The Ivory Trail Part 17

"No. I make you a present of those ideas. I'm sure I hope you find the stuff. I'm wondering, though--I'm wondering."

"I'll bet you a dollar I'm thinking of the same thing," said Will.

"Out with it, then."

"What's to prevent the Germans from making their own d.i.c.ker with the King of the Belgians or with the Congo government, and rifling the h.o.a.rd on a fifty-fifty or some such basis?"

"Correct," said Courtney. "I confess myself puzzled about that. But I know no European politics. There may be a thousand reasons. And then, you know, the King of the Belgians has the name of being a grasping dealer. The management of his private zone on the Congo is unspeakable. It's possible the Germans may prefer not to risk putting His Majesty on the scent."

"Well, we've our work cut out," said Fred, laughing and yawning. "That woman has started us off with a bad name."

"That is one thing I can really do for you," Courtney answered. "I've no official standing, but the boys all listen to me. I'll tell them--"

"For the love of G.o.d don't tell them too much!" Fred exclaimed.

"I'll tell them you're friends of mine," he went on. "I believe that will solve the sporting license and ammunition problem. As for the woman--if I were in your shoes I would steal a march on her. I wouldn't be surprised if your licenses and ammunition permits were here at the hotel by ten tomorrow morning. I see they've sent your guns already. Well, there's a train for Nairobi tomorrow noon, and not another for three days. I'd take tomorrow's train if I were you. I always find in going anywhere the start's the princ.i.p.al thing. You'll go?"

"We will," we answered, one after the other.

"Good night, then, boys; I'll be going."

But we walked with him down to his hotel--I, and I think the others, full to the teeth with the pleasure of knowing him, as well as of envy of his scars, his five or six South African campaigns, his adventures, and (by no means least) his unblemished record as a gentleman. Merely a little bit of a man with a limp, but better than a thousand men who lacked his gentleness.

CHAPTER FOUR

THE NJO HAPA SONG

Delights--ah, Ten are the dear delights (and the Book forbids them, one by one)-- The broad old roads of a thousand loves--back turned to the Law--the lawless fun-- Old Arts for new--old hours reborn--and who shall mourn when the sands have run?

I was old when they told the Syren Tales (All ears were open then!) And the harps were afire with plucked desire For the white ash oars again-- For oars and sail, and the open sea, High prow against pure blue, The good sea spray on eye and lip, The thrumming hemp, the rise and dip, The plunge and the roll of a driven ship As the old course boils anew!

Sweetly I call, the captains come. The home ties draw at hearts in vain.

Potent the spell of Africa! Who East and South the course has ta'en By Guardafui to Zanzibar may go, but he, shall come again.

Courtney proved better than his word. Our Big Game Licenses arrived after breakfast, and permits for five hundred rounds of rifle ammunition each. In an envelope in addition was Fred's check with the collector's compliments and the request that we kindly call and pay for the licenses. In other words we now had absolution.

We called, and were received as fellow men, such was the genius of Courtney's friendship. A railway man looked in. The collector's dim office became awake with jokes and laughter.

"Going up today?" he asked. "I'll see you get berths on the train."

We little realized at the moment the extent of that consideration; but understanding dawned fifteen minutes before high noon when we strolled to the station behind a string of porters carrying our luggage.

Courtney was there to see us off, and he looked worried.

"I'm wondering whether you'll ever get your luggage through," he said with a sort of feminine solicitude. It was strange to hear the hero of one's school-days, mighty hunter and fearless leader of forlorn campaigns, actually troubled about whether we could catch our train.

But so the man was, gentle always and considerate of everybody but himself.

There was law in this new land, at all events along the railway line.

Not even handbags or rifles could pa.s.s by the barrier until weighed and paid for. Crammed in the vestibule in front of us were fifty people fretfully marshalling in line their strings of porters lest any later comer get by ahead of them; foremost, with his breast against the ticket window, was Georges Coutla.s.s. Things seemed not to be proceeding as he wished.

There was one babu behind the window--a mild, unhappy-looking Punjabi, or Dekkani Mussulman. There was another at the scales, who knew almost no English: his duty was to weigh--do sums--write the result on a slip, and then justify his arithmetic to office babu and pa.s.senger, before any sort of progress could be made. The fact that all pa.s.sengers shouted at him to hurry or be reported to big superiors complicated the process enormously; and the equally discordant fact that no pa.s.senger--and especially not Georges Coutla.s.s--desired or intended to pay one anna more than he could avoid by hook, crook, or argument, made the game amusing to the casual looker-on, but hastened nothing (except tempers). The temperature within the vestibule was 112' by the official thermometer.

"You pair of black murderers!" yelled Coutla.s.s as we took our place in line. "You b.l.o.o.d.y robbers! You pickpockets! You train-thieves! Go out and dig your graves! I will make an end of you!"

"You should not use abusive language" the babu retorted mildly, stopping to speak, and then again to wipe his spectacles, and his forehead, and his hands, and to glance at the clock, and to mutter what may or may not have been a prayer.

Coutla.s.s exploded.

"Shouldn't, eh? Who the h.e.l.l are you to tell me what I shouldn't do?

Sell me a ticket, you black plunderer, d'you hear! Look! Listen!"

He s.n.a.t.c.hed a piece of paper from the babu's hand and turned to face the impatient crowd.

"This h.e.l.l-cat--" (the unhappy babu looked less like a h.e.l.l-cat than any vision of the animal I ever imagined) "wants to make out that seventy-one times seven annas and three pice is forty-nine rupees, eleven annae! Oh, you charlatan! You mountebank! You black-blooded robber! You miscreant! Cut your throat, I order you!"

The babu expostulated, stammered, quailed. Coutla.s.s drew in his breath for the G.o.ds of Greece alone knew what heights of fury next. But interruption entered.

"There, that's enough of you! Get to the back of the line!"

The man who had promised us berths came abruptly through the barrier, and unlike the babu did not appear afraid of any one. The Greek let out his gathered breath with a bark of fury, like a seal coming up to breathe. Taking that for a symptom of opposition the newcomer, very cool in snow-white uniform and helmet, seized Coutla.s.s by the neck and hustled him, arguing like a boiler under pressure, through the crowd.

The Greek was three inches taller, and six or eight inches bigger round the chest, but too astonished to fight back, and perhaps, too, aware of the neighborhood of old da Gama's fort, where more than one Greek was pining for the grape and olive fields of h.e.l.las. With a final shove the railway official thrust him well out into the road.

"If you miss the train, serve you right!" he said. "Babus are willing servants, to be treated gently!"

Then he saw us.

"You're late! Where's your luggage? These your porters? All right--put you on your honor. Go on through. Save time. Have your stuff weighed, and settle the bill at Nairobi. All of it, mind! Babu, let these people through!"

Followed by Courtney, who seemed to have right of way wherever it suited him to wander, we filed through the gate, crossed the blazing hot platform, and boarded a compartment labeled "Reserved." The railway man nodded and left us, to hurry and help sell tickets.

It was an Indian type railway carriage be left us in, a contraption not ill-suited to Africa--nor yet so comfortable as to diminish the sensation of travel toward new frontiers.

Each car was divided into two compartments, entirely separate and entered from opposite ends; facing ours was the rear end of a second-cla.s.s car, into which we could look if the doors were open and we lay feet-foremost on the berths. The berths were arranged lengthwise, two each side, and one above the other.

It was what they called a mixed train, mixed that is of freight and pa.s.sengers--third-cla.s.s in front, second next, then first, and a dozen little iron freight cars of two kinds in front. In those days there were neither tunnels nor bridges on that railway, and there was a single seat on the roof at each end of first- and second-cla.s.s compartments reached by a ladder, for any pa.s.senger enamored of the view. Even the third-cla.s.s compartments (and they were otherwise as deliberately bare and comfortless as wood and iron could make them) had lattice-work shades over the upper half of the windows.

For the babu's encouragement, and to increase the panic of the ticketless, the engineer was blowing the whistle at short intervals.

Pa.s.sengers, released in quicker order now that a white official was lending the two babus a hand, began coming through the barrier in sudden spurts, baggage in either hand and followed hot-foot by natives with their heavier stuff. They took headers into the train, and the porters generally came back grinning.

"I see through the whistling stunt," Will announced. "My, but that fellow on the engine has faith; or else the system's down real fine in these parts! He won't be back for a week. Those woolly-headed porters are going to save up his commission and hand it to him when he brings the down-train in! The game's good: he whistles--pa.s.senger runs--can't make change--pays two, three, four, ten times what the job's worth--and the porters divvy up with the engineer. But good lord, the porters must be honest!"

Presently a pale white man in khaki with a red beard entered our compartment, and Courtney had to make room for him on the seat. He apologized with less conviction of real regret than I ever remember noticing, although the pouches under his eyes gave him a rather world-weary look.

"Not another first-cla.s.s berth on the train--every last one engaged.

Might be worse. Might have had to ride with Indians. Curse of this country, Indians are. I'd rid the land of 'em double-quick if government 'ud pay me a rupee a head--an' I'd provide cartridges! But government likes 'em! Ugh! Ever travel in one compartment with a dozen of 'em? Sleep in a tent with a score of 'em? Share blankets with a couple of 'em on a cold night? No? You be glad I'm not an Indian. One's enough!"