by M. M. Kaye
“Then why don’t you do something about deposing him?” enquired Hero.
“Nothing I could do,” said Uncle Nat. “And it’s no business of mine, either. I reckon if his subjects like it that way, well, that’s the way they like it. We don’t own the place—thank the Lord!”
“But surely we have a certain moral responsibility?” argued Hero.
“Moral nothing! The only reason we’re here is because there’s a whole heap of our whalers in these waters, and our responsibility is to look after our own interests and lend a hand to any of our nationals who may be in need of help. We aren’t out for grabbing bits of Africa like all these Britishers and Dutchmen, and it’s none of our business if the people around here choose to put up with a hereditary ruler who’s got nothing to recommend him “cept that he’s the son of his father.”
“But he’s not even the oldest son. Uncle Nat.”
“That’s so. But the old man’s will divided up his Kingdom, and the oldest son, Thuwani, has gotten Muscat and Oman for his share—and would have grabbed Zanzibar too if it hadn’t been for the British being none too happy about having their sea-way to India cluttered up with the war fleets of a couple of squabbling Sultans! Their Navy turned big brother Thuwani’s ships back home, and I don’t imagine he’ll try that again.”
“But there are other brothers.”
“Sure. The Heir-Apparent, for one. He tried to jump his brother’s claim too, just as soon as his old man died. But Majid outsmarted him, and young Bargash has been biting his nails and biding his time ever since.”
“Do you think Bargash would have made a better Sultan?” enquired Hero in a deceptively innocent voice.
Mr Hollis, deceived by the tone, treated the question as purely academic and only put to him out of idle curiosity, and said with a chuckle:
“Bound to, I’d say! He couldn’t be worse, that’s for sure. What these Zanzibaries need right now is someone who is tough enough to make ‘em toe the line whether they like it or not They’ll respect a man who can do that—and despise one who can’t!”
Cressy, who had been listening to the conversation with considerable interest, intervened to say: “They certainly despise Majid, Pa, I can tell you that! And everyone says that Prince Bargash would have made a much better Sultan.”
“Do they, Puss? First I’ve heard of it. Unless you mean those little Arab lady-friends of yours up at Beit-el-Tani. I understand that several of them think that the wrong brother got the throne, and I daresay they’d be quite ready to push him off it. They’re a queer lot, these orientals—no family feeling when it comes to wanting something the other fellow’s got They’ll plot against each other and plan the death or downfall of their kin without a twinge of conscience or batting an eyelid. Cain and Abel…Cain and Abel.”
He turned back to Hero and added confidentially: “Cressy’s gotten mighty friendly with some of the Sultan’s sisters. Seems to spend half her time with them—when she isn’t over at the Platts’ or the Tissots’. She’s learning to speak Arabic too. Just like she’s one of the natives. I tell her she’d better take over my job.”
Cressy blushed and disclaimed, and her mother remarked plaintively that she could not understand how her daughter could continue to be so interested in those girls at Beit-el-Tani Palace. They might be Princesses, but it stood to reason that they couldn’t be anything but downright dull; living as they did in harems, poor creatures, quite divorced from the outside world and never being permitted any freedom or allowed to meet any men.
“But Mama, they meet dozens of men,” protested Cressy. “All their brothers and husbands and sons and uncles and You’ve no idea how many men they are allowed to meet! Of course Cholé and Salmé aren’t married yet, so they haven’t any husbands or sons. But they have a great deal more freedom than you’d think. They go riding and sailing, and pay visits to their friends and go on picnics. Why, they aren’t nearly as dull as we are! We just sit about all day with the shutters closed, and sleep in the afternoon and go for a walk or a drive in the evening, and sometimes take dinner with Colonel Edwards or the Dubails or—”
“Or go riding and sailing, and visit our friends and go on picnics,” teased Clayton. “Not to mention flirting with gallant young Frenchmen and humourless Englishmen.”
“Clay, how can you! And he’s not humourless, and I don’t flirt.”
“Don’t you, Cress? Then I’d like to know what it is that you’ve been doing with that tedious Lieutenant if it isn’t flirting. As to his sense of humour, he wouldn’t see a joke if he met one in the road!”
Cressy sprang to her feet in an indignant whirl of blue muslin flounces and retreated precipitately indoors, and her mother said reprovingly: “Now that’s really too bad of you Clay, when you know how much she dislikes being teased on such matters.”
“She used not to object to being quizzed on her conquests. In fact she used to take it as a compliment. It’s only lately that she’s turned touchy, and if you ask me. Mama, I’d say she’s quarrelled with the Lieutenant: which will be no bad thing, as maybe now he’ll be able to spare a mite more of his time to stopping blackguards like Frost amassing a fortune out of slaving, and less to mooning around after Cressy.”
“Oh, come now, Clay,” interposed the Consul mildly. “I reckon the Lieutenant does his best, and as for Frost, from all accounts he’s turned his attention to other lines of business lately. Selim tells me there’s talk in the city that he made a fancy profit out of some cargo he carried on this latest trip, and I gather it can’t have included slaves—eh. Hero?”
He looked enquiringly at his niece, who said crisply: “No. I fancy he was smuggling firearms.”
She was aware of Clayton’s swift, startled movement, but if he had meant to say anything he was forestalled by his stepfather who said sharply: “Firearms! What makes you think that? Did you see any?”
“No. But I told you about the Virago stopping one night to take something on board from another ship, and then landing it somewhere else the night before we reached Zanzibar.”
“But you said you hadn’t the least idea what it was. What’s made you change your mind about it all of a sudden?”
Hero hesitated, regretting that she had mentioned the matter. She had spoken hastily and without thinking, and she had no desire to confess at this late date (or at any other for that matter) that in defiance of a direct order she had called at Captain Frost’s house. Faced now with an awkward question, she prevaricated; falling back on a description of the mysterious packages that she had seen landed by moonlight from the Virago, and asserting mendaciously that on thinking it over it occurred to her that they might have contained muskets.
“Don’t you believe it!” said Clayton shortly. “Swords and spears, possibly—or even bows and arrows. But not muskets. Why, half these savages wouldn’t even know how to load such things, let alone fire them.”
He laughed derisively, but his stepfather failed to be amused and remarked tartly that such an observation was foolish in the extreme. “It don’t do to forget,” pointed out Mr Consul Hollis, “that the white community on this Island is a mighty small one, with little or no means of defending itself. So if firearms are really being smuggled in to the natives, it is a matter that may concern every one of us.”
His wife gave a small gasp of alarm and her plump hands flew to her bosom. “Surely you cannot mean a rising, Mr Hollis? But there could be no grounds for such a thing. Not against Americans.
“You’re plumb right, Mama,” agreed Clayton. “For the reason that we, at least, have no colonial ambitions in this part of the world, and are only here on account of trade and to keep an eye on our whaling interests. We’ve certainly no intention of interfering with the local Government, and we aren’t oppressing anyone or planning to oppress anyone. If they don’t want us here they’d only have to say so. They don’t have to shoot us!”
The Consul seemed about to retort vigorously, but a glance at his wife made him change his
mind. Instead he lit a cigar, taking his time over the operation, and then settling himself back in his chair, said comfortably: “I guess you’re right. Clay. Maybe it’s all this intrigue and skulduggery that goes on around here that occasionally gets one to feeling that we’re some sort of a lone garrison, holding out in hostile Indian territory.”
“Oh, don’t say that,” shuddered Aunt Abby. “There is no resemblance at all. And even if we were in such a position—which of course we are not—I would refuse to believe that any white man, however depraved, would sink so low as to sell firearms to the blacks, knowing that they might be used against men and women of his own colour.”
Hero pulled a scornful grimace and said caustically: “I wish I could agree with you, Aunt, but I do not think that any such consideration would weigh with Captain Frost. He appears to be entirely devoid of patriotism or morals—or indeed any proper feeling—and I am persuaded he would only see it as a matter of personal gain.”
Clayton’s brows rose, and he laughed and said: “So you’ve had a change of heart, have you? That’s a relief, because at one time it seemed as if you were all set to champion him. But you’ve certainly hit it straight now. I reckon Roaring Rory would sell firearms to a gang whom he knew were plotting to rob his own mother, provided he could get a good enough price. What I don’t believe is that anyone would be in the least likely to pay good money for weapons to use against a harmless handful of white traders, or the undefended consulates of a few friendly nations.”
“Always provided that they believe us to be friendly,” said the Consul slowly.
“What do you mean by that, sir?”
Mr Hollis shifted restlessly in his chair, and once again his wife’s plump hands flew to her agitated bosom; for Clay’s father, Stanislaus, had spent some years in an isolated trading post in the heart of what had then been Iroquois Territory, and he had often told her tales of risings and massacres, and white men—one of them his own partner—burnt at the stake by whooping, yelling Redskins.
Abigail had never forgotten those stories, and ever since then all coloured races were, in her eyes, “savages’ and potential murderers, who were perfectly capable of going on the warpath against any white men foolhardy enough to enter their territory. She had protested strongly at Nathaniel’s accepting the post of Consul in Zanzibar, and even though she had eventually been persuaded that her fears were groundless (and had, in fact, grown quite attached to the native servants), there were still moments when it disturbed her to realize how overwhelmingly the white community were outnumbered by any one of a dozen Eastern races who together formed the colourful, polyglot population of Sultan Majid’s tropical paradise.
Nathaniel Hollis, observing the rapid rise and fall of his wife’s ample bosom, replied to his step-son’s query with a deprecating wave of the hand and a vague: “Nothing, nothing. Seems to me the mosquitoes are mighty bad tonight; what d’you say we move indoors?”
Having thus put an end to the conversation, the Consul adroitly avoided any further reference to the subject of firearms or risings by persuading his niece to play the piano. But he was far from putting it from his mind, and on the following morning he paid an unofficial call upon Colonel George Edwards, the British Consul.
Colonel Edwards had been engaged in reading a long and involved complaint from the Colonial Office, but he laid it aside and rose courteously to his feet when his visitor was announced. The British Consul was a thin, spare, soldierly bachelor who spoke five Eastern languages and seven dialects with great fluency, and having dealt with Arabs, Indians and Africans for more years than he could count, he was inclined to regard such men as Mr Consul Hollis as dangerous amateurs in a specialized field.
Mr Hollis, for his part, considered the Colonel a fairly typical example of British complacency and narrow-minded colonialism in action, but nevertheless respected his knowledge of local problems, politics and people, and in the present instance felt in need of his advice. He therefore accepted a chair and a cigar, and produced Hero’s theory of smuggled firearms in the guise of a bazaar rumour that had reached his ears and which he thought it his duty to pass on to his British colleague—there being, as far as he knew, no embargo on the import of such things into the Sultan’s territories, and therefore no reason for smuggling objects that could have been brought in openly.
“That would depend on whom they were consigned to,” said Colonel Edwards thoughtfully. “If they were intended for anyone other than His Highness, I can well understand why they would have been brought in secretly. On the other hand, the rumour may have no foundation, for the Virago was stopped and searched before she had discharged her cargo, and Lieutenant Larrimore reported to me that he was unable to find anything questionable aboard. May I ask who your informant was?”
“Oh—er—just servants’ tales,” said Mr Hollis vaguely. “I didn’t press for details.”
“Why not? It seems, if you will forgive me, a not unimportant point?”
“Maybe it does. On the other hand I didn’t feel like making a big thing of it. It might have started more hares and alarmed my womenfolk, and I thought it better to treat the rumour lightly.”
“Yes, of course,” approved the Colonel. “Always better not to upset the ladies. I’ll make a few enquiries in the town, and if there is any truth in it I shall soon know. These things have a habit of leaking out. No use tackling Frost of course; he’d only deny it flatly. I cannot understand how any Englishman…Well, that’s neither here nor there. I suppose every nation has its share of blackguards.”
Air Hollis said casually: “You don’t reckon there’s any danger of arms being shipped into this island to be used against us foreigners?”
“None whatever, “—the Colonel appeared scandalized at the very thought—“Why should there be? The people have no quarrel with us.”
“Speaking as an American, they’ve certainly none with me! But you’ll pardon me if I say that the same can’t be said of any of the rest of you.”
The Colonel’s thin lips tightened and he said stiffly: “I am afraid I do not understand you, Hollis.”
“Oh, come now! These folk can’t all be fools and maybe they’re beginning to learn from example. You Britishers have eased into half the countries of the East as peaceful traders and then sent along a Consul to keep an eye on your interests, and before they know where they are, you end up owning the whole damn’ place. Look what’s happening to Africa right now. It’s being used as a Tom-Tiddlers-Ground with just about every nation in Europe grabbing themselves a slice—and then you tell me that there’s no danger of the Sultan’s subjects turning on the white community! How do you know they’re not planning to wipe us all out before they find themselves going the way of India and Burma and South Africa, and a dozen other places I could name? Tell me that?”
The Colonel’s leathery features set in rigid lines and his pale English eyes became frostily remote. “My dear sir, I know these people—”
“I take leave to doubt that,” said Mr Hollis, cutting across the sentence: “You may think you know ‘em, but it wasn’t so long ago that your officers and administrators in India were saying precisely the same thing about the Bengal Army. And what happened there? A bloody insurrection that went near to losing you the country.”
“The situation in India,” said Colonel Edwards frigidly, ‘is in no way comparable with that which prevails here. We have no power in Zanzibar; nor any wish to assume it.”
“Fudge!” retorted Mr Hollis brusquely. “The last Sultan ruled an Empire of which Zanzibar and Pemba and the territories on the coast were merely a part, but now one son rules Muscat and Oman and another governs Loher, while a third holds the East Africa possessions. And who had the last word on that dandy little arrangement? The Government of India! the British Government.”
“My dear sir, the matter was submitted—voluntarily submitted—by the rival Seyyids to arbitration by the Government of India, whose verdict merely upheld the late Sultan’s will and
was undoubtedly a wise one. It was quite time the inheritance was divided up into more manageable proportions, since half the troubles of the last reign were a direct result of the Sultan’s long and frequent absences in Zanzibar, which led to a weakening of his authority in Muscat and Oman.”
Mr Hollis shrugged, and said: “Well, I won’t argue with you on that account. And I guess Majid’s claim was sound enough even without the Indian Government’s verdict. But there are other angles: you British have already managed to reduce the Sultanate’s most profitable source of income by restricting the slave trade. You’ve also intervened to prevent a war between Majid and his eldest brother, and you are behaving in a high-handed and dictatorial manner in Mombasa and the coastal strip. And since I reckon even the Arabs and the Africans are not so unlettered that they can’t read the writing on the wall, I don’t feel any too happy when I come across a rumour that firearms are being smuggled into this Island. If it’s true, then I’d like to know just what goes on and who wants ‘em that bad—and why.”
A tinge of red darkened the mahogany suntan on the Colonel’s cheekbones, and once again his lips thinned to a narrow line. It was obvious that he was making a strong effort to curb his temper, and it was some appreciable seconds before he could trust himself to speak:
“We have as yet no evidence,” said Colonel Edwards in a strictly controlled voice, “that any such arms have been landed. But I will certainly make enquiries. However, as you know only too well, the island suffers sorely from the raids of these northern Arab pirates who descend on it every year when the monsoon breaks, and terrorize the population. If there should prove to be any truth in this gun-running rumour, I think you will find that the weapons were consigned to His Highness, who has probably got tired of paying the raiders to go away and prefers to try driving them off with bullets—which he has every right to do.”
“Exactly! You are repeating my own argument, Colonel. He has every right to import arms. But if this rumour is true, they were not imported. They were smuggled. Ergo—they were not intended for His Highness, or for any purpose that would bear investigation. And if it wasn’t for one circumstance, I’d have been inclined, myself, to say that the buyer was someone who meant to stage an armed revolt and take over the throne himself.”