Green, ah greener than emeralds are, tree-tops beckon the
dhows to land,
White, oh whiter than diamonds are, blue waves burst on the
amber sand,
And nothing is fairer than Zanzibar from the Isles o' the West
to the Marquesand.
I was old when the world was wild with youth
(All love was lawless then!)
Since 'Venture's birth from ends of earth
I ha' called the sons of men,
And their women have wept the ages out
In travail sore to know
What lure of opiate art can leach
Along bare seas from reef to beach
Until from port and river reach
The fever'd captains go.
Red, oh redder than red lips are, my flowers nod in the blazing
noon,
Blue, oh bluer than maidens' eyes, are the breasts o' my waves
in the young monsoon,
And there are cloves to smell, and musk, and lemon trees, and
cinnamon.
---------
*The words "Njo hapa" in the Kiswahili tongue are the equivalent of
"come hither!"
---------
Estimates of ease and affluence vary with the point of view. While his
older brother lived, Monty had continued in his element, a cavalry
officer, his combined income and pay ample for all that the Bombay side
of India might require of an English gentleman. They say that a finer
polo player, a steadier shot on foot at a tiger, or a bolder squadron
leader never lived.
But to Monty's infinite disgust his brother died childless. It is
divulging no secret that the income that passed with the title varied
between five and seven thousand pounds a year, according as coal was
high, and tenants prosperous or not--a mere miserable pittance, of
course, for the Earl of Montdidier and Kirkudbrightshire; so that all
his ventures, and therefore ours, had one avowed end--shekels enough to
lift the mortgages from his estates.
Five generations of soldiers had blazed the Montdidier fame on
battle-grounds, to a nation's (and why not the whole earth's) benefit,
without replenishing the family funds, and Monty (himself a confirmed
and convinced bachelor) was minded when his own time should come to
pass the title along to the next in line together with sufficient funds
to support its dignity.
To us--even to Yerkes, familiar with United States merchant kings--he
seemed with his thirty thousand dollars a year already a gilded
Croesus. He had ample to travel on, and finance prospecting trips. We
never lacked for working capital, but the quest (and, including Yerkes,
we were as keen as he) led us into strange places.
So behold him--a privy councilor of England if you please--lounging in
the lazaretto of Zanzibar, clothed only in slippers, underwear and a
long blue dressing-gown. We three others were dressed the same, and
because it smacked of official restraint we objected noisily; but
Monty did not seem to mind much. He was rather bored, but unresentful.
A French steamer had put us ashore in quarantine, with the grim word
cholera against us, and although our tale of suffering and Monty's
rank, insured us a friendly reception, the port health authorities
elected to be strict and we were given a nice long lazy time in which
to cool our heels and order new clothes. (Guns, kit, tents, and all
but what we stood in had gone to the bottom with the German cholera
ship from whose life-boat the French had rescued us.)
"Keeping us all this time in this place, is sheer tyranny!" grumbled
Yerkes. "If any one wants my opinion, they're afraid we'd talk if they
let us out--more afraid of offending Germans than they are of cholera!
Besides--any fool could know by now we're not sick!"
"There might be something in that," admitted Monty.
"I'd send for the U. S. Consul and sing the song out loud, but for
you!" Yerkes added.
Monty nodded sympathetically.
"Dashed good of you, Will, and all that sort of thing."
"You English are so everlastingly afraid of seeming to start trouble,
you'll swallow anything rather than talk!"
"As a government, perhaps yes," admitted Monty. "As a people, I fancy
not. As a people we vary."
"You vary in that respect as much as sardines in a can! I traveled
once all the way from London to Glasgow alone in one compartment with
an Englishman. Talk? My, we were garrulous! I offered him a
newspaper, cigarettes, matches, remarks on the weather suited to his
brand of intelligence--(that's your sole national topic of talk between
strangers!)--and all he ever said to me was 'Haw-ah!' I'll bet he was
afraid of seeming to start trouble!"
"He didn't start any, did he?" asked Monty.
"Pretty nearly he did! I all but bashed him over the bean with the
newspaper the third time he said 'haw-ah!'"
Monty laughed. Fred Oakes was busy across the room with his most
amazing gift of tongues, splicing together half-a-dozen of them in
order to talk with the old lazaretto attendant, so he heard nothing;
otherwise there would have been argument.
"Then it would have been you, not he who started trouble,"' said I, and
Yerkes threw both hands up in a gesture of despair.
"Even you're afraid of starting something!" He stared at both of us
with an almost startled expression, as if he could not believe his own
verdict, yet could not get away from it. "Else you'd give the
Bundesrath story to the papers! That German skipper's conduct ought to
be bruited round the world! You said you'd do it. You promised us!
You told the man to his face you would!"
"Now," said Monty, "you've touched on another national habit."
"Which one?" Yerkes demanded.
"Dislike of telling tales out of school. The man's dead. His ship's
at the bottom. The tale's ended. What's the use? Besides--?"
"Ah! You've another reason! Spill it!"
"As a privy councilor, y'know, and all that sort of thing--?"
"Same story! Afraid of starting something!"
"The Germans--'specially their navy men--drink to what they call Der
Tag y'know--the day when they shall dare try to tackle England. We all
know that. They're planning war, twenty years from now perhaps, that
shall give them all our colonies as well as India and Egypt. They're
so keen on it they can't keep from bragging. Great Britain, on the
other hand, hasn't the slightest intention of fighting if war can be
avoided; so why do anything meanwhile to increase the tension? Why
send broadcast a story that would only arouse international hatred?
That's their method. Ours--I mean our government's--is to give hatred
a chance to die down. If our papers got hold of the Bundesrath story
they'd make a deuce of a noise, of course."
"If your government's so sure Germany is planning war," objected
Yerkes, "why on earth not force war, and feed them full of it before
they're ready?"
"Counsel of perfection," laughed Monty. "Government's responsible to
the Common--Commons to the people--people want peace and plenty. No.
Your guess was good. We are in here while the government at home
squares the newspaper men."
"You don't mean to tell me your British government controls the press?"
"Hardly. Seeing 'em--putting it up to 'em straight--asking 'em
politely. They're public-spirited, y'know. Hitting 'em with a club
would be another thing. It's an easy-going nation, but kings have been
sorry they tried force. Did you never hear of a king who used force
against American colonies?"
"Good God! So they keep you--an earl--a privy councilor--a retired
colonel of regulars in good standing--under lock and key in this
pest-house while they bribe the press not to tell the truth about some
Germans and start trouble?"
"Not exactly" said Monty.
"But here you are!"
"I preferred to remain with my party."
"You moan they'd have let you out and kept us in?"
"They'd have phrased it differently, but that's about what it would
have amounted to. I have privileges."
"Well, I'm jiggered!"
"I rather suspect it's not so bad as that," said Monty. "You're with
friends in quarantine, Will!"
For a quarantine station in the tropics it was after all not such a bad
place. We could hear the crooning of lazy rollers on the beach, and
what little sea-breeze moved at all came in to us through iron-barred
windows. The walls were of coral, three feet thick. So was the roof.
The wet red-tiled floor made at least an impression of coolness, and
the fresh green foliage of an enormous mango tree, while it obstructed
most of the view, suggested anything but durance vile. From not very
far away the aromatic smell of a clove warehouse located us, not
disagreeably, at the farther end of one of Sindbad's journeys, and the
birds in the mango branches cried and were colorful with hues and notes
of merry extravagance. Zanzibar is no parson's paradise--nor the
center of much high society. It reeks of unsavory history as well as
of spices. But it has its charms, and the Arabs love it.
It had Fred Oakes so interested that he had forgotten his
concertina--his one possession saved from shipwreck, for which he had
offered to fight the whole of Zanzibar one-handed rather than have it
burned.
("Damnation! it has silver reeds--it's an English top-hole one--a
wonder!")
So the doctors who are kind men in the main disinfected it twice, once
on the French liner that picked us out of the Bundesrath's boat, and
again in Zanzibar; and with the stench of lord-knew-what zealous
chemical upon it he had let it lie unused while he picked up Kiswahili
and talked by the hour to a toothless, wrinkled very black man with a
touch of Arab in his breeding, and a deal of it in his brimstone
vocabulary.
Presently Fred came over and joined us, dancing across the wide red
floor with the skirts of his gown outspread like a ballet
dancer's--ridiculous and perfectly aware of it.
"Monty, you're rich! We're all made men! We're all rich! Let's spend
money! Let's send for catalogues and order things!"
Monty declined to take fire. It was I, latest to join the partnership
and much the least affluent, who bit.
"If you love the Lord, explain!" said I.
"This old one-eyed lazaretto attendant is an ex-slave, ex-accomplice of
Tippoo Tib!"
"And Tippoo Tib?" I asked.
"Ignorant fo'castle outcast!" (All that because I had made one voyage
as foremast hand, and deserted rather than submit to more of it.)
"Tippoo Tib is the Arab--is, mind you, my son, not was--the Arab who
was made governor of half the Congo by H. M. Stanley and the rest of
'em. Tippoo Tib is the expert who used to bring the slave caravans to
Zanzibar--bring 'em, send 'em, send for 'em--he owned 'em anyway.
Tippoo Tib was the biggest ivory hunter and trader lived since old King
Solomon! Tippoo Tib is here--in Zanzibar--to all intents and purposes
a prisoner on parole--old as the hills--getting ready to die--and proud
as the very ace of hell. So says One-eye!"
"So we're all rich?" suggested Monty.
"Of course we are! Listen! The British government took Tippoo's
slaves away and busted his business. Made him come and live in this
place, go to church on Sundays, and be good. Then they asked him what
he'd done with his ivory. Asked him politely after putting him through
that mill! One-eye here says Tippoo had a million tusks--a
million!--safely buried! Government offered him ten per cent. of their
cash value if he'd tell 'em where, and the old sport spat in their
faces! Swears he'll die with the secret! One-eye vows Tippoo is the
only one who knows. There were others, but Tippoo shot or poisoned
'em."
"So we're rich," smiled Yerkes.
"Of course we are! Consider this, America, and tell me if Standard Oil
can beat it! One million tusks! I'm told--"
"By whom?"
"One-eye says--"
"You'll say 'Oh!' at me to a different tune, before I've done! One-eye
says it never paid to carry a tusk weighing less than sixty pounds.
Some tusks weigh two hundred--some even more--took four men to carry
some of 'em! Call it an average weight of one hundred pounds and be on
the safe side."
"Yes, let's play safe," agreed Monty seriously.
"One hundred million pounds of ivory!" said Fred, with a smack of his
lips and the air of a man who could see the whole of it. "The present
market price of new ivory is over ten shillings a pound on the spot.
That'll all be very old stuff, worth at least double. But let's say
ten shillings a pound and be on the safe side."
"Yes, let's!" laughed Yerkes.
"One thousand million--a billion shillings!" Fred announced. "Fifty
million pounds!"
"Two hundred and fifty million dollars!" Yerkes calculated, beginning
to take serious notice.
"But how are we to find it?" I objected.
"That's the point. Government 'ud hog the lot, but has hunted high and
low and can't find it. So the offer stands ten per cent. to any one
who does--ten per cent. of fifty million--lowest reckoning, mind
you!--five million pounds! Half for Monty--two and a half million. A
million for Yerkes, a million for me, and a half a million for you all
according to contract! How d'you like it?"
"Well enough," I answered. "If its only the hundredth part true, I'm
enthusiastic!"
"So now suit yourselves!" said Fred, collapsing with a sweep of his
skirts into the nearest chair. "I've told you what One-eye says.
These dusky gents sometimes exaggerate of course--"
"Now and then," admitted Monty.
"But where there's smoke you mean there's prob'ly some one smoking
hams?" suggested Yerkes.
"I mean, let's find that ivory!" said Fred.
"We might do worse than make an inquiry or two," Monty assented
cautiously.
"Didums, you damned fool, you're growing old! You're wasting time!
You're trying to damp enthusiasm! You're--you're--"
"Interested, Fred. I'm interested. Let's--"
"Let's find that ivory and to hell with caution! Why, man alive, it's
the chance of a million lifetimes!"
"Well, then," said Monty, "admitting the story's true for the sake of
argument, how do you propose to get on the track of the secret?"
"Get on it? I am on it! Didn't One-eye say Tippoo Tib is alive and in
Zanzibar? The old rascal! Many a slave he's done to death! Many a
man he's tortured! I propose we catch Tippoo Tib, hide him, and pull
out his toe-nails one by one until be blows the gaff!"
(To hear Fred talk when there is nothing to do but talk a stranger
might arrive at many false conclusions.)
"If there's any truth in the story at all," said Monty, "government
will have done everything within the bounds of decency to coax the
facts from Tippoo Tib. I suspect we'd have to take our chance and
simply hunt. But let's hear Juma's story."
So the old attendant left off sprinkling water from a yellow jar, and
came and stood before us. Fred's proposal of tweaking toe-nails would
not have been practical in his case, for he had none left. His black
legs, visible because he had tucked his one long garment up about his
waist, were a mass of scars. He was lean, angular, yet peculiarly
straight considering his years. As he stood before us he let his
shirt-like garment drop, and the change from scarecrow to deferential
servant was instantaneous. He was so wrinkled, and the wrinkles were
so deep, that one scarcely noticed his sightless eye, almost hidden
among a nest of creases; and in spite of the wrinkles, his polished,
shaven head made him look ridiculously youthful because one expected
gray hair and there was none.
"Ask him how he lost his toe-nails, Fred," said I.
But the old man knew enough English to answer for himself. He made a
wry grimace and showed his hands. The finger-nails were gone too.
"Tell us your story, Juma," said Monty.
"Tell 'em about the pembe--the ivory--the much ivory--the meengi
pembe," echoed Fred.
"Let's hear about those nails of his first," said I.
"One thing'll prob'ly lead to another," Yerkes agreed. "Start him on
the toe-nail story."
But it did not lead very far. Fred, who had picked up Kiswahili enough
to piece out the old man's broken English, drew him out and clarified
the tale. But it only went to prove that others besides ourselves had
heard of Tippoo Tib's hoard. Some white man--we could not make head or
tail of the name, but it sounded rather like Somebody belonging to a
man named Carpets--had trapped him a few years before and put him to
torture in the belief that he knew the secret.
"But me not knowing nothing!" he assured us solemnly, shaking his head
again and again.
But he was not in the least squeamish about telling us that Tippoo Tib
had surely buried huge quantities of ivory, and had caused to be slain
afterward every one who shared the secret.
"How long ago?" asked Monty. But natives of that part of the earth are
poor hands at reckoning time.
"Long time," he assured us. He might have meant six years, or sixty.
It would have been all the same to him.
"No. Me not liking Tippoo Tib. One time his slave. That bad. Byumby
set free. That good. Now working here. This very good."
"Where do you think the ivory is?" (This from Yerkes.)
But the old man shook his head.
"As I understand it," said Monty, "slaves came mostly from the Congo
side of Lake Victoria Nyanza. Slave and elephant country were
approximately the same as regards general direction, and there were two
routes from the Congo--the southern by way of Ujiji on Tanganyika to
Bagamoyo on what is now the German coast, and the other to the north of
Victoria Nyanza ending at Mombasa. Ask him, Fred, which way the ivory
used to come."
"Both ways," announced Juma without waiting for Fred to interpret. He
had an uncanny trick of following conversation, his intelligence
seeming to work by fits and starts.
"That gives us about half Africa for hunting-ground, and a job for
life!" laughed Yerkes.
"Might have a worse!" Fred answered, resentful of cold water thrown on
his discovery.
"Were you Tippoo Tib's slave when he buried the ivory?" demanded Monty,
and the old man nodded.
"Where were you at the time?"
Juma made a gesture intended to suggest immeasurable distances toward
the West, and the name of the place he mentioned was one we had never
heard of.
"Can you take us to Tippoo Tib when we leave this place?" I asked, and
he nodded again.
"How much ivory do you suppose there was?" asked Yerkes.
"Teli, teli!" he answered, shaking his head.
"Too much!" Fred translated.
"Pretty fair to middling vague," said Yerkes,
"but"--judicially--"almost worth investigating!"
"Investigating?" Fred sprang from his chair. "It's better than all
King Solomon's mines, El Dorado, Golconda, and Sindbad the Sailor's
treasure lands--rolled in one! It's an obviously good thing! All we
need is a bit of luck and the ivory's ours!"
"I'll sell you my share now for a thousand dollars--come--come across!"
grinned Yerkes.
There was a rough-house after that. He and Fred nearly pulled the old
attendant in two, each claiming the right to torture him first and
learn the secret. They ended up without a whole rag between them, and
had to send Juma to head-quarters for new blue dressing-gowns. The
doctor came himself--a fat good-natured party with an eye-glass and a
cocktail appetite, acting locum-tenens for the real official who was
home on leave. He brought the ingredients for cocktails with him.
"Yes," he said, shaking the mixer with a sort of deft solicitude.
"There's more than something in the tale. I've had a try myself to get
details. Tippoo Tib believes in up-to-date physic, and when the old
rascal's sick he sends for me. I offered to mix him an elixir of life
that would make him out-live Methuselah if he'd give me as much as a
hint of the general direction of his cache."
"He ought to have fallen for that," said Yerkes, but the doctor shook
his head.
"He's an Arab. They're Shiah Muhammedans. Their Paradise is a
pleasant place from all accounts. He advised me to drink my own
elixir, and have lots and lots of years in which to find the ivory,
without being beholden to him for help. Wily old scaramouch! But I
had a better card up my sleeve. He has taken to discarding ancient
prejudices--doesn't drink or anything like that, but treats his harem
almost humanly. Lets 'em have anything that costs him nothing. Even
sends for a medico when they're sick! Getting lax in his old age!
Sent for me a while ago to attend his favorite wife--sixty years old if
she's a day, and as proud of him as if he were the king of Jerusalem.
Well--I looked her over, judged she was likely to keep her bed, and did
some thinking."
"You know their religious law? A woman can't go to Paradise without
special intercession, mainly vicarious. I found a mullah--that's a
Muhammedan priest--who'd do anything for half of nothing. They most of
them will. I gave him fifty dibs, and promised him more if the trick
worked. Then I told the old woman she was going to die, but that if
she'd tell me the secret of Tippoo Tib's ivory I had a mullah handy who
would pass her into Paradise ahead of her old man. What did she do?
She called Tippoo Tib, and he turned me out of the house. So I'm fifty
out of pocket, and what's worse, the old girl didn't die--got right up
out of bed and stayed up! My rep's all smashed to pieces among the
Arabs!"
"D'you suppose the old woman knew the secret?" I asked.
"Not she! If she'd known it she'd have split! The one ambition she
has left is to be with Tippoo Tib in Paradise. But he can intercede
for her and get her in--provided he feels that way; so she rounded on
me in the hope of winning his special favor! But the old ruffian knows
better! He'll no more pray for her than tell me where the ivory is!
The Koran tells him there are much better houris in Paradise, so why
trouble to take along a toothless favorite from this world?"
"Has the government any official information?" asked Monty.
"Quite a bit, I'm told. Official records of vain searches. Between
you and me and these four walls, about the only reason why they didn't
hang the old slave-driving murderer was that they've always hoped he'd
divulge the secret some day. But he hates the men who broke him far
too bitterly to enrich them on any terms! If any man wins the secret
from him it'll be a foreigner. They tell me a German had a hard try
once. One of Karl Peters' men."
"That'll be Carpets!" said Monty. "Somebody belonging to Carpets--Karl
Peters."
"The man's serving a life sentence in the jail for torturing our friend
Juma here."
"Then Juma knows the secret?"
"So they say. But Juma, too, hopes to go to Paradise and wait on
Tippoo Tib."
"He told us just now that he dislikes Tippoo Tib," I objected.
"So he does, but that makes no difference. Tippoo Tib is a big
chief--sultani kubwa--take any one he fancies to Heaven with him!"
We all looked at Juma with a new respect.
"I got Juma his job in here," said the doctor. "I've rather the notion
of getting my ten per cent. on the value of that ivory some day!"
"Are there any people after it just now?" asked Monty.
"I don't know, I'm sure. There was a German named Schillingschen, who
spent a month in Zanzibar and talked a lot with Tippoo Tib. The old
rascal might tell his secret to any one he thought was England's really
dangerous enemy. Schillingschen crossed over to British East if I
remember rightly. He might be on the track of it."
"Tell us more about Schillingschen," said Monty.
"He's one of those orientalists, who profess to know more about Islam
than Christianity--more about Africa and Arabia than Europe--more about
the occult than what's in the open. A man with a shovel
beard--stout--thick-set--talks Kiswahili and Arabic and half a dozen
other languages better than the natives do themselves. Has
money--outfit like a prince's--everything
imaginable--Rifles--microscopes--cigars--wine. He didn't make himself
agreeable here--except to the Arabs. Didn't call at the Residency.
Some of us asked him to dinner one evening, but he pleaded a headache.
We were glad, because afterward we saw him eat at the hotel--has ways
of using his fingers at table, picked up I suppose from the people he
has lived among."
"Are you nearly ready to let us out of here?" asked Monty.
"Your quarantine's up," said the doctor. "I'm only waiting for word
from the office."
We drank three rounds of cocktails with him, after which he grew darkly
friendly and proposed we should all set out together in search of the
hoard.
"I've no money," he assured us. "Nothing but a knowledge of the
natives and a priceless thirst. I'd have to throw up my practise here.
Of course I'd need some sort of guarantee from you chaps."
The proposal falling flat, he gathered the nearly empty bottles into
one place and shouted for his boy to come and carry them away.
"Think it over!" he urged as he got up to leave us. "You might take a
bigger fool than me with you. You'd need a doctor on a trip like that.
I'm an expert on some of these tropical diseases. Think it over!"
"Fred!" said Monty, as soon as the doctor had left the room, "I'm
tempted by this ivory of yours."
But Fred, in the new blue dressing-gown the doctor had brought, was in
another world--a land of trope and key and metaphor. For the last ten
minutes he had kept a stub of pencil and a scrap of paper working, and
now the strident tones of his too long neglected concertina stirred the
heavy air and shocked the birds outside to silence. The instrument was
wheezy, for in addition to the sacrilege the port authorities had done
by way of disinfection, the bellows had been wetted when Fred plunged
from the sinking Bundesrath and swam. But he is not what you could
call particular, as long as a good loud noise comes forth that can be
jerked and broken into anything resembling tune.
"Tempted, are you?" he laughed. He looked like a drunken troubadour en
deshabille, with those up-brushed mustaches and his usually neat brown
beard all spread awry. "Temptation's more fun than plunder!"
Yerkes threw an orange at him, more by way of recognition than
remonstrance. We had not heard Fred sing since he tried to charm
cholera victims in the Bundesrath's fo'castle, and, like the rest of
us, he had his rights. He sang with legs spread wide in front of him,
and head thrown back, and, each time he came to the chorus, kept on
repeating it until we joined in.
There's a prize that's full familiar from Zanzibar to France;
From Tokio to Boston; we are paid it in advance.
It's the wages of adventure, and the wide world knows the feel
Of the stuff that stirs good huntsmen all and brings the
hounds to heel!
It's the one reward that's gratis and precedes the toilsome task--
It's the one thing always better than an optimist can ask!
It's amusing, it's amazing, and it's never twice the same;
It's the salt of true adventure and the glamour of the game!
CHORUS
It is tem-tem-pitation!
The one sublime sensation!
You may doubt it, but without it
There would be no derring-do!
The reward the temptee cashes
Is too often dust and ashes,
But you'll need no spurs or lashes
When temptation beckons you!
Oh, it drew the Roman legions to old Britain's distant isle,
And it beckoned H. M. Stanley to the sources of the Nile;
It's the one and only reason for the bristling guns at Gib,
For the skeletons at Khartoum, and the crimes of Tippoo Tib.
The gentlemen adventurers braved torture for its sake,
It beckoned out the galleons, and filled the hulls of Drake!
Oh, it sets the sails of commerce, and it whets the edge of war,
It's the sole excuse for churches, and the only cause of law!
CHORUS
It is tem-tem-pitation! etc., etc.
No note is there of failure (that's a tune the croakers sing!)
This song's of youth, and strength, and health, and time
that's on the wing!
Of wealth beyond the hazy blue of far horizons flung--
But never of the folk returning, disillusioned, stung!
It's a tale of gold and ivory, of plunder out of reach,
Of luck that fell to other men, of treasure on the beach--
A compound, cross-reciprocating two-way double spell,
The low, sweet lure to Heaven, and the tallyho to hell!
CHORUS
It is tem-tem-pitation!
The one sublime sensation!
You may doubt it, but without it
There would be no derring-do!
It's the siren of to-morrow
That knows naught of lack or sorrow,
So you'll sell your bonds and borrow,
When temptation beckons you!
Once Fred starts there is no stopping him, short of personal violence,
and he ran through his ever lengthening list of songs, not all quite
printable, until the very coral walls ached with the concertina's
wailing, and our throats were hoarse from ridiculous choruses. As
Yerkes put it:
"When pa says sing, the rest of us sing too or go crazy!"
I went to the window and tried to get a view of shipping through the
mango branches. Masts and sails--lateen spars particularly--always get
me by the throat and make me happy for a while. But all I could see
was a low wall beyond the little compound, and over the top of it
headgear of nearly all the kinds there are. (Zanzibar is a wonderful
market for second-hand clothes. There was even a tall silk hat of not
very ancient pattern.)
"Come and look, Monty!" said I, and he and Yerkes came and stood beside
me. Seeing his troubadour charm was broken, Fred snapped the catch on
the concertina and came too.
"Arabian Nights!" he exclaimed, thumping Monty on the back.
"Didums, you drunkard, we're dead and in another world! Juma is the
one-eyed Calender! Look--fishermen--houris--how many houris?--seen 'em
grin!--soldiers of fortune--merchants--sailors--by gad, there's Sindbad
himself!--and say! If that isn't the Sultan Haroun-al-Raschid in
disguise I'm willing to eat beans and pie for breakfast to oblige
Yerkes! Look--look at the fat ruffian's stomach and swagger, will you?"
Yerkes sized up the situation quickest.
"Sing him another song, Fred. If we want to strike up acquaintance
with half Zanzibar, here's our chance!"
"Oh, Richard, oh, my king!" hummed Monty. "It's Coeur de Lion and
Blondell over again with the harp reversed."
If Zanzibar may be said to possess main thoroughfares, that window of
ours commanded as much of one as the tree and wall permitted; and
music--even of a concertina--is the key to the heart of all people
whose hair is crisp and kinky. Perhaps rather owing to the generosity
of their slave law, and Koran teachings, more than to racial depravity,
there are not very many Arabs left in that part of the world with true
semitic features and straight hair, nor many woolly-headed folk who are
quite all-Bantu. There is enough Arab blood in all of them to make
them bold; Bantu enough for syncopated, rag-time music to take them by
the toes and stir them. The crowd in the street grew, and gathered
until a policeman in red fez and khaki knickerbockers came and started
trouble. He had a three-cornered fight on his hands, and no sympathy
from any one, within two minutes. Then the man with the stomach and
swagger--he whom Fred called Haroun-al-Raschid--took a hand in masterly
style. He seized the police-man from behind, flung him out of the
crowd, and nobody was troubled any more by that official.
"That him Tippoo Tib's nephew!" said a voice, and we all jumped. We
had not noticed Juma come and stand beside us.
"I suspect nephew is a vague relationship in these parts," said Monty.
"Do you mean Tippoo's brother was that man's father, Juma?"
"No, bwana.* Tippoo Tib bringing slave long ago f'm Bagamoyo. Him
she-slave having chile. She becoming concubine Tippoo Tib his wife's
brother. That chile Tippoo Tib's nephew. Tea ready, bwana."
-----------------
* Bwana, Swahili word meaning master.
-----------------
"What does that man do for a living?"
"Do for a living?" Juma was bewildered.
"What does he work at?"
"Not working."
"Never?"
"No.
"Has he private means, then?"
"I not understand. Tea ready, bwana!"
"Has he got mali*?" Fred demanded.
"Mali? No. Him poor man."
--------------
*Mali, Swahili word meaning possession, property.
--------------
"Then how does he exist, if he has no mali and doesn't work?"
"Oh, one wife here, one there, one other place, an'
Tippoo Tib byumby him giving food."
"How many wives has he?"
"Tea ready, bwana!"
"How do they come to be spread all over the place?" (We were shooting
questions at him one after the other, and Juma began to look as if he
would have preferred a repetition of the toe-nail incident.)
"Oh, he travel much, an' byumby lose all money, then stay here. Tea,
him growing cold."
There is no persuading the native servant who has lived under the Union
Jack that an Englishman does not need hot tea at frequent intervals,
even after three cocktails in an afternoon. So we trooped to the table
to oblige him, and went through the form of being much refreshed.
"What is that man's name?" demanded Monty.
"Hassan."
"Do you know him?"
"Everybody know him!"
"Can you get a message to him?"
"Yes, bwana."
"Tell him to come and talk with us at the hotel as soon as he hears we
are out of this."
We did not know it at the time (for I don't think that Monty guessed it
either) that we had taken the surest way of setting all Zanzibar by the
ears. In that last lingering stronghold of legal slavery,* where the
only stories judged worth listening to are the very sources of the
Thousand Nights and a Night, intrigue is not perhaps the breath of
life, but it is the salt and savory. There is a woolly-headed sultan
who draws a guaranteed, fixed income and has nothing better to do than
regale himself and a harem with western alleged amusement. There are
police, and lights, and municipal regulations. In fact, Zanzibar has
come on miserable times from certain points of view. But there remains
the fun of listening to all the rumors borne by sea. "Play on the
flute in Zanzibar and Africa as far as the lakes will dance!" the Arabs
say, and the gentry who once drove slaves or traded ivory refuse to
believe that the day of lawlessness is gone forever. One rumor then is
worth ten facts. Four white men singing behind the bars of the
lazaretto, desiring to speak with Hassan, "'nephew" of Tippoo Tib, and
offering money for the introduction, were enough to send whispers
sizzling up and down all the mazy streets.
----------------
* Slavery was not absolutely and finally abolished in Zanzibar until
1906, during which year even the old slaves, hitherto unwilling to be
set free, had to be pensioned off.
----------------
Our release from quarantine took place next day, and we went to the
hotel, where we were besieged at once by tradesmen, each proclaiming
himself the only honest outfitter and "agent for all good export
firms." Monty departed to call on British officialdom (one advantage
of traveling with a nobleman being that he has to do the stilted social
stuff). Yerkes went to call on the United States Consul, the same being
presumably a part of his religion, for he always does it, and almost
always abuses his government afterward. So Fred and I were left to
repel boarders, and it came about that we two received Hassan.
He entered our room with a great shout of "Hodi!" (and Fred knew enough
to say "Karibu!")--a smart red fez set at an angle on his shaven head,
his henna-stained beard all newly-combed--a garment like a night-shirt
reaching nearly to his heels, a sort of vest of silk embroidery
restraining his stomach's tendency to wobble at will, and a fat smile
decorating the least ashamed, most obviously opportunist face I ever
saw, even on a black man.
"Jambo, jambo;"* he announced, striding in and observing our lack of
worldly goods with one sweep of the eye. (We had not stocked up yet
with new things, and probably he did not know our old ones were at the
bottom of the sea.) He was a lion-hearted rascal though, at all events
at the first rush, for poverty on the surface did not trouble him.
---------------
* Jambo, good day.
---------------
"You send for me? You want a good guide?"
The Haroun-al-Raschid look had disappeared. Now he was the
jack-of-all-trades, wondering which end of the jack to push in first.
"When I need a guide I'll get a licensed one," said Fred, sitting down
and turning partly away from him. (It never pays to let those gentry
think they have impressed you.) "What is your business, Johnson?"
"My name Hassan, sah. You send for me? You want a headman. I'm
formerly headman for Tippoo Tib, knowing all roads, and how to manage
wapagazi,* safari,** all things!"
---------------
* Wapagazi, plural of pagazi, porter.
** Safari, journey, and, by inference, outfit for a journey.
---------------
"Any papers to prove it?" asked Fred.
"No, sir. Reference to Tippoo Tib himself sufficient! He my
part-uncle."
"Ready to tell any kind of a lie for you, eh?"
"No, sir, always telling truth! You got a cook yet?"
"Can you cook?" Fred answered guardedly.
"Yes, sah. Was cook formerly for Master Stanley, go with him on
expedition. Later his boy. Later his headman. You want to go on
expedition, I getting you good cook. Where you want to go?"
"Are you looking for a job?" asked Fred.
"What you after? Ivory?"
"Maybe."
"I know all about ivory--I shoot, trade ivory along o' Tippoo Tib an'
Stanley. You engage my services, all very well."
"Go and tell Tippoo Tib we want to see him. If he confirms what you
say, perhaps we'll take you on," said Fred.
"Tell Tippoo Tib? Ha-ha! You want to find his buried ivory--that it?
All white men wanting that! All right, I go tell him! I come again!"
"Come back here, you fat rascal!" ordered Fred. "What do you mean
about buried ivory? What buried ivory?"
Hassan's face lost some of its transcendent cheek. Even the dyed beard
seemed to wilt.
"What you wanting?" he asked. "Hunt, trade, travel--what your
business?"
"Fish!" Fred answered genially.
"Samaki?"
"Yes--samaki--fish!"
Having no experience of Arabs, and part-Arabs, I wondered what on earth
Fred could be driving at. But Hassan wondered still more, and that was
the whole point. He stood agape, looking from one to the other of us,
his fat good-natured face an interrogation mark.
"I go an' tell bwana Tippoo Tib!" he announced, and departed swiftly.
"What's the idea of fish, Fred?" I asked.
"Oh, just curiosity. The way of getting information out of colored
folk is to get them so frantically curious they've no time to think up
lies. Tobacco would have done as well--anything unexpected. A bird
flying, and a black man lying,--are both of 'em easy to catch or
confuse unless they know which way they're heading. Let's go and look
at the bazaar."
But in order to look one had to reach. We left the great heavy-beamed
hotel that had once been Tippoo Tib's residence, but were stopped in
the outer doorway by a crowd of native boys, each with a brass plate on
his arm.
"Guide, sah!--Guide, sah!--My name 'McPhairson, sah!--My name Jones,
sah!--My name Johnson, sah! Guide to all the sights, sah!"
They were as persistent and evilly intentioned as a swarm of flies, and
bold enough to strike back when anybody kicked them. While we wrestled
and swore, but made no headway, we were accosted by a Greek, who seemed
from long experience able to pass through them without striking or
being struck. We were not left in doubt another second as to whether
our friend Hassan had dallied on the way, and held his tongue or not.
"Good day, gentlemen! I hear you are after fish! Hah! That is a good
story to tell to Arabs! You mean fishing for information, eh? Ha-hah!"
He turned on the swarm of boys, who still yelled and struggled about
our legs.
"Imshi!* Voetsak!** Enenda zako!*** Kuma nina, wewe!****" In a minute
he had them all scattering, for only innocence and inexperience attract
the preying youth of Zanzibar. "Now, gentlemen, my name is
Coutlass--Georges Coutlass. Have a drink with me, and let me tell you
something."
-----------------
* Imshi (Arabic), get to hell out of here!
** Voetsak (Cape Dutch), ditto.
*** Enenda zako (Kiswahill), ditto.
**** Kuma nina (Kiswahill). An opprobrious, and perhaps the commonest
expletive In the language, amounting to a request for details of the
objurgee's female ancestry. By no means for use in drawing-rooms.
------------------
He was tall, dark skinned, athletic, and roguish-looking even for the
brand of Greek one meets with south of the Levant--dressed in khaki,
with an American cowboy hat--his fingers nearly black with cigarette
juice--his hands unusually horny for that climate--and his hair
clipped so short that it showed the bumps of avarice and other things,
said to reside below the hat-band to the rear. Yet a plausible,
companionable-seeming man. And Zanzibar confers democratic privilege,
as well as fevers; impartiality hovers in the atmosphere as well as
smells, and we neither of us dreamed of hesitating, but followed him
back into the bar--a wide, low-ceilinged room whose beams were two feet
thick of blackened, polished hard wood. There we sat one each side of
him in cane armchairs. He ordered the drinks, and paid for them.
"First I will tell you who I am," he said, when he had swallowed a
foot-long whisky peg and wiped his lips with his coat sleeve. "I never
boast. I don't need to! I am Georges Coutlass! I learned that you
have an English lord among your party, and said I to myself 'Aha!
There is a man who will appreciate me, who am a citizen of three
lands!' Which of you gentlemen is the lord?"
"How can you be a citizen of three countries?" Fred countered.
"Of Greece, for I was born in Greece. I have fought Turks. Ah! I
have bled for Greece. I have spilt my blood in many lands, but the
best was for my motherland!--Of England, for I became naturalized. By
bloody-hell-and-Waterloo, but I admire the English! They have guts,
those English, and I am one of them! By the great horn spoon, yes, I
became an Englishman at Bow Street one Monday morning, price Five
Pounds. I was lined up with the drunks and pick-pockets, and by Jumbo
the magistrate mistook me for a thief! He would have given me six
months without the option in another minute, but I had the good luck to
remember how much money I had paid my witnesses. The thought of paying
that for nothing--worse than nothing, for six months in jail!--in an
English jail!--pick oakum!--eat skilly!--that thought brought me to my
senses. 'By Gassharamminy,' I said, 'I may be mad, but I'm sober! If
it's a crime to desire to be English, then punish me, but let me first
commit the offense!' So he laughed, and didn't question my witnesses
very carefully--one was a Jew, the other an ex-German, and either of
them would swear to anything at half price for a quantity--and they
kissed the Book and committed perjury--and lo and behold, I was English
as you are--English without troubling a midwife or the parson! Five
pounds for the 'beak' at Bow Street--fifty for the
witnesses--fifty-five all told--and cheap at the price! I had money in
those days. It was after our short war with Turkey. We Greeks got
beaten, but the Turks did not get all the loot! By prison and gallows,
no! When our men ran before a battle, I did not run--not I! I
remained, and by Croesus I grew richer in an hour than I have ever been
since!"
"That's two countries," said I. "Which is the third that has the honor
to claim your allegiance?"
"Honor is right!" he answered with a proud smile. "I, Georges Coutlass,
have honored three flags! I am a credit to all three countries! The
third is America--the U. S. A. You might say that is the corollary of
being English--the natural, logical, correct sequence! The U. S. laws
are strict, but their politics were devised for--what is it the
preachers call it--ah, yes, for straining out gnats and swallowing
camels. By George Washington they would swallow a house on fire!
There was a federal election shortly due. One of the
parties--Democratic--Republican--I forget which--maybe both!--needed
new voters. The law says it takes five years to become a citizen.
Politics said fifteen minutes! The politicians paid the fees too! I
was a citizen--a voter--an elector of presidents before I had been
ashore three months, and I had sold my vote three times over within a
month of that! They had me registered under three names in three
separate wards! I didn't need the money--I had plenty in those days--I
gave the six dollars I received for my votes to the Holy Church, and
voted the other way to save my conscience; but the fun of the thing
appealed! By Gassharamminy! I can't take life the way the copy-books
lay down! I have to break laws or else break heads! But I love
America! I fought and bled for America! By Abraham Lincoln, I fought
those Spaniards until I don't doubt they wished I had stayed in Greece!
Yes, I left that middle finger in Cuba--shot through the left hand by
a Don, think of it, a Don! When I came out of hospital--and I never
saw anything worse than that hot hell!--I got myself attached to the
commissariat, and the pickings were none so bad. Had to hand over too
much, though. That is the worst of America, there is no genuine
liberty. You have to steal for the man higher up. If you keep more
than ten per cent., he squeals. He has to pass most of it on again to
some one else, and so on, and they all land in jail in course of time!
Give me a country where a man can keep what he finds! There was talk
about congressional inquiries. Then a friend of mine--a Greek--who had
been out here told me of Tippoo Tib's ivory, and it looked all right to
me to change scenes for a while. I had citizenship papers--U. S., and
English, and a Greek passport in case of accident. Traveling looked
good to me."
"If you traveled on a Greek passport you couldn't use citizenship
papers of any other country," Fred objected.
"Who said I traveled on a Greek passport? Do you take me for such a
fool? Who listens to a Greek consul? He may protest, and accept fees,
but Greece is a little country and no one listens to her consuls. I
carry a Greek passport in case I should find somewhere someday a Greek
consul with influence or a Greek whom I wish to convince. I traveled
to South Africa as an American. I went to Cape Town with the idea of
going to Salisbury, and working my way up from there as a trader into
the Congo. I reached Johannesburg, and there I did a little I. D. B.
and one thing and another until the Boer War came. Then I fought for
the Boers. Yes, I have bled for the Boer cause. It was a damned bad
cause! They robbed me of nearly all my money! They left me to die
when I was wounded! It was only by the grace of God, and the intrigues
of a woman that I made my way to Lourenco Marquez. No, the war was not
over, but what did I care? I, Georges Coutlass, had had enough of it!
I recompensed myself en route. I do not fight for a bunch of thieves
for nothing! I sailed from Lourenco Marquez to Mombasa. I hunted
elephant in British East Africa until they posted a reward for me on
the telegraph poles. The law says not more than two elephants in one
year. I shot two hundred! I sold the ivory to an Indian, bought
cattle, and went down into German East Africa. The Masai attacked me,
stole some of the cattle, and killed others. The Germans, damn and
blast them, took the rest! They accused me of crimes--me, Georges
Coutlass!--and imposed fines calculated carefully to skin me of all I
had! Roup and rotten livers! but I will knock them head-over-halleluja
one fine day! Not for nothing shall they flim-flam Georges Coutlass!
Which of you gentlemen is the lord?"
We bought him another drink, and watched it disappear with one
uninterrupted gurgle down its appointed course.
"What did you do next?" Fred asked him before he had recovered breath
enough to question us. "I suppose the Germans had you at a loose end?"
"Do you think that? Sacred history of hell! It takes more than a
lousy military German to get Georges Coutlass at a loose end! They
must get me dead before that can happen! And then, by Blitzen, as
those devils say, a dead Georges Coutlass will be better than a
thousand dead Germans! In hell I will use them to clean my boots on!
At a loose end, was I? I met this bloody rogue Hassan--the fat
blackguard who told me you have come to Zanzibar for fish--and made an
agreement with him to look for Tippoo Tib's buried ivory. Yes, sir! I
showed him papers. He thought they were money drafts. He thought me a
man of means whom he could bleed. I had guns and ammunition, he none.
He pretended to know where some of Tippoo Tib's ivory is buried."
"Some of it, eh?" said Fred.
"Some of it, d'you say?" said I.
"Some of it, yes. A million tusks. Some say two million! Some say
three! Thunder!--you take a hundred good tusks and bury them; you'll
see the hill you've made from five miles off! A hundred thousand tusks
would make a mountain! If any one buried a million tusks in one spot
they'd mark the place on maps as a watershed! They must be buried
here, there, everywhere along the trail of Tippoo Tib--perhaps a
thousand in one place at the most. Which of you two gentlemen is the
lord?"
"Did Hassan lead you to any of it?" Fred inquired.
"Not he! The jelly-belly! The Arab pig! He led me to Ujiji--that's
on Lake Tanganika--the old slave market where he himself was once sold
for ten cents. I don't doubt a piece of betel nut and a pair of
worn-out shoes had to be thrown in with him at the price! There he
tried to make me pay the expenses in advance of a trip to Usumbora at
the head of the lake. God knows what it would have cost, the way he
wanted me to do it! Are you the lord, sir?"
"What did you do?" asked Fred.
"Do? I parted company! I had made him drunk once. (The Arabs aren't
supposed to drink, so when they do they get talkative and lively!) And
I knew Arabic before ever I crossed the Atlantic--learned it in
Egypt--ran away from a sponge-fishing boat when I was a boy. No, they
don't fish sponges off the Nile Delta, but you can smuggle in a sponge
boat better than in most ships. Anyhow, I learned Arabic. So I
understood what that pig Hassan said when he talked in the dark with
his brother swine. He knew no more than I where the ivory was! He
suspected most of it was in a country called Ruanda that runs pretty
much parallel with the Congo border to the west of Victoria Nyanza in
German East Africa, and he was counting on finding natives who could
tell him this and that that might put him on the trail of it! I could
beat that game! I could cross-examine fool natives twice as well as
any fat rascal of an ex-slave! Seeing he had paid all expenses so far,
however, I was not much to the bad, so I picked a quarrel with him and
we parted company. Wouldn't you have done the same, my lord?"
But Fred did not walk into the trap. "What did you do next?" he asked.
"Next? I got a job with the agent of an Italian firm to go north and
buy skins. He made me a good advance of trade goods--melikani,* beads,
iron and brass wire, kangas,** and all that sort of thing, and I did
well. Made money on that trip. Traveled north until I reached
Ruanda--went on until I could see the Fire Mountains in the distance,
and the country all smothered in lava. Reached a cannibal country,
where the devils had eaten all the surrounding tribes until they had to
take to vegetarianism at last."
-----------------
* Melikani, the unbleached calico made in America that is the most
useful trade goods from sea to sea of Central Africa.
** Kanga, cotton piece goods.
-----------------
"But did you find the ivory?" Fred insisted.
"No, or by Jiminy, I wouldn't be here! If I'd found it I'd have
settled down with a wife in Greece long ago. I'd be keeping an inn,
and growing wine, and living like a gentleman! But I found out enough
to know there's a system that goes with the ivory Tippoo Tib buried.
If you found one lot, that would lead you to the next, and so on. I
got a suspicion where one lot is, although I couldn't prove it. And I
made up my mind that the German government knows darned well where a
lot of it is!"
"Then why don't the Germans dig it up?" demanded Fred.
"Aha!" laughed Coutlass. "If I know, why should I tell! If they know,
why should they tell? Suppose that some of it were in Congo territory,
and some in British East Africa? Suppose they should want to get the
lot? What then? If they uncovered their bit in German East Africa
mightn't that put the Congo and the British on the trail?"
"If they know where it is," said I, "they'll certainly guard it."
"Which of you is the lord?" demanded Coutlass earnestly.
"What do you suppose Hassan is doing, then, here in Zanzibar?" asked
Fred.
"Rum and eggs! I know what he is doing! When I snapped my thumb under
his fat nose and told him about the habits of his female ancestors be
went to the Germans and informed against me! The sneak-thief! The
turn-coat! The maggot! I shall not forget! I, Georges Coutlass,
forget nothing! He informed against me, and they set askaris* on my
trail who prevented me from making further search. I had to sit idle
in Usumbura or Ujiji, or else come away; and idleness ill suits my
blood! I came here, and Hassan followed me. The Germans made a
regular, salaried spy of him--the semi-Arab rat! The one-tenth Arab,
nine-tenths mud-rat! Here he stays in Zanzibar and spies on Tippoo
Tib, on me, on the British government, and on every stranger who comes
here. His information goes to the Germans. I know, for I intercepted
some of it! He writes it out in Arabic, and provided no woman goes
through the folds of his clothes or feels under that silken belly-piece
be wears, the Germans get it. But if a woman does, and she's a friend
of mine, that's different! Are you the lord, sir?"
------------------
* Askari, native soldier.
------------------
"What do you propose?" asked Fred.
"Help me find that ivory!" said Coutlass. "I have very little money
left, but I have guns, and courage! I know where to look, and I am not
afraid! No German can scare me! I am English-American-Greek!--better
than any hundred Germans! Let us find the ivory, and share it! Let us
get it out through British territory, or the Congo, so that no German
sausage can interfere with us or take away one tusk! Gee-rusalem, how
I hate the swine. Let us put one over on them! Let us get the ivory
to Europe, and then flaunt the deed under their noses! Let us send one
little tip of a female tusk to the Kaiser for a souvenir--female in
proof it is all illegitimate, illegal, outlawed! Let us send him a
piece of ivory and a letter telling him all about it, and what we think
of him and his swine-officials! His lieutenants and his captains! Let
us smuggle the ivory out through the Congo--it can be done! It can be
done! I, Georges Coutlass, will find the ivory, and find the way!"
"No need to smuggle it out," said Fred. "The British government will
give us ten per cent., or so I understand, of the value of all of it we
find in British East."
Georges Coutlass threw back his head and roared with laughter, slapped
his thighs, held his sides--then coughed for two or three minutes, and
spat blood.
"You are the lord, all right!" he gasped as soon as he could get
breath. "No need to smuggle it! Ha-ha! May I be damned! Ten per
cent. they'll give us! Ha-ha! Generous! By whip and wheel! they're
lucky if we give them five per cent.! I'd like to see any government
take away from Georges Coutlass ninety per cent. of anything without a
fight! No, gentlemen! No, my Lord! The Belgian Congo government is
corrupt. Let us spend twenty-five per cent.--even thirty-forty-fifty
per cent. of the value of it to bribe the Congo officials. Hand over
ninety per cent. to the Germans or the British without a fight?--Never!
Never while my name is Georges Coutlass! I have fought too often! I
have been robbed by governments too often! This last time I will put
it over all the governments, and be rich at last, and go home to Greece
to live like a gentleman! Believe me!"
He patted himself on the breast, and if flashing eye and frothing lip
went for anything, then all the governments were as good as defeated
already.
"You are the lord, are you not?" he demanded, looking straight at Fred.
"My name is Oakes," Fred answered.
"Oh, then you? I beg pardon!" He looked at me with surprise that he
made no attempt to conceal. Fred could pass for a king with that
pointed beard of his (provided he were behaving himself seemly at the
time) but for all my staid demeanor I have never been mistaken for any
kind of personage. I disillusioned Coutlass promptly.
"Then you are neither of you lords?"
"Pish! We're obviously ladies!" answered Fred.
"Then you have fooled me?" The Greek rose to his feet. "You have
deceived me? You have accepted my hospitality and confidence under
false pretense?"
I think there would have been a fight, for Fred was never the man to
accept brow-beating from chance-met strangers, and the Greek's fiery
eye was rolling in fine frenzy; but just at that moment Yerkes
strolled in, cheerful and brisk.
"Hullo, fellers! This is some thirsty burg. Do they sell soft drinks
in this joint?" he inquired.
"By Brooklyn Bridge!" exclaimed Coutlass. "An American! I, too, am an
American! Fellow-citizen, these men have treated me badly! They have
tricked me!"
"You must be dead easy!" said Yerkes genially. "If those two wanted to
live at the con game, they'd have to practise on the junior
kindergarten grades. They're the mildest men I know. I let that one
with the beard hold my shirt and pants when I go swimming! Tricked
you, have they? Say--have you got any money left?"
"Oh, have a drink!" laughed the Greek. "Have one on me! It's good to
hear you talk!"
"What have my friends done to you?" asked Yerkes.
"I was looking for a lord. They pretended to be lords."
"What? Both of 'em?"
"No, it is one lord I am looking for."
"One lord, one faith, one baptism!" said Yerkes profanely.
"And you found two? What's your worry? I'll pretend to be a third if
that'll help you any!"
"Gentlemen," said the Greek, rising to his full height and letting his
rage begin to gather again, "you play with me. That is not well! You
waste my time. That is not wise! I come in all innocence, looking for
a certain lord--a real genuine lord--the Earl of Montdidier and
Kirscrubbrightshaw--my God, what a name!"
"I'm Mundidier," said a level voice, and the Greek faced about like a
man attacked. Monty had entered the barroom and stood listening with
calm amusement, that for some strange reason exasperated the Greek less
than our attitude had done, at least for the moment. When the first
flush of surprise had died he grinned and grew gallant.
"My own name is Georges Coutlass, my Lord!" He made a sweeping bow,
almost touching the floor with the brim of his cowboy hat, and then
crossing his breast with it.
"What can I do for you?" asked Monty.
"Listen to me!"
"Very well. I can spare fifteen minutes."
We all took seats together in a far corner of the dingy room, where the
Syrian barkeeper could not overhear us.
"My Lord, I am an Englishman!" Coutlass began. "I am a God-fearing,
law-abiding gentleman! I know where to look for the ivory that the
Arab villain Tippoo Tib has buried! I know how to smuggle it out of
Africa without paying a penny of duty--"
"Did you say law-abiding?" Monty asked.
"Surely! Always! I never break the law! As for instance--in Greece,
where I had the honor to be born, the law says no man shall carry a
knife or wear one in his belt. So, since I was a little boy I carry
none! I have none in my hand--none at my belt. I keep it here!"
He stooped, raised his right trousers leg, and drew from his Wellington
boot a two-edged, pointed thing almost long enough to merit the name of
rapier. He tossed it in the air, let it spin six or seven times end
over end, caught it deftly by the point, and returned it to its
hiding-place.
"I am a law-abiding man," he said, "but where the law leaves off, I
know where to begin! I am no fool!"
Monty made up his mind there and then that this man's game would not be
worth the candle.
"No, Mr. Coutlass, I can't oblige you," he said.
The Greek half-arose and then sat down again.
"You can not find it without my assistance!" he said, wrinkling his
face for emphasis.
"I'm not looking for assistance," said Monty.
"Aha! You play with words! You are not--but you will! I am no fool,
my Lord! I understand! Not for nothing did I make a friend again of
that pig Hassan! Not for nothing have I waited all these months in
this stinking Zanzibar until a man should come in search of that ivory
whom I could trust! Not for nothing did Juma, the lazaretto attendant
tell Hassan you desired to see him! You seek the ivory, but you wish
to keep it all! To share none of it with me!" He stood up, and made
another bow, much curter than his former one. "I am Georges Coutlass!
My courage is known! No man can rob me and get away with it!"
"My good man," drawled Monty, raising his eyebrows in the comfortless
way he has when there seems need of facing an inferior antagonist. (He
hates to "lord it" as thoroughly as he loves to risk his neck.) "I
would not rob you if you owned the earth! If you have valuable
information I'll pay for it cheerfully after it's tested."
"Ah! Now you talk!"
"Observe--I said after it's tested!"
"I don't think he knows anything," said Fred. "I think he guessed a
lot, and wants to look, and can't afford to pay his own expenses.
Isn't that it?"
"What do you mean?" demanded Coutlass.
"I can't talk Greek," said Fred. "Shall I say it again in English?"
"You may name any reasonable price," said Monty, "for real information.
Put it in writing. When we're agreed on the price, put that in
writing too. Then, if we find the information is even approximately
right, why, we'll pay for it."
"Ah-h-h! You intend to play a trick on me! You use my information!
You find the ivory! You go out by the Congo River and the other coast,
and I kiss myself good-by to you and ivory and money! I am to be what
d'you call it?--a milk-pigeon!"
"Being that must be some sensation!" nodded Yerkes.
"I warn you I can not be tampered with!" snarled the Greek, putting on
his hat with a flourish. "I leave you, for you to think it over! But
I tell you this--I promise you--I swear! Any expedition in search of
that ivory that does not include Georges Coutlass on his own terms is a
delusion--a busted flush--smashed--exploded--pfff!--so--evanesced
before the start! My address is Zanzibar! Every street child knows
me! When you wish to know my terms, tell the first man or child you
meet to lead you to the house where Georges Coutlass lives! Good
morning, Lord Skirtsshubrish! We will no doubt meet again!"
He turned his back on us and strode from the room--a man out of the
middle ages, soldierly of bearing, unquestionably bold, and not one bit
more venial or lawless than ninety per cent. of history's gallants, if
the truth were told.
"Let's hope that's the last of him!" said Monty. "Can't say I like
him, but I'd hate to have to spoil his chances."
"Last of him be sugared!" said Yerkes. "That's only the first of him!
He'll find seven devils worse than himself and camp on our trail, if I
know anything of Greeks--that's to say, if our trail leads after that
ivory. Does it?"
"Depends," said Monty. "Let's talk upstairs. That Syrian has long
ears."
So we trooped to Monty's room, where the very cobwebs reeked of Arab
history and lawless plans. He sat on the black iron bed, and we
grouped ourselves about on chairs that had very likely covered the
known world between them. One was obviously jetsam from a steamship;
one was a Chinese thing, carved with staggering dragons; the other was
made of iron-hard wood that Yerkes swore came from South America.
"Shoot when you're ready!" grinned Yerkes.