by Talbot Mundy
Until from port and river reach
The fever’d captains go.
Red, oh redder than red lips are, my flowers nod in the blazing
noon,
Blue, oh bluer than maidens’ eyes, are the breasts o’ my waves
in the young monsoon,
And there are cloves to smell, and musk, and lemon trees, and
cinnamon.
—— ——
*The words “Njo hapa” in the Kiswahili tongue are the equivalent of
“come hither!”
—— ——
Estimates of ease and affluence vary with the point of view. While his older brother lived, Monty had continued in his element, a cavalry officer, his combined income and pay ample for all that the Bombay side of India might require of an English gentleman. They say that a finer polo player, a steadier shot on foot at a tiger, or a bolder squadron leader never lived.
But to Monty’s infinite disgust his brother died childless. It is divulging no secret that the income that passed with the title varied between five and seven thousand pounds a year, according as coal was high, and tenants prosperous or not — a mere miserable pittance, of course, for the Earl of Montdidier and Kirkudbrightshire; so that all his ventures, and therefore ours, had one avowed end — shekels enough to lift the mortgages from his estates.
Five generations of soldiers had blazed the Montdidier fame on battle-grounds, to a nation’s (and why not the whole earth’s) benefit, without replenishing the family funds, and Monty (himself a confirmed and convinced bachelor) was minded when his own time should come to pass the title along to the next in line together with sufficient funds to support its dignity.
To us — even to Yerkes, familiar with United States merchant kings — he seemed with his thirty thousand dollars a year already a gilded Croesus. He had ample to travel on, and finance prospecting trips. We never lacked for working capital, but the quest (and, including Yerkes, we were as keen as he) led us into strange places.
So behold him — a privy councilor of England if you please — lounging in the lazaretto of Zanzibar, clothed only in slippers, underwear and a long blue dressing-gown. We three others were dressed the same, and because it smacked of official restraint we objected noisily; but Monty did not seem to mind much. He was rather bored, but unresentful.
A French steamer had put us ashore in quarantine, with the grim word cholera against us, and although our tale of suffering and Monty’s rank, insured us a friendly reception, the port health authorities elected to be strict and we were given a nice long lazy time in which to cool our heels and order new clothes. (Guns, kit, tents, and all but what we stood in had gone to the bottom with the German cholera ship from whose life-boat the French had rescued us.)
“Keeping us all this time in this place, is sheer tyranny!” grumbled
Yerkes. “If any one wants my opinion, they’re afraid we’d talk if they
let us out — more afraid of offending Germans than they are of cholera!
Besides — any fool could know by now we’re not sick!”
“There might be something in that,” admitted Monty.
“I’d send for the U. S. Consul and sing the song out loud, but for you!” Yerkes added.
Monty nodded sympathetically.
“Dashed good of you, Will, and all that sort of thing.”
“You English are so everlastingly afraid of seeming to start trouble, you’ll swallow anything rather than talk!”
“As a government, perhaps yes,” admitted Monty. “As a people, I fancy not. As a people we vary.”
“You vary in that respect as much as sardines in a can! I traveled once all the way from London to Glasgow alone in one compartment with an Englishman. Talk? My, we were garrulous! I offered him a newspaper, cigarettes, matches, remarks on the weather suited to his brand of intelligence — (that’s your sole national topic of talk between strangers!) — and all he ever said to me was ‘Haw-ah!’ I’ll bet he was afraid of seeming to start trouble!”
“He didn’t start any, did he?” asked Monty.
“Pretty nearly he did! I all but bashed him over the bean with the newspaper the third time he said ‘haw-ah!’”
Monty laughed. Fred Oakes was busy across the room with his most amazing gift of tongues, splicing together half-a-dozen of them in order to talk with the old lazaretto attendant, so he heard nothing; otherwise there would have been argument.
“Then it would have been you, not he who started trouble,”’ said I, and
Yerkes threw both hands up in a gesture of despair.
“Even you’re afraid of starting something!” He stared at both of us with an almost startled expression, as if he could not believe his own verdict, yet could not get away from it. “Else you’d give the Bundesrath story to the papers! That German skipper’s conduct ought to be bruited round the world! You said you’d do it. You promised us! You told the man to his face you would!”
“Now,” said Monty, “you’ve touched on another national habit.”
“Which one?” Yerkes demanded.
“Dislike of telling tales out of school. The man’s dead. His ship’s at the bottom. The tale’s ended. What’s the use? Besides — ?”
“Ah! You’ve another reason! Spill it!”
“As a privy councilor, y’know, and all that sort of thing — ?”
“Same story! Afraid of starting something!”
“The Germans— ‘specially their navy men — drink to what they call Der Tag y’know — the day when they shall dare try to tackle England. We all know that. They’re planning war, twenty years from now perhaps, that shall give them all our colonies as well as India and Egypt. They’re so keen on it they can’t keep from bragging. Great Britain, on the other hand, hasn’t the slightest intention of fighting if war can be avoided; so why do anything meanwhile to increase the tension? Why send broadcast a story that would only arouse international hatred? That’s their method. Ours — I mean our government’s — is to give hatred a chance to die down. If our papers got hold of the Bundesrath story they’d make a deuce of a noise, of course.”
“If your government’s so sure Germany is planning war,” objected Yerkes, “why on earth not force war, and feed them full of it before they’re ready?”
“Counsel of perfection,” laughed Monty. “Government’s responsible to the Common — Commons to the people — people want peace and plenty. No. Your guess was good. We are in here while the government at home squares the newspaper men.”
“You don’t mean to tell me your British government controls the press?”
“Hardly. Seeing ’em — putting it up to ’em straight — asking ’em politely. They’re public-spirited, y’know. Hitting ’em with a club would be another thing. It’s an easy-going nation, but kings have been sorry they tried force. Did you never hear of a king who used force against American colonies?”
“Good God! So they keep you — an earl — a privy councilor — a retired colonel of regulars in good standing — under lock and key in this pest-house while they bribe the press not to tell the truth about some Germans and start trouble?”
“Not exactly” said Monty.
“But here you are!”
“I preferred to remain with my party.”
“You moan they’d have let you out and kept us in?”
“They’d have phrased it differently, but that’s about what it would have amounted to. I have privileges.”
“Well, I’m jiggered!”
“I rather suspect it’s not so bad as that,” said Monty. “You’re with friends in quarantine, Will!”
For a quarantine station in the tropics it was after all not such a bad place. We could hear the crooning of lazy rollers on the beach, and what little sea-breeze moved at all came in to us through iron-barred windows. The walls were of coral, three feet thick. So was the roof. The wet red-tiled floor made at least an impression of coolness, and the fresh green foliage of an enormous mango tree, whi
le it obstructed most of the view, suggested anything but durance vile. From not very far away the aromatic smell of a clove warehouse located us, not disagreeably, at the farther end of one of Sindbad’s journeys, and the birds in the mango branches cried and were colorful with hues and notes of merry extravagance. Zanzibar is no parson’s paradise — nor the center of much high society. It reeks of unsavory history as well as of spices. But it has its charms, and the Arabs love it.
It had Fred Oakes so interested that he had forgotten his concertina — his one possession saved from shipwreck, for which he had offered to fight the whole of Zanzibar one-handed rather than have it burned.
(“Damnation! it has silver reeds — it’s an English top-hole one — a wonder!”)
So the doctors who are kind men in the main disinfected it twice, once on the French liner that picked us out of the Bundesrath’s boat, and again in Zanzibar; and with the stench of lord-knew-what zealous chemical upon it he had let it lie unused while he picked up Kiswahili and talked by the hour to a toothless, wrinkled very black man with a touch of Arab in his breeding, and a deal of it in his brimstone vocabulary.
Presently Fred came over and joined us, dancing across the wide red floor with the skirts of his gown outspread like a ballet dancer’s — ridiculous and perfectly aware of it.
“Monty, you’re rich! We’re all made men! We’re all rich! Let’s spend money! Let’s send for catalogues and order things!”
Monty declined to take fire. It was I, latest to join the partnership and much the least affluent, who bit.
“If you love the Lord, explain!” said I.
“This old one-eyed lazaretto attendant is an ex-slave, ex-accomplice of
Tippoo Tib!”
“And Tippoo Tib?” I asked.
“Ignorant fo’castle outcast!” (All that because I had made one voyage as foremast hand, and deserted rather than submit to more of it.) “Tippoo Tib is the Arab — is, mind you, my son, not was — the Arab who was made governor of half the Congo by H. M. Stanley and the rest of ’em. Tippoo Tib is the expert who used to bring the slave caravans to Zanzibar — bring ’em, send ’em, send for ’em — he owned ’em anyway. Tippoo Tib was the biggest ivory hunter and trader lived since old King Solomon! Tippoo Tib is here — in Zanzibar — to all intents and purposes a prisoner on parole — old as the hills — getting ready to die — and proud as the very ace of hell. So says One-eye!”
“So we’re all rich?” suggested Monty.
“Of course we are! Listen! The British government took Tippoo’s slaves away and busted his business. Made him come and live in this place, go to church on Sundays, and be good. Then they asked him what he’d done with his ivory. Asked him politely after putting him through that mill! One-eye here says Tippoo had a million tusks — a million! — safely buried! Government offered him ten per cent. of their cash value if he’d tell ’em where, and the old sport spat in their faces! Swears he’ll die with the secret! One-eye vows Tippoo is the only one who knows. There were others, but Tippoo shot or poisoned ’em.”
“So we’re rich,” smiled Yerkes.
“Of course we are! Consider this, America, and tell me if Standard Oil can beat it! One million tusks! I’m told—”
“By whom?”
“One-eye says—”
“You’ll say ‘Oh!’ at me to a different tune, before I’ve done! One-eye says it never paid to carry a tusk weighing less than sixty pounds. Some tusks weigh two hundred — some even more — took four men to carry some of ’em! Call it an average weight of one hundred pounds and be on the safe side.”
“Yes, let’s play safe,” agreed Monty seriously.
“One hundred million pounds of ivory!” said Fred, with a smack of his lips and the air of a man who could see the whole of it. “The present market price of new ivory is over ten shillings a pound on the spot. That’ll all be very old stuff, worth at least double. But let’s say ten shillings a pound and be on the safe side.”
“Yes, let’s!” laughed Yerkes.
“One thousand million — a billion shillings!” Fred announced. “Fifty million pounds!”
“Two hundred and fifty million dollars!” Yerkes calculated, beginning to take serious notice.
“But how are we to find it?” I objected.
“That’s the point. Government ‘ud hog the lot, but has hunted high and low and can’t find it. So the offer stands ten per cent. to any one who does — ten per cent. of fifty million — lowest reckoning, mind you! — five million pounds! Half for Monty — two and a half million. A million for Yerkes, a million for me, and a half a million for you all according to contract! How d’you like it?”
“Well enough,” I answered. “If its only the hundredth part true, I’m enthusiastic!”
“So now suit yourselves!” said Fred, collapsing with a sweep of his skirts into the nearest chair. “I’ve told you what One-eye says. These dusky gents sometimes exaggerate of course—”
“Now and then,” admitted Monty.
“But where there’s smoke you mean there’s prob’ly some one smoking hams?” suggested Yerkes.
“I mean, let’s find that ivory!” said Fred.
“We might do worse than make an inquiry or two,” Monty assented cautiously.
“Didums, you damned fool, you’re growing old! You’re wasting time!
You’re trying to damp enthusiasm! You’re — you’re—”
“Interested, Fred. I’m interested. Let’s—”
“Let’s find that ivory and to hell with caution! Why, man alive, it’s the chance of a million lifetimes!”
“Well, then,” said Monty, “admitting the story’s true for the sake of argument, how do you propose to get on the track of the secret?”
“Get on it? I am on it! Didn’t One-eye say Tippoo Tib is alive and in Zanzibar? The old rascal! Many a slave he’s done to death! Many a man he’s tortured! I propose we catch Tippoo Tib, hide him, and pull out his toe-nails one by one until be blows the gaff!”
(To hear Fred talk when there is nothing to do but talk a stranger might arrive at many false conclusions.)
“If there’s any truth in the story at all,” said Monty, “government will have done everything within the bounds of decency to coax the facts from Tippoo Tib. I suspect we’d have to take our chance and simply hunt. But let’s hear Juma’s story.”
So the old attendant left off sprinkling water from a yellow jar, and came and stood before us. Fred’s proposal of tweaking toe-nails would not have been practical in his case, for he had none left. His black legs, visible because he had tucked his one long garment up about his waist, were a mass of scars. He was lean, angular, yet peculiarly straight considering his years. As he stood before us he let his shirt-like garment drop, and the change from scarecrow to deferential servant was instantaneous. He was so wrinkled, and the wrinkles were so deep, that one scarcely noticed his sightless eye, almost hidden among a nest of creases; and in spite of the wrinkles, his polished, shaven head made him look ridiculously youthful because one expected gray hair and there was none.
“Ask him how he lost his toe-nails, Fred,” said I.
But the old man knew enough English to answer for himself. He made a wry grimace and showed his hands. The finger-nails were gone too.
“Tell us your story, Juma,” said Monty.
“Tell ’em about the pembe — the ivory — the much ivory — the meengi pembe,” echoed Fred.
“Let’s hear about those nails of his first,” said I.
“One thing’ll prob’ly lead to another,” Yerkes agreed. “Start him on the toe-nail story.”
But it did not lead very far. Fred, who had picked up Kiswahili enough to piece out the old man’s broken English, drew him out and clarified the tale. But it only went to prove that others besides ourselves had heard of Tippoo Tib’s hoard. Some white man — we could not make head or tail of the name, but it sounded rather like Somebody belonging to a man named Carpets — had trapped him a
few years before and put him to torture in the belief that he knew the secret.
“But me not knowing nothing!” he assured us solemnly, shaking his head again and again.
But he was not in the least squeamish about telling us that Tippoo Tib had surely buried huge quantities of ivory, and had caused to be slain afterward every one who shared the secret.
“How long ago?” asked Monty. But natives of that part of the earth are poor hands at reckoning time.
“Long time,” he assured us. He might have meant six years, or sixty.
It would have been all the same to him.
“No. Me not liking Tippoo Tib. One time his slave. That bad. Byumby set free. That good. Now working here. This very good.”
“Where do you think the ivory is?” (This from Yerkes.)
But the old man shook his head.
“As I understand it,” said Monty, “slaves came mostly from the Congo side of Lake Victoria Nyanza. Slave and elephant country were approximately the same as regards general direction, and there were two routes from the Congo — the southern by way of Ujiji on Tanganyika to Bagamoyo on what is now the German coast, and the other to the north of Victoria Nyanza ending at Mombasa. Ask him, Fred, which way the ivory used to come.”
“Both ways,” announced Juma without waiting for Fred to interpret. He had an uncanny trick of following conversation, his intelligence seeming to work by fits and starts.
“That gives us about half Africa for hunting-ground, and a job for life!” laughed Yerkes.
“Might have a worse!” Fred answered, resentful of cold water thrown on his discovery.
“Were you Tippoo Tib’s slave when he buried the ivory?” demanded Monty, and the old man nodded.
“Where were you at the time?”
Juma made a gesture intended to suggest immeasurable distances toward the West, and the name of the place he mentioned was one we had never heard of.
“Can you take us to Tippoo Tib when we leave this place?” I asked, and he nodded again.
“How much ivory do you suppose there was?” asked Yerkes.
“Teli, teli!” he answered, shaking his head.
“Too much!” Fred translated.