by Talbot Mundy
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
THEY TOIL NOT, NEITHER DO THEY SPIN
Now for opulence and place And the increment unearned We will thieve and stab and cover it with perjury, Contemptuous of grace And the lesson never learned That the Rules are not amenable to surgery. We will steal a neighbor's tools In the quest for easy cash, Aye, jump his claim and burrow to the heart of it, But the innocents and fools Get all the goods, and we the trash, And that's the most exasperating part of it!
Nobody in camp slept that night. When the tusks had been chopped out,and our camp carried across and pitched beside Monty's--ivoryweighed--lion-proof boma built--and elephant-heart portioned out to themen, who gorged themselves on it in order that their own hearts mightgrow great and strong; when all the myriad matters had been seen tothat make camping in the tropics such a business, then there were talesto be told. We demanded Monty's first; he ours; and because his waslikely to be much the shortest we won that argument.
"Wait one minute, though," he insisted. "Before I begin, have you anynotion who a man with a beard could be--bruised face-broken frontteeth--Mauser rifle--big dark beard cut shovel-shape--enormouslypowerful by the look of his shoulders and arms? I came on him three,no, four days' march back."
"Schillingschen!" we exclaimed with one voice.
"Show me Schillingschen!" echoed Brown, who was very drunk by thattime, nearly ready to be put to bed. "Show me Schillingschen, an' I'llshow you a corpse!"
"He's right," nodded Monty. "The man's dead. Blew his brains out withhis last cartridge. Looked to me to have lost himself. Slept intrees, I should say. Clothing all torn. Hadn't been dead long whensome of my boys came on him and drove away the jackals. Had he been ina fight, do you know?"
But we would not tell him that tale until we had his own.
"Mine's short and simple," he began. "Some ruffians boarded my ship atSuez, who made such eyes at me, and so obviously intended to do medamage at the first opportunity, that I talked it over with the captain(giving him a hint or two of the possible reason) and he agreed to slipme off secretly at Ismailia. It was easy--middle of the night, youknow--had the doctor isolate the ruffians on the starboard side whilethe ship anchored--some cooked-up excuse about quarantine--and kept 'emout of sight of what was happening until the ship went on again. Verysimple."
"Go on, Didums--we'll be all night talking--what did you do with theKing of Belgium?" Fred demanded.
"Nothing. Didn't go near the King of Belgium. I was quarantined atIsmailia on wholly imaginary grounds for fourteen days; and who shouldcome smiling into the same lazaretto on the last day but FrederickCourtney--a very old friend of mine!"
"He was to go to Somaliland," I said.
"So he told me. He's on his way there now. Decided for reasons of hisown to enter the country by way of Abyssinia. Told me of the advicehe'd given you fellows, and assured me he'd seen King Leopold himselfon the very matter scarcely a year before. Of course, he said, I mightsucceed where he failed, using influence and all that sort of thing,but he assured me Leopold was hard to deal with, and difficult to tiedown. His advice was, go back to Elgon, and hunt for the stuff there."
"That's what he kept advising us," said Will. "But why should he giveaway his information free? And if it's good, where did he get it?"
"Courtney's no dog in the manger," Monty answered. "He told me of thisman Schillingschen. Said he had sent in a report about him to the HomeGovernment, but couldn't for the life of him get documentary evidencewith which to back up his charges."
Will whistled, and drew out the diary he had rescued from the tin box.Fred nodded. Will threw it to Monty, who caught it.
"He told me this Schillingschen had searched the whole country over forthe stuff--had it straight from Schillingschen's boys--I dare say youknow how Courtney can make a native tell him all he knows.Schillingschen, he said, had eliminated pretty nearly all the likelyplaces until Mount Elgon was about all there is left. Courtney said,too, that there were always so many thousands of elephants near Elgonthat Tippoo Tib probably gathered a harvest there. We discussedprobabilities, and agreed it wasn't likely he would carry the stuff farin order to hide it. It seemed likely to both of us, too, that if thequantity the old man hid was anything like what rumor says, then therewere probably half a dozen hiding-places, not one. Most of the stuffmay be in the Congo Free State, and we'll do well to leave that toLeopold of Belgium and his pet concessionaires. Some of it may be nearhere. I stayed in the lazaretto an extra day with Courtney, talking itover. One other thing he remembered to tell me was that Schillingschenhad hunted high and low for Tippoo Tib's old servants, and had finallymanaged to have the relatives of that man Hassan--I remember, Fred, youcalled him Johnson in Zanzibar--thrown in jail in German East for somealleged offense or other."
Monty stopped to scrape out a faithful pipe, fill it, press downtobacco with a practised thumb, and reach toward the campfire for aburning brand. Then he smoked for two minutes reflectively.
"I offered Courtney a share should we find the stuff. Knew you fellowswould agree." Pause. "Courtney wouldn't hear of it." Pause. "Saidgood-by to him, and took a coastwise trading steamer back to Mombasa.Delightful trip--put in everywhere--saw everything. Saw a lot of theGalla--fine tribe, the Galla."
"Suppose you cut the travelogue stuff until later on!" suggested Will.
"Landed at Mombasa, and learned the first day that you fellows hadmanaged to make more enemies than friends. Put in a number of days onheavy social labor--lingered at the club--drank too much of theirinfernal gin-and-black-pepper appetizer--but made you fellows right, Ithink."
"We're not interested in the slumming. Go on and tell us what youdid!" urged Fred.
"That is what I did--and undid. I made friends. Soon I had all theother junior officials in a state of mind to help me if they could.Then I began to inquire for Hassan. They drew the dragnet tight, anddiscovered him at Nairobi! A young assistant district superintendentof police, who will rise in the service, I hope, before long,discovered a woman--who was jealous of a man--who was just then makinglove to the dusky damsel particularly favored by Hassan; and in thatroundabout way we discovered that Hassan intended to take a trip verysoon toward Mount Elgon, where, if you please, he was to take part inProfessor Schillingschen's ethnological studies. On condition that heheld his tongue until I gave him leave to talk, I promised that youngpoliceman--to put him en rapport with Schillingschen's doings asswiftly as may be. Then I returned to Mombasa, and got your codeletter saying you would head this way. It all fitted in like a game ofchess."
"How in the world did you get that letter so soon?" demanded Fred."The missionary chap was to mail it in Ujiji, via Salisbury, Rhodesia."
"I suppose he simply didn't do that, that's all," Monty answered. "Thebank manager told me he received it in the mission mail bag--fromUjiji, yes, but by way of Muanza, Tabora, and Dar es Salaam. It reachedme in the nick of time. I must have been marching nearly parallel withyou chaps for about a week!"
"If coincidence of evidence means anything," said Will "we're all on ared-hot scent! That Baganda we have in our outfit is our prisoner.One of Schillingschen's pet pimps. He swears Hassan--or rather someold native whose name he doesn't know--was to meet Schillingschen inthese parts and lead him to where he actually helped bury the ivory,years ago!"
"We may have difficulty finding him," said I. "Mount Elgon's big!"
"What about Brown?" asked Monty. "I hope you haven't made him partner?I agree, of course, if you have, but I hope not!"
"Nothing doing!"
"No. Why should we?"
"Brown's all right, but a present ought to satisfy him."
We began to tell Monty about Brown's cattle that Coutlass stole, andthe Masai looted from Coutlass and us.
"Were they branded?" asked Monty.
"Branded and hoof- and ear-marked," said I.
"Then they ought to be tr
aceable, even among the huge herds the Masaihave. I think I've influence enough by this time with this governmentto have those cattle traced and returned to Brown."
"They're his only love!" said I. "Do that for him, and he'll neverwait to receive a present!"
Dawn found us still recounting our adventures and Monty alternatelylaughing and frowning.
"I regret Coutlass" he said, shaking the ashes from his pipe at lastwhen Kazimoto brought our breakfast. "I regretted having to throw himout of the hotel in Zanzibar. I wish he could have escaped with hislife--a picturesque scoundrel if ever there was one! I'd rather berobbed by him than flattered by ten Schillingschens or Lady SaffrenWaldons. I suppose if I'd been with you I'd have killed him. It'swell I wasn't. I might have regretted it all my days!"
We buried our newly won ivory under a tree, locating the spot exactlywith the aid of Monty's compass, and broke camp, starting sleepless upthe mountain. As Monty said:
"No use meandering around the mountain. Hassan might be higher up orlower down. If he is there you may depend on it he's tired of waiting.He's looking for a safari. Let's climb where we can be seen frommiles away."
So climb we did, thousand after thousand feet, until the night air grewso cold that the porters' teeth chattered and they threatened to desertus. They grew afraid, too, remembering the tales the villagers hadtold them down below.
"Wow! You are not fat babies!" Kazimoto told them. "Who would eatsuch stringy meat as you?"
We came to caves that none of the men dared enter--vast, gloomy tunnelsinto the mountain through which the chill wind whistled like a dirge.Yet the caverns were warmer than the wind, and not bad camping-placesif we could have persuaded the boys to take advantage of them.
The earth, too, all over the mountain and the range to eastward of itwas warm in spite of the wind. In places there were warm springsbubbling from the rock, and at night and early morning a blanket ofwhite mist that was remarkably like steam covered everything. It was aland of thunderless lightning--lightning from a clear sky, flashinghere and there without warning or excuse. On the high slopes there waslittle or no game, and no signs whatever of inhabitants, until late oneafternoon the porters shouted, and we saw an old man racing toward usalong the top of a ridge.
He held his hands out, and shouted as he ran--a round-faced,big-bellied man, although not nearly so fat as when we saw him last;unclean, unkempt, in tattered shirt and crushed-in fez--a man with onedesire expressed all over him--to see, and touch, and talk with othermen. He ran and threw himself at Monty's feet, clasped his legs, andblubbered.
"Bwana! Oh, bwana! Oh, bwana!"
"Get up, Johnson!" Fred took him by the arm and raised him. "Tell uswhat's the matter."
"Men who eat men! Men who eat men! I had three porters to carry mytent and food. Now I have none. They have eaten them! Now they huntme!"
"Well, you're safe," said Monty. "Calm yourself."
"But you are not Bwana Schillingschen! I am here to wait for him.Have you seen him? Where is he?"
Fred answered him. "Dead!"
Hassan threw himself on the ground again at Monty's feet.
"Oh, what shall I do?" he blubbered. "I am an old man. Who shall takemy people out of jail? Who shall go to Dar es Salaam and make Germansgive them up?"
"If you're willing to show us what you intended to showSchillingschen," said Monty, "I'll do what I can for your relations."
"What can you do? Oh, what can you do? No man but a German can makethese Germans cease from punishing!"
Monty beckoned to the Baganda who had once done Schillingschen's dirtywork.
"D'you see this man? This is a German spy. The German will be willingto hand over your relations in exchange for a promise not to make afuss about this man. Wait a minute, though! Are your relationscriminals?"
"No, bwana! No, bwana! My relations honorable folk! Formerly livingin Zanzibar--going to Bagamoyo to serve in German family by invitationof person attached to German Consulate--no sooner landed than thrown injail on charges they know nothing whatever about. Then Schillingschenhe finding me, and say to me, 'You show where is that Tippoo Tib'sivory, and your relations shall go free!' And Tippoo Tib, he say tome, 'You take first step to show any man where is that ivory, and youshall be fed to white ants by my faithful people!' And Schillingschenhe catch two of them faithful people, and feed 'em to white ants whennobody looking that way! Schillingschen terrible! Tippoo Tibterrible! What shall do? Tippoo Tib, he one time making me go longtrip with Bwana Coutlass, very bad Greek. Bwana Coutlass wantingivory--me pretending showing him--leading him wrong way. Coutlass verybad man, beating me ngumu sana.* All the same, me more afraid ofTippoo Tib and Bwana Schillingschen. Not long ago Tippoo Tib sendingme with Bwana Coutlass second time, making bad threats against me if Inot lead him wrong. Then Schillingschen he send for me and makingworse threats! Oh, what shall do! Oh, what shall do!" [* Ngumu sana,very severely.]
"You shall show us where that ivory is!" Monty answered him. "Stopblubbering! Get up! Look here! See this! (Get me that diary, Will.)If the Germans won't release your relations from jail on account ofthis Baganda, this is a written book that will make them do it! Inthis book are the names of men who have broken treaties and the law ofnations. When the Germans know the British Government in London hasthis book under lock and key, they will think it a little thing torelease your relations for the sake of avoiding trouble!"
"Promise me, bwana! You promise me!"
"I promise I will do my best for you."
"Word of an Englishman--promise!"
"Word Of an Englishman--I promise to do my best!"
That was a proud enough moment on the shoulder of a mountain, withwilderness in every direction farther than the highest eagle in the airabove could see, to have that helpless, hopeless ex-slave, part Arab,part machenzie, put his whole stock-in-trade--his secret--all he had onearth to bargain with for those he loved--in the balance on the promiseof an Englishman. It was a tribute to a race that has had its share,no doubt, of bad men, but has won dominion over half the earth andpretty much all the sea by keeping faith with men who could not by anymeans compel good faith.
"Then I tell!" said Hassan. "Then I show!"
But now a new fear seized him, and he clung to Monty, trembling andjabbering.
"The men who eat men! The men who eat men!"
"Pah! Cannibals!" sneered Fred. "They're always cowards!"
"Tippoo Tib, he afraid of nothing--nobody! He is hiding the ivorywhere men who eat men can guard it and none dare come!"
"Lead on, McDuff!" Fred grinned, shouldering his rifle.
All of us except Monty had beards by that time that fluttered in thewind, and looked desperate enough for any venture. Considering therifles and our uncouth appearance, Hassan took heart of grace. Heinsisted on an armed guard to walk on either side of him, and nearlydrove Kazimoto frantic by ducking behind rocks at intervals, imagininghe saw an enemy; but he did not refuse any longer to show the way.
It seemed that in expectation of Schillingschen's early arrival he hadcamped within a mile of the place where the stuff was hidden, takingunreasoning courage from the bare fact of having the redoubtableSchillingschen for friend. But the cannibals (who must have been ahungry folk, for there were no plantations, and almost no animals onall those upper slopes) had pounced on his three lean porters, missinghimself by a hair's breadth.
In hiding, he had watched his three men killed, toasted before a firein a cavern-mouth, and eaten. Then he had run for his life, followingthe shoulder of the mountain in the hope of meeting Schillingschen,munching uncooked corn he had in a little bag, hiding and running atintervals for a day and a night until he chanced on us. For an old manalmost sick with fear he was astonishingly little affected by theadventure.
We took longer over the course than he had done, because he wanted tofind cannibals, and teach them, maybe, a needed lesson. Fred's theorywas that we should surprise them and p
en them into a cavern,discovering some means of talking with them when hunger brought themout to surrender and cringe.
So we threw out a line of scouts, and pounced on cave-mouths suddenly,entering great tunnels and following the course of them in ages-oldlava until sometimes we thought ourselves lost in the gloom and spenthours finding the way out again.
Time and again we found bones--bones of wild animals, and of birds, andof fish; now and then bones that perhaps had been monkeys, but thatlooked too suspiciously like those of the fat babies mothers mournedfor in the villages below for the benefit of the doubt to be concededwithout something more or less resembling proof. But never a humanbeing did we see until we rounded the northeastern hump of the mountainin a bitter wind, and spied half a hundred naked men and women, thinnerthan wraiths, who scampered off at sight of us and volleyed ridiculousarrows from a cave-mouth. The arrows fell about midway between us andthem, but threw Hassan into a paroxysm of fear, out of which it wasdifficult to shake him.
"Those are the people who ate my men! That is the cavern where TippooTib hid the ivory! That is where my men's bones are! See--they havetorn my tent for clothing for their naked women!"
We put Hassan under double guard for fear lest he bolt again and leaveus. And all that day, and all the next we hunted for cannibals throughmazy caverns that seemed to extend into the mountain's very womb.There were times when the stench was so horrible we nearly fainted. Westumbled on men's bones. We collided with sharp projections in thegloom--fell down holes that might have been bottomless for aught weknew in advance--and scrambled over ledges that in places were smoothwith the wear of feet for ages. Everlastingly to right, or left of us,or up above, or down below we could hear the inhabitants scamperingaway. Now and then an arrow would flitter between us; but theirsupply of ammunition seemed very scanty.
At night we camped in the cavern mouth to cut off all escape, andresumed the hunt at dawn. But the caverns were hot--hotter by contrastwith the biting winds outside; and when in the afternoon of the secondday we all came out to breathe and cool off the running sweat, we sawthe whole tribe--scarcely more than fifty of them--emerge from anopening above, whose existence we had not guessed, and go scamperingaway along a ledge like monkeys. Some of them stopped to throw stonesat us--impotent, aimless stones that fell half-way; and Fred sentthree bullets after them, chipping bits from the ledge, after whichthey showed us a turn of speed that was simply incredible, and vanished.
"Now for the great disillusionment!" laughed Will. "Hassan! Goforward, and show us where that hoard of ivory ought ta be!"
We all expected disillusionment. Brown, who was under no delusion asto his share in the venture, scoffed openly at the idea of findinganything buried, in a land where every living "crittur," as he put it,was a thief from birth. But Hassan led on in, fearless now that thecannibals were gone, and positive as if he led into his own house andwould show his house-hold treasures.
He stopped before a black-mouthed chasm, two or three hundred yardsalong the smallest subdivision of the cavern, and called for lights anda rope. We lit lanterns, and he showed us men's bones lying everywherein grisly confusion.
"Tippoo Tib his men!" he remarked. "They throwing ivory in here, thenbyumby men who eat men kill and eat them. I alone living to tell!Plenty men who eat men in those days--all mountains full of them!"
He tied a lantern to a rope and lowered it down what looked like an oldvent-hole in the lava. But the little light was lost in the enormousblackness, and we could see nothing.
"Send a man down!" he counseled.
We leaned over the edge and sniffed. There was a faint smell of whatmight be sulphur, but not enough to hurt.
"Who'll go?" asked Monty, and I thought he was going to volunteerhimself.
"I go down!" announced Kazimoto cheerfully, and promptly proceeded todivest himself of every stitch of clothing.
We made our stoutest line fast under his arm-pits, gave him a lanternand lowered him over the edge. For fifty or sixty feet he descendedsteadily, swinging the lantern and walking downward, held almosthorizontally by the slowly paid-out rope. Then he stopped, and weheard him whistling.
"What do you see?" we called down.
"Pembe!" (Ivory.)
"Much of it?"
"Teli!" (Too much!) "Oh, teli, teli! Teli, teli, teli, TELI!"
His voice ended with the very high-pitched note that natives use whenthey want to multiply superlatives. Then he whistled again. Next hecalled very excitedly.
"Very bad smell here, bwana! Pull me out quickly!"
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
L'ENVOI
The dry death-rattle of the streets Asserts a joyless goal-- Re-echoed clang where traffic meets, And drab monotony repeats The hour-encumbered role. Tinsel and glare, twin tawdry shams Outshine the evening star Where puppet-show and printed lie, Victim and trapper and trap, deny Old truths that always are. So fare ye, fare ye well, old roofs! The syren warns the shore, The flowing tide sings overside Of far-off beaches where abide The joys ye know no more! The salt sea spray shall kiss our lips-- Kiss clean from the fumes that were, And gulls shall herald waking days With news of far-seen water-ways All warm, and passing fair. They've cast the shore-lines loose at last And coiled the wet hemp down-- Cut picket-ropes of Kedar's tents, Of time-clock task and square-foot rents! Good luck to you, old town! Oh, Africa is calling back Alluringly and low And few they be who hear the voice, But they obey--Lot's wife's the choice, And we must surely go! So fare ye, fare ye well, old roofs! The stars and clouds and trees In place of you! The heaped thorn fire-- Delight for the town's two-edged desire-- For thrice-breathed breath the breeze! For rumble of wheels the lion's roar, Glad green for trodden brown For potted plant and measured lawn The view of the velvet veld at dawn! Good-by to you, old town!
If all is well that ends well, and only that is well, then this storyfails at the finish, for we never caught the cannibals, so never taughtthem the lesson in housekeeping and economics that they needed. Butthere is no other shortcoming to record.
It is no business of any one's what terms we made in the end with theProtectorate Government; but thanks to Monty's tact and influence, andto their sense of fair play, we were treated generously. And if, whenthe world war at last broke out and the Germans undertook to put inpractise the treachery they had so long planned, there was a secretfund of hugely welcome money at the disposal of the out-numbereddefenders of British East, its source will no doubt be accounted for,as well as its expenditures, to the proper people, by the properpeople, at the proper time and place.
But those who are curious, and are adept at unraveling statistics mightlearn more than a little by studying the export figures relating toivory during the years that preceded the war. They say statisticsnever lie; but those who write them now and then do, and it may bethat camouflage was understood and went by another name before thegreat war made the art notorious and popular.
Some of the ivory in that huge hole was ruined by the heat that stilllives in Elgon's womb. Some of it was splintered by the fall whenyoked slaves tossed it in. Rats had gnawed some of it, to get at thesoft sweet core.
But the men who keep the keys of the bursting ivory vaults by Londondocks could tell how much of it was good, and what huge stores of itreached them. For some strange reason they are not a very talkativebreed of men.
We did not haul the ivory out ourselves. That would have been toopublic a proceeding. But any one who attempted during the years thatfollowed nineteen hundred to make a trip to Elgon can truthfully informwhoever cares to know, how jealously and wakefully the ProtectorateGovernment guarded those lonely trails. And there are folk who saw thehundred-man safaris that came down from that way every week or so,carrying old ivory, said to be acquired in the way of trade. But thatis really all government business, and looks impertinent in print.
We did not make enough money to establish Monty in the homes of hisancestors at Montdidi
er Towers and Kirkudbrightshire Castle; for thatwould have been an unbelievable amount; it takes more than mereaffluence to keep up an earldom in the proper style. But we all gotrich.
Brown received his cattle back after a long wait, as well as a presentof money that set him up handsomely for life. And certain dissatisfiedMasai were fined so many cows and sheep for raiding across the borderthat they talked of migrating out of spite to German East--but did notdo it.
A youthful red-headed assistant district superintendent of police wasunaccountably alert enough to round up and bring into court more than adozen natives who had preached sedition. And, being lucky enough tosecure convictions in every case, he was promoted. The last I heard ofhim he was fighting in the very heart of German East in command of awhole brigade. So it is advantageous sometimes to do favors for straynoblemen, provided you are clever enough, and man enough to make goodwhen the favors are repaid.
And while on the subject of favors, the four homesick islanders who hadlent us their canoes and came with us all that journey, were sent backto their island followed by a launch towing two barges full ofcorn--free, gratis, and for nothing--"burre tu," as the natives say,meaning that the English are certainly crazy and giving away foodwithout a pull-back to it simply and solely because "the people" havetoo much nja. Nja is the nastiest word in all those languages. Itmeans the one thing everybody dreads--the thing that only the Englishseem to know charms against--want--emptiness--HUNGER.
At our expense, but by the favor of the government, there went to thatisland food enough in boxes and strong sacks--and seeds, treatedagainst insects--and tools with which the wives could chop the soil up(for you can't expect the owner of a wife to work) to keep that islandand its friendly folk from hunger for many a day.
THE END