The Ivory Trail Part 71

Now for opulence and place And the increment unearned We will thieve and stab and cover it with perjury, Contemptuous of grace And the lesson never learned That the Rules are not amenable to surgery.

We will steal a neighbor's tools In the quest for easy cash, Aye, jump his claim and burrow to the heart of it, But the innocents and fools Get all the goods, and we the trash, And that's the most exasperating part of it!

n.o.body in camp slept that night. When the tusks had been chopped out, and our camp carried across and pitched beside Monty's--ivory weighed--lion-proof boma built--and elephant-heart portioned out to the men, who gorged themselves on it in order that their own hearts might grow great and strong; when all the myriad matters had been seen to that make camping in the tropics such a business, then there were tales to be told. We demanded Monty's first; he ours; and because his was likely to be much the shortest we won that argument.

"Wait one minute, though," he insisted. "Before I begin, have you any notion who a man with a beard could be--bruised face-broken front teeth--Mauser rifle--big dark beard cut shovel-shape--enormously powerful by the look of his shoulders and arms? I came on him three, no, four days' march back."

"Schillingschen!" we exclaimed with one voice.

"Show me Schillingschen!" echoed Brown, who was very drunk by that time, nearly ready to be put to bed. "Show me Schillingschen, an' I'll show you a corpse!"

"He's right," nodded Monty. "The man's dead. Blew his brains out with his last cartridge. Looked to me to have lost himself. Slept in trees, I should say. Clothing all torn. Hadn't been dead long when some of my boys came on him and drove away the jackals. Had he been in a fight, do you know?"

But we would not tell him that tale until we had his own.

"Mine's short and simple," he began. "Some ruffians boarded my ship at Suez, who made such eyes at me, and so obviously intended to do me damage at the first opportunity, that I talked it over with the captain (giving him a hint or two of the possible reason) and he agreed to slip me off secretly at Ismailia. It was easy--middle of the night, you know--had the doctor isolate the ruffians on the starboard side while the ship anch.o.r.ed--some cooked-up excuse about quarantine--and kept 'em out of sight of what was happening until the ship went on again. Very simple."

"Go on, Didums--we'll be all night talking--what did you do with the King of Belgium?" Fred demanded.

"Nothing. Didn't go near the King of Belgium. I was quarantined at Ismailia on wholly imaginary grounds for fourteen days; and who should come smiling into the same lazaretto on the last day but Frederick Courtney--a very old friend of mine!"

"He was to go to Somaliland," I said.

"So he told me. He's on his way there now. Decided for reasons of his own to enter the country by way of Abyssinia. Told me of the advice he'd given you fellows, and a.s.sured me he'd seen King Leopold himself on the very matter scarcely a year before. Of course, he said, I might succeed where he failed, using influence and all that sort of thing, but he a.s.sured me Leopold was hard to deal with, and difficult to tie down. His advice was, go back to Elgon, and hunt for the stuff there."

"That's what he kept advising us," said Will. "But why should he give away his information free? And if it's good, where did he get it?"

"Courtney's no dog in the manger," Monty answered. "He told me of this man Schillingschen. Said he had sent in a report about him to the Home Government, but couldn't for the life of him get doc.u.mentary evidence with which to back up his charges."

Will whistled, and drew out the diary he had rescued from the tin box.

Fred nodded. Will threw it to Monty, who caught it.

"He told me this Schillingschen had searched the whole country over for the stuff--had it straight from Schillingschen's boys--I dare say you know how Courtney can make a native tell him all he knows.

Schillingschen, he said, had eliminated pretty nearly all the likely places until Mount Elgon was about all there is left. Courtney said, too, that there were always so many thousands of elephants near Elgon that Tippoo Tib probably gathered a harvest there. We discussed probabilities, and agreed it wasn't likely he would carry the stuff far in order to hide it. It seemed likely to both of us, too, that if the quant.i.ty the old man hid was anything like what rumor says, then there were probably half a dozen hiding-places, not one. Most of the stuff may be in the Congo Free State, and we'll do well to leave that to Leopold of Belgium and his pet concessionaires. Some of it may be near here. I stayed in the lazaretto an extra day with Courtney, talking it over. One other thing he remembered to tell me was that Schillingschen had hunted high and low for Tippoo Tib's old servants, and had finally managed to have the relatives of that man Ha.s.san--I remember, Fred, you called him Johnson in Zanzibar--thrown in jail in German East for some alleged offense or other."

Monty stopped to sc.r.a.pe out a faithful pipe, fill it, press down tobacco with a practised thumb, and reach toward the campfire for a burning brand. Then he smoked for two minutes reflectively.

"I offered Courtney a share should we find the stuff. Knew you fellows would agree." Pause. "Courtney wouldn't hear of it." Pause. "Said good-by to him, and took a coastwise trading steamer back to Mombasa.

Delightful trip--put in everywhere--saw everything. Saw a lot of the Galla--fine tribe, the Galla."

"Suppose you cut the travelogue stuff until later on!" suggested Will.

"Landed at Mombasa, and learned the first day that you fellows had managed to make more enemies than friends. Put in a number of days on heavy social labor--lingered at the club--drank too much of their infernal gin-and-black-pepper appetizer--but made you fellows right, I think."

"We're not interested in the slumming. Go on and tell us what you did!" urged Fred.

"That is what I did--and undid. I made friends. Soon I had all the other junior officials in a state of mind to help me if they could.

Then I began to inquire for Ha.s.san. They drew the dragnet tight, and discovered him at Nairobi! A young a.s.sistant district superintendent of police, who will rise in the service, I hope, before long, discovered a woman--who was jealous of a man--who was just then making love to the dusky damsel particularly favored by Ha.s.san; and in that roundabout way we discovered that Ha.s.san intended to take a trip very soon toward Mount Elgon, where, if you please, he was to take part in Professor Schillingschen's ethnological studies. On condition that he held his tongue until I gave him leave to talk, I promised that young policeman--to put him en rapport with Schillingschen's doings as swiftly as may be. Then I returned to Mombasa, and got your code letter saying you would head this way. It all fitted in like a game of chess."

"How in the world did you get that letter so soon?" demanded Fred.

"The missionary chap was to mail it in Ujiji, via Salisbury, Rhodesia."

"I suppose he simply didn't do that, that's all," Monty answered. "The bank manager told me he received it in the mission mail bag--from Ujiji, yes, but by way of Muanza, Tabora, and Dar es Salaam. It reached me in the nick of time. I must have been marching nearly parallel with you chaps for about a week!"

"If coincidence of evidence means anything," said Will "we're all on a red-hot scent! That Baganda we have in our outfit is our prisoner.

One of Schillingschen's pet pimps. He swears Ha.s.san--or rather some old native whose name he doesn't know--was to meet Schillingschen in these parts and lead him to where he actually helped bury the ivory, years ago!"

"We may have difficulty finding him," said I. "Mount Elgon's big!"

"What about Brown?" asked Monty. "I hope you haven't made him partner?

I agree, of course, if you have, but I hope not!"

"Nothing doing!"

"No. Why should we?"

"Brown's all right, but a present ought to satisfy him."

We began to tell Monty about Brown's cattle that Coutla.s.s stole, and the Masai looted from Coutla.s.s and us.

"Were they branded?" asked Monty.

"Branded and hoof- and ear-marked," said I.

"Then they ought to be traceable, even among the huge herds the Masai have. I think I've influence enough by this time with this government to have those cattle traced and returned to Brown."

"They're his only love!" said I. "Do that for him, and he'll never wait to receive a present!"

Dawn found us still recounting our adventures and Monty alternately laughing and frowning.

"I regret Coutla.s.s" he said, shaking the ashes from his pipe at last when Kazimoto brought our breakfast. "I regretted having to throw him out of the hotel in Zanzibar. I wish he could have escaped with his life--a picturesque scoundrel if ever there was one! I'd rather be robbed by him than flattered by ten Schillingschens or Lady Saffren Waldons. I suppose if I'd been with you I'd have killed him. It's well I wasn't. I might have regretted it all my days!"

We buried our newly won ivory under a tree, locating the spot exactly with the aid of Monty's compa.s.s, and broke camp, starting sleepless up the mountain. As Monty said:

"No use meandering around the mountain. Ha.s.san might be higher up or lower down. If he is there you may depend on it he's tired of waiting.

He's looking for a safari. Let's climb where we can be seen from miles away."

So climb we did, thousand after thousand feet, until the night air grew so cold that the porters' teeth chattered and they threatened to desert us. They grew afraid, too, remembering the tales the villagers had told them down below.

"Wow! You are not fat babies!" Kazimoto told them. "Who would eat such stringy meat as you?"

We came to caves that none of the men dared enter--vast, gloomy tunnels into the mountain through which the chill wind whistled like a dirge.

Yet the caverns were warmer than the wind, and not bad camping-places if we could have persuaded the boys to take advantage of them.

The earth, too, all over the mountain and the range to eastward of it was warm in spite of the wind. In places there were warm springs bubbling from the rock, and at night and early morning a blanket of white mist that was remarkably like steam covered everything. It was a land of thunderless lightning--lightning from a clear sky, flashing here and there without warning or excuse. On the high slopes there was little or no game, and no signs whatever of inhabitants, until late one afternoon the porters shouted, and we saw an old man racing toward us along the top of a ridge.

He held his hands out, and shouted as he ran--a round-faced, big-bellied man, although not nearly so fat as when we saw him last; unclean, unkempt, in tattered shirt and crushed-in fez--a man with one desire expressed all over him--to see, and touch, and talk with other men. He ran and threw himself at Monty's feet, clasped his legs, and blubbered.