The Ivory Trail

  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 riggingand the long unwieldy spar; if we had had any chart, or had knownanything whatever of the coast; if nobody had been afraid; and, aboveall, if that incessant din of surf pounding on rocks not far away tostarboard had not threatened disaster even greater than the Germans inthe steam launch, our problem might have been simple enough.

  But every one was afraid, including me who held the tiller (and thelives of all the party) in my right hand. Lady Saffren Waldondisguised 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 theassuaging 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 runfor it!"

  He seized the tiller to reinforce the argument, and wrenched at ituntil 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 wholedamned 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 thespray that swept over us continually. I watched the glow that rodeabove the launch's funnel, marveling, when I found time for it, at themystery of why the cotton sail should hold. The firm, somewhere inConnecticut, who made that export calico, should be praised by name,only that the dye they used was much less perfect than the stuff andworkmanship; 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 seaswere tossing their propeller out of the water half the time. Becauseof the course I had taken the wind was setting slightly from us towardthem, and I could have sworn they heard Will's voice. Yet there wasnothing for it but to put the helm over, and as I laid her nearlybroadside to the wind a great wave swept us. At that the Greek, theGoanese, and all the natives in the hold set up a yell together thatought to have announced our presence to the Seven Sleepers.

  I held the helm up, and let her reel and wallow in the trough. Now Icould see the fangs of rock myself and the white waves raging aroundthem. See? I could have spat on them! There was a current there thatset strongly toward the rocks, for a backwash of some sort helped thehelm and we won clear, about a third full of water, with the crew toopanicky to bail.

  "Hold her so!" yelled Fred in my ear. "Don't ease up yet! If we gettoo 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 tosteer clear.

  "Throw the anchor over!" I roared, "and let go everything."

  Will attended to the anchor. Fred was too anxious for the safety ofthe only rifle to trust it out of hand, and he hesitated. GeorgesCoutlass saved the day by letting go the shivering Syrian maid andslashing at the halyard with his knife. Down came the great spar witha crash, and as the dhow swung round in answer to anchor and helm,Fred, Will and Brown, between them, contrived to save the sail, Browncomplaining that we were the first sailors he ever heard of who did nothave rum served them for working overtime in dirty weather.

  So we lay, then, wallowing in the jaws of a crescent granite reef, andwatched the red glow above the German launch move farther and fartheraway from us. We waited there, wet and hungry, until dawn dimmed theflame from the burning roofs of Muanza, Lady Isobel Saffren Waldonloudly accusing us all at intervals of being rank incompetents unfit tobe trusted with the lives of fish, and Coutlass afraid of nothing butinterruption. The things he said to the maid, in English--the onlylanguage that they had apparently in common--would have scandalized aGoanese harbor "guide" or a Rock Scorpion from the lower streets ofGib. He did not mention marriage to her, beyond admitting that he hadhalf a dozen wives already, and had been too bored by convention everto submit to the yoke again. The maid seemed enraptured--delirious inthe bight of his lawless arm, forgetful of her wetting, and only afraidwhen he left her for a minute.

  We dared not try to cook anything, even supposing that had beenpossible. Forward was a box full of sand to serve as hearthstone, butthe little scraps of fuel we had brought with us were drenched andunburnable, even if the risk of being seen were not too great. LadySaffren Waldon told us we were "toe-rag contrivers." In fact, now thatshe was out of reach of the men she feared and hated most, she revertedto type and tried to domineer over us all by the simple oldrecipe--audacious arrogance. Luckily, she slept for an hour or two.

  A little before dawn, when it began to be light enough to let us seethe outline of the shore, we sent Kazimoto aloft to reeve our hemp ropethrough the hole that did duty for block, and by the time the sun hadpushed the uppermost arc of his rim above the sky-line we once more hadthe sail set.

  The wind was still blowing a gale; the seamanlike precaution wouldhave been to lie where we were at anchor until fairer weather; butdaring is forced on the fearfullest, and there was nothing for it butto study out the method by which the unwieldy spar should be made topass the mast when tacking, drill Fred, Will, Brown and Kazimoto, andthen haul up the anchor and sail away before people on shore could seeus.

  We had to tack toward Muanza for a quarter of a mile with fear in ourarms to make them clumsy before I dared believe we were clear of thereefs; but when I put the helm down at last there was neither launchin sight nor any other boat that might contain an enemy. The southernspur of Ukerewe stuck out like a wedge into boiling water not manymiles ahead, and once around that we should be sheltered. The only flyin the ointment then was the probability that the launch would bewaiting for us just around the spur, or else under the lee of anothersmaller island in the offing to our left, but what we could not see inthat hour could not upset us much.

  Every one clamored for food. The porters, already forgetful of thechain that had galled them, and the whips that had flayed them day andnight, demanded to be set ashore to build a fire and eat. Lady SaffrenWaldon awoke to fresh bad temper, and Coutlass, too, grew villainouslyimpatient. His Greek friend, from under the shelter of the leakyreed-and-tarpaulin deck, offered him Greek advice, and was cursed forhis trouble. One curse led to another, and then they both had to bebeaten into subjection with the first thing handy, because when theyfought Lady Saffren Waldon egged the
m on and the maid tried to savagethe other Greek with a brooch-pin, which brought out the Goanese to therescue. That crowded dhow was no place for pitched battles, plungingand rolling between the frying-pan of Muanza and the fire of unknownthings ahead.

  "One more outbreak from you, and I shoot!" Fred announced, patting therifle. But, he did not mean it, and Coutlass knew he did not. TheEnglish temperament does not turn readily on even the most rascallyfellow beings in distress. Besides, it was an indubitable fact that weall much preferred Coutlass, with his daring record, and now a mostoutrageous love-affair on hand, to the other Greek or the Goanese, whowere now disposed to bid for our friendship by abusing him. GeorgesCoutlass 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 menforget his turpitude.

  We were a seasick, cold and sorry company that rounded the point atlast and came to anchor in a calm shallow bay where fuel grew closedown to the water's edge. Having no small boat, we had to wade ashoreand carry the women, Coutlass attending to his own inamorata. LadySaffren Waldon's picric acid rage exploded by being dropped between twoporters waist-deep into the water. It was her fault. She insisted onewas not enough, yet refused to explain how two should do the work ofone. Sitting on their two shoulders, holding on by their hair, shefrightened the left-hand man by losing her balance and clutching hisnose and eyes. She insisted on having both men flogged for havingdropped her, and Fred's refusal was the signal for new war, our rescueof her being flung at once on to the scrap heap of her memory.

  She counted with cold cynicism on our unwillingness to leave her againat the mercy of the Germans, and had no more consideration of ourrights or feelings than the cuckoo has for the owner of the nest inwhich she lays her eggs.

  "Beat those fools!" she ordered. "Beat them blue and give them nobreakfast!"

  "Do you see that rock over there, Lady Waldon?" Fred answered. "Go andspread your clothes to dry. When we've cooked food we'll send Rebeccato you with your share."

  "If you send that slut to me I will kill her!" she answered, flyinginto a new fury.

  "Whom do you call slut?" demanded Coutlass (and he had no compunctionsof any kind--particularly none about women, and calling names. He wassimply feeling gallant after his own fashion, and alert for a chance toshow off.) Lady Waldon backed away from him.

  "Of course," she sneered, "if you loose your bully at me, I am no matchat all!"

  Fred promptly kicked Coutlass until he ran limping out of range, to sitand nurse his bruises with polyglot profanity. The Syrian Rebecca wentover to comfort him, and eying the two of them with either malice orelse calculation (it was impossible to judge which) Lady Waldonretreated toward the rock that Fred had pointed out.

  We cooked a miserable meal, neither daring to make too great inroadinto our stores before making sure we could replenish them, nor caringto make more smoke than we could help. We hoped to escape being seeneven by natives, but Lady Waldon upset that part of our plan by settingup such a scream when she saw three islanders crossing a ridge threehundred yards away, that they could not help hearing her, and came toinvestigate. She was forced to dress faster than ever in her lifebefore, and came running to demand that we flog all three "to teachthem manners." She had perfectly absorbed the German attitude towardall black men.

  From the natives we learned that there was no telegraph wire alongthat coast, and that the only German settlements were semi-permanentcamps where they were cutting wood, for fuel for their own launch andfor 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 smallpresent in the vain hope that they might be induced not to talk aboutus, and put to sea again. The weather was fairer and growingintolerably hot. Even before the sun grew high the dhow was acomfortless indecent thing, more crowded than anything Noah can havehad to tolerate: and we lacked Noah's faith in omniscient guidance, inaddition to sailing in a hotter latitude, and having more fleas onboard than the pair he is reported to have carried.

  As we crept up-coast, leaning to this or that side when the gusts ofwind varied, the only enviable ones were the three in the bow, postedthere to keep a look-out for the launch or any other enemy. They hadroom enough to sit without touching one another, and air to breathethat mostly had not been tasted half a dozen times. Fred, Will andBrown took turns commanding the foredeck look-out, keeping it awake andits units from quarreling. The rest of us found no joy in life, andnot too much hope even when Fred's concertina lifted the refrain ofmissionary hymn-tunes that even the porters knew, and most of us sang,the porters humming wordless melancholy through their noses. (Whenthat happened Lady Saffren Waldon's scorn was something thearch-priests of Babylon would have paid to see.)

  There was never room on the tiny after-deck for more than six peoplesitting elbow to elbow and back to back or knee to knee. Lady Waldonsimply refused to yield her corner seat on any account at any time toany one. Coutlass refused to leave his new sweetheart, for thefreely-voiced reason that then Brown might make love to her; and wedid not care to send both of them below for obvious reasons. Thatreduced open-air accommodation to a minimum, because thereed-and-tarpaulin deck was scarcely strong enough to bear the weightof two men at a time, and we did not care to throw the whole deckoverboard for fear of rain.

  And by-and-by the rain came--out of season, but no less violent becauseof that. It rained three days and nights on end--three windless daysand starless nights, during which we had to linger alongshore close tothe papyrus. In order to keep mosquitoes out we had to light a smudgein the sand-box below. The smudge added to the heat, and the heatdrove men to the open air to gasp a few minutes in the rain for breathand go down again to make room for the next in turn.

  Sleep on shore was impossible, for thereabouts were crocodile and snakeswamps, fuller of insect life than dictionaries are of letters. Polingwas next to impossible, because the soft mud bottom gave no purchase.And the oars we made out of poles were clumsy affairs; there was notroom for more than two boys to try to use them at a time, even if thedeck would have stood the strain of more feet, which it certainly wouldnot have done.

  Lady Waldon slept seated in her corner, with her head wrapped in a veilover which the mosquitoes prospected in gangs. Coutlass and hislady-love endured rain and insects in the open, too, but suffered less,because of mutual distraction. The rest of us took turns with thenatives below, lying packed between them, much as sardines nestle in acan, wondering whether the famous Black Hole of Calcutta was reallysuch a record-breaker as they say. Brown was of the opinion that theBlack Hole was a nosegay compared to our lot--"Besides which, theyprobably 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 fromunaccustomed inconvenience as the white man, and more from closeconfinement. The third night out the man next me began coughing,shaking my frame as much as his own as he racked himself, for we werewedged together with only the thickness of his blanket and mine betweenus, and I was jammed tight against the ship's side. Toward morning hegrew quiet--grew colder, too. When dawn came we found that he hadcoughed 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 Shebainshore to find a place to dig a hole, leaving the body stretched onsome tree-roots while we prospected. We should have known enough bythat time to leave four or five men on guard close by; as it was, whenthe men still on board the dhow began kicking up a babel, Fred and Icame running and jumping back through the marsh just in time to see acrocodile wriggle off into the water, with the corpse in his jaws feetfirst. Fred fired a shotted salute, but missed, and that ended thatfuneral.

  By day we passed villages on higher ground, where we might haveprocured more food if we had dared run the risk of meeting Germans. Itwas likely enough the villagers were so used to dhows that they wouldnot tr
ouble to report having seen us in the distance; but it wasperfectly certain that if we paid them a visit they would pass wordalong from mouth to mouth with that astonishing, undiscoverable easethat is at once the blessing and bane of governments.

  So Fred wasted hot hours with the only rifle, trying to hunt meat on ashore 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 Sudanesemercenaries the art of rapid fire in action their officers marched themout to practise on herds of antelope. There was game in plenty awayfrom the lake, but none where the German officer could convenientlypractise his profession.)

  We tried to shoot ducks and geese; but a rifle at long range is notthe best weapon for that sport. We shot very few, and then only todiscover the invincible repugnance natives have to eating "dagi" asthey call all birds. We kept ourselves alive, but did not solve theproblem of the ever-diminishing supplies of rice for our men.

  Somebody thought of fishing. We found hooks in a crevice in the Queenof Sheba's bow, and made lines from a frayed rope. But although theshore was lined with traps in which the inhabitants no doubt took fishin proper season, all that we caught was one miserable finny specimen,all head and mouth and tail, that the natives said would poison any onewho ate it. The truth was, of course, that they preferred rice toanything, and, African native-like, would eat nothing else as long asrice was to be had, having no earthly notions of economy. When therice was all gone on the fifth day out of Muanza they raided a bananaplantation 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 ownershandsomely, giving them their choice of money or blankets when theybore down on us in long canoes demanding vengeance. They voted forblankets and money, but vowed they would far rather have the bananas,because now their own people would be on short commons to make up forthe surfeit of ours.

  We left them never doubting that they would send word to the nearestGerman 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 incharge of it, but knew that prayer was too sweetly reasonable to beanswered where the German Gott makes war on foreigners.) Kazimotoassured us he heard them telling one another they would make complaintagainst us within the day.

  It remained, then, only to guess where that steam launch might be. Wewere approaching the northern end of Ukerewe, not a day's sail, if thelight wind held, from the narrow mouth of the channel between Ukereweand the mainland. That was the likeliest place for the launch to liein wait; it was where we would have waited had we been pursuers andthey the pursued. So we decided after a council of war to put the helmover and sail almost due westward, hoping to meet with an island wherewe might stop for a few days, catch fish and dry them, and caulk theleaky dhow, without the risk of letting the Germans know ourwhereabouts. (It is a peculiar fact that whatever the native secretsystem 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 wesighted a school of hippopotami--fifty at least, and for half a day wechased them, Fred trying to shoot one until Will and I objected tofurther waste of ammunition. A dead hippo would have provided us withmeat enough for a month for the whole ship's company. We could havetowed the carcass ashore somewhere and dried the meat in slabs. Butthe glare on the water made shooting very nearly impossible (Fred'seyes were sore from it); and if we should meet the Germans thoseremaining cartridges would be our only hope. But the diversion took usout of sight of land, and that stood us in better stead presently thantons of fresh meat.

  Whether the Germans heard us, or were merely quartering that part ofthe lake in wait, we never knew. Probably they heard the shooting inthe distance and gave chase. At any rate, within ten minutes of Fred'slast wasted shot Coutlass caught sight of smoke and announced the factwith his favorite oath.

  "Gassharamminy! The launch!"

  At first we were all in a stew because there was no land near, where wemight have beached the dhow and scattered. It was an hour before ouradvantage of position dawned on us, and all the while the launchapproached us leisurely. She had plenty of fuel; the wood was piledhigh above her gunwale in a stack toward the stern; but those on boardher seemed to take more pleasure in contemplation of ourdefenselessness than in speed. She steamed twice around us slowlybefore 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 soprevious as that. We were not yet on the defensive. We counted fiverifles, in addition to Schillingschen's protruding above the launch'sside, and we all took cover in the hope either that they might decidewe were not the dhow they waited for, or else that they might come veryclose out of curiosity. For Fred had a plan of his own. Rifle inhand, 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 wasevident that the launch did not intend to pass us by. "Keep headedtoward them!"

  That was not easy in the light wind, until Schillingschen tired ofstaring at us and gave an order to the engineer. Then they laid thelaunch broadside on to our bow at about two hundred yards' range, andwithout 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 didnot guess where to shoot in order to search him out. They came nonearer, but circled slowly around us, only Schillingschen's bulletsappearing to come anywhere near the target, until a yell from belowshowed what their real plan was and I understood why the sail was notripped and no bullets whistled overhead. They were shootingthrough the planking of the dhow, endeavoring to massacre the helplesscrowd below, and no doubt to sink her and drown us as soon as she wasfull enough of holes.

  A wounded Nyamwezi came scrambling on deck, spouting blood from hisneck and crazed with fear. He jumped overboard and tried to swimtoward the launch, but one of the Germans hit him in the head at thethird shot and he disappeared. Then one of Schillingschen's elephantbullets slit my sleeve, and the next one pierced my helmet.

  "Put one into Schillingschen, Fred!" I shouted, but Fred did notanswer. He kept up a very steady succession of shots that were doingno good at all that I could see.

  Another German bullet found its mark below deck in the thigh of theGoanese. He might have known enough to lie quiet, having some allegedwhite blood in him, but instead he, too, came struggling to theafter-deck, bellowing like a mad-man. Coutlass knocked him back belowwith a blow on the chin, and he there and then threw the whole crowdinto a panic by screaming and kicking. They all began to try to swarmtogether through the narrow opening, and those in the rear tore at thereed deck.

  Into that pandemonium went Coutlass, armed with nothing but Hellenicfury, thoughtful of nothing but his lady-love--surely reckless of hisown skin. He beat, kicked, bit, scragged, banged their foolish headstogether, cursed, spat, gouged, and strangled as surely no catamountever did. Brown leaped in to lend a hand, and into the midst of thatinferno three more bullets penetrated, each wounding a man. LadyWaldon, mad with some idiotic strategy of her own sudden devising,seized the tiller and tried to wrench it from my hand. The SyrianRebecca, imagining new treachery and fearful for her Greek lover, triedto prevent her with teeth and nails. The Germans raised a war-whoop ofwild enjoyment. And just at the height of all that, Fred'sthree-and-twentieth shot went home.

  There was a loud report, followed by instant nothing except stampede onthe part of the Germans to get out of reach of something. Then thesomething grew denser; invisible hot vapor became a pall of steam thatbid the launch from view, three more shots from Fred's rifle
findingthe 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 backto me. "The first shot pierced the boiler when I found out where toaim! I think three of them are scalded badly--hope so!--high pressuresteam--superheated--did you see? Now leave 'em to find their own wayhome!"

  "See if you can't get Schillingschen!" said I.

  But Schillingschen was invisible in the white cloud, and Fred refusedto waste one of the half-dozen cartridges remaining. The light windthat bore us away from the launch also spread the screen of steambetween us and them. A shot or two from Schillingschens rifle provedhim to be still alive, and still determined, but missed us by so muchthat we began to dare to sit upright. Then Fred went below to sort outwounded men, plug holes in the dhow, and stop the panic, and we allprayed 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 deadmen had been thrown overboard, and six of the crew had been set to workbailing in deadly earnest to keep ahead of the new leaks, there wastime to consider the position and to realize how hugely better off wewere than if the launch had caught us somewhere close inshore. Now wecould sail safely northward, every puff of wind carrying us nearer toBritish water and safety, whereas unless they could mend thathigh-pressure boiler, they would have to lie there for a week, or amonth--die unless some one came in search of them. Had we holed theirboiler near the shore they would have been able to take to the landuntil they found canoes. Good canoes, well manned, could haveoverhauled us hand over fist like terriers after a rat.

  It was fifteen minutes yet before we were out of rifle range, andSchillingschen tried to make the most of them when the steam thinned,exposing his beefy carcass recklessly. But by the time it had thinneddown sufficiently to let him really see us we were too far away to makesure shooting. He slit the sail, giving us half a night's work to mendit, and made three more holes in our planking, but hurt nobody.

  That was the only launch the German government had on the lake in thosedays, an almost perfect toy with an aluminum hull and more up-to-dategadgets on her machinery than a battleship's engineer could haveexplained the purpose of in a watch. They had lavished a wholeappropriation on one show. From the minute we were out of range ofSchillingschen's big-bore elephant gun we ran risk of starvation, andperhaps surprise, but no longer of pursuit, and we headed the Queen ofSheba as nearly as we could guess for British East with feelings thateven Lady Waldon shared, for she grew distantly polite again, andcomplimented Fred on his cool nerve and accurate shooting.

  We should have suspected treachery, for she made no attempt toretaliate on Rebecca for scratching her face. Unnatural inactionshould have put us on our guard. She even went so far as to complimentthe maid on "finding such a great, strong, brave man as Coutlass tocherish her." The Greek simply cooed at that--threw out his greatchest and rearranged with his fingers the whiskers that had almosttotally disguised him.

  (There was not one of us but looked like a pirate by that time. Thenatives of that part of Africa shave every particle of hair from theirbodies whenever they get the chance, and prefer their heads as shinyand 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 ofpassengers imaginable.)

  We found it impossible to help being sorry for Lady Waldon, or even forthe 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 usoverlook the conduct of both of them over and over again, shutting eyesand ears to Lady Waldon's meanness and the maid's increasing impudence.

  Lady Waldon actually began to set her own cap at Coutlass, encouraginghim to boast to the porters, and pretending to admire the gift withwhich he told them tales in Kiswahili that would have made even herblush if she had understood the half of them. At intervals the maidgrew jealous, and had to be kissed back to serenity by Coutlass, whowas no less in love with her because of any mere addition to the numberof his interests. He could have made hot love to six women, and haveenjoyed it. There were times when he really flattered himself thatLady 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 fishto be plentiful, but on the other hand, Kazimoto, who surely shouldhave known, swore that the water was full of big fish, and that theislanders lived on little else. Whatever the truth of it, we caughtnothing; and when we reached an island whose shore was lined withfish-traps made of stakes and basket-work we searched all the traps invain. The natives we saw in the distance all ran away from us, andthere were no crops that we could see of any kind, which rather boreout 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." Weoffered him his own price if he would eat one himself in the presenceof 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 crocodilescould crawl to sun themselves, but some of them a half-mile long, orlonger. Nearly all of them were barren, but at last, when we judgedourselves well inside the British portion of the lake, we came on avery large one that had a mountain in the middle of it, and contained afair-sized village hidden among trees.

  It was dark, and we were all famished when we reached it, so when wehad poled the dhow into a little bay between granite boulders bigenough to hide her, mast and all, we went ashore, made fires, andserved out the last handfuls of rice, skimping our own allowance toincrease those of the porters, whose larger stomachs afforded vasteryearning power. They were pitiably meager rations--a mere jest--aninsult to hungry men; but we found before we had cooked and finishedthem that we had witnesses who thought us fortunate.

  They came so silently that even the porters did not notice them atfirst--gaunt black shadows flitting in the deeper shadows, and comingpresently to squat outside the edge of the circle of firelight, until atribe, men, women and little children, were all gathered around usburning up the darkness with their eyes.

  They were hungrier than we! Our food, that looked so scant to us, tothem was a very feast of the gods! They all had pieces of leather orplaited grass drawn tight around their middles to lessen the pangs ofhunger, and the chief, who sat rather apart from the rest, gnawed at apiece of bark.

  None of them wore any clothes. Those that had goat-skin aprons hadthem on behind, and they were as free from self-consciousness as thetrees in winter. Some of them had spears, and they all had knives, yetnone offered violence, or as much as begged. There were three or fourhundred of them, at the lowest reckoning, yet they allowed us to finishour meal in the dark in peace.

  There was nothing to say when we had finished. We knew what the matterwas, and they knew we knew. We had nothing to share with them, andthey knew that, for they could see the empty rice bags that the portershad shaken and beaten to get out the very dust. We did not know theirlanguage; even Kazimoto professed himself ignorant of any dozen wordsthat could unlock their understanding.

  Presently, under the eyes of all of them, Fred got out the rifle fromits wrappings and proceeded to clean and oil it carefully, as everygenuine hunter should before he sleeps.

  Then it was evident at once that new hope for some reason had been bornamong that silent crowd. The chief, uninvited, drew nearer and watchedevery detail of Fred's husbandry with glittering eye.

  "Give him the oily rag to suck!" suggested Brown, but that proved notto be the key to his interest, for he thrust the rag back into Fred'shand and motioned to him to continue cleaning.

  Finally Fred examined the last handful of cartridges carefully one byone,
and filled the magazine. Then, after making sure the sights werein 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 toattack at last, but Fred ordered him to sit down, and Lady Waldon, whoseemed possessed for the once by uncanny calmness, asked him to giveher an arm to the dhow, where she proposed to try to sleep. Coutlassfelt flattered, and obeyed. The maid got up and followed them both ina fury of jealousy, and they three were lost to view in a moment amongthe shadows cast by our four flickering fires. The other Greek got upand followed them, leaving the Goanese already snoozing by the fire.

  Then, just as the half of a brilliantly pale moon rose above thepapyrus, the chief came a pace nearer and touched Fred's hand. Then hebeckoned. Then he touched the hand again and retreated backward.Glancing around I saw the shadows that were his tribe leaning toward usin strained attention, with eyes for nothing but their chief and Fred.Understanding there was something that the chief desired him to go anddo, Fred passed the rifle to Will and rose to his feet.

  With patience that was simply pathetic the chief shook his head andtried to explain something in weary-motioned pantomime. Fred took therifle back from Will. The chief nodded. Fred started to follow him,and then the whole tribe sighed, with a sound like the evening windrustling through the papyrus.

  It being clear now that he was to shoot something, Fred took thewrappings off the rifle, threw them to me, and walked into the dark,the chief trotting ahead like a phantom and glancing back to beckonabout once a minute. Not caring to miss the play, we followed inIndian file, I bringing up the rear.

  The whole tribe rose at once and flitted along beside us on ourlandward side. We could not hear a footfall, or a breath. They passedthrough dry grass without rustling, neither stumbling nor crowding oneanother, but all so governed by one all-absorbing thought that theyacted in absolute unison. That the thought was food did not, even intheir 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 thechief, looking tall as a stripped tree in the pale uncertain light,threw up an arm and waved it in a circle. Instantly the whole tribevanished. It was as if a puff of wind had blown them; or as if theyhad been figures thrown on a screen by a magic lantern and suddenlyswitched 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 aneck 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 hardto be sure he was there at all.

  As soon as Fred came near he made frantic signals to him to get downand crawl too; so we all knelt down and crawled behind Fred, strivingto make no noise and filling the unhappy chief so full of fury at thenoise we did make that he writhed in nervous torment.

  On top of the rise Fred stopped and in imitation of the chief thrusthis 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-likewater, a great bull hippopotamus surveyed the scenery, drinking incontentment through his little placid eyes. Out there nothing troubledhim, as for instance the mosquitoes troubled us. He had eaten hisfill, for some sort of green stuff hung from his jaws; and he wasbeginning to feel sleepy, for he opened his enormous mouth and yawnedstraight toward us--three tons of meat on the hoof, less than a hundredyards away, stock-still, and unsuspicious!

  The chief began whispering unintelligible warnings in a voice so lowthat it sounded like the drone of insects. Fred thrust the rifleforward inch by inch and, taking his time about it, settled himselfcomfortably for the shot. It was no easy shot in that uncertain lightat a downward angle. The glare of the sun on the lake had troubled hiseyes during the last few days. The shimmer of the moonlight wasdeceptive now. I wished he would pass the rifle to Will, or even toBrown of Lumbwa, who was digging his fingers into the earth beside mein almost uncontrollable excitement. But Fred was unperturbed, and thechief, who was nervous enough to detect the slightest sign ofnervousness in Fred, did not seem to mistrust him for one second.

  Three times I saw Fred breathe deeply, as if about to squeeze thetrigger, but each time he was only "makkin' sikkar," and eased hislungs again. The target a hippo offers to a Mauser rifle bullet is notmuch more than half the size of a man's hand, including only the earand eye and the narrow space between them. By daylight at a hundredyards that is nothing for a cool shot to complain about, but inhalf-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 toBrown--or to me! Yet if he had passed it to me I should have trembledworse 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 tothe pitch of frenzy by suspense? Then, even while we watched, anotherproblem added itself. Over on the water there began to come a wind,driving ripples and little waves in front of it. The moment those camenear the hippo he would vanish from view, for they only care formoonlight 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; hehad seen or heard something that alarmed him. He was in the act ofsinking under water when Fred made sure of the sights at last and therifle spoke, ringing out into the still night like the crack ofJudgment Day, more startling because we had waited so long for it insuch suspense.

  Instantly the amazing happened. A yell burst out behind us that splitthe night apart. Where stilly blackness had been, now four or fivehundred crazy shadows leaped and danced, murdering the silence withmarrow-curdling noises intended to express joy.

  Out on the water the stricken hippo pitched head downward and plungedlike a mountain of meat gone mad, thrashing up great waves that weredarkened with his life-blood. A whole herd, several hundred strong,emerged shoulder-high from the water to take one swift look at him andflee. The arriving wind overswept the little whirlpools they all madein the moonlight, as they dived to seek seclusion somewhere and nodoubt 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 veryswiftly hide his great carcass somewhere amid the acres of papyrusunless sharp eyes were alert.

  But the papyrus was friend as well as foe. In a space of time to bemeasured by seconds the yelling young men of the tribe had uncoveredthree canoes, hidden from marauding enemies among themore-than-man-high reeds, and the rest of the tribe--men, women andyoung ones--scattered along the shore to watch from between the stalks.

  In less than fifteen minutes some one yelled, and even the very oldmen, who had stayed beside us to gape at Fred's rifle and our clothesand boots, began running like hares toward the sound. In twentyminutes 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 thewater, where it lay glistening in moonlight, stumpy, foolish, legsuppermost.

  The butcher's work----the feast--did not begin yet. There wastime-honored custom to obey, which Kazimoto knew all about even ifthose ignorant wachenzie* would have fallen to without ceremony. Hedrove them off. A white man had slain that animal; therefore thewhite man's choice of meat was first, and he very leisurely andskillfully cut out the enormous tongue for us and fifty pounds of meatfor our following before he would let them as much as touch the carcasswith a dagger. [* Plural of machenzie, "man from 'way back,'""rube," "simp."
]

  Then, though, the tribe fell to, naked, with little nakedknives--tearing off the thick hide in foot-wide strips, and hacking thered flesh into lumps that they ate, raw and quivering, while theyworked. The little bits of children, each chewing raw bloody meat,brought baskets for the overflow, dragging them to wherever they couldfind a space between the legs of struggling men, the women emptying thebaskets almost as fast as the children filled them, and chewing untiltheir 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 getto it. The very guts were gathered up in baskets to be cooked. Andwhere the last little soft iron dagger had done its work, the blood hadbeen drunk, and the last scrap of hide bad been cut into strips, to bechewed when the meat and its memory were things of the past, theenormous ribs lay glistening in the moonlight like those of anabandoned wreck, picked as clean as if the kites had done it.

  "Have we done a commendable thing?" laughed Fred, looking at thecrowd's distended paunches. "There's a good bull hippo the less.We've saved the lives for a time of several hundred gluttons. Theyknow 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, alsoshe was more afraid of Fred than Satan is said to be of shriving. Thechief led her by the hand, she hanging back and hiding her face underone arm (which left the rest of her nakedness unprotected). He seizedFred's hand and put the woman's in it.

  "Now you're spliced!" Brown explained. "Married to the gal forever inpresence of legal witnesses!"

  Kazimoto confirmed the fearful news.

  "Married in regular form an' accord with tribal custom!" Browncontinued, nodding solemnly.

  "Divorce me--soon and swiftly, somebody!" Fred demanded.

  We appealed to Kazimoto for information, but only threw him into aquandary, and he proceeded to add to ours. The usual price for awoman, it seemed, was cows--many or few according as she was lovely orher father rich. In case of divorce, custom decreed that the cows withtheir offspring should be given back. The objection to any otherproperty than cows changing hands to bind or loose in wedlock was thatfood, for instance, when eaten was not returnable.

  "Married to the gal for good an! all!"' Brown grinned, nudging Will andme to note Fred's consternation. "You'd better stay here an' take thechief's job when he kicks the bucket--possibly you can speed the day byoverfeedin' him!"

  "Some men's luck," Will murmured, but stopped in mid-sentence, forinterruption came in the form of a weird figure, gesticulating like awindmill, stumbling and careening through the gloom, shouting as itcame. Not until it was thirty yards away did an intelligible soundexplain at least who the apparition was.

  "Gassharamminy! Give me that gun!"

  Coutlass burst in among us so out of breath that he could not forcethrough his teeth another rational syllable, but he made his intentionspartly clear by snatching at Fred's rifle, persisting until Will and Ipulled him off.

  "The dhow's gone!" he panted at last. "Give me that rifle, or comeyourself! Hurry! There's a wind! You'll be too late!"

  "You're dreaming or drunk!" Fred answered, but Coutlass refused to bedisbelieved, and in another moment we were all running as fast as wedared through the darkness toward the camp-fires, where we had left theGoanese snoozing and the dhow snugly moored among the rocks.

  The chief and his followers far outdistanced us in spite of theirgorged condition--all except the woman, who jogged dutifully, althoughunhappily, behind Fred. When we reached the campfires they werestanding gazing out on the lake, where we could just make out thebellying sail of the Queen of Sheba leaning like a phantom away fromthe gaining wind. The distance was not to be judged in that weakuncertain light. We all shouted together, but there came no answer andwe could not tell whether the sound carried as far as the dhow or not.

  "Gassharamminy!--why don't you shoot!" shouted Coutlass, dancing up anddown the bank in frenzy. "Give me that rifle! I'll show you! I'llteach 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 angryshouts for vengeance. Will offered no argument against sending them aparting shot. Fred set the butt of the rifle down with a determinedsnort, walked over toward the fire, stirred the embers, threw on morefuel, 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'tsee it anywhere!" he said, taking his seat on a rock.

  "A blanket?" sneered Coutlass. "She has even your money! Worse thanthat--she has my woman! You were a gum-gasted galoot not to shoot ather!"

  Fred patted the bulging pocket of his shooting jacket.

  "Most of the money is here," he said quietly, and we all sighed withrelief.

  "Take canoes and chase them!" shouted Coutlass, beginning to dance upand down again.

  "There's time enough" Fred answered. "We know the winds of these partswell enough by this time. This will blow until midnight. Then calmuntil dawn. After dawn a little more wind for an hour or two, thendoldrums again until late afternoon. They'll run on a rock in alllikelihood. If they do we can catch them at our leisure, supposing wecan get these islanders to paddle. If it should blow hard, then wecan't catch them anyhow. Sit down and tell us what happened, Coutlass!"

  The Greek cursed and swore and pranced, but all in vain. Fred wasinexorable. We others grew calmer when the problem of who shouldpaddle the canoes solved itself suddenly with the arrival of fourteenof our own men. Discovering themselves left behind, they had run alongthe bank in vain hope of catching the dhow somehow--perchance ofswimming through the crocodile-infested water, and returned nowdisconsolate, to leap and laugh with new hope at sight of us and of thered meat that Kazimoto had thrown on the ground near the fire. Theycame near in a cluster. Will hacked off a lump of meat for them, andthey forthwith forgot their troubles, as instantly as the birds forgetwhen a sparrow-hawk has done murder down a hedge-row and swooped away.

  Not everything was gone after all. Kazimoto found the pots we hadcooked 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 calmedhimself sufficiently to laugh at Fred's woman, who had squatted downpatiently in the shadow behind him.

  "Easy for you!" he grinned savagely, squatting on the far side of thefire. "You have a woman! Mine is God knows where! She said tome--that hell-damned Lady Saffren Waldon said to me--we sat all threetogether in the stern of the dhow, I with my arm around Rebecca, andshe said to me--"

  "I'll see if I can't make a dicker for the chief's canoes," Willinterrupted. "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 LadySaffren Waldon said, as we sat there in the dhow, 'How about thekicking Fred Oakes gave you on the island, Mr. Coutlass? Where is yourGreek honor?'--Do you see? She worked on my bodily bruises and myspiritual courage at the same time--the cunning hussy! 'That FredOakes will win this Rebecca away from you very soon!' she went on. 'Ihave watched him."'

  Fred smiled about as comfortably as a martyr on the grid. The presenceof the dusky damsel, confirmed by her smell behind him, made him touchyon the subject of sex.

  "Presently she said to me, 'I have my own affairs that will adjustthemselves all the better for their absence when I get to British East.As for you, they will simply report you to the authorities for raidingthose cattle of Brown's. Can you imagine that creature Brown forgivingyou? He will have you thrown in jail! Why wait? But we must notleave 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 mytoe landed once or twice on his thigh where the bullet wounded him. Idrove him on board, and she put him to work with Kamarajes getting upthe sail. Then I went off to get those cursed porters. I could notfind them! The dogs had gone to the village, to find women I don'tdoubt! 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 thepunishment would take. "Get on with the tale! You couldn't find theporters. What next?"

  "I decided to leave the dogs behind, and serve them right! I went backto the dhow in a great hurry. She was gone! Vanished! Disappeared asif the lake had opened up and swallowed her! I could just see the sailin the distance. I shouted! No answer! I shouted again. I heardRebecca call to me! Then I heard laughter--Lady Isobel SaffrenWaldon's laughter! Gassharamminy! I will run red-hot skewers intothat woman when I catch her! Do you see how she has vengeance onRebecca? Do you see now why she took sides between me and Kamarajesand 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 theunresponsive stars.

  "She will do Rebecca an injury! She will give that girl to de Sousa orto that old Kamarajes! We shall never catch them! Gassharamminy! Oh,Absalom! You should have fired when I told you! That she-dog has atrick of some kind up her sleeve yet! How shall we catch her? Why dowe wait? Give me that rifle! I will take a canoe and go after themalone! You do not know what Greek spirit is! I am Americansometimes--English when it suits me--always Greek when I am wronged!"

  "You certainly have been put upon" Fred answered. "Tell us how yourGreek spirit justified deserting us."

  "Why not?" snarled Coutlass. "Do you love me? What would you do to meif you could get me to British East in your power? You would hand meover as a cattle thief!"

  "You bet I will!" admitted Brown of Lumbwa. "You dog, you've ruinedme!"

  "What did I tell you?" demanded Coutlass. "Why, then, should I notlook 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 fromstealing this rifle and murdering us all would be to lie awake inturns."

  "Bah!" grinned the Greek, striding back toward the fire. "How manycartridges 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, andfor the first time I suspected he was speaking in deadly earnest.Coutlass suspected it, too, and grew still. The sweat burst out on hisface, 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 facedFred squarely. "You are a man, Mr. Oakes! I can speak to you as to mybrother."

  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 SaffrenWaldon, stole a map from Shillingschen. Before I would agree to setthe town on fire I made her give me that for a hostage, lest she shouldprove treacherous and leave me behind after all! I have it now! It ismarked with a circle to show where Schillingschen believes the stuffmust be, because he has searched everywhere else!"

  "If that map is worth anything," Fred countered, "how did Lady SaffrenWaldon care to leave you behind with it?"

  "The harridan forgot it!" answered Coutlass. "She was so delighted toget vengeance on Rebecca by taking her away from me that she did notcare for anything else! She hates you! She hates me! She hatesRebecca! Those who hate--as I can hate!--would rather have revengethan all the riches of Africa! Do you think I would hesitate betweenmoney 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--moreswiftly--angrily. His jaw dropped. Even between the fire-light andthe 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 sleepingin your arms!"

  "Gassharamminy! I might have known it! Those Syrians--she meant togive us all the slip and find the ivory herself!"

  "Nothing of the Sort!" said Fred. "She stole it from you, to give itto Lady Saffren Waldon! Kazimoto saw her do it--saw where Lady Waldonhid it--and stole it from her while she slept to give to me, believingit to be something of mine. Here it is!"

  Fred let the end of a folded map protrude from his inner pocket justfar enough for Coutlass to recognize it by the fire-light. The Greekturned on his heel.

  "All right!" he said ruefully, swinging suddenly round again. "If youwere alone I would fight you, my knife against your rifle! I can notfight all four of you! Go away then, and be damned! I have nothing tooffer. There is nothing I can do. Leave me, and I will look aftermyself!"

  "Now you're talking like a man." said Fred.

  "Leave me that woman of yours, and go to hell, all of you!" laughed theGreek.

  Fred seemed suddenly possessed of a bright idea. He turned to thewoman and beckoned her to rise. Then in unmistakable pantomime he wentthrough the motions of presenting her to Coutlass. The womangasped--stammered something that was positively not consent--staredwith frightened eyes at Coutlass--shook her shaven head violently--andran away into the darkness, pursued by roars of laughter that speededher on her way.

  "A clear case of desertion!" announced Fred judicially. "You men arewitnesses!" Then he turned once more to Coutlass. "I don't thinkwe'll leave you to raise Cain on this island. It depends on youwhether we find you a lonelier island--turn you loose or hand you overto the authorities in British East!"

  "Good!" Coutlass shouted. "By Jingo, you are a gentleman! You are thebest 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 knowsSwahili. The chief's agreeable to loan us two canoes in place ofdeeding you the woman. I took your name in vain, Fred, and consentedto that while your back was turned--kick all you like--the deed isdone! Four of his savages come with us as far as we want to go, wefeeding 'em meat and paying 'em money. It's agreed they're to eat justas often as we do. They paddle the canoes back home when we're throughwith them. Are you all ready? Then all aboard! Let's hurry!"