by Talbot Mundy
“The chance to work seems rare,” said I.
“The rarest thing,” said Oakes, “is a man who’s fit to do what we want done — a reasonably honest man. If there is such a thing in Gazaland, we haven’t met him!”
“Shall I shout for the lunch?” said Lord Montdidier.
“How would you like to tell us all about yourself?” said Oakes.
“After lunch,” added Lord Montdidier.
“I’d as soon tell you now,” said I, but Montdidier shook his head and Oakes yielded the point without demur.
It was easy to see that Oakes was the fiery enthusiast, and Lord Montdidier the more methodical, more patient, rather more formal of the two. Yet they were both men of swift judgment and tremendously strong confidence in their own decisions, as I was destined in the course of years to learn in a thousand ways.
We made a compromise, and I told of myself at the luncheon-table — all spread with snowy linen and white chinaware. The meal was cooked by a Goanese, and served by a Zulu. It could not have been better cooked or served in London town, and as we ate the taint of the Heatherbell’s fo’castle fell from me, so that I told them of my adventures like a free man to free men, without shame, concealment, or apology.
Then they asked me questions — leisurely questions, seemingly at random, but nevertheless devised to check me up — courteous, shrewd questions that no upright man could take exception to, and no pretender could have answered.
“He’s the gift of God!” said Oakes at last, slapping a resonant thigh.
“Suppose we take his own opinion on that point,” Montdidier suggested; and forthwith Oakes did the talking while Lord Montdidier sat back and watched us both.
It seemed they had claims staked out in the Libomba Hills — very valuable claims Oakes called them. But in those days the Libomba Hills were a sort of no-man’s land, where no Portuguese governor dared show his face, and the iniquitous Charles du Maurier maintained a sort of medieval baron’s government from an aerie, that gave him a view of all approaches.
They had licenses to prospect, but their claims must be registered according to law, and they had returned to Chai Chai only to discover that there was no authority in that miserable fort sufficiently exalted to give them papers. It might be necessary to go even as far as Mozambique — possibly to Lisbon, Portugal.
“So I’m going back to hold the claims, while Monty works the oracle,” said Oakes.
“And the whole point is,” said Lord Montdidier, “that I won’t agree to his returning alone. The man du Maurier, who lives in that nest in the hills, has the natives all terrorized and I should imagine would stoop to anything and stop at nothing. How would you like to make the trip with Mr. Oakes? We would pay you a fair thing.”
“I’m in no position to refuse any honest job!” I answered. “I’m at your service, and glad to be.”
“Can you shoot straight?” Oakes asked me.
“What does that matter?” said Montdidier. “He can learn. A more important point is, will he obey orders?”
“Why ask a seaman that?” laughed Oakes. “I’ll tell you my view of it. He can’t refuse a job, and we can’t refuse him! We’ve neither of us an alternative! Let’s sign him on for a forty a month and found.”
“Agreed,” said Montdidier.
“Forty what?” said I.
“Pounds,” Oakes answered.
“Done!” said I. “I would have come for half — for a quarter of it! But I accept your offer!”
They both laughed, without seeming in the least upset by having missed a bargain. They were unusual men. Later I learned that they would have taken me on their own terms, at their own appraisal, or not at all. Bargains in human flesh and bone were not in their range of vision.
But Montdidier drew a very careful contract with me on a sheet of foolscap paper, and Oakes read it over three times before we all three signed it. By its terms I was limited to my wages, clothing, transportation, food and tent. I was to have no share in the profits of the trip, whatever those might be, or from whatever source. They were business men, as well as generous employers.
From the moment that paper was signed I was treated as a member of the party — apportioned a rifle and a tent, provided with thorn-proof clothes out of their spare kit, given a native servant, and a mule to ride, and in every way magnificently treated.
I told them the man du Maurier had turned up in Lourenço Marques, and that made Montdidier all the more eager to be moving. Next morning with a final charge to me to guard Oakes from harm more carefully than if he were my sweetheart, he ducked the boot Oakes threw at him and boarded the same little steamer that had brought me. We watched him out of sight, and then Oakes went to the fort to take out a license for me, “as if you were my dog,” as he remarked; for that colonial Government omitted no means of imposition, and the more degrading the tax the better.
We struck camp then with the speed of a clipper ship making sail, crossed the Limpopo on a raft — well watched by crocodiles in case the raft would overturn, or a mule or a man fall off — and started on a trip that will linger in memory until memory fails. Being my first experience of low veld, or of any veld at all, it was all good going to me. I felt like a boy on a holiday.
Thorns were amusing — even the wait-a-bit thorn that drags the hide from a mule’s legs, and strips a man’s clothes off him. Lions, roaring around the camp at night, were as fascinating as the low-hung stars and crackling thorn camp-fires. Natives, passed by the way — kraals entered to buy food for our own black following — buck on the short horizon, were all new sources of wonderment to me, and each day’s march was crowded full of interest.
I was as happy as the days and nights were long. My ever-rising spirits kept the sun’s rays and malaria at bay, and because all natives of Africa are happier when the white man laughs, our boys marched willingly and gave no trouble.
So Oakes was pleased with me. But his own good temper wore thin as march succeeded march. The fever began to threaten him — the low fever of that stricken land, that saps a man’s hope and makes his saliva taste in his mouth like aloes. On board ship I had watched the robust good humor of a mate succumb by little notches at a time to the overbearing meanness of a skipper, until the mate himself was the more heartless tyrant of the two.
To some extent I understood how climate, conditions, food and trouble will wear a man’s very soul away; but to watch that low-veld loneliness rot into the heart of Oakes was a revelation. Day after day I could see the difference in him, and although he was everlastingly courteous to me I could judge the effort that it cost him now and then. He reached a point where every incident grated on his nerves — every proposal was a lame one — every day’s march too long or too short — every night an ordeal to be stoically lived through.
So when we pitched our camp at last under the great cliff in the Libomba foothills, where he and Lord Montdidier had pegged their claims, he was an ailing man, unable to throw off the lassitude of low malaria, yet able enough to torment himself with useless activity. His irritation, manfully though he strove with it, was constantly gaining the upper hand, and at those times our native followers suffered.
One form that his low spirits took more constantly than any other was a sort of morbid interest in the man du Maurier, whose high-perched aerie of a place could just be seen from the opening of his tent.
“That ruffian is as likely as not to thwart us,” he prophesied. “He knows well enough there’s gold here, and emeralds. He daren’t try to work or market it, that’s all. He couldn’t get even this Government to register a claim in his name, but if he could persuade a more or less reputable citizen to come here and stake, and register, he would try to do business — provided he could first get some sure hold on his partner.
“I suspect he would try to trap his man in some way — plant some disreputable evidence and get grounds for blackmail. When we showed up, he rode down here on his mule with three black wives on foot along behind him. H
e was civil enough in his blackguardly way, but he got no hospitality. He told us we could have title to these claims from himself as King of the Libombas. He cited the old Portuguese law, that having taken to wife the daughter of a chief gives him legal title now to all the land hereabouts since the chief died. He offered us the claims for a thousand pounds, but we didn’t trade.
“But he amused Montdidier. Didums was civil to him! ‘Pon my soul, if I hadn’t been here Didums would have struck a bargain with the brute just for sake of the experience! Strange fellow, Monty — stranger than any man I know! A great reader of character, but a great ass when so inclined! He keeps his hands clean — cleaner than mine are — but he’s so interested in freaks of character that he’ll go almost any length to get acquainted with a new one! He’ll burn his fingers some day — mark my words!”
I began to wonder whether I had been marked down by du Maurier as a possible partner in his claims. At least that would have been a plausible reason for persuading me to wander in search of his dwelling in the hills. But my thoughts were soon diverted from that or any other drift by trouble with our followers.
Oakes was growing bad-tempered and finding too much fault with them. They began deserting one by one; and Oakes, whose malaria increased, found a new vein of ill-humor, grumbling because Montdidier was so long about sending word of his doings.
“We ought to have heard two days ago,” he complained to me one morning. “He was to send us word by runner. Where’s his runner?”
“I’ve heard tales of native runners being shot,” said I, and I told him what I had heard du Maurier boast of in the bar in Lourenço Marques.
After that Oakes took his favorite rifle from its case and, for all his fever, did such amazing shooting at a dozen different targets that I wondered what his marksmanship could be like with a clear eye and steady hand. Yet his temper grew worse as the days wore on and no news reached us.
At last, I think it was ten days after our arrival on the scene, the spell of that monotony was broken. There was a long shout a little after dawn, and I spied the man du Maurier, with the inevitable rifle over his right arm, riding a mule down the steep path that led from his aerie. There were, however, no black wives behind him and, as far as I could judge, he came alone.
I warned Oakes, and he got dressed in a hurry, in a clean shirt and white sun-helmet, believing no more than Lord Montdidier in appearing ill-clothed before strangers. I took a leaf from his book and snatched a clean shirt from the bagful of reserves.
Du Maurier rode down to our tents and did not offer to dismount, but sat grinning, plainly surprised to see me. Suddenly I remembered Montdidier’s warning to guard Oakes carefully. What else was I there for? Yet I sat in a camp-chair like a fool, with no weapon in my lap. I dived into my tent, loaded a rifle, and brought it out.
Du Maurier laughed at me as I resumed my seat in the chair with the rifle across my knees. But I noticed that Oakes had picked up a rifle, too, and that he did not laugh, but glanced approvingly at me. Oakes was in a worse temper than usual, and I think du Maurier suspected it.
“If you had manners you’d get off your mule!” Oakes told him at last.
And without a word du Maurier dismounted; two of our natives ran out and led the mule away, and du Maurier took a seat on a rock that faced our tents. He had a paper in his hand that I think he wanted us to notice and be perplexed about, for he folded and unfolded it and turned it over.
I am not good at psychology. In fact, Oakes maintains that a Mexican rebel in a good suit could make me believe him honest. But the thought occurred to me that du Maurier’s surprise at seeing me was all assumed. I imagined the natives had told him there were two white men in camp, not one; and there were not so many Englishmen in Gazaland that he could not have put two and two together, once he knew — and supposing he did know — that Montdidier had gone to Lourenço Marques by way of Chai Chai.
I suspected the air of surprise was assumed to cover an entirely different attitude. Probably it was designed to throw Oakes off his guard, fever and worry having reduced him to a condition perfectly familiar to men acquainted with that country.
“Two of you!” he said at last, letting his rifle fall into the crook of his arm, and pulling out his pipe. “Why didn’t you come up to my place on the hill, and treat me as I’d have treated you? Why stand off, as if you and I weren’t friends?”
“We’re comfortable where we are, thank you,” Oakes answered. “I preferred to stay here and keep an eye on our pegs.”
“That young man,” said du Maurier, pointing a thumb at me, “has a direct invitation to come and stay in my house. He’s my guest by rights! He and I had a talk in Lourenço Marques. He and I are friends! He and I have a plan we were to work together. I own all this land hereabouts, you see, and I’ve been looking for a partner who would register my gold-field. Having a little difference of opinion with the Portuguese, I’m not in position to register claims myself, but that young man and I could work the trade between us.”
“Ask him if he wants to go in partnership with you!” said Oakes.
“I ask questions as and when suits me!” du Maurier answered. “I’ll ask you one first. What would you do, supposing that young man and I should go in partnership to own these claims you’ve pegged?”
“I’d shoot him!” said Oakes promptly, and the answer surprised me as much as it did du Maurier.
“Pity to spoil such a nice young gentleman so early!” du Maurier grinned. “What if there’s two of us to one of you, though?”
“How d’you mean?” said I.
“I mean,” said du Maurier, “that I’ve a writing here that says — look, it’s all done with a typewriter so’s nobody can say I wrote it out myself over Lord Montdidier’s signature — I’ve a writing here that says Montdidier is sick in Lourenço Marques, and sick of prospecting, and sick of Gazaland.”
He was about to say more, but stopped to watch our faces. He may have read astonishment in mine. In Oakes he saw exasperation fed by the fever in his veins.
“What would you say,” he went on, “if I was to prove to you that Mister Lord Montdidier had registered these claims in Lourenço Marques, and in consideration of a thousand pounds, paid and received in presence of two witnesses, had made over the papers in blank to me, for me to fill in the name of any man I choose?”
Oakes glowered, and did not answer.
“Supposing I showed you the papers, what would you say?”
“You couldn’t show them! I wouldn’t look at them!” growled Oakes.
“And supposing I showed you here — in writing — all typewritten out and signed — an order by Lord Montdidier to me to take his belongings, and pack and forward them to a certain address he gave me?”
“I wouldn’t believe it,” said Oakes, in a level voice that was much more impressive than if he had roared.
“Yet here is the order!” announced du Maurier, waving a sheet of foolscap paper on which were several lines of typewriting, and a large seal.
“Touch a thing in this camp if you dare!” said Oakes simply.
“Wait a while!” said du Maurier. “I’m not through yet. There’s more explanations due! You don’t think your bosom friend Mister Lord Montdidier would do such a thing, but you see, I’ve played a trick on you. You think you’re two to one and could outshoot me, but that young man is already wavering in his mind!” He pointed at me with his thumb again. “He isn’t half sure he’d draw a trigger on me to oblige you, seeing he knew me first! And the trick I played on you was a smart one. Mister Lord Montdidier doesn’t believe you’re his friend any more!”
He lit his pipe nonchalantly, affecting to take his eyes off us, but I was watching him like a hawk and was quite sure that was only a ruse to draw our fire in case we should think of shooting. He was probably confident of being able to outmaneuver the two of us, even at that range and conceding us the drop.
“And as for shooting,” he said, throwing away the match and res
uming his stare at us with increased insolence “if you did shoot me — if you could shoot me — I suppose you’re not forgetting that the natives hereabouts are mine, and that they’d burn you alive for any harm done me? You shouldn’t forget that, for that’s a strong point! I’ve married into nine tribes hereabouts! I’ve nine wives up the hill there! Their relations consider me the big asset, and they’d surely be resentful of any harm done me. You shouldn’t think of shooting me. It wouldn’t pay! There’d be no profit in it!”
So far there had been nothing said that in my judgment would make for real trouble. His remarks about me were a joke, due to ignorance. If he chose to suppose me a scoundrel like himself, so much the greater surprise in store for him, I was quite sure Oakes would take no stock in his remarks.
But he had not played his trump card yet.
“You see,” he said, “I’m a downy bird, I am. When you came here and pegged, I was willing to make a trade with you, but you refused. Whoever refuses to trade with me on my terms makes his own bed, and lies on it, that’s all! I knew one of you ‘ud have to go to the coast to try and register; so I went there ahead of you, and waited. Then along comes Mister Lord Montdidier, looking pretty sick. I gave him several days to register the claims, for the Portuguese are slow, and then I called on him. He doesn’t think much of you any more, Montdidier doesn’t!”
Now I saw the length and breadth of his position, and really began to tremble for the consequences. How should I know, who had known Montdidier only a few hours, that the swift low fever of the lands had not made a mental wreck of him, as it had nearly made one of Oakes? True, I was sure I would stand by Oakes until whatever the end might be; but how could I know whether Oakes in his heart did not doubt my loyalty. Oakes had not known me long. I was a stranger in a land where neither law nor mercy kept the right-of-way. Unless Oakes, fever or no, should prove adamant, it began to look to me as if du Maurier held a winning hand.
“Maybe you recollect,” said du Maurier, “that the day after you got here you sent a runner to the coast with a letter for Mister Lord Montdidier. Well — he didn’t go far, that boy didn’t, before he fell into my hands, letter and all! Two of my men brought him to Lourenço Marques. He and I had a conference. We arranged between us that I should hold his wife — I had her already in my kraal up there — and he should say what I told him to in case he hoped to get his wife back in condition to be any use to him.