The Message

by Louis Tracy

  CHAPTER V

  A MAN AND A STORY--BOTH UNEMOTIONAL

  Warden, running the gauntlet of doorkeepers and other human watch-dogs,was finally ushered into the presence of an Under Secretary. To himhe detailed his business, and, lacking neither the perception nor themodesty that often characterize men of action, he had barely begun tospeak ere he fancied that his recital did not command a tenth partof the interest it warranted. Few talkers can withstand the apparentboredom of a hearer, and Warden happened not to be one of the few.Condensing his account of the proceedings on board the _Sans Souci_ tothe barest summary, he stopped abruptly.

  The Under Secretary, leaning back in his chair, rested his elbows onits comfortable arms, and pressed together the tips of his outspreadfingers. He scrutinized his nails, and seemingly was much troubledbecause he had not called in at the manicurist's after lunch.Nevertheless, being an Under Secretary, he owned suave manners, and thesignificance of Warden's docket-like sentences did not escape him.

  "Is that all?" he asked, turning his hands and examining their backsintently.

  "Practically all."

  There was silence for a while. A clock ticked softly as if to emphasizethe peace that reigned on the park side of Whitehall.

  "But you make certain deductions, I take it?" murmured the official.

  "I could hardly fail to do that, knowing West Africa as I do," was thecurt answer. Warden was really annoyed with the man. Without wishinghim any positive evil, he wondered how far the Foreign Office cultwould carry such an exquisite through a Bush campaign, with its wastingfever, its appalling monotony, its pathless wanderings midst foul swampand rain-soaked forest--perhaps a month's floundering through quagmireand jungle with a speedy end under a shower of scrap iron fired fromsome bell-mouthed cannon.

  "Will you be good enough to favor me with them?" purred the other, nowabsorbed in his palms.

  "If I had a map--" began Warden, almost contemptuously.

  The Under Secretary rose with a certain languid elegance. He was reallytired, having worked at the Macedonian gendarmerie regulations untilthree o'clock that morning. High on the wall, behind Warden's chair,were several long, narrow, mahogany cases, each fitted with a pendentcord. The Under Secretary pulled one, and a large map of Africa fellfrom its cover.

  "I am fairly well acquainted with the Protectorate, but now you cantalk to scale," he said, going back to his seat and resuming hisnonchalant attitude.

  Warden, still smarting under a sense of the evident insignificance ofBritain beyond the seas in the eyes of its home-dwelling custodians,spoke brusquely enough.

  "On the Benu? river, a tributary of the Niger, four hundred milesfrom the coast," he said, "you will find the town of Gir? in the YolaDistrict. You see it is just within the sphere of British influence.Germany claims the opposite bank. Well, Oku is near Gir?. Oku is not onthe map----"

  "I put it there myself yesterday," broke in the Under Secretary.

  Warden was gifted with keen sight. He swung round and gave the hugesheet on the wall a closer scrutiny. A great many corrections had beenmade on it with pen and ink. They were carried out so neatly that theyresembled the engraved lettering.

  For an instant his eyes met those of the Under Secretary; thenceforth abetter understanding reigned.

  "I beg your pardon," he said. "Since you gave attention to the positionof Oku so recently, I am half inclined to believe that not only myinformation but my opinions are forestalled."

  "We have been at cross purposes," murmured the tired voice. "You areCaptain Arthur Warden, who commanded the Oku punitive expeditionthirteen months ago. Since early yesterday morning the Colonial Office,at my request, has been trying to discover your whereabouts--trying invain, I gather--or you would have mentioned the fact. I really wishedto consult you with reference to this very topic. It is all the moregratifying that chance should have led you to be a witness of eventswhich were surmises on our part, and that your sense of duty shouldbring you here at the earliest possible moment."

  Warden positively blushed. It was a relief that the Under Secretary wasobviously inclined to visit his manicurist that afternoon rather thanwait till the morrow. Such preoccupation gave him time to recover. Buthe devoted no more time to silent theories anent the disgraceful apathyof the home authorities with reference to West African affairs.

  "I cannot insist too strongly on the efforts that are being made by ourneighbors to undermine British influence in that quarter," he said."Their traders pander to native excesses and humor their prejudices.Their pioneers are constantly pushing northward toward the shoresof Lake Tchad. Arms and ammunition are being smuggled across theboundary at many points. Preparations are quietly in progress for atransfer of power if ever British authority shows signs of weakening.Therefore, I draw the worst auguries from the presence in Cowes of aclever and unscrupulous filibuster like Figuero, especially when heacts as bear-leader to three disaffected chiefs. Oku, as you know, isan insignificant place, but it has one supreme attribute that givesit among the negroes the importance of Mecca in the Mohammedan world.It is the center of African witchcraft. Its ju-ju men are the mostnoted in the whole continent. Their fetish is deadly and irresistible.They can compass the ruin of tribal leaders who are immeasurably morewealthy and powerful than any of their own men. I do not pretend toexplain the reason--I can only state the fact--but there can be nogainsaying the simple truth that if men of Oku place their ban on anytribe or individual, that tribe or that man is doomed."

  "Can you give instances?"

  "Yes. As far away as the river Akini, in the Yoruba District"--andthis time Warden did not point to the map, though his words bridgedsix hundred miles miles--"there was a quarrel between the up-countrytraders and the shippers at Lagos. The merchants in the interior triedto close the trade routes, but the local chiefs refused to help them.By some means the traders secured the Oku ban on their side. The Yorubanatives resisted it.

  "By Jove! both they and the factors at Lagos were glad enough to cometo heel when every ounce of stuff was diverted into French Dahomey.There was no overt act or threat. Oku methods are too clever forthat. The authorities were powerless. Hunger coerced the natives, andfinancial loss brought the people on the coast to terms. And this tookplace where we were paramount! Heaven only knows what excesses the Okufetish has caused in inter-tribal wars. Why, when I attacked them, Ihad to break with my own hands every ju-ju token on the road. Not evenour Hausa troops would pass them otherwise."

  "They had no ill effect on you, then?" said the other, smiling a little.

  "None--at present."

  Warden himself was surprised when his lips framed the qualification.For no assignable cause his mind traveled to the lowering face on thegourd, then reposing in his portmanteau at Waterloo Station, and heremembered the curled scrap of tattooed skin in his pocket. He had notmentioned the calabash to the official. Though it bore curiously on thevisit of the men of Oku to the Isle of Wight, he believed that such afar-fetched incident would weaken his statements. Since he was inclinedat first to err so greatly in his estimate of the Under Secretary'sknowledge of West African politics, he was now more resolved thanever not to bring an extravagant toy into a serious discussion. Anyreference to it would be ludicrously out of place. He was beginning toentertain a deep and abiding respect for the Foreign Office and itsdenizens.

  The Under Secretary asked a few additional questions before he rose tofold up the map. Warden took the hint, and was about to depart when hereceived an unlooked-for piece of news.

  "By the way, it is almost a certainty that Count von Rippenbachaccompanied the Emperor in the visit paid to the _Sans Souci_?" saidthe official.

  "I assume his identity solely from paragraphs in the newspapers."

  "It will interest you to learn that the Count has just returned froman exploring and hunting trip in the Tuburi region."

  Now, Tuburi lies in the no-man's land that separates Lake Tchad fromGerman West Africa, and Warden met the Under Secretary's bored glance as
econd time with quick comprehension.

  "I think," went on the quiet voice, "I think it would be well ifyou kept the Colonial Office posted as to your movements duringthe remainder of your furlough. Personally, I expect no immediatedevelopments. The Emperor is a busy man. He can only devote half anhour each year to affairs that affect the Niger. But, keep in touch.You may be wanted. I am exceedingly obliged to you. One learns so muchfrom the men who have passed their active lives in lands which one hasnever seen except in dreams. I dream here sometimes, in front of thatmap--and its companions. Oh, I had almost forgotten. Do you know Mr.Baumgartner?"

  "Only by sight."

  "That is useful. It might help if you were to meet him in someunexpected locality. And his yacht, the _Sans Souci_, you have notedher main features, such as the exact number of windows in her deckhouses, or the cabin ports fore and aft of the bridge?"

  "I watched her closely many hours last night, but I fear I missed thoseprecise details," laughed Warden. "I shall correct the lapse at theearliest opportunity."

  "That sort of definite fact assists one's judgment. Paint and rig canbe altered, but structural features remain. I recall the case of the_Sylph_, a foreign cargo-steamer loaded to the funnel with dynamite,and about to pass Port Said at a time when it was peculiarly importantto the British fleet that the canal should remain open. She resembled ahundred other disreputable-looking craft of her class, but a lieutenanton the _Cossack_ had seen her a year earlier at Bombay, and noticeda dent in the plates on the port bow. His haphazard memory settleda delicate and complicated discussion in Pekin. Good morning! Don'tforget to send your address."

  Standing in Downing Street to light a cigar, Warden glanced up atthe stately building he had just quitted. His views on "red-tape"officialdom had undergone a rapid change during the past hour. Itwas borne in on him that generations of men like himself had comefrom the ends of the earth to that storehouse of secrets, and eachwas convinced that he alone could reveal the solemn tidings whichmight be the forerunner of modern Europe's Battle of Armageddon. Andthe Under Secretary was called on to hear every prophet! From sucha standpoint the presence in England of a half-caste Portuguese andthree full-blooded negroes dwindled to insignificance. True, the UnderSecretary had listened, and Warden almost shivered when he realized hownarrow was his escape from committing the grave error of discountinghis hearer's sympathy and measure of comprehension.

  It was not his business to ask questions, but he gathered that othersthan himself were alive to the dangers that might spring from aconference between semi-rebellious subjects of Britain in West Africaand the ruler of a mighty nation pent within cramped confines forwant of colonies. Oddly enough, the bent plates of the dynamite-laden_Sylph_ suggested a strange connection between the carved gourd andthe strained position of affairs in the Cameroons. He had no mannerof doubt that when the royal yacht crashed into a sunken wreck theprevious day it liberated the calabash, which forthwith drifted intothe Solent, and escaped notice until discovered by Evelyn Dane. Supposeshe had not seen it? All their subsequent actions would have beenaffected. He might never have known of the strange gathering on boardthe yacht.

  "Queer train of circumstances!" he thought. "If only I could use a pen,what a romance I might contrive with that as a beginning--and this," headded, when, in searching for a box of matches, his fingers closed onthe crisp roll of skin, "this as the frontispiece."

  He hailed a cab. He wanted to open the bag left at the railway terminusand deposit the gourd with the rest of his belongings in a small flathired months ago as a _pied-a-terre_. His stock of cigars neededreplenishing, and the weird document that had just made its presencefelt reminded him that a Portuguese dictionary was lacking. A glance athis watch showed that he could not reach Cowes until a late hour, so heresolved to pass the night in town, go to a theatre, and return to the_Nancy_ next morning.

  From Waterloo, therefore, he telegraphed to Peter:

  "Remaining here until to-morrow. Keep your weather eye open."

  He was sure that his friendly factotum would grasp the full meaning ofthe second sentence, but he would have been the most surprised man inLondon could he have known that Peter at that moment was plying thethree men of Oku with gin.

  An accident brought about a slight variation of his plans. It happenedthat no other passenger claimed the attention of the luggage-room clerkat Waterloo when the portmanteau was unlocked. Warden deposited thegourd on the zinc counter and groped among his belongings for somethingto cover it.

  The attendant, who was watching him, uttered a gasping exclamation.

  "Good Lord! sir," he cried, "what sort of horrible thing is that?"

  It was then that a hitherto undiscovered property in the gourd broughtitself in evidence. No sooner was it placed on a smooth surface thanit promptly wobbled into a half upright position, with the negro'sface on the upper part. Chance could hardly accomplish this movement.It was the designer's intent, brought about by concealed weights, andWarden instantly remembered that the calabash floated much deeper inthe water than would have been the case otherwise. A shaft of sunlightcame through a broken pane in the glass roof, and fell directly on thescowling apparition.

  The effect on the clerk was phenomenal. He grew livid, and backed awayfrom the counter.

  "Well, that's the limit," he muttered. "If I'd ha' known old Hoof an'Horns was so near to me since I kem on duty I'd 'ave gone sick."

  Warden laughed, stuffed the gourd into the portmanteau, and hurried tothe waiting cab. So preoccupied was he with other matters, he had notrealized earlier that under the new conditions he would be in need ofsome portion of the bag's contents.

  It was no easy task to find a Portuguese-English dictionary. Hetried half a dozen booksellers in vain, but ultimately unearthed aserviceable volume at a second-hand shop in Charing Cross Road. By thetime he reached his flat, five o'clock, he was desperately hungry,having eaten nothing since breakfast.

  His rooms looked dismal, and an apologetic hall-porter explainedthat if the gentleman 'ad on'y sent a wire he'd ha' tidied the placeup a bit. Warden went to a restaurant, dined well, and returned athalf-past six. There was still an hour or more of daylight, so hebegan to decipher the unsolved section of the strange manuscript. Itwas a longer job than he anticipated. Arabic characters, being largelyphonetic, do not give a literal rendering of European words. Many pagesof the dictionary were searched ere he hit upon the exact rendering ofthe blurred phrases. But the quest fascinated him. Before it was endedhe found it necessary to consult an atlas and an encyclopedia.

  At last, allowing for a margin of error in his guesses at tenses andother variants of root words, he completed a translation, and this iswhat he had written:

  "I, Domenico Garcia, artist and musician in the city of Lisbon, amjustly punished for my sins. Being desperate and needy, I joined inan attack on the _Santo Espirito_, homeward-bound from the Indies,and helped in the slaying of all the ship's company. We attacked herwhen she left Lisbon on the voyage to Oporto, but a great gale fromthe northeast drove us far out to sea, and then the wind veered tothe northwest, and cast us miserably ashore on the African desert. Weabode there many days, and saw no means of succor, so we buried mostof our ill-gotten gains in that unknown place and turned our faces tothe north, thinking to find a Portuguese settlement in the land of theMoors. We died one by one, some from hunger, some from fever, somefrom the ravages of wild beasts. Six out of fifty-four men reached thetown of Rabat in the train of a Moorish merchant. There we were soldas slaves. Three were dead within a month. We who were left, TommasoRodriguez, Manoel of Serpa and myself, were sent as presents over thecaravan road to that cruel tyrant the black king of Benin. Rodriguezwent mad, and was flayed alive for refusing to worship a heathen god.This message is written on his skin. Manoel of Serpa was drowned in theriver which these monsters term 'Mother of Waters,' while I, though mylife is preserved by reason of my skill in carving, am utterly bereftof hope in this world while filled with fear of God's justice in thenext. Christ
ian, you who read these words, for which I have deviseda cunning receptacle that may long survive me, if you would help anerring brother to regain salvation, go yourself, or send some trustyperson, to the above-named town of Rabat. I hid there a great rubywhich I took from a golden pyx found on board the _Santo Espirito_. Itlies in the Hassan Tower, the tomb of an infidel buried outside thewalls. A causeway leads to the door, which is three cubits from theground, and my ruby is in a deep crack between the center stones of thesill of the third window on the left. I placed it there for safety,thinking that perchance I might escape and secure it again. Friend, Iam many marches from Rabat but few from death. Find that gem of greatprice, and cause masses to be said for my soul in the Cathedral of thePatriarch at Lisbon. Inscribed by me, the unhappy Domenico Garcia, inthe year 1634, to pleasure that loathly barbarian, M'Wanga, King ofBenin, who holds that writing on a white man's skin is most potentmagic against fever, even while I, the alchemist, am yielding to itsravages."

  The violet-tinted gloom that marks the close of a fine summer's day inLondon was filling the room with its shadows when Warden had writtenthe last words of a fair copy. He lit a cigar, placed an easy chairso that he might sit with his back to the window, and was about toanalyze the queer document which had fallen into his hands in such anextraordinary manner when he noticed that the face on the gourd, thoughtilted on the table exactly in the same fashion as on the counter ofthe luggage-room at Waterloo, appeared to be watching him. Now, no manof strong nervous power likes to feel startled, and that the stealthymenace in those evil eyes was startling he did not attempt to deny.He had not noticed previously that--no matter what the angle--so longas the eyes were visible they seemed to look fixedly at the beholder.Thinking that the waning light was deceptive, he sprang up and builtsome books into a V-shaped support that enabled him to set the scowlingface in many positions. The varying tests all had the same result. Thesnake-like glance followed him everywhere. The very orbs appeared toturn in the head. In the deepening twilight they seemed to gleam witha dull fire, and Warden was absolutely forced to reason himself out ofthe expectation that soon those brutal lips would open and overwhelmhim with threats.

  "Confound you!" he muttered, scarce knowing whether to laugh or flyinto a rage at the foolish fancy that led him to address a carven mask,"if you looked that way at poor Domenico Garcia it is not surprisingthat he should use his comrade's skin as vellum. You black beauty! Arethere any of your breed left in Nigeria, I wonder?"

  The stealthy menace of those evil eyes was startling _Page_ 84]

  It demanded almost an effort to sink into the chair and disregardthe sinister object glaring at him from the table. He picked up thesheet of note-paper containing the translation and set his mind to itsproper understanding. While intent on the intricacies of cases andgenders--difficulties intensified by the use of archaic phrases and theArabic script--he had given but passing thought to the general driftof the words. True, the reference to a river named "Mother of Waters"was amazing, because that was the native name for the Benu?, while asearch through the encyclopedia showed that the seaport town of Rabat,in Morocco, was famous for its ruined monuments. But now, ponderingeach sentence, he became alive to their tremendous significance. Theirvery simplicity was the best witness to the underlying tragedy. A manwho dismissed the massacre on board the _Santo Espirito_ with the curtstatement that he "helped in the slaying of all the ship's company,"was not likely to use unnecessary adjectives. "Six out of fifty-four"was also a summary magnificent in its brevity. Garcia reached the sheerapex of the direct narrative style when he said that he and Rodriguez,and Manoel of Serpa, were sent as presents to the King of Benin "overthe caravan route." Those four words covered a journey of 2500 milesacross mountains, deserts, and jungle-covered swamps, where road therewas none, and towns, even the most wretched communities of savages,were hundreds of miles apart. The track probably led through Bel Abbas,Taudeni, and Timbuctu, traversing the very heart of the Sahara, aregion so forbidding and inhospitable that even to-day it remains oneof the secret places of the world.

  And again, there was a grim humor discoverable in a man who,concentrating his life's story into so few words, could yet indulge hismordant wit by writing: "I am many marches from Rabat but few fromdeath," and even poke a bitter jest at M'Wanga for his fantastic notionof a specific against backwater fever!

  It was a forceful picture that Warden conceived when in his mind'seye he saw the "artist and musician," and ex-pirate, too, sitting inthe shade of a giant tree near the king's hut, and pricking out withneedle and dyes, on parchment torn from the back of his dead comrade,the record of those terrible years. He could limn the hollow cheeks,the wasted frame, the fever-light in the dark eyes, and the melancholysmile that must have lifted the cloud of suffering for a little whilewhen the concluding lines were written. Warden knew the scene sointimately that if he put pencil to paper, and Garcia's long-forgottenshade were permitted to testify to the accuracy of the sketch, therecould be no reasonable doubt that imagination must have come very nearthe truth.

  Though the Portuguese did not say as much, it was not hard to guessthat the "cunning receptacle" he had devised for his last manuscriptwas the graven image of M'Wanga himself. His artist's eye had caughtthe possibilities of the curiously-shaped gourd, and, as he saidin his own way, he had used his "skill in carving" as a means ofpreservation--perhaps of securing a certain measure of good treatment.No doubt the King of Benin, sitting on the state stool in front of hispalace of mats and wattle, was greatly flattered by the portrait. Hewould appreciate its realism while missing its subtle irony. In thecircle of subordinate chiefs and witch-doctors surrounding him theremust have been many who hated the white man because he won the royalfavor even for a moment. But they would be wary, and join loudly in thechorus of praise, for there was a grove near by in which the latestvictims of M'Wanga's wrath fouled the air with their dead bodies.

  Garcia's description of the black ruler as "King of Benin" puzzledWarden at first. Modern Benin was far enough removed from Oku and theupper reaches of the Benu? to render the title vague and seeminglymistaken.

  Yet Garcia's sparse record already promised an astounding truthfulness.Warden was quite sure he would discover some contemporary proof of theloss of the _Santo Espirito_. He believed that any one who visited thetomb of Hassan beyond the walls of Rabat would find the ruby placedthere nearly one hundred and eighty years ago. Why, then, should thechronicler err in his allusion to M'Wanga's rank?

  M'Wanga's counterfeit answered the unspoken question. Warden happenedto look at the calabash, now hardly visible in the ever-increasingdarkness. But the cruel eyes still glinted at him, and he could almostdiscover a sardonic grin on the thick lips.

  "By Jove!" he muttered, "When that fellow reigned in Benin his empirespread as far as his reputation. I have no manner of doubt but helived in the interior, where it is healthier than on the coast. Yes,you man-devil!" he added, leaping excitedly to his feet as a new anddiscomforting thought possessed him. "You did mischief enough duringyour evil life, and now you have resurrected yourself just in time totake a silent part in more of the wild doings in which you would havegloried."

  For he was spurred to this sudden outburst by the knowledge that notonly did political trouble loom across the West African sky, but thathe, and he only, was the Christian and friend to whom Domenico Garciamade his dying appeal. There was a ruby of great price to be won, andmasses to be said in the Cathedral of the Patriarch at Lisbon. Could herefuse to fulfil the terms of that pathetic bequest? He had nearly sixmonths of unexpired furlough at disposal, and the Under Secretary didnot appear to have any dread of immediate developments in Nigeria, suchas would demand the recall of officers to their duties. What argumentwould convince his own mind that he might justly decline an almostintolerable legacy?

  Well, he would go into the pros and cons of a doubtful problem later.He was not a rich man, and the journey to Rabat and back would probabl
ybe very expensive. Certainly that ruby would look very well on thewhite throat of Evelyn Dane, though people might well wonder how thewife of a poorly-paid official could afford to wear a "gem of greatprice."

  The conceit so tickled him that he laughed, laughed all the louder,perhaps, because he was conscious that the black king of Benin wasscoffing at him maliciously from the table. But the glee died in histhroat when a thunderous double rat-tat shook the outer door of theflat, and Warden was prepared, for one thrilling instant, to fight alegion of ghosts and demons if need be. Then his scattered wits toldhim that His Majesty's post demanded his appearance. He struck a match,lighted the gas, and went to the door, where a small boy, who seemed tobe physically incapable of using a knocker with such vehemence, handedhim a telegram.

  It was brief and to the point:

  "_Sans Souci_ sailed 3 P.M. Niggers and friend left for London 6.30.Thought you would like to know. Peter."