The Ivory Trail

The Ivory Trail Page 6

by Talbot Mundy

  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--ina hurry because the hated daylight would presently reverse conditionsand put them at disadvantage.

  I grew restless and got up. The air being chilly, I put my clothes onand sat for a while by the window. So it happened I caught sight ofHassan, very much afraid of lions, but obviously more afraid of beingseen from the hotel windows. He was sneaking along as close to thehouse as he could squeeze, his head just visible above the veranda rail.

  For no better reason than that I was curious and unoccupied, I slippedout of the house and followed him.

  Once clear of the hotel he seemed to imagine himself safe, for withoutanother glance backward he ran up-street in the direction of thebazaar. I followed him down the bazaar--a short street of corrugatediron buildings--and out the other end. Being fat, he could not runfast, although his wind held out surprisingly. If he saw me at all hemust have mistaken me for a settler or one of the Nairobi officials,for he seemed perfectly sure of himself and took no pains whatever nowto throw pursuers off the track.

  It soon became evident that he was making for an imposing group oftents on the outskirts of the town. As he drew nearer he approachedmore slowly.

  It now became my turn to take precautions. There was no chance ofconcealment where I was--nothing but open level ground between me andthe tents. But now that I knew Hassan's destination, I could afford tolet him out of sight for a minute; so I turned my back on him, walkedto where a sort of fold in the ground enabled me to get down unseeninto a shallow nullah, and went along that at right angles to Hassan'scourse until I reached the edge of some open jungle, about half a milefrom the tents. I noticed that it came to an end at a spot about threehundred yards to the rear of the tents, so I worked my way along itsouter 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 mecaution. It had not entered my head that in that country a strangewhite man without a rifle might have been regarded as a member of themean white class; nor that anybody would question my right to carry arifle, for that matter.

  The camp was awake now. There were ten tents, all facing one way. Twoof them contained stores. The central round tent with an awning infront was obviously a white man's. One tent housed a mule, and therest were for native servants and porters. The camp was tidy andclean--obviously belonging to some one of importance. Fires werealight. Breakfast was being cooked, and smelled most uncommonlyappetizing in that chill morning air. Boys were already cleaningboots, and a saddle, and other things. There was an air of disciplineand trained activity, and from the central tent came the sound ofvoices.

  I don't know why, but I certainly did not expect to hear English. Sothe sound of English spoken with a foreign accent brought me to astandstill. I listened to a few words, and made no further bones abouteavesdropping. Circumstances favored me. The boys had seen I wascarrying a rifle and was therefore a white man of importance, so theydid not question my right to approach. The tent with the mule in itand the two store tents were on the right, pitched in a triangle. Ipassed between them up to the very pegs of the central tent from whichthe voices came, and discovered I was invisible, unless some one shouldhappen 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 aperfectly unmistakable German accent) should need to talk English to anative who was certainly familiar with both Arabic and Kiswahili. WhenI heard the German addressed as Bwana Schillingschen I wondered stillmore, for from all accounts that individual could speak more nativetongues than most people knew existed. It did not occur to me at thetime that if he wished not to be understood by his own crowd of boys hemust either speak German or English, and that Hassan would almostcertainly know no German.

  "A good thing you came to me!" I heard. The accent was clumsy for aman so well versed in tongues. "Yes, I will give you money at theright time. Tell me no lies now! There will be letters coming frompeople 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 hismother tongue softly enough, but in common with a host of other peoplehe seemed to imagine that to make himself understood in English he mustshout.

  "Why did he go home?"

  "I don't know, bwana."

  "Did they quarrel?"

  "Sijui."* [* Sijui, I don't know: the most aggravating word InAfrica, except perhaps bado kidogo, which means "presently," "bye andbye," "in a little while."

  "Don't you dare say 'sijui' to me!"

  "Maybe they quarrel, maybe not. They all quarreling with LadySaffunwardo--staying in same hotel, Tippoo Tib one time his house--shewanting 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 Saffunwardoafterwards promising pay them three if they come along an' do what shetell 'em. They agreeing quick! Byumby Tippoo Tib hearing bazaar talkan' sending me along too. She refuse to take me, all because Germanconsul man knowing me formerly and not making good report, but Greekbwana he not caring and say to me to come along. Greek people verybad! No food--no money--nothing but swear an' kick an' call badnames--an' drunk nearly all the time!"

  "What makes you think these three men know where the ivory is?" saidthe German voice. It was the voice of a man very used to questioningnatives--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 lieto me!"

  "Coutlass, him Greek man, standing on stairs keeping watch. Them threemen you call fools all sitting in dining-room waiting because theythinking she come presently.
She send maid to their room. Maid, foolwoman, upset everything, finding nothing. 'No,' she say, 'no map--nomoney--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 Saffanwardosaying all at once, 'Here it is. Didn't you see this?' An' the maidanswering, 'Oh, that! That nothing but just ordinary pocket map! Thatnot it!' But Lady Saffunwardo she opening the map, an' make littlescream, 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 veryterrible!"

  "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 itproves 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 getif you fail! You know me, don't you? You understand my way? Stealthat 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 Abdullahand Seydi got in addition! The hundred lashes first, and the ant-hillafterward! You're not fool enough to think you can escape me, Isuppose?"

  "No, bwana."

  "Then go and get the map!"

  "But afterward, what then? She very gali* woman." [*Gali, same asHindustani kali--cruel, hard, fierce, terrible.]

  "Nonsense! Steal the map and bring it here to me. Then I've otherwork 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 anddown the country. Go and tell all the tribes in British territory thatthe 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 beganbringing the German's breakfast, and unless I chose to confess myselfan 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 atent-rope, stumbling under the awning with a laugh and an apology.

  "Who are you?" demanded the German without rising. He had the splayshovel beard described to us in Zanzibar--big dark man, sitting in thedoorway of a tent all hung with guns, skins and antlers. He was innight-shirt and trousers--bare feet--but with a helmet on the back ofhis head.

  "A visitor," I answered, "staying at the hotel--out for a morning shotat 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 withoutgetting up. There was no other chair near the awning, so I had toremain standing. I told him my name, hoping that Hassan had either notdone so already, or else that he might have so bungled thepronunciation as to make it unrecognizable. I detected no sign ofrecognition on Schillingschen's face.

  The boys reached the tent with his breakfast, and one of them dragged achair from inside the tent for me. I sat down on it without waitingfor the professor to invite me.

  "I'm tired," I said, untruthfully, minded to refuse an invitation toeat, but interested to see whether he would invite me or not.

  "Have you any friends at the hotel?" he asked, looking up at me darklyunder 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 topull 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 mightcreate. He pulled the night-shirt off over his head, throwing thehelmet to the ground, and sat like a great hairy gorilla for the boy tohang day-clothes on him. He had the hairiest breast and arms I eversaw, hung with lumpy muscles that heightened his resemblance to an ape.

  "I might give you work," he said presently, beginning to eat before theboy had finished dressing him.

  "I want to travel" I said. "If I could find a job that would take meup and down the length and breadth of this land, that would suit mefinely."

  "That is the kind of a man I want," he said, eying me keenly. "I havea 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 gatheringfolk lore, and ethnographical particulars, but they get into a villageand 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 infavor of white men traveling about at random."

  "But I am known to the government," he answered. "I have been accordedfacilities because of my professional standing. Have you referencesyou can give me?"

  "No," I said. "No references."

  I thought that would stump him, but on the contrary he looked ratherpleased.

  "That is good. References are too frequently evidence of back-stairsinfluence."

  All this while he kept eying me between mouthfuls. Whenever I seemedto look away his eyes fairly burned holes in me. Whenever food got inhis beard (which was frequently) be used the napkin more as a shieldbehind which to take stock of me than as a means of getting cleanagain. By the time his breakfast was finished his beard was a beastlymess, but he probably had my features from every angle fixed indeliblyin his memory. The sensation was that I had been analyzed and cardindexed.

  "I pay good wages," he remarked, and then stuck his face, beard andall, into the basin of warm water his boy had brought. "Where did youget that rifle?" he demanded, spluttering, and combing the beard outwith his fingers.

  It was on the tip of my tongue to say "At Zanzibar," but, as that mighthave started him on a string of questions as to how I came to thatplace 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 andmatch wits with big rascals I suppose I would have answered him civillyand there and then learned more of his purpose. But I was notprepossessed by his charms or respectful of his claim to superiority.The German type super-education never did impress me as compatible withgood 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 thingyou came to my camp and not to some other man's! The game laws arevery strict!"

  He spoke then to a boy who was standing behind me, giving him verycareful directions in a language of which I did not know one word. Theboy went away.

  "The last man who went shooting near Nairobi without a license," hesaid, "tried to excuse himself before the magistrate by claimingignorance of the law. He was fined a thousand
rupees and sentenced tosix months in jail!"

  "Very severe!" I said.

  "They are altogether too severe," he answered. "I hope you have killednothing. It is good you came first to me. You would better stand thatrifle over here in the corner of my tent. To walk back to the hotelwith 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 mindto walk away when four of his boys approached the tent from behind, andone of them cried "Hodi!" The boy to whom he had given directionsacross my shoulder was not among them.

  They threw the buck down near my feet, and he came out from the gloomyinterior and stared at it. He asked them questions rapidly in thenative tongue, and they answered, pointing at me.

  "They say you shot it," he told me, stroking his great beardalternately with either hand.

  "Then they lie!" I answered.

  "Let me see that rifle!" he said, reaching out an enormous freckledfist to take it.

  I saw through his game at last. It would have been the easiest thingin the world to extract a cartridge from the clip in the magazine andclaim afterward that I had fired it away. Evidently he proposed to getme in his power, though for just what reason he was so determined tomake 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 weighedmore than a hundred pounds, but the African climate had not had timeenough 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 afterall! Good day, and good riddance!"

  The boys tried to prevent my carrying the buck away.

  "Come back!" growled the professor. "I will take responsibility forthat 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 thecarcass 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 athim, 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 wasnot so delighted as I expected. He reprimanded me for being late forbreakfast, and told me I was lucky to get any. Fred and Will hadwaited for me, and while we ate alone and I told them the story of mymorning's adventure a police officer in khaki uniform tied up his muleoutside 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 theowner."

  "Then you're the man I want. The court sits at nine. You'd better bethere, or you'll be fetched!"

  He placed in my hand what proved to be a summons to appear before thedistrict court that morning on the charge of carrying an unregisteredrifle and shooting game without a license. Two native policemen he hadwith him took down the buck from the hook outside the kitchen door andcarried it off as evidence.

  We finished our breakfast in great contentment, and strode offarm-in-arm to find the court-house, feeling as if we were going to aplay--perhaps a mite indignant, as if the subject of the play were onewe did not quite approve, but perfectly certain of a good time.

  The court was crowded. The bearded professor, his four boys, and twoother natives were there, as well as several English officials, allapparently on very good terms indeed with Schillingschen.

  As we entered the court under the eyes of a hostile crowd I heard oneofficial say to the man standing next him:

  "I hope he'll make an example of this case. If he doesn't every newarrival in this country will try to take the law in his own hands. Ihope he fines him the limit!"

  "Give me your hunting-knife, Fred!" said I, and Fred laughed as hepassed it to me. For the moment I think he thought I meant to plungeit into the too talkative official's breast.

  First they called a few township cases. A drunken Muhammedan was finedfive rupees, and a Hindu was ordered to remove his garbage heap beforenoon. Three natives were ordered to the chain-gang for a week forfighting, and a Masai charged with stealing cattle was remanded. Thenmy case was called, very solemnly, by a magistrate scarcely any olderthan myself.

  The police officer acted as prosecutor. He stated that "acting oninformation received" he had proceeded to the hotel. Outside of whichhe saw a buck hanging (buck produced in evidence); that he had enteredthe hotel, found me at breakfast, and that I had not denied having shotthe buck. He called his two colored askaris to prove that, and theyreeled off what they had to say with the speed of men who had beenthoroughly rehearsed. Then he put the German on the stand, andSchillingschen, with a savage glare at me, turned on his verbalartillery. 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 wasdressing. The sound of a rifle being fired had awakened me earlierthan usual. He carried a rifle, and I put two and two together andconcluded he had shot something. Not having seen him ever before, andhe standing before my tent, I asked him his name. He refused to tellme, and that made me suspicious. Then came my four boys carrying abuck, which they assured me they had seen him shoot. I asked himwhether he had a license to shoot game, and he at once threatened toshoot me if I did not mind my own business. Therefore, I sent a noteto the police at once."

  His four boys were then put on the stand in turn, and told their storythrough an interpreter. Their words identical. If the interpreterspoke truth one account did not vary from the next in the slightestdegree, and that fact alone should have aroused the suspicion of anyunprejudiced judge.

  Having the right to cross-examine, I asked each in turn whether therifle I had brought with me to court was the same they had seen meusing. They asserted it was. Then I recalled the German and asked himthe same question. He also replied in the affirmative. I asked himhow he knew. He said he recognized the mark on the butt where thevarnish had been chafed away.Then I handed the hunting knife I had borrowed from to the policeofficer and demanded that he have the bullet cut out of the buck'scarcass. The court could not object to that, so under the eyes of atleast fifty witnesses a flattened Mauser bullet was produced. I calledattention to the fact that my rifle was a Lee-Enfield that could notpossibly have fired a Mauser bullet. The court was young and verydignified--examined the bullet and my rifle--and had to be convinced.

  "Very well," was the verdict on that count, "it is proved that you didnot shoot this particular buck, unless the police have evidence thatyou used a different rifle."

  The policeman confessed that he had no evidence along that line, so thefirst charge was dismissed.

  "But you are charged," said the magistrate, "with carrying anunregistered rifle, and shooting without a license."

  For answer I produced my certificate of registration and the big gamelicense 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 hisboys 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 lawagainst perjury was strictly enforced the jails wouldn't hold afiftieth of them! They don't understand."

  "B
ut that blackguard with a beard--that rascal Schillingschenunderstands!" 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 theround white topee is the collector."

  So we three followed the collector to his office, arriving about twominutes after the man himself. The Goanese clerk had been in thecourt, 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 collectorgreeted 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 sufferedfrom blunt razors, and a temper rendered raw by native cooking. But hehad photos of feminine relations and a little house in a dreary Midlandstreet on his desk, and was no doubt loyal to the light he saw. Iwished we had Monty with us. One glimpse of the owner of a title thatstands written in the Doomsday Book would have outshone the halo ofSchillingschen's culture.

  I rattled off what I had to say, telling the story from the moment Istarted to follow Hassan from the hotel down to the end, omittingnothing.

  "Schillingschen is worse than a spy. He's a black-hearted, schemer.He's planning to upset British rule in this Protectorate and make iteasy for the Germans to usurp!"

  "This is nonsense!" the collector interrupted. "ProfessorSchillingschen is the honored friend of the British government. Hecame to us here with the most influential backing--letter ofintroduction from very exalted personages, I assure you! ProfessorSchillingschen is one of the most, if not the most, learnedethnologists 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 thataway?"

  "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 againstyou is nothing in itself! Many a case in court is lost from lack ofproper evidence! And one more matter! Lady Isobel Saffren Waldon isstaying--or rather, I should say, was staying at the hotel. She is nowstaying at my house. She complains to me of very rude treatment at thehands of you three men--insolent treatment I should call it! I canassure you that the way to get on in this Protectorate is not to behavelike cads toward ladies of title! I understand that her maid is afraidto be caught alone by any one of you, and that Lady Saffren Waldonherself feels scarcely any safer!"

  Fred and I saw the humor of the thing, and that enabled us to save Willfrom disaster. There never was a man more respectful of women thanWill. He would even get off the sidewalk for a black woman, and wouldneither tell nor laugh at the sort of stories that pass current aboutwomen in some smoking-rooms. His hair bristled. His ears stuck out oneither side of his head. He leaned forward--laid one strong brown handon the desk--and shook his left fist under the collector's nose.

  "You poor boob!" he exploded. Then he calmed himself. "I'm sorry foryour government if you're the brightest jewel it has for this job!That Jane will use everything you've got except the squeal! Greatsuffering Jemima! Your title is collector, is it? Do you collect bugsby any chance? You act like it! So help you two men and a boy, abughouse is where I believe you belong! Come along, fellows, he'llbite us if we stay!"

  "Be advised" said the collector, leaning back in his chair andsneering. "Behave yourselves! This is no country for taking chanceswith the law!"

  "Remember Courtney's advice," said Fred when we got outside. "Supposewe give him a few days to learn the facts about Lady Isobel, and thengo back and try him again?"

  "Say!" answered Will, stopping and turning to face us. "What d'youtake me for? I like my meals. I like three squares a day, andtobacco, and now and then a drink. But if this was the Sahara, andthat 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 landwould prove alike--limited our choice, for unless we were to allayofficial suspicion it would be hopeless to get away northward.Southward into German East seemed the only way to go; there wasapparently no law against travel in that direction. On our way to thehotel we passed Coutlass, striding along smirking to himself, headedtoward the office from which we had just come.

  "I'll bet you," said Will, "he's off to get an ammunition permit, andpermission 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 getammunition. Lady Saffren Waldon's influence was already strong enoughfor that. He did not ask for leave to go anywhere for the simplereason that his movements depended wholly on ours--a fact thatdeveloped 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 earslit, and almost all of his left ear missing--without any of the brassor iron wire ornaments that most of the natives of the land affect, butpossessed of a Harris tweed shooting jacket and, of all unexpectedthings, boots that he carried slung by the laces from his neck-waitedfor us, squatting with a note addressed to Fred tied in a cleft stick.

  It does not pay to wax enthusiastic over natives, even when onesuspects they bring good news. We took the letter from him, told himto wait, and went on in. Once out of the man's hearing Fred tore theletter open and read it aloud to us.

  "Herewith my Kazimoto," it ran. "Be good to him. Itoccurred to me that you might not care after all to linger inNairobi, and it seemed hardly fair to keep the boy from getting a goodjob simply because he could make me comfortable for theremainder of a week. So, as there happened to be ae special traingoing up I begged leave for him to ride in the caboose. He isa splendid gun-bearer. He never funks, but reloads coolly under themost nerve-trying conditions. He has his limitations, of course,but I have found him brave and faithful, and I pass him along to youwith confidence.

  "And by the way: he has been to Mount Elgon with me. Iwas not looking for buried ivory, but he knows where the cavesare 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. Wewere 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 ownhim!"

  Fred sat down. "Ex-missionaries own dice," he announced. "That's howthey 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 uglyblack man--to give him a hint that he was welcome. But it is a fatalmistake to make a "soft" impression on even the best natives at thestart.

  "Karibu!"* I said gruffly when I had looked him over, using one of thesix dozen Swahili words I knew as yet. [*Karibu, enter, come in.]

  He arose with the unlabored ease that I have since learned to look forin all natives worth employing; and followed me indoors. Will andFred 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 toit. 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 perfectlystraight face.

  "Say two dollars a month all told!" Will whispered to me behind hishand.

  "I am a good gun-bearer!" the native answered. "My spirit is good. Iam strong. There is nobody better than me as a gun-bearer!"

  "We happen to want a headman," answered Fred. "Have you ever beenheadman?"

  "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 instantlywhy, but that would have been too rank indiscretion. It never pays toseem curious about a native's personal reasons, and it was many weeksbefore we knew why he had made up his mind in advance to choose Fredand not either of us for his master.

  His choice made, and the offer of his services accepted, he took overFred forthwith--demanded his keys--found out which our room was--wentover our belongings and transferred the best of our things into Fred'sbag and the worst of his into ours--remade Fred's bed after amysterious fashion of his own, taking one of my new blankets and one ofWill's in exchange for Fred's old ones--cleaned Fred's guns thoroughlyafter carefully abstracting the oil and waste from our gun-cases andtransferring them to Fred's--removed the laces from my shooting bootsand replaced them with Fred's knotted ones--sharpened Fred's razors andshaved himself with mine (to the enduring destruction of its onceartistic edge)--and departed in the direction of the bazaar.

  He returned at the end of an hour and a half with a motley following ofabout twenty, arrayed in blankets of every imaginable faded hue and inevery stage of dirtiness.

  "You wanting cook," he announced. "These three making cook."

  He waved three nondescripts to the front, and we chose a tall Swahilibecause he grinned better than the others. "Although," as Fredremarked, "what the devil grinning has to do with cooking is more thananybody knows." The man, whose name was Juma, turned out to be anexecrable cook, but as he never left off grinning under anycircumstances (and it would have been impossible to imaginecircumstances worse than those we warred with later on) we never hadthe heart to dismiss him.

  After that, Will and I selected a servant apiece who were destinedforever to wage war on Kazimoto in hopeless efforts to prevent hisgiving Fred the best end of everything. Mine was a Baganda who calledhimself Matches, presumably because his real name was unpronounceable.Will chose a Malindi boy named Tengeneza (and that means arrange inorder, fix, make over, manage, mend--no end of an ominous name!). Theywere both outclassed from the start by Kazimoto, but to add to thehandicap he insisted that since he was a headman he would need some oneto help look after Fred at times when other duties would monopolize hisattention. He himself picked out an imp of mischief whose tribe Inever ascertained, but who called himself Simba (lion), and there andthen Simba departed up-stairs to steal for Fred whatever was left ofvalue among Will's effects and mine.

  We had scarcely got used to the idea of once more having a savageapiece to wait on us when Kazimoto turned up at the door with a stringof porters and a Goanese railway clerk. We had left our tents andheavy baggage checked at the station, but had said nothing about themto our new headman; however, he had made inquiries and worked out aplan on his own account. The railway clerk asked to know whether heshould let Kazimoto have our things.

  "Why?"' demanded Fred.

  "This hotel no good!" announced Kazimoto. "No place for boys. Heaptoo 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 inthe little corrugated iron bar run by a Goanese in the bazaar, camelurching past the township camping ground, and viewed Kazimoto with hisgang pitching our tents. He asked questions, but could get noinformation, so came along to us.

  "Where you schaps going?" he demanded, leaning against the wall. Fredtook advantage of the opportunity and examined him narrowly as to hisknowledge of German East and ways of getting there. He was in anaggravating mood that made at one moment a very well of information ofhim, and at the next a mere garrulous ass.

  "Come along o' me t' Lumbwa," was his final word on the matter. "I'llput you on a road nobody knows an' nobody, uses!"

  We spent that night under canvas and talked the matter out. The usualway to reach Lumbwa was to wait for a freight, or construction trainand beg leave to ride on that, for as yet, no passenger trains wererunning regularly on the western section of the line. But there was norule against traveling anywhere south of the equator, and it was ourpurpose to march down into German East without any one being the wiser.

  The next morning we imagined Brown was sober and sorry enough to holdhis tongue, so, without going into details with him, we agreed to gowith him "some of the way," and Fred spent the whole of that morning inthe bazaar buying loads of food and general supplies. Will and Iengaged porters, and with Kazimoto's aid as interpreter, had fiftyready to march that afternoon.

  The whole trick of starting on a journey is to start. If you only makea mile or two the first day you have at least done better than standstill; loads have been apportioned and porters broken in to someextent; you have broken the spell of inertia, and hereafter there isless likely to be trouble. We made up our minds to get away thatafternoon, and I was sent back to the hotel to find Brown, who had gonefor his belongings.

  If Brown had stayed sober all might have been well, but his headacheand feeling of unworthiness had been too much for him and I found himwith a straw in the neck of a bottle of whisky alternately laying downlaw to Georges Coutlass and drinking himself into a state of temporarybliss.

  "You Greeks dunno nothin'!" he asserted as I came in. "You never didknow 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 youGreeks nothin' about where we're off to, nor why, nor when. An' youput that in your pipe an' smoke it!"

  I sat in the dining-room for a while, hoping that the Greek would goaway; but as Brown was fast drinking himself into a condition when hecould not have been moved except on stretcher, and was momentarilyedging closer to an admission of all he knew or guessed about ourintention, I took the bull by the horns at last--snatched away hiswhisky bottle, and walked off with it.

  He came after me swearing like a trooper, and his own porters, who hadbeen waiting for more than an hour beside his loads, trailed alongafter him. Once in our camp we made a hammock for him out of a blankettied to a pole, and made him over to two porters with the promise thatthey would get no supper if they lost him. Then we started--uphill,toward the red Kikuyu heights, where settlers were already trying togrow potatoes for which there was no market, and onions that would onlyrun to seed.

  To our left rear and right front were the highest mountain ranges inAfrica. Before us was the pass through which the railway threaded overthe wide high table-land before dipping downward to Victoria Nyanza.On our left front was all Kikuyu country, and after that Lumbwa, andnative reserves, and forest, and swamp, and desert, and the Germanboundary.

  We made a long march of it that first day, and camped after dark withintwo miles of Kikuyu station. Most of the scrub thereabouts was castoroil plant, that makes very poor fuel; yet there were lions in plentythat roared and scouted around us even before the tents were pitched.

  Nobody got much sleep that night,
although the porters were perfectlyindifferent to the risk of snoozing on the watch. Kazimoto produced athing called a kiboko--a whip of hippopotamus-hide a yard and a halflong, and with the aid of that and Will's good humor we constituted ayelling brigade, whose business was to make the welkin ring withgodless 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 terrifythe very night itself. Fred played concertina nearly all night long,and when dawn came, though there were tracks of lions all about thecamp we were only tired and sleepy. Nobody was missing; nobody killed.

  We never again took lions so seriously, although we always built firesabout the camp in lion country when that was possible. Partly by dintof carelessness that brought no ill results, and partly fromobservation we learned that where game is plentiful lions are morecurious than dangerous, and that unless something should happen toenrage them, or the game has gone away and they are hungry, they arelikely to let well alone.

  If there are dogs in camp--and we bought three terrier pups thatmorning from a settler at Kikuyu--leopards are likely to be moretroublesome than lions. The leopards seemed to yearn for dog-meat muchas Brown of Lumbwa yearned for whisky.

  The journey to Lumbwa is one of the pleasantest I remember. We tookBrown's supply of whisky from him, locked up with our own, sent himahead in the hammock, and let him work as guide by promises ofwhisky for supper if he did his duty, and threats of mere cold water ifhe failed.

  "But water rots my stomach!" he objected.

  "Lead on, then!" was the invariable, remorseless answer. So Brown leduntil we reached Naivasha with its strange lake full of hippo at anelevation so great that the mornings are frosty (and that within sightof the line). There was never a day that we were once out of sight ofgame from dawn to dark. When we awoke the morning mist would scatterslowly and betray sleepy herds of antelope, that would rise leisurely,stand staring at us, suddenly become suspicious, and then gallop offuntil the whole plain was a panorama of wheeling herds, reminding oneof the cavalry maneuvers at Aldershot when the Guards regiments werepitted against the regular cavalry--all riding and no wits.

  Although we had to shoot enough meat for ourselves and men, we neveronce took advantage of those surprise parties in the early morning,preferring to stalk warier game at the end of a long march. The rainswere a thing of the past, and we seldom troubled to pitch tents butslept under the stars with a sensation that the universe was one vastplace of peace.

  Occasionally we reached an elevation from which we could look down andsee men toiling to build the railway, that already reached Nyanza afterthe unfinished fashion of work whose chief aim is making a showing.Profits, performances were secondary matters; that railway's onepurpose was to establish occupation of the head waters of the Nile andrefute the German claim to prior rights there. At irregular intervalstrains already went down to the lake, and passengers might ride onsuffrance; but we deluded ourselves with the belief that by marchingwe threw enemies off the scent. It was pure delusion, but extremelypleasant while it lasted. Where Africa is green and high she is alovely land to march across.

  Brown grew sober on the trip, as if approaching his chosen home gavehim a sense of responsibility. His own reason for preferring the marchto a ride in a construction train was simple:

  "Every favor you ask o' gov'ment, boys, leaves one less to fall back onin a pinch! Ask not, and they'll forget some o' your peccadillos. Asktoo often, and one day when you really need a kindness you'll find theBank o' Good Hope bu'sted! And, believe me, boys, that 'ud be a hellof a predicament for a poor sufferin' settler to find himself in!"

  The approach to Lumbwa was over steep hilly grass land, between forestsof cedar--perfect country, kept clean by a wind that smelt of fern andclover.

  "You can tell we're gettin' near my place," said Brown, "by the numbero' leopards that's about."

  We had to keep our three pups close at heel all the time, and even atthat we lost two of them. One was taken from between Will's feet as hesat in camp cleaning his rifle. All he heard was the dog's yelp, andall he saw was a flash of yellow as the leopard made for the bouldersclose at hand. The other was taken out of my tent. I had tied it tothe tent pole, but the stout cord snapped like a hair and the darknessswallowed both leopard and its prey before I could as much as reach myrifle to get a shot.

  "Splendid country for farmin'," Brown remarked, "Splendid. Only youcan't keep sheep because the leopards take 'em. You can't keep hensfor the same reason. Nor yet cows, because the leopards get thecalves--leastways, that's to say unless you watch out awful cautious.Nor yet you can't keep pigeons, 'cause the leopards take them too. Isent to England for fancy pigeons--a dozen of em. Leopards got all butone, 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. Wentaway the next day for some shootin', an' lo and behold!--came back thatevenin' to discover my cook an' three others carryin' on as if KingdomCome had took place at last. Never heard or saw such a jamboree. Theblamed leopard was up in the loft; and had eaten the pigeon, feathersand all, but couldn't get out again!"

  "What happened? Nothin'! I was that riled I didn't stop tothink--fixed a bayonet on the old Martini the gov'ment supplies tosettlers out of the depths of its wisdom an' generosity--climbed up bythe same route the leopard took--invaded him--an' skewered him wi' thebayonet in the dark! I wouldn't do it again for a kingdom--but I won'tbuy 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 atNairobi--there's a way of farmin' out your cattle among the nativesthat beats keepin' 'em yourself. The natives put 'em in the villagepen 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'recontented. I keep a herd o' two hundred cows in a native village notfar from my place. The natural increase o' them will make mewell-to-do some day."

  The day before we reached Brown's tiny homestead we heard a lot ofshooting over the hill behind us.

  "That'll be railway men takin' a day off after leopards," announcedBrown 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, butalthough we heard rifle firing repeatedly we did not once catch sightof smoke or men. We marched into camp late that night with a feelingof foreboding that we could not explain but that troubled us bothequally.

  Once or twice in the night we heard firing again, as if somebody's campnot very far away was invaded by leopards, or perhaps lions. Yet atdawn there were no signs of tents. And when that night we arrived atBrown's homestead we seemed to have the whole world to ourselves.

  Brown's house was a tiny wooden affair with a thick grass roof. Itboasted a big fireplace at one end of the living-room, and a chimneythat Brown had built himself so cunningly that smoke could go up andout but no leopards could come down.

  He got very drunk that night to celebrate the home-coming, and stayedcompletely drunk for three days, we making use of his barn to give ourporters a good rest. By day we shot enough meat for the camp, and atnight we sat over the log fire, praying that Brown might sober up, Fredsinging songs to his infernal concertina, and all the natives who couldcrowd in the doorway listening to him with all their ears. Fred madevast headway in native favor, and learned a lot of two languages atonce.

  Every day we sent Kazimoto and another boy exploring among the Lumbwatribe, gathering information as to routes and villages, and it wasKazimoto who came running in breathless one night just as Brown was atlast sobering up, with the news that some Greeks had swooped down onBrown's cattle, had wounded two or three of the villagers who herdedthem, and had driven the who
le herd away southward.

  That news sobered Brown completely. He took the bottle of whisky hehad just brought up from the cellar and replaced it unopened.

  "There's on'y one Greek in the world knew where my cattle were!" heannounced grimly. "There's on'y one Greek I ever talked to aboutcattle. Coutlass, by the great horn spoon! The blackguard swore hewas after you chaps--swore he didn't care nothing about me! What hedid to you was none o' my business, o' course--an' I figured anyway asyou 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 youthat I told him my own business to throw him off your track! And nowthe devil goes an' turns on me!"

  He got down his rifle and began overhauling it, feverishly, yet with adeliberate care that was curious in a man so recently drunk. While hecleaned and oiled be gave orders to his own boys; and what with havingservants of our own and having to talk to them mostly in the nativetongue, we were able to understand pretty well the whole of what hesaid.

  "You're not going to start after them to-night?" Fred objected. But heand Will were also already overhauling weapons, for the second timethat evening. (It is religion with the true hunter never to eat supperuntil his rifle is cleaned and oiled.) I got my own rifle down fromthe shelf over Brown's stone mantelpiece.

  "What d'you take me for?" demanded Brown. "There's one pace they'll goat, an' that's the fastest possible. There's one place they'll headfor, 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 thefirst night, and on into the next day; but after that they'll have torest 'em an' graze 'em a while. That's when we'll begin to gain. Thetireder the cattle get, the faster we'll overhaul 'em, for we can eatwhile we're marchin', which the cattle can't! You chaps just stay herean' 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 overthe border with all those cattle, the Germans'll never hand 'em overuntil 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 alllegal an' proper--an' then they'll chase the Greeks back to BritishEast for punishment same as they always do. What good 'ud that be tome? No, no! Me--I'm going to catch 'em this side o' the line, or elsebu'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 theGermans don't patrol more often than once in a leap-year. If I catchthem Greeks in any o' that country, I'm going to kid myself deliberatethat it's British East, and act accordin'!"

  At last we convinced him, although I don't remember how, for he wasobstinate from the aftermath of whisky, that we would no more permithim to go alone than he would consider abandoning his cattle. Then wehad to decide who should follow with our string of porters, for ifforced marching was in order it was obvious that we should faroutdistance our train.

  We invited Brown to follow with all the men while we three skirmishedahead, but he waxed so apoplectically blasphemous at the very thoughtof it that Fred assured him the proposal was intended for a joke. Thenwe argued among ourselves, coaxed, blarneyed, persuaded, and tried tobribe 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 cookingpots, started off just as the moon rose over the nearest cedars, andlaughed at Fred marshaling the sleepy porters by lamplight in the openspace between the house and barn. He was to follow as fast as theloaded porters could be made to travel, and with that concertina of histo spur them on there was little likelihood of losing touch. But therear-guard, when it comes to pursuing a retreating enemy, is ever theleast alluring place.

  "You've got all the luck," he shouted. "Make the most of it or I'llnever gamble on the fall of a coin again!"

  That pursuit was a journey of accidents, chapter after chapter of themin such close sequence that the whole was a nightmare without let-up orreason. 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 whetherthe most practicable trail went right or left. Brown set his ownindecision down frankly to the whisky that had muddled him. EvenKazimoto, who had passed that way three times, did not know forcertain. So I went forward to scout--stepped into the deep shadow ofsome jungle--trod on nothing--threw the other foot forward to savemyself--and fell downward into blackness for an eternity.

  I brought up at last unhurt in the trash and decaying vegetation at thebottom of a pit, and looked up to see the stars in a roughparallelogram above me, whose edge I guessed was more than thirty feetabove my head. I started to dig my way out, but the crumbling sidesfell in and threatened to bury me alive unless I kept still. So Ishouted until my lungs ached, but without result. I suppose the noisewent trumpeting upward out of the hole and away to the clouds and thestars. 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 anelephant with his legs wedged together under him until the poor bruteperished of thirst, before it occurred to me to fire my rifle. I firedseveral shots when I did think of it; but we had agreed on no systemof signals, and instead of coming to find me at once, the other twocursed me for wasting time shooting at leopards in the dark instead ofscouting for the track. I used twenty cartridges before they came tosee what sort of battle I was waging, and with the last shot I nearlyblew 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 longpole for me to swarm up, and at the end of that time, when I stood onfirm ground at last and wiped the blood from hands and knees, we wereno wiser about the proper direction to take.

  The next accident was a little before midnight. Will Yerkes wasleading, I following, next the boys, and Brown bringing up the rear(for in those wild hills there is never a good track wide enough fortwo men to march abreast. Even the cattle proceed in single fileunless driven furiously.) Will came on a leopard devouring its kill, afat buck, in the midst of the track in the moonlight, and the bruteresented the interruption of his meal. It slunk into the shadowsbefore Will could get a shot at it, and for the next two hours followedus, slinking from shadow to shadow, snarling and growling. It plainlyintended murder, but which of us was to be the victim, and when, therewas no means of guessing, so that the nerves of all of us were torturedevery time the brute approached.

  We wasted at least thirty cartridges on futile efforts to guess hiswhereabouts in velvet black shadows, and Brown went through all thestages from simple nervousness to fear, and then to frenzy, until wefeared he would shoot one of us in frantic determination to ring theleopard's knell.

  At last the brute did rush in, and of course where least expected. Heseized one of our porters by the shoulder, his claws doing more damagethan his teeth. I shot him by thrusting my rifle into his ear, andalthough that dropped him instantly his claws, in the dying spasm andby the weight of his fall, tore wounds in the man's arm eighteen ortwenty inches long.

  One of the things we did have with us was bandages. But it took timeto attend to the man's wounds properly by lamp and moonlight, and afterthat 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 ourdiscomfiture than sympathetic. He told off two men to carry the injuredporter to a mission station more than a day's march away, andredistributed the loads. Then we went on again, once more placing rock,hill, and cedar forest between us and our supply column, this time withFred's counsel ringing in our ears.

  "Better send for nursemaids and perambulators, and have yourselvespushed!"

  At n
oon that day we found the track of the driven cattle, and soonafter that came on the half-devoured carcass of a heifer that theGreeks had shot, presumably because it could not march, and perhapswith the added reason that freshly-killed meat would draw off leopardsand hyenas and provide peace for a few miles.

  Once on the trail it would not have been easy to lose it, except in thedark, for the Greek marauders were bent on speed and the driven cattlehad smashed down the undergrowth in addition to leaving deephoof-prints at every water-course.

  The first suspicion that dawned on me of something more than merefreebooting on the part of Coutlass, was due to the discovery ofhoof-prints of either mules or horses. I was marching alone inadvance, and came on them beside a stream that was only apparentlyfordable in that one place. After making sure of what they were Ihalted 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 himtobacco 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-endedon a earthquake, he must ha' bought mules from the one man who has anyto sell. And he lives t'other side o' Nairobi. There are none betweenthere and here--none whatever. Zachariah Korn--him who owns mules--istoo 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 riskto 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 toshow us a short cut to what we're after. If that's how they work itout, then they wouldn't need think much to conclude that putting Brownon the blink would hoodoo us. Maybe they allow that that much bad luckto begin with would unsettle Brown's friendly feelings for us.Anyway--somebody bought the mules--somebody stole the cattle--cattleare somewhere ahead. Let's hurry forward and see!"

  We did hurry, but made disgustingly poor time. Once a dozen buffalostampeded our tiny column. Our five porters dropped their loads, andthe biggest old bull mistook our only tent for our captain's dead bodyand proceeded to play ball with it, tossing it and tearing it to piecesuntil at last Will got a chance for a shoulder shot and drilled himneatly. Two other bulls took to fighting in the midst of theexcitement and we got both of them. Then the rest trotted off; so wepacked the horns of the dead ones on the head of our free porter (forthe 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 fifteenmiles between two rivers, we fell shoulder-deep into a bog and onlyescaped after an hour's struggle during which we all but lost twoporters. We had to retrace our steps and follow the Greek's route,only to have the mortification of seeing Fred and our column ofsupplies coming over the top of a rise not eight miles behind us.

  Determined not to be overtaken by him a second time and treated toadvice about nursemaids, we dispensed with sleep altogether for thatnight, 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) butthat his boat would hold twice our number, and that he could take usover easily in the dark. In fact he swore he had ferried twice ournumber over on darker nights more than twenty or thirty times. He alsosaid 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 thatstatement, and we began to put some faith in his tale.

  So we all piled into his crazy boat with our belongings, and hepromptly lost the way amid the twelve-foot grass-papyrus mostly--thatdivided the river into narrow streams and afforded protection to themost savagely hungry mosquitoes in the world. Our faces and hands werewet with blood in less than two minutes.

  Presently, instead of finding bottom for his pole, he pushed us intodeep water. The grass disappeared, and a ripple on the water lippingdangerously within three inches of our uneven gunwale proved that wewere more or less in the main stream. We had enjoyed that sensationfor about a minute, and were headed toward where we supposed theopposite bank must be, when a hippo in a hurry to breathe blew justbeside us--saw, smelt, or heard us (it was all one to him)--and divedagain.

  I suppose in order to get his head down fast enough he shoved his rumpup, 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 afterhim. Together we hauled up Brown, who could not swim but wasbombastically furious and unafraid; and the three of us pulled out theporters 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 backon to the wreck the moon came out, and we saw the far bank hazilythrough mist and papyrus.

  The boat floated far more steadily wrong side up, perhaps because wehad lashed all our loads in place and they acted as ballast. Will tookthe pole and acted the part of Charon, our proper pilot contentinghimself with perching on the rear end lamenting the ill-fortune noisilyuntil Kazimoto struck him and threatened to throw him back into thewater.

  "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 wehad to hunt a passage through it in pitch darkness. Then, having foundthe muddy bank at last (and more trillions of mosquitoes) we had todrag the overturned boat out high and dry to rescue our belongings.And that was ticklish work, because most of the crocodiles, andpractically all the largest ones, spend the night alongshore.

  Matches were wet. We had no means of making a flare to frighten themonsters away. We simply had to "chance it" as cheerfully and swiftlyas we could, and at the end of a half-hour's slimy toil we carried ourmuddied loads to the nearest high ground and settled down there for thenight.

  It would be mad exaggeration to say we camped. Wet to the skin--dirtyto the verge of feeling suicidal--bitten by insects until the blood randown from us--lost (for we had no notion where the end of the fordmight be)--at the mercy of any prowling beasts that might discover us(for our rifle locks were fouled with mud)--we sat with chatteringteeth and waited for the morning.

  When the sun rose we found a village less than four hundred yards awayand sent the boys down to it to unpack the loads and spread everythingin the sun to dry, while we went down to the river again and washed ourrifles. Then we dried and oiled them, and without a word of bargain orexplanation, invaded the cleanest looking hut, lay down on the stampedclay floor, and slept. It was only clean-looking, that hut. It housedmore myraids of fleas than the air outside supported "skeeters"; but weslept, unconscious of them all.

  At four that afternoon we had the mortification of being roused byFred's voice, and the dumping of loads as his sixty porters droppedtheir burdens inside the village stockade. He had scorned the ferryand crossed the ford on foot, making a prodigious splash to keepcrocodiles away, and was as full of life and fun as a schoolboy onvacation.

  "Wake up, you vorl
oopers!" he shouted. "Wake up! Shake off the fleasand come, and I'll show you something."

  He had already had the tale of our night's misfortune in detail fromthe owner of the only canoe (who claimed double pay on the ground thatwe had lost no loads in spite of over-turning. "The last really whiteman who crossed lost all his loads!" he explained.).

  "Come and I'll show you something you never saw before, youscouts!--you advance guard!--you line of skirmishers!"

  Will hurled a lump of earth at him, and chased him to the river, wherethey wrestled, trying to throw each other in, until both werebreathless. 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 thanhalf 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 lookat it.

  "Know what it is?" Fred panted.

  We did not know, and it was no use guessing. It looked like burnedlime, or else the secretions of about a billion birds; and there wereno birds to speak of.

  "Crocodile eggs!" said Fred.

  We did not believe that. Even Brown did not believe it. There was notime to spare, but Brown out of curiosity agreed, so we took the absurdcanoe and poled down to investigate. As we came nearer the solid whitebroke 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. Theylay in the sun in batches in every stage of incubation, and from almostevery batch there were little crocodiles emerging, that made straightfor the water. What worse monster preyed on them to keep their numbersdown, 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 theboat vowed there were no fish left in the river, and that thecrocodiles did not eat hippo unless it were first dead.

  We took another tent from among Fred's loads, changed two of ourporters for stronger ones, and went forward that evening; for it beganto be obvious that the speed had been telling on the cattle. We passedtwo more dead heifers within a few miles of the river bank, and therewere other signs that for all our long sleep we were gaining on them.

  Perhaps the Greeks thought they had shaken off pursuit. Judging by thecompass they were headed for the shore of Victoria Nyanza, where thegrazing would be better, food for men would be purchaseable, and thenumber of villages closely spaced would make the task of night-herdingvastly easier. There isn't a village in that part of Africa that isnot proud to be a host to anybody's cattle, if only because theownership of so much living wealth casts glory on all who come incontact with it.

  There was no means of telling whether or not we were over the Germanborder. The boundary line had not been surveyed yet, and on the mapthe part where we were was set down as "unexplored," although that wasscarcely accurate; the route was well enough known to Greeks andArabs, and other bad characters bent on smuggling or in some other waydefeating the ends of justice.

  We marched that night until midnight, slept until dawn, and were offagain. At noon we reached rising ground, and Kazimoto ran ahead of usto the summit. We saw him standing at gaze for three or four minuteswith one hand shading his eyes before he came scampering back, asexcited as if his own fortune were in the balance.

  "Hooko-chini!" he shouted. "Hooko-chini--mba-a-a-li sana!"--(They'redown below there, very far away!)

  We hurried up-hill, but for many minutes could see nothing except aplain of waving grass higher than a man's head and almost asimpenetrable as bamboo-country that carried small hope in it for man orbeast, that would be a holocaust in the dry season when the heat setfire to the grass, and was an insect-haunted marsh at most other times.However, path across it there must be, for the Greeks had drivenBrown's cattle that way that very morning, and Kazimoto swore he couldsee them in the distance, although Brown, and Will, and I--all threekeen-sighted--could see nothing whatever but immeasurable, worthlesswaving grass.

  At last I detected a movement near the horizon that did not synchronizewith the wind-blown motion of the rest. I pointed it out to theothers, and after a few minutes we agreed that it moved against thewind.

  "They're hurrying again," said Brown, peering under both hands."There's no feed for cattle on all this plain. They're racing to getto 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 asstraight as a bee would fly for the point on the horizon where we knewthe Greeks to be. And for the second time we fell into a bog, nearlylosing our lives in it. We had to pull one another out, using even ourprecious rifles as supports in the yielding mud, and then spendingequally 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 hadrisen again, and cattle and mounted men can cross easily ground thatdelays men on foot.

  The heat was that of an oven. The water--what there was of it in theholes and swampy places--stank, and tasted acrid. The flies seemed togreet us as their only prospect of food that year. The monotony ofhurrying through grass-stems that cut off all view and only showed thesky through a waving curtain overhead was more nerve-trying than thephysical weariness and thirst.

  We slept a night in that grass, burning some of it for a smudge to keepmosquitoes at bay, and an hour after dawn, reaching rising groundagain, realized that we had our quarry within reach at last.

  They were out in the open on short good grazing. The Greeks' tent waspitched. We could see their mules, like brown insects, tied under atree, and the cattle dotted here and there, some lying down, somefeeding.

  "At last!" said Brown. "Boys, they're our meat! There's a tree tohang the Greeks and the Goa to! When we've done that, if you'll allcome back with me I'll send to Nairobi for an extra jar of Irishwhisky, and we'll have a spree at Lumbwa that'll make the fall of Romesound like a Sunday-school picnic! We're in German territory now, allright. There's not a white man for a hundred miles in anydirection--except your friend that's coming along behind. There'snobody 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. Isaid there'll be no dirty work, that's all."

  "Shall we rest a while, and come on them fresh in the morning?" Iproposed.

  "Forward!" snorted Brown. "Why d'you want to wait?"

  "Forward it is!" agreed Will. "When we get a bit closer we'll stop andhold council of war."

  "One minute!" said I. "Tell me what that is?"

  I had been searching the whole countryside, looking for some means ofstealing on the marauders unawares and finding none. They had chosentheir camping place very wisely from the point of view of men unwillingto be taken by surprise. Far away over to our right, appearing anddisappearing as I watched them, were a number of tiny black dots insort of wide half-moon formation, and a larger number of rather largerdots 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 allof us.

  We were silent for several minutes. The veriest stranger in that landknows about the feats and bravery of the Masai, who alone of all tribesdid not fear the Arabs, and who terrorized a quarter of a continentbefore the British came and broke their power.

  "Mbaia cabisa!" muttered Kazimoto, meaning that the development wasvery bad indeed. And he had right to know.

  He explained it was a raid. The Masai, in accordance with time-honoredcustom, had
come from British East to raid the lake-shore villages ofGerman territory, and were driving back the plundered cattle. None candrive cattle as Masai can. They can take leg-weary beasts by the tailand make them gallop, one beast encouraging the next until they all golike the wind. For food they drink hot blood, opening a vein in abeast's neck and closing it again when they have had their fill. Theironly luggage is a spear. Their only speed-limit the maximum the cattlecan be stung to. On a raid three hundred and sixty miles in six daysis an ordinary rate of traveling.

  Just now they did not seem in much hurry. They had probably butcheredthe fighting men of all the villages in their rear, and were wellinformed as to the disposition of the nearest German forces. Therewere probably no Germans within a hundred miles. There was notelegraph in all those parts. To notify Muanza by runner and Bagamoyoon the coast from there by wire would take several days. Then Bagamoyowould have to wire the station at Kilimanjaro, and there was no earthlychance of Germans intercepting them before they could reach BritishEast.

  Nor was there any treaty provision between British and German colonialgovernments for handing over raiders. The Germans had refused to makeany such agreement for reasons best known to themselves. The fact thatthey were far the heaviest losers by the lack of reciprocal policearrangements was due to the fact that most of the Masai lived inBritish East. The Masai would have raided across either border withsupreme indifference.

  "Masai not talking. Masai using spear and kill!" remarked Kazimoto.

  "One good thing our gov'ment's done," said Brown. "Just one. It haskept those rascals from owning rifles! But lordy! They've got spearsthat 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'reall the wealth I own in the world. If I lose 'em I'm minded to dieanyhow. There's nothing in life for a drunkard like me with all hismoney gone and nothing to do but take a mean white's job. You chapsjust 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 andgiving the boys orders, I saw two things happen. First, the Masaibecame aware of the little Greek encampment and the two hundred head ofcattle waiting at their mercy; and second, the Greeks grew aware ofthe Masai.

  The Greeks had boys with them; I saw at least half a dozen goscattering to round up the cattle. The tents began to come down, and Isaw three figures that might be the Greeks and the Goanese holding aconsultation 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 theGreeks get away with Brown's cattle, or help the Masai steal 'em fromthe 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 aquarter of a million of 'em--all on hand to swear they bought 'em fromme; an' the British gov'ment takin' sides with the black men, as italways does? Oh, yes! It sounds easy, that does!"

  "But if the Greeks get away with 'em," argued Will, "you've no chanceof recovering at all."

  "I'll not take sides with Masai--even against Greeks!" Brown answeredgrimly, and Will laughed.

  "If we attack the Greeks first," I said, "perhaps they'll run. We'renearer to them than the Masai are. The Masai, will have to corraltheir own cattle before they can leave them to raid a new lot. We canopen 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. Wemay possibly escape with them too quickly for the Masai to think itworth while to follow."

  Brown laughed cynically.

  "We can try it," he said. "An' if the Greeks don't run pretty quickthey'll never run again--I'll warrant that!"

  Nobody had a better plan to propose, so we emptied our pockets of allbut fifty rounds of ammunition each, and gave the rest to Kazimoto tocarry, with orders to keep in hiding and watch, and run with cartridgesto whoever should first need them.

  Then, because instead of corraling their cattle the Masai were alreadydividing themselves into two parties, one of which drove the cattleforward and the other diverged to study the attack, we ducked downunder a ridge and ran toward the Greeks. The sooner we could get thefirst stage of the fighting off our hands the better.

  It proved a long way--far longer than I expected, and the going wasrougher. Moreover, the Greeks' boys were losing no time about roundingup the cattle. By the time they were ready to make a move we werestill more than a mile away, and out of breath.

  "If they go south," panted Brown, throwing himself down by a clump ofgrass to gasp for his third or fourth wind, "the Masai'll catch 'emsure, an' we'll be out o' the running! Lord send they head 'em backtoward British East!"

  He was in much the worst physical condition because of the whisky, buthis wits were working well enough. The Greeks on the other hand seemedundecided and appeared to be arguing. Then Brown's prayer wasanswered. The Greeks' boys decided the matter for them by stampedingthe 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 andmade a bee line. Within a minute they were spread fan-wise between usand 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. Iclimbed 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 Ilaughed.

  "Laugh all you like!" he said. "I've a long job on my hands! I'llhave revenge on 'em if it takes the rest o' my life! I'll follow 'emto hell-and-gone!"

  "Meanwhile," I said, still standing on the ant-hill, "the Masai arefollowing the cattle! They're smoking this way in two single columnsof about twenty spears in each. The remainder are driving their owncattle about due eastward so as to be out of the way of trouble."

  "All right," said Brown, growing suddenly cheerful again. "Then it'llbe 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 anddrive 'em slow and steady northward!"

  Kazimoto ran back and gave the necessary orders. He lost no time aboutit, but returned panting, and lay down in a hollow behind us withcartridges in either fist and a grin on his face that would have donecredit to a circus clown. I never, anywhere, saw any one more pleasedthan 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 aspossible except for their spears, a leg ornament made from the hair ofthe colobus monkey, a leather apron hung on just as suited theindividual wearer's fancy, a great shield, and an enormousostrich-feather head-dress. They seemed in no hurry, for they probablyguessed that the cattle would stop to graze again when the first scarewas 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 thecattle to herd them northward. They halted to holdconsultation--apparently decided that they had only unarmed natives todeal with--and came on again, faster than before.

  "Better open fire now!" said Brown, when they were still a quarter of amile away.

  "Wait till you can see their eyes!" Will advised. "An unexpectedvolley at close quarters will do more havoc than hours of long-rangeshooting.

  "
This ain't a long range!" Brown objected. "As for unexpected--justwatch me startle 'em! My sight's fixed at four hundred. Watch!"

  He fired--we wished he had not. The leading Masai of the right-handcolumn jerked his head sidewise as the whistling bullet passed, andthen there was nothing for it but to follow his lead and blaze away forall we were worth. If Brown had been willing to accept Will's advicethere is nothing more likely than that the close-quarter surprise wouldhave won the day for us. We would have done much more execution withthree volleys at ten-yard range. As it was, we all missed with ourfinest shots, and the Masai took heart and charged in open order.

  The worst of it was that, although we dropped several of them, now theothers had a chance to discover there were only three of us. Theirleader shouted. The right-hand column continued to attack, but changedits 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 againstus, to be dealt with before the others could come back with the cattleand take us in the rear.

  Will brought another man down; I saw the blood splash on his foreheadas the bullet drilled the skull cleanly. Then one man shouted and theyall lay prone, beginning to crawl toward us with their shields heldbefore, not as protection against bullets (for as that they wereutterly worthless) but as cover that made their exact position merestguesswork.

  I fell back and took position on the ant-hill from which I had firstseen them, thus making our position triangular and giving myself achance to protect the other two should they feel forced to retire. Theextra height also gave me a distinct advantage, for I could see thelegs of the Masai over the tops of their shields, and was able to woundmore 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 allCourtney had said of him, for without the stimulus of his propermaster's eye he neither flinched nor faltered, but crawled from one tothe other, dividing the spare rounds equally.

  The Masai began to attempt to outflank us, but my position on theant-hill to the rear made that impossible; they found themselves facedby a side of the triangle from whichever side they attacked. But inturning 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 werecoming, too, and that in a few moments we were likely to beoverwhelmed. I shouted to Will and Brown, but either they did not hearme, or did not have time to answer.

  I fired half a dozen shots, and then distinctly heard the crack of arifle 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 onceand put him out of action our cause was likely lost. I stood up tolook for him and heard a wild cheer, followed by three more shots inquick succession. Then at last I saw Fred Oakes running along adepression in the ground, followed at a considerable distance by theadvance-guard of his porters. He was running, and then kneeling tofire--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 anynoise. Seeing them, and sure now of their booty, the party attackingus hauled off and took to their heels. Will and Brown were forspeeding them with bullets in the rear, but I yelled again, and thistime made myself heard. Those who had got behind the cattle and weredriving them were coming on with spears and shields raised to slay usin passing. The other two joined me, and we stood on the ant-hillthree abreast. They charged us--seven or eight of them. Three bit thedust, but the rest came on, and if it had not been for two swift shotsfrom Fred's rifle in the very nick of time we should have all been deadmen.

  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 greatbroad-bladed spear, I ahold of his wrist with one hand, and with theother fist belaboring him in the face. He was stronger thanI--greasier--sweatier--harder to hold. He slipped from under me,rolled on top, wrenched his wrist free, and in another second grinnedin my face as, with both knees in my stomach, he raised the spear tokill. I shut my eyes. I had not another breath left, nor an effort inme, 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 notstrike, I saw Kazimoto with my rifle in both hands swing for his skullwith the full weight of the butt and all his strength. Kazimotogrunted. The Masai half turned his head at the sound. The butt hithome--broke off--and my face and breast were deluged with blood andbrains.

  When I had wiped off that mess with Kazimoto's help I saw Fred and Willand Brown pursuing the retreating Masai, kneeling to shoot every fewyards, at every other shot or so bringing down a victim, but beingrapidly out-distanced. Cattle are all the Masai care about. They hadthe cattle. They had hold of tails and were making the whole herdscamper due east, where they no doubt knew of a trail not in maps.They made no attempt to defend themselves--left their dead lying--andran. I saw two or three wounded ones riding on cows, and no doubt someof 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 myrifle was broken clean off at the grip, but I ran on, and heard Brownshout:

  "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 whostopped 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 himmanhood enough to see his whole available resources carried away beforehis eyes, and he broke down as utterly as any child. It was neitheragreeable nor decent to watch, and I turned away. I was feeling sickmyself from the pressure of the Masai's knees in my stomach. That, andthe sun, and the long march, and hunger (for we had not stopped to eata meal that day) combined in argument, and I hunted about for a softplace 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 downsome, 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 thatmy head and shoulders gave the sudden forward lurch, a wounded Masaijumped out of the rushes and drove with his spear at my breast. Theblade passed down my back and split my jacket.

  He sprang back, and made another lunge at me, but Fred's rifle barkedat the same second and he fell over sidewise, driving the spear into myleg in his death spasm.

  The twenty minutes following that are the worst in memory. Kazimotobroke the gruesome news that the spear-blade was almost surelypoisoned--dipped in gangrene. The Masai are no believers in woundedenemies, or mercy on the battlefield.

  We doubted the assertion for a while--I especially, for none but ahypochondriac would care to admit without proof that gangrene had beenforced into his system. Kazimoto grew indignant, and offered to provethe truth of his claim on some animal. But there was no living animalin 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 announcedthat he knew, and offered to make good at once if given permission. Hedemanded permission again and again from each one of us, making meespecially repeat my words. Then he gathered stems of grass a third ofan inch thick from the bed of the tiny watercourse, and proceeded tomake a tiny fire, talking in a hurry as he did it to several of Fred'sstring of porters, who were now arriving on the scene.

  While I watched with a sort of
tortured interest what he was doing atthe fire, five of the largest boys with whom he had been speakingrushed me from behind, and before I could struggle, or even swear, hadme pinned out on my back on the ground. One sat on my head; one on mypoor bruised stomach; the others held wrists and ankles in such waythat 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 onthem to keep them cherry-red, and inserted one after another into theopen spear-wound. I could not cry out, because of the man sitting onmy face, but I could bite. And to the everlasting glory of theman--Ali bin Yema, his name was--be it written that he neither spokenor moved a muscle, although my front teeth met in his flesh.

  I do not know how long the process lasted, or how many times Kazimotoreturned to the fire for more of his sizzling sticks, for I fainted;and when I came round the agony was still too intense to permitinterest in anything but agony. They had my leg bandaged, how and withwhat I neither knew nor cared. And it was evident that unless theychose to leave me in camp where I was they would have to abandon allthought of pursuing Masai for the present. Even Brown saw the force ofthat, and he was the first to refuse flatly to leave me there.

  For a while they hunted through the grass for more wounded men, butfound none. There must have been several, but they probably feared thesort of mercy from us that they habitually gave to their own enemies,and crawled away--in all likelihood to die of thirst and hunger, unlesssome beast of prey should smell them out and make an earlier end.

  Then there was consultation. It was decided a doctor for me was themost urgent need; that Muanza, the largest German station on VictoriaNyanza, was probably as near as anywhere, and that German East beingour 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, andwe started, I swearing like a pirate every time a boy stumbled andjolted me. (There is something in the nature of a burn that makes badlanguage feel like singing hymns.)

  Our troubles were not all over, for we passed through a country wherebuck were fairly plentiful, and that meant lions. They did no damage,but they kept us awake; and one night near the first village we cameto, where our porters all quartered themselves with the villagers forsake of the change from their crowded tents, the fires that we madewent out, and five lions (we counted their foot-prints afterward) cameand sniffed around the pegs of the tent in which Fred and I lay, welying still and shamming dead. To have lifted a rifle in the darknessand tried to shoot would have been suicide.

  Then there were trees we passed among--baobabs, whose youngest tendrilsswung to and fro in the evening breeze like snakes head-downward. Andtaking advantage of that natural provision, twenty-foot pythons swungamong them, in coloring and marking aping the habit of the tree. Oneof them knocked Fred's helmet off as he marched beside me. They areeasy to kill. He shot it, and it dropped like a stone, three hundredpounds or more, but the sweat ran down Fred's face for half an hourafterward.

  (Since then I have seen pythons kill their prey a score of times. Inever once saw one kill by crushing. The end of their nose is as hardas iron, and they strike a terrific blow with that, so swift that theeye can not follow it. Then, having killed by striking, they crawlaround their prey and crush it into shape for swallowing.)

  But the worst of the journey was the wayside villages--dirty beyondbelief, governed in a crude way by a headman whom the Germans honoredwith the title of sultani. These wayside beggars (for they were nobetter)--destitute paupers, taxed until their wits failed them in theeffort to scrape together surplus enough out of which to pay--weresupplied with a mockery of a crown apiece, a thing of brass andimitation plush that they wore in the presence of strangers. To add tothe irony of that, the law of the land permitted any white man passingthrough to beat them, with as many as twenty-five lashes, if theyfailed to do his bidding.

  On arriving at such a village, the first thing we did was to ask formilk. If they had any they brought it, not daring to refuse for fearlest a German sergeant-major should be sent along to wreak vengeancelater. But it was always too dirty to drink.

  That ceremony over, the headman retired and the village sick werebrought for our inspection. Gruesome sores, running ulcers, wounds andcrippled limbs were stripped and exposed to our most reluctant gaze.There was little we could do for them. Our own supply of medicines andbandages was almost too small for our own needs to begin with. By thetime we passed three villages we scarcely had enough lint and linimentleft to take care of my wound; but even that scant supply we cut inhalf for a particularly bad case.

  "Don't the Germans do anything for you?" we demanded, over and overagain.

  The answer was always the same.

  "Germani mbaia!" (The Germans are bad!)

  They were lifeless--listless--tamed until neither ambition nor couragewas left. When their cattle had brought forth young and it looked asif 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. TheGermans, they said, taxed them and took their weapons away, but gavethem no protection.

  At one place we passed a rifle, lying all rusted by the track. At thenext village we asked about it. They told us that a German nativesoldier 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 sendback and lay it where we found it, lest the Germans come and punishthem for touching it. So we did that, to oblige them, and they weregrateful 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 andsaddening land, Fred always cheerful in spite of everything, Will moreangry at each village with its dirt and sores, Brown moaning alwaysabout his lovely herd of cows, and I groaning oftener than not.

  My leg grew no better, what with jolting and our ignorance of how totreat it. Sometimes, in efforts to obtain relief, I borrowed a cow atone village and rode it to the next; but a cow is a poor mount andtakes as a rule unkindly to the business. Now and then I tried to walkfor a while, on crutches that Fred made for me; but most of the time Iwas carried in a blanket that grew hotter and more comfortless as daydragged after day.

  At last, however, we topped a low rise and saw Muanza lying on thelake-shore, with the great island of Ukereweto to northward in thedistance. From where we first glimpsed it it was a tidy, tree-shaded,pleasant-looking place, with a square fort, and a big house for thecommandant 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.

 

‹ Prev Next ›