney can make a native tell him all he knows. +Schillingschen, he said, had eliminated pretty nearly all the likely +places until Mount Elgon was about all there is left. Courtney said, +too, that there were always so many thousands of elephants near Elgon +that Tippoo Tib probably gathered a harvest there. We discussed +probabilities, and agreed it wasn't likely he would carry the stuff far +in order to hide it. It seemed likely to both of us, too, that if the +quantity the old man hid was anything like what rumor says, then there +were probably half a dozen hiding-places, not one. Most of the stuff +may be in the Congo Free State, and we'll do well to leave that to +Leopold of Belgium and his pet concessionaires. Some of it may be near +here. I stayed in the lazaretto an extra day with Courtney, talking it +over. One other thing he remembered to tell me was that Schillingschen +had hunted high and low for Tippoo Tib's old servants, and had finally +managed to have the relatives of that man Hassan--I remember, Fred, you +called him Johnson in Zanzibar--thrown in jail in German East for some +alleged offense or other." + +Monty stopped to scrape out a faithful pipe, fill it, press down +tobacco with a practised thumb, and reach toward the campfire for a +burning brand. Then he smoked for two minutes reflectively. + +"I offered Courtney a share should we find the stuff. Knew you fellows +would agree." Pause. "Courtney wouldn't hear of it." Pause. "Said +good-by to him, and took a coastwise trading steamer back to Mombasa. +Delightful trip--put in everywhere--saw everything. Saw a lot of the +Galla--fine tribe, the Galla." + +"Suppose you cut the travelogue stuff until later on!" suggested Will. + +"Landed at Mombasa, and learned the first day that you fellows had +managed to make more enemies than friends. Put in a number of days on +heavy social labor--lingered at the club--drank too much of their +infernal gin-and-black-pepper appetizer--but made you fellows right, I +think." + +"We're not interested in the slumming. Go on and tell us what you +did!" urged Fred. + +"That is what I did--and undid. I made friends. Soon I had all the +other junior officials in a state of mind to help me if they could. +Then I began to inquire for Hassan. They drew the dragnet tight, and +discovered him at Nairobi! A young assistant district superintendent +of police, who will rise in the service, I hope, before long, +discovered a woman--who was jealous of a man--who was just then making +love to the dusky damsel particularly favored by Hassan; and in that +roundabout way we discovered that Hassan intended to take a trip very +soon toward Mount Elgon, where, if you please, he was to take part in +Professor Schillingschen's ethnological studies. On condition that he +held his tongue until I gave him leave to talk, I promised that young +policeman--to put him en rapport with Schillingschen's doings as +swiftly as may be. Then I returned to Mombasa, and got your code +letter saying you would head this way. It all fitted in like a game of +chess." + +"How in the world did you get that letter so soon?" demanded Fred. +"The missionary chap was to mail it in Ujiji, via Salisbury, Rhodesia." + +"I suppose he simply didn't do that, that's all," Monty answered. "The +bank manager told me he received it in the mission mail bag--from +Ujiji, yes, but by way of Muanza, Tabora, and Dar es Salaam. It reached +me in the nick of time. I must have been marching nearly parallel with +you chaps for about a week!" + +"If coincidence of evidence means anything," said Will "we're all on a +red-hot scent! That Baganda we have in our outfit is our prisoner. +One of Schillingschen's pet pimps. He swears Hassan--or rather some +old native whose name he doesn't know--was to meet Schillingschen in +these parts and lead him to where he actually helped bury the ivory, +years ago!" + +"We may have difficulty finding him," said I. "Mount Elgon's big!" + +"What about Brown?" asked Monty. "I hope you haven't made him partner? + I agree, of course, if you have, but I hope not!" + +"Nothing doing!" + +"No. Why should we?" + +"Brown's all right, but a present ought to satisfy him." + +We began to tell Monty about Brown's cattle that Coutlass stole, and +the Masai looted from Coutlass and us. + +"Were they branded?" asked Monty. + +"Branded and hoof- and ear-marked," said I. + +"Then they ought to be traceable, even among the huge herds the Masai +have. I think I've influence enough by this time with this government +to have those cattle traced and returned to Brown." + +"They're his only love!" said I. "Do that for him, and he'll never +wait to receive a present!" + +Dawn found us still recounting our adventures and Monty alternately +laughing and frowning. + +"I regret Coutlass" he said, shaking the ashes from his pipe at last +when Kazimoto brought our breakfast. "I regretted having to throw him +out of the hotel in Zanzibar. I wish he could have escaped with his +life--a picturesque scoundrel if ever there was one! I'd rather be +robbed by him than flattered by ten Schillingschens or Lady Saffren +Waldons. I suppose if I'd been with you I'd have killed him. It's +well I wasn't. I might have regretted it all my days!" + +We buried our newly won ivory under a tree, locating the spot exactly +with the aid of Monty's compass, and broke camp, starting sleepless up +the mountain. As Monty said: + +"No use meandering around the mountain. Hassan might be higher up or +lower down. If he is there you may depend on it he's tired of waiting. + He's looking for a safari. Let's climb where we can be seen from +miles away." + +So climb we did, thousand after thousand feet, until the night air grew +so cold that the porters' teeth chattered and they threatened to desert +us. They grew afraid, too, remembering the tales the villagers had +told them down below. + +"Wow! You are not fat babies!" Kazimoto told them. "Who would eat +such stringy meat as you?" + +We came to caves that none of the men dared enter--vast, gloomy tunnels +into the mountain through which the chill wind whistled like a dirge. +Yet the caverns were warmer than the wind, and not bad camping-places +if we could have persuaded the boys to take advantage of them. + +The earth, too, all over the mountain and the range to eastward of it +was warm in spite of the wind. In places there were warm springs +bubbling from the rock, and at night and early morning a blanket of +white mist that was remarkably like steam covered everything. It was a +land of thunderless lightning--lightning from a clear sky, flashing +here and there without warning or excuse. On the high slopes there was +little or no game, and no signs whatever of inhabitants, until late one +afternoon the porters shouted, and we saw an old man racing toward us +along the top of a ridge. + +He held his hands out, and shouted as he ran--a round-faced, +big-bellied man, although not nearly so fat as when we saw him last; +unclean, unkempt, in tattered shirt and crushed-in fez--a man with one +desire expressed all over him--to see, and touch, and talk with other +men. He ran and threw himself at Monty's feet, clasped his legs, and +blubbered. + +"Bwana! Oh, bwana! Oh, bwana!" + +"Get up, Johnson!" Fred took him by the arm and raised him. "Tell us +what's the matter." + +"Men who eat men! Men who eat men! I had three porters to carry my +tent and food. Now I have none. They have eaten them! Now they hunt +me!" + +"Well, you're safe," said Monty. "Calm yourself." + +"But you are not Bwana Schillingschen! I am here to wait for him. +Have you seen him? Where is he?" + +Fred answered him. "Dead!" + +Hassan threw himself on the ground again at Monty's feet. + +"Oh, what shall I do?" he blubbered. "I am an old man. Who shall take +my people out of jail? Who shall go to Dar es Salaam and make Germans +give them up?" + +"If you're willing to show us what you intended to show +Schillingschen," said Monty, "I'll do what I can for your relations." + +"What can you do? Oh, what can you do? No man but a German can make +these Germans cease from punishing!" + +Monty beckoned to the Baganda who had once done Schillingschen's dirty +work. + +"D'you see this man? This is a German spy. The German will be willing +to hand over your relations in exchange for a promise not to make a +fuss about this man. Wait a minute, though! Are your relations +criminals?" + +"No, bwana! No, bwana! My relations honorable folk! Formerly living +in Zanzibar--going to Bagamoyo to serve in German family by invitation +of person attached to German Consulate--no sooner landed than thrown in +jail on charges they know nothing whatever about. Then Schillingschen +he finding me, and say to me, 'You show where is that Tippoo Tib's +ivory, and your relations shall go free!' And Tippoo Tib, he say to +me, 'You take first step to show any man where is that ivory, and you +shall be fed to white ants by my faithful people!' And Schillingschen +he catch two of them faithful people, and feed 'em to white ants when +nobody looking that way! Schillingschen terrible! Tippoo Tib +terrible! What shall do? Tippoo Tib, he one time making me go long +trip with Bwana Coutlass, very bad Greek. Bwana Coutlass wanting +ivory--me pretending showing him--leading him wrong way. Coutlass very +bad man, beating me ngumu sana.* All the same, me more afraid of +Tippoo Tib and Bwana Schillingschen. Not long ago Tippoo Tib sending +me with Bwana Coutlass second time, making bad threats against me if I +not lead him wrong. Then Schillingschen he send for me and making +worse threats! Oh, what shall do! Oh, what shall do!" [* Ngumu sana, +very severely.] + +"You shall show us where that ivory is!" Monty answered him. "Stop +blubbering! Get up! Look here! See this! (Get me that diary, Will.) + If the Germans won't release your relations from jail on account of +this Baganda, this is a written book that will make them do it! In +this book are the names of men who have broken treaties and the law of +nations. When the Germans know the British Government in London has +this book under lock and key, they will think it a little thing to +release your relations for the sake of avoiding trouble!" + +"Promise me, bwana! You promise me!" + +"I promise I will do my best for you." + +"Word of an Englishman--promise!" + +"Word Of an Englishman--I promise to do my best!" + +That was a proud enough moment on the shoulder of a mountain, with +wilderness in every direction farther than the highest eagle in the air +above could see, to have that helpless, hopeless ex-slave, part Arab, +part machenzie, put his whole stock-in-trade--his secret--all he had on +earth to bargain with for those he loved--in the balance on the promise +of an Englishman. It was a tribute to a race that has had its share, +no doubt, of bad men, but has won dominion over half the earth and +pretty much all the sea by keeping faith with men who could not by any +means compel good faith. + +"Then I tell!" said Hassan. "Then I show!" + +But now a new fear seized him, and he clung to Monty, trembling and +jabbering. + +"The men who eat men! The men who eat men!" + +"Pah! Cannibals!" sneered Fred. "They're always cowards!" + +"Tippoo Tib, he afraid of nothing--nobody! He is hiding the ivory +where men who eat men can guard it and none dare come!" + +"Lead on, McDuff!" Fred grinned, shouldering his rifle. + +All of us except Monty had beards by that time that fluttered in the +wind, and looked desperate enough for any venture. Considering the +rifles and our uncouth appearance, Hassan took heart of grace. He +insisted on an armed guard to walk on either side of him, and nearly +drove Kazimoto frantic by ducking behind rocks at intervals, imagining +he saw an enemy; but he did not refuse any longer to show the way. + +It seemed that in expectation of Schillingschen's early arrival he had +camped within a mile of the place where the stuff was hidden, taking +unreasoning courage from the bare fact of having the redoubtable +Schillingschen for friend. But the cannibals (who must have been a +hungry folk, for there were no plantations, and almost no animals on +all those upper slopes) had pounced on his three lean porters, missing +himself by a hair's breadth. + +In hiding, he had watched his three men killed, toasted before a fire +in a cavern-mouth, and eaten. Then he had run for his life, following +the shoulder of the mountain in the hope of meeting Schillingschen, +munching uncooked corn he had in a little bag, hiding and running at +intervals for a day and a night until he chanced on us. For an old man +almost sick with fear he was astonishingly little affected by the +adventure. + +We took longer over the course than he had done, because he wanted to +find cannibals, and teach them, maybe, a needed lesson. Fred's theory +was that we should surprise them and pen them into a cavern, +discovering some means of talking with them when hunger brought them +out to surrender and cringe. + +So we threw out a line of scouts, and pounced on cave-mouths suddenly, +entering great tunnels and following the course of them in ages-old +lava until sometimes we thought ourselves lost in the gloom and spent +hours finding the way out again. + +Time and again we found bones--bones of wild animals, and of birds, and +of fish; now and then bones that perhaps had been monkeys, but that +looked too suspiciously like those of the fat babies mothers mourned +for in the villages below for the benefit of the doubt to be conceded +without something more or less resembling proof. But never a human +being did we see until we rounded the northeastern hump of the mountain +in a bitter wind, and spied half a hundred naked men and women, thinner +than wraiths, who scampered off at sight of us and volleyed ridiculous +arrows from a cave-mouth. The arrows fell about midway between us and +them, but threw Hassan into a paroxysm of fear, out of which it was +difficult to shake him. + +"Those are the people who ate my men! That is the cavern where Tippoo +Tib hid the ivory! That is where my men's bones are! See--they have +torn my tent for clothing for their naked women!" + +We put Hassan under double guard for fear lest he bolt again and leave +us. And all that day, and all the next we hunted for cannibals through +mazy caverns that seemed to extend into the mountain's very womb. +There were times when the stench was so horrible we nearly fainted. We +stumbled on men's bones. We collided with sharp projections in the +gloom--fell down holes that might have been bottomless for aught we +knew in advance--and scrambled over ledges that in places were smooth +with the wear of feet for ages. Everlastingly to right, or left of us, +or up above, or down below we could hear the inhabitants scampering +away. Now and then an arrow would flitter between us; but their +supply of ammunition seemed very scanty. + +At night we camped in the cavern mouth to cut off all escape, and +resumed the hunt at dawn. But the caverns were hot--hotter by contrast +with the biting winds outside; and when in the afternoon of the second +day we all came out to breathe and cool off the running sweat, we saw +the whole tribe--scarcely more than fifty of them--emerge from an +opening above, whose existence we had not guessed, and go scampering +away along a ledge like monkeys. Some of them stopped to throw stones +at us--impotent, aimless stones that fell half-way; and Fred sent +three bullets after them, chipping bits from the ledge, after which +they showed us a turn of speed that was simply incredible, and vanished. + +"Now for the great disillusionment!" laughed Will. "Hassan! Go +forward, and show us where that hoard of ivory ought ta be!" + +We all expected disillusionment. Brown, who was under no delusion as +to his share in the venture, scoffed openly at the idea of finding +anything buried, in a land where every living "crittur," as he put it, +was a thief from birth. But Hassan led on in, fearless now that the +cannibals were gone, and positive as if he led into his own house and +would show his house-hold treasures. + +He stopped before a black-mouthed chasm, two or three hundred yards +along the smallest subdivision of the cavern, and called for lights and +a rope. We lit lanterns, and he showed us men's bones lying everywhere +in grisly confusion. + +"Tippoo Tib his men!" he remarked. "They throwing ivory in here, then +byumby men who eat men kill and eat them. I alone living to tell! +Plenty men who eat men in those days--all mountains full of them!" + +He tied a lantern to a rope and lowered it down what looked like an old +vent-hole in the lava. But the little light was lost in the enormous +blackness, and we could see nothing. + +"Send a man down!" he counseled. + +We leaned over the edge and sniffed. There was a faint smell of what +might be sulphur, but not enough to hurt. + +"Who'll go?" asked Monty, and I thought he was going to volunteer +himself. + +"I go down!" announced Kazimoto cheerfully, and promptly proceeded to +divest himself of every stitch of clothing. + +We made our stoutest line fast under his arm-pits, gave him a lantern +and lowered him over the edge. For fifty or sixty feet he descended +steadily, swinging the lantern and walking downward, held almost +horizontally by the slowly paid-out rope. Then he stopped, and we +heard him whistling. + +"What do you see?" we called down. + +"Pembe!" (Ivory.) + +"Much of it?" + +"Teli!" (Too much!) "Oh, teli, teli! Teli, teli, teli, TELI!" + +His voice ended with the very high-pitched note that natives use when +they want to multiply superlatives. Then he whistled again. Next he +called very excitedly. + +"Very bad smell here, bwana! Pull me out quickly!" + + + + +CHAPTER EIGHTEEN + +L'ENVOI + +The dry death-rattle of the streetS +Asserts a joyless goal-- +Re-echoed clang where traffic meets, +And drab monotony repeats +The hour-encumbered role. +Tinsel and glare, twin tawdry shams +Outshine the evening star +Where puppet-show and printed lie, +Victim and trapper and trap, deny +Old truths that always are. +So fare ye, fare ye well, old roofs! +The syren warns the shore, +The flowing tide sings overside +Of far-off beaches where abide +The joys ye know no more! +The salt sea spray shall kiss our lips-- +Kiss clean from the fumes that were, +And gulls shall herald waking days +With news of far-seen water-ways +All warm, and passing fair. +They've cast the shore-lines loose at last +And coiled the wet hemp down-- +Cut picket-ropes of Kedar's tents, +Of time-clock task and square-foot rents! +Good luck to you, old town! +Oh, Africa is calling back +Alluringly and low +And few they be who hear the voice, +But they obey--Lot's wife's the choice, +And we must surely go! +So fare ye, fare ye well, old roofs! +The stars and clouds and trees +In place of you! The heaped thorn fire-- +Delight for the town's two-edged desire-- +For thrice-breathed breath the breeze! +For rumble of wheels the lion's roar, +Glad green for trodden brown +For potted plant and measured lawn +The view of the velvet veld at dawn! +Good-by to you, old town! + + +If all is well that ends well, and only that is well, then this story +fails at the finish, for we never caught the cannibals, so never taught +them the lesson in housekeeping and economics that they needed. But +there is no other shortcoming to record. + +It is no business of any one's what terms we made in the end with the +Protectorate Government; but thanks to Monty's tact and influence, and +to their sense of fair play, we were treated generously. And if, when +the world war at last broke out and the Germans undertook to put in +practise the treachery they had so long planned, there was a secret +fund of hugely welcome money at the disposal of the out-numbered +defenders of British East, its source will no doubt be accounted for, +as well as its expenditures, to the proper people, by the proper +people, at the proper time and place. + +But those who are curious, and are adept at unraveling statistics might +learn more than a little by studying the export figures relating to +ivory during the years that preceded the war. They say statistics +never lie; but those who write them now and then do, and it may be +that camouflage was understood and went by another name before the +great war made the art notorious and popular. + +Some of the ivory in that huge hole was ruined by the heat that still +lives in Elgon's womb. Some of it was splintered by the fall when +yoked slaves tossed it in. Rats had gnawed some of it, to get at the +soft sweet core. + +But the men who keep the keys of the bursting ivory vaults by London +docks could tell how much of it was good, and what huge stores of it +reached them. For some strange reason they are not a very talkative +breed of men. + +We did not haul the ivory out ourselves. That would have been too +public a proceeding. But any one who attempted during the years that +followed nineteen hundred to make a trip to Elgon can truthfully inform +whoever cares to know, how jealously and wakefully the Protectorate +Government guarded those lonely trails. And there are folk who saw the +hundred-man safaris that came down from that way every week or so, +carrying old ivory, said to be acquired in the way of trade. But that +is really all government business, and looks impertinent in print. + +We did not make enough money to establish Monty in the homes of his +ancestors at Montdidier Towers and Kirkudbrightshire Castle; for that +would have been an unbelievable amount; it takes more than mere +affluence to keep up an earldom in the proper style. But we all got +rich. + +Brown received his cattle back after a long wait, as well as a present +of money that set him up handsomely for life. And certain dissatisfied +Masai were fined so many cows and sheep for raiding across the border +that they talked of migrating out of spite to German East--but did not +do it. + +A youthful red-headed assistant district superintendent of police was +unaccountably alert enough to round up and bring into court more than a +dozen natives who had preached sedition. And, being lucky enough to +secure convictions in every case, he was promoted. The last I heard of +him he was fighting in the very heart of German East in command of a +whole brigade. So it is advantageous sometimes to do favors for stray +noblemen, provided you are clever enough, and man enough to make good +when the favors are repaid. + +And while on the subject of favors, the four homesick islanders who had +lent us their canoes and came with us all that journey, were sent back +to their island followed by a launch towing two barges full of +corn--free, gratis, and for nothing--"burre tu," as the natives say, +meaning that the English are certainly crazy and giving away food +without a pull-back to it simply and solely because "the people" have +too much nja. Nja is the nastiest word in all those languages. It +means the one thing everybody dreads--the thing that only the English +seem to know charms against--want--emptiness--HUNGER. + +At our expense, but by the favor of the government, there went to that +island food enough in boxes and strong sacks--and seeds, treated +against insects--and tools with which the wives could chop the soil up +(for you can't expect the owner of a wife to work) to keep that island +and its friendly folk from hunger for many a day. + + +THE END + + + + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, THE IVORY TRAIL *** + +This file should be named ivtra10.txt or ivtra10.zip +Corrected EDITIONS of our eBooks get a new NUMBER, ivtra11.txt +VERSIONS based on separate sources get new LETTER, ivtra10a.txt + +Project Gutenberg eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the US +unless a copyright notice is included. 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