by Talbot Mundy
“No need to smuggle it out,” said Fred. “The British government will give us ten per cent., or so I understand, of the value of all of it we find in British East.”
Georges Coutlass threw back his head and roared with laughter, slapped his thighs, held his sides — then coughed for two or three minutes, and spat blood.
“You are the lord, all right!” he gasped as soon as he could get breath. “No need to smuggle it! Ha-ha! May I be damned! Ten per cent. they’ll give us! Ha-ha! Generous! By whip and wheel! they’re lucky if we give them five per cent.! I’d like to see any government take away from Georges Coutlass ninety per cent. of anything without a fight! No, gentlemen! No, my Lord! The Belgian Congo government is corrupt. Let us spend twenty-five per cent. — even thirty-forty-fifty per cent. of the value of it to bribe the Congo officials. Hand over ninety per cent. to the Germans or the British without a fight? — Never! Never while my name is Georges Coutlass! I have fought too often! I have been robbed by governments too often! This last time I will put it over all the governments, and be rich at last, and go home to Greece to live like a gentleman! Believe me!”
He patted himself on the breast, and if flashing eye and frothing lip went for anything, then all the governments were as good as defeated already.
“You are the lord, are you not?” he demanded, looking straight at Fred.
“My name is Oakes,” Fred answered.
“Oh, then you? I beg pardon!” He looked at me with surprise that he made no attempt to conceal. Fred could pass for a king with that pointed beard of his (provided he were behaving himself seemly at the time) but for all my staid demeanor I have never been mistaken for any kind of personage. I disillusioned Coutlass promptly.
“Then you are neither of you lords?”
“Pish! We’re obviously ladies!” answered Fred.
“Then you have fooled me?” The Greek rose to his feet. “You have deceived me? You have accepted my hospitality and confidence under false pretense?”
I think there would have been a fight, for Fred was never the man to accept brow-beating from chance-met strangers, and the Greek’s fiery eye was rolling in fine frenzy; but just at that moment Yerkes strolled in, cheerful and brisk.
“Hullo, fellers! This is some thirsty burg. Do they sell soft drinks in this joint?” he inquired.
“By Brooklyn Bridge!” exclaimed Coutlass. “An American! I, too, am an American! Fellow-citizen, these men have treated me badly! They have tricked me!”
“You must be dead easy!” said Yerkes genially. “If those two wanted to live at the con game, they’d have to practise on the junior kindergarten grades. They’re the mildest men I know. I let that one with the beard hold my shirt and pants when I go swimming! Tricked you, have they? Say — have you got any money left?”
“Oh, have a drink!” laughed the Greek. “Have one on me! It’s good to hear you talk!”
“What have my friends done to you?” asked Yerkes.
“I was looking for a lord. They pretended to be lords.”
“What? Both of ’em?”
“No, it is one lord I am looking for.”
“One lord, one faith, one baptism!” said Yerkes profanely. “And you found two? What’s your worry? I’ll pretend to be a third if that’ll help you any!”
“Gentlemen,” said the Greek, rising to his full height and letting his rage begin to gather again, “you play with me. That is not well! You waste my time. That is not wise! I come in all innocence, looking for a certain lord — a real genuine lord — the Earl of Montdidier and Kirscrubbrightshaw — my God, what a name!”
“I’m Mundidier,” said a level voice, and the Greek faced about like a man attacked. Monty had entered the barroom and stood listening with calm amusement, that for some strange reason exasperated the Greek less than our attitude had done, at least for the moment. When the first flush of surprise had died he grinned and grew gallant.
“My own name is Georges Coutlass, my Lord!” He made a sweeping bow, almost touching the floor with the brim of his cowboy hat, and then crossing his breast with it.
“What can I do for you?” asked Monty.
“Listen to me!”
“Very well. I can spare fifteen minutes.”
We all took seats together in a far corner of the dingy room, where the
Syrian barkeeper could not overhear us.
“My Lord, I am an Englishman!” Coutlass began. “I am a God-fearing,
law-abiding gentleman! I know where to look for the ivory that the
Arab villain Tippoo Tib has buried! I know how to smuggle it out of
Africa without paying a penny of duty—”
“Did you say law-abiding?” Monty asked.
“Surely! Always! I never break the law! As for instance — in Greece, where I had the honor to be born, the law says no man shall carry a knife or wear one in his belt. So, since I was a little boy I carry none! I have none in my hand — none at my belt. I keep it here!”
He stooped, raised his right trousers leg, and drew from his Wellington boot a two-edged, pointed thing almost long enough to merit the name of rapier. He tossed it in the air, let it spin six or seven times end over end, caught it deftly by the point, and returned it to its hiding-place.
“I am a law-abiding man,” he said, “but where the law leaves off, I know where to begin! I am no fool!”
Monty made up his mind there and then that this man’s game would not be worth the candle.
“No, Mr. Coutlass, I can’t oblige you,” he said.
The Greek half-arose and then sat down again.
“You can not find it without my assistance!” he said, wrinkling his face for emphasis.
“I’m not looking for assistance,” said Monty.
“Aha! You play with words! You are not — but you will! I am no fool, my Lord! I understand! Not for nothing did I make a friend again of that pig Hassan! Not for nothing have I waited all these months in this stinking Zanzibar until a man should come in search of that ivory whom I could trust! Not for nothing did Juma, the lazaretto attendant tell Hassan you desired to see him! You seek the ivory, but you wish to keep it all! To share none of it with me!” He stood up, and made another bow, much curter than his former one. “I am Georges Coutlass! My courage is known! No man can rob me and get away with it!”
“My good man,” drawled Monty, raising his eyebrows in the comfortless way he has when there seems need of facing an inferior antagonist. (He hates to “lord it” as thoroughly as he loves to risk his neck.) “I would not rob you if you owned the earth! If you have valuable information I’ll pay for it cheerfully after it’s tested.”
“Ah! Now you talk!”
“Observe — I said after it’s tested!”
“I don’t think he knows anything,” said Fred. “I think he guessed a lot, and wants to look, and can’t afford to pay his own expenses. Isn’t that it?”
“What do you mean?” demanded Coutlass.
“I can’t talk Greek,” said Fred. “Shall I say it again in English?”
“You may name any reasonable price,” said Monty, “for real information. Put it in writing. When we’re agreed on the price, put that in writing too. Then, if we find the information is even approximately right, why, we’ll pay for it.”
“Ah-h-h! You intend to play a trick on me! You use my information! You find the ivory! You go out by the Congo River and the other coast, and I kiss myself good-by to you and ivory and money! I am to be what d’you call it? — a milk-pigeon!”
“Being that must be some sensation!” nodded Yerkes.
“I warn you I can not be tampered with!” snarled the Greek, putting on his hat with a flourish. “I leave you, for you to think it over! But I tell you this — I promise you — I swear! Any expedition in search of that ivory that does not include Georges Coutlass on his own terms is a delusion — a busted flush — smashed — exploded — pfff! — so — evanesced before the start! My address is Zanzibar! Every stre
et child knows me! When you wish to know my terms, tell the first man or child you meet to lead you to the house where Georges Coutlass lives! Good morning, Lord Skirtsshubrish! We will no doubt meet again!”
He turned his back on us and strode from the room — a man out of the middle ages, soldierly of bearing, unquestionably bold, and not one bit more venial or lawless than ninety per cent. of history’s gallants, if the truth were told.
“Let’s hope that’s the last of him!” said Monty. “Can’t say I like him, but I’d hate to have to spoil his chances.”
“Last of him be sugared!” said Yerkes. “That’s only the first of him! He’ll find seven devils worse than himself and camp on our trail, if I know anything of Greeks — that’s to say, if our trail leads after that ivory. Does it?”
“Depends,” said Monty. “Let’s talk upstairs. That Syrian has long ears.”
So we trooped to Monty’s room, where the very cobwebs reeked of Arab history and lawless plans. He sat on the black iron bed, and we grouped ourselves about on chairs that had very likely covered the known world between them. One was obviously jetsam from a steamship; one was a Chinese thing, carved with staggering dragons; the other was made of iron-hard wood that Yerkes swore came from South America.
“Shoot when you’re ready!” grinned Yerkes.
I was too excited to sit still. So was Fred.
“Get a move on, Didums, for God’s sake!” he growled.
“Well,” said Monty, “there seems something in this ivory business. Our chance ought to be as good as anybody’s. But there are one or two stiff hurdles. In the first place, the story is common property. Every one knows it — Arabs — Swahili — Greeks — Germans — English. To be suspected of looking for it would spell failure, for the simple reason that every adventurer on the coast would trail us, and if we did find it we shouldn’t be able to keep the secret for five minutes. If we found it anywhere except on British territory it ‘ud be taken away from us before we’d time to turn round. And it isn’t buried on British territory! I’ve found out that much.”
“Good God, Didums! D’you mean you know where the stuff is?”
Fred sat forward like a man at a play.
“I know where it isn’t,” said Monty. “They told me at the Residency that in all human probability it’s buried part in German East, and by far the greater part in the Congo.”
“Then that ten per cent. offer by the British is a bluff?” asked Yerkes.
“Out of date,” said Monty. “The other governments offer nothing. The German government might make terms with a German or a Greek — not with an Englishman. The Congo government is an unknown quantity, but would probably see reason if approached the proper way.”
“The U. S. Consul tells me,” said Yerkes, “that the Congo government is the rottenest aggregate of cutthroats, horse-thieves, thugs, yeggs, common-or-ordinary hold-ups, and sleight-of-hand professors that the world ever saw in one God-forsaken country. He says they’re of every nationality, but without squeam of any kind — hang or shoot you as soon as look at you! He says if there’s any ivory buried in those parts they’ve either got it and sold it, or else they buried it themselves and spread the story for a trap to fetch greenhorns over the border!”
“That man’s after the stuff himself!” said Fred. “All he wanted to do was stall you off!”
“That man Schillingschen the doctor told us about,” said Monty, “is suspected of knowing where to look for some of the Congo hoard. He’ll bear watching. He’s in British East Africa at present — said to be combing Nairobi and other places for a certain native. He is known to stand high in the favor of the German government, but poses as a professor of ethnology.”
“He shall study deathnology,” said Fred, “if he gets in my way!”
“The Congo people,” said Monty, “would have dug up the stuff, of course, if they’d known where to look for it. Our people believe that the Germans do know whereabouts to look for it, but dread putting the Congo crowd on the scent. If we’re after it we’ve got to do two things besides agreeing between ourselves.”
“Deal me in, Monty!” said Yerkes.
“Nil desperandum, Didums duce, then!” said Fred. “I propose Monty for leader. Those against the motion take their shirts off, and see if they can lick me! Nobody pugnacious? The ayes have it! Talk along, Didums!”
For all Fred’s playfulness, Yerkes and I came in of our free and considered will, and Monty understood that.
“We’ve got to separate,” he said, “and I’ve got to interview the King of Belgium.”
“If that were my job,” grinned Yerkes, “I’d prob’ly tell him things!”
“I don’t pretend to like him,” said Monty. “But it seems to me I can serve our best interests by going to Brussels. He can’t very well refuse me a private audience. I should get a contract with the Congo government satisfactory to all concerned. He’s rapacious — but I think not ninety per cent. rapacious.”
“Good,” said I, “but why separate?”
“If we traveled toward the Congo from this place in a bunch,” said Monty, “we should give the game away completely and have all the rag-tag and bob-tail on our heels. As it is, our only chance of shaking all of them would be to go round by sea and enter the Congo from the other side; but that would destroy our chance of picking up the trail in German East Africa. So I’ll go to Brussels, and get back to British East as fast as possible. Fred must go to British East and watch Schillingschen. You two fellows may as well go by way of British East Africa to Muanza on Victoria Nyanza, and on from there to the Congo border by way of Ujiji. Yerkes is an American, and they’ll suspect him less than any of us (they’d nail me, of course, in a minute!) So let Yerkes make a great show of looking for land to settle on. We’ll all four meet on the Congo border, at some other place to be decided later. We’ll have to agree on a code, and keep in touch by telegraph as often as possible. Now, is all that clear?”
“We two’ll have all the Greeks of Zanzibar trailing us all the way!” objected Yerkes.
“That’ll be better than having them trail the lot of us,” said Monty. “You’ll be able to shake them somewhere on the way. We’ll count on your ingenuity, Will.”
“But what am I to do to Schillingschen?” asked Fred.
“Keep an eye on him.”
“Do you see me Sherlock-Holmesing him across the high veld? Piffle! Give America that job! I’ll go through German East and keep ahead of the Greeks!”
But Monty was firm. “Yerkes has a plausible excuse, Fred. They may wonder why an American should look for land in German East Africa, but they’ll let him do it, and perhaps not spy on him to any extent. It’s me they’ve their eye on. I’ll try to keep ’em dazzled. You go to British East and dazzle Schillingschen! Now, are we agreed?”
We were. But we talked, nevertheless, long into the afternoon, and in the end there was not one of us really satisfied. Over and over we tried to persuade Monty to omit the Brussels part of the plan. We wanted him with us. But he stuck to his point, and had his way, as he always did when we were quite sure he really wanted it.
CHAPTER TWO
THE NJO HAPA SONG
Gleam, oh brighter than jewels! gleam my swinging stars in
the opal dark,
Mirrored along wi’ the fire-fly dance of ‘longshore light and
off-shore mark,
The roof-lamps and the riding lights, and phosphor wake of
ship and shark.
I was old when the fires of Arab ships
(All seas were lawless then!)
Abode the tide where liners ride
To-day, and Malays then, —
Old when the bold da Gama came
With culverin and creed
To trade where Solomon’s men fought,
And plunder where the banyans bought,
I sighed when the first o’ the slaves were brought,
And laughed when the last were freed.
Deep, oh
deeper than anchors drop, the bones o’ the outbound
sailors lie,
Far, oh farther than breath o’ wind the rumors o’ fabled
fortune fly,
And the ‘venturers yearn from the ends of earth, for none o’
the isles is as fair as I!
The enormous map of Africa loses no lure or mystery from the fact of nearness to the continent itself. Rather it increases. In the hot upper room that night, between the wreathing smoke of oil lamps, we pored over the large scale map Monty had saved from the wreck along with our money drafts and papers.
The atmosphere was one of bygone piracy. The great black ceiling beams, heavy-legged table of two-inch planks, floor laid like a dhow’s deck — making utmost use of odd lengths of timber, but strong enough to stand up under hurricanes and overloads of plunder, or to batten down rebellious slaves — murmurings from rooms below, where men of every race that haunts those shark-infested seas were drinking and telling tales that would make Munchhausen’s reputation — steaminess, outer darkness, spicy equatorial smells and, above all, knowledge of the nature of the coming quest united to veil the map in fascination.
No man gifted with imagination better than a hot-cross bun’s could be in Zanzibar and not be conscious of the lure that made adventurers of men before the first tales were written. Old King Solomon’s traders must have made it their headquarters, just as it was Sindbad the Sailor’s rendezvous and that of pirates before he or Solomon were born or thought of. Vasco da Gama, stout Portuguese gentleman adventurer, conquered it, and no doubt looted the godowns to a lively tune. Wave after wave of Arabs sailed to it (as they do today) from that other land of mystery, Arabia; and there isn’t a yard of coral beach, cocoanut-fringed shore, clove orchard, or vanilla patch — not a lemon tree nor a thousand-year-old baobab but could tell of battle and intrigue; not a creek where the dhows lie peacefully today but could whisper of cargoes run by night — black cargoes, groaning fretfully and smelling of the ‘tween-deck lawlessness.