"I charge all those witnesses with perjury!" I said.
"Oh," he laughed, "you can't charge natives with that. If the law
against perjury was strictly enforced the jails wouldn't hold a
fiftieth of them! They don't understand."
"But that blackguard with a beard--that rascal Schillingschen
understands!" said I. "Arrest him! Charge him with it!"
"That's for the court to do," he answered. "I've no authority."
The magistrate had gone.
"Who is the senior official in this town?" I demanded.
"There he goes," he answered. "That man in the white suit with the
round white topee is the collector."
So we three followed the collector to his office, arriving about two
minutes after the man himself. The Goanese clerk had been in the
court, and recognized me. He had not stayed to hear the end.
"Fines should be paid in the court, not here!" he intimated rudely.
We wasted no time with him but walked on through, and the collector
greeted us without obvious cordiality. He did not ask us to sit down.
"My friend here has come to tell you about that man Schillingschen,"
said Fred.
"I suppose you mean Professor Schillingschen!"
The collector was a clean-shaven man with a blue jowl that suffered
from blunt razors, and a temper rendered raw by native cooking. But he
had photos of feminine relations and a little house in a dreary Midland
street on his desk, and was no doubt loyal to the light he saw. I
wished we had Monty with us. One glimpse of the owner of a title that
stands written in the Doomsday Book would have outshone the halo of
Schillingschen's culture.
I rattled off what I had to say, telling the story from the moment I
started to follow Hassan from the hotel down to the end, omitting
nothing.
"Schillingschen is worse than a spy. He's a black-hearted, schemer.
He's planning to upset British rule in this Protectorate and make it
easy for the Germans to usurp!"
"This is nonsense!" the collector interrupted. "Professor
Schillingschen is the honored friend of the British government. He
came to us here with the most influential backing--letter of
introduction from very exalted personages, I assure you! Professor
Schillingschen is one of the most, if not the most, learned
ethnologists in the world to-day. How dare you traduce him!"
"But you heard him tell lies in court!" I gasped. "You were there.
You heard his evidence absolutely disproved. How do you explain that
away?"
"I don't attempt to! The explanation is for you to make!" he answered.
"The fact that he did not succeed in proving his case against
you is nothing in itself! Many a case in court is lost from lack of
proper evidence! And one more matter! Lady Isobel Saffren Waldon is
staying--or rather, I should say, was staying at the hotel. She is now
staying at my house. She complains to me of very rude treatment at the
hands of you three men--insolent treatment I should call it! I can
assure you that the way to get on in this Protectorate is not to behave
like cads toward ladies of title! I understand that her maid is afraid
to be caught alone by any one of you, and that Lady Saffren Waldon
herself feels scarcely any safer!"
Fred and I saw the humor of the thing, and that enabled us to save Will
from disaster. There never was a man more respectful of women than
Will. He would even get off the sidewalk for a black woman, and would
neither tell nor laugh at the sort of stories that pass current about
women in some smoking-rooms. His hair bristled. His ears stuck out on
either side of his head. He leaned forward--laid one strong brown hand
on the desk--and shook his left fist under the collector's nose.
"You poor boob!" he exploded. Then he calmed himself. "I'm sorry for
your government if you're the brightest jewel it has for this job!
That Jane will use everything you've got except the squeal! Great
suffering Jemima! Your title is collector, is it? Do you collect bugs
by any chance? You act like it! So help you two men and a boy, a
bughouse is where I believe you belong! Come along, fellows, he'll
bite us if we stay!"
"Be advised" said the collector, leaning back in his chair and
sneering. "Behave yourselves! This is no country for taking chances
with the law!"
"Remember Courtney's advice," said Fred when we got outside. "Suppose
we give him a few days to learn the facts about Lady Isobel, and then
go back and try him again?"
"Say!" answered Will, stopping and turning to face us. "What d'you
take me for? I like my meals. I like three squares a day, and
tobacco, and now and then a drink. But if this was the Sahara, and
that man had the only eats and drinks, I'd starve."
"Telling him the truth wouldn't be accepting favors from him,"
counseled Fred.
"I wouldn't tell him the time!"
That attitude--and Will insisted that all the officials in the land
would prove alike--limited our choice, for unless we were to allay
official suspicion it would be hopeless to get away northward.
Southward into German East seemed the only way to go; there was
apparently no law against travel in that direction. On our way to the
hotel we passed Coutlass, striding along smirking to himself, headed
toward the office from which we had just come.
"I'll bet you," said Will, "he's off to get an ammunition permit, and
permission to go where he damned well pleases! I'll bet he gets both!
This government's the limit!"
We laughed, but Will proved more than half right. Coutlass did get
ammunition. Lady Saffren Waldon's influence was already strong enough
for that. He did not ask for leave to go anywhere for the simple
reason that his movements depended wholly on ours--a fact that
developed later.
At the hotel there was a pleasant surprise for us. A squarely built,
snub-nosed native, not very dark skinned but very ugly--his right ear
slit, and almost all of his left ear missing--without any of the brass
or iron wire ornaments that most of the natives of the land affect, but
possessed of a Harris tweed shooting jacket and, of all unexpected
things, boots that he carried slung by the laces from his neck-waited
for us, squatting with a note addressed to Fred tied in a cleft stick.
It does not pay to wax enthusiastic over natives, even when one
suspects they bring good news. We took the letter from him, told him
to wait, and went on in. Once out of the man's hearing Fred tore the
letter open and read it aloud to us.
"Herewith my Kazimoto," it ran. "Be good to him. It
occurred to me that you might not care after all to linger in
Nairobi, and it seemed hardly fair to keep the boy from getting a good
job simply because he could make me comfortable for the
remainder of a week. So, as there happened to be ae special train
going up I begged leave for him to ride in the caboose. He is
a splendid gun-bearer. He never funks, but reloads coolly under the
most nerve-trying conditions. He has his limitations, of course,
but I have found him brave and faithful, and I pass him along to you
with confidence.
"And by the way: he has been to Mount Elgon with me. I
was not looking for buried ivory, but he knows where the caves
are in which anything might be!
"Wishing you all good luck, Yours truly,
"F. Courtney"
For the moment we felt like men possessed of a new horse apiece. We
were for dashing out to look the acquisition over. But Will checked us.
"Recall what Courtney said about a dog?" he asked. "We can't all own
him!"
Fred sat down. "Ex-missionaries own dice," he announced. "That's how
they come to be ex! You'll find them in the little box on the shelf,
Will. We'll throw a main for Kazimoto!"
"I know a better gamble than that!'
"Name it, America."
"Bring the coon in and have him choose."
So I went out and felt tempted to speak cordially to the homeless ugly
black man--to give him a hint that he was welcome. But it is a fatal
mistake to make a "soft" impression on even the best natives at the
start.
"Karibu!"* I said gruffly when I had looked him over, using one of the
six dozen Swahili words I knew as yet. [*Karibu, enter, come in.]
He arose with the unlabored ease that I have since learned to look for
in all natives worth employing; and followed me indoors. Will and
Fred were seated in judicial attitudes, and I took a chair beside them.
"What is your name?" demanded Fred.
"Kazimoto."
"Um-m! That means 'Work-like-the-devil.' Let us hope you live up to
it. Your former master gives you a good character."
"Why not, bwana? My spirit is good."
"Do you want work?"
"Yes."
"How much money do you expect to get?"
"Sijui!"
"Don't say sijui!" I cut in, remembering Schillingschen's method.
"Six rupees a month and posho," he said promptly. Posho means rations,
or money in lieu of rations.
"Don't you rather fancy yourself?" suggested Fred with a perfectly
straight face.
"Say two dollars a month all told!" Will whispered to me behind his
hand.
"I am a good gun-bearer!" the native answered. "My spirit is good. I
am strong. There is nobody better than me as a gun-bearer!"
"We happen to want a headman," answered Fred. "Have you ever been
headman?"
"Would you like to be?"
"Yes."
"Are you able?"
"Surely."
"Choose, then. Which of us would you like to work for?"
"You!" he answered promptly, pointing at Fred.
It was on the tip of the tongue of every one of us to ask him instantly
why, but that would have been too rank indiscretion. It never pays to
seem curious about a native's personal reasons, and it was many weeks
before we knew why he had made up his mind in advance to choose Fred
and not either of us for his master.
His choice made, and the offer of his services accepted, he took over
Fred forthwith--demanded his keys--found out which our room was--went
over our belongings and transferred the best of our things into Fred's
bag and the worst of his into ours--remade Fred's bed after a
mysterious fashion of his own, taking one of my new blankets and one of
Will's in exchange for Fred's old ones--cleaned Fred's guns thoroughly
after carefully abstracting the oil and waste from our gun-cases and
transferring them to Fred's--removed the laces from my shooting boots
and replaced them with Fred's knotted ones--sharpened Fred's razors and
shaved himself with mine (to the enduring destruction of its once
artistic edge)--and departed in the direction of the bazaar.
He returned at the end of an hour and a half with a motley following of
about twenty, arrayed in blankets of every imaginable faded hue and in
every stage of dirtiness.
"You wanting cook," he announced. "These three making cook."
He waved three nondescripts to the front, and we chose a tall Swahili
because he grinned better than the others. "Although," as Fred
remarked, "what the devil grinning has to do with cooking is more than
anybody knows." The man, whose name was Juma, turned out to be an
execrable cook, but as he never left off grinning under any
circumstances (and it would have been impossible to imagine
circumstances worse than those we warred with later on) we never had
the heart to dismiss him.
After that, Will and I selected a servant apiece who were destined
forever to wage war on Kazimoto in hopeless efforts to prevent his
giving Fred the best end of everything. Mine was a Baganda who called
himself Matches, presumably because his real name was unpronounceable.
Will chose a Malindi boy named Tengeneza (and that means arrange in
order, fix, make over, manage, mend--no end of an ominous name!). They
were both outclassed from the start by Kazimoto, but to add to the
handicap he insisted that since he was a headman he would need some one
to help look after Fred at times when other duties would monopolize his
attention. He himself picked out an imp of mischief whose tribe I
never ascertained, but who called himself Simba (lion), and there and
then Simba departed up-stairs to steal for Fred whatever was left of
value among Will's effects and mine.
We had scarcely got used to the idea of once more having a savage
apiece to wait on us when Kazimoto turned up at the door with a string
of porters and a Goanese railway clerk. We had left our tents and
heavy baggage checked at the station, but had said nothing about them
to our new headman; however, he had made inquiries and worked out a
plan on his own account. The railway clerk asked to know whether he
should let Kazimoto have our things.
"Why?"' demanded Fred.
"This hotel no good!" announced Kazimoto. "No place for boys. Heap
too many plenty people. Pitching camp, that good!"
"All right," said Fred, and then and there paid our baggage charges.
Presently Brown of Lumbwa, who had spent most of the daylight hours in
the little corrugated iron bar run by a Goanese in the bazaar, came
lurching past the township camping ground, and viewed Kazimoto with his
gang pitching our tents. He asked questions, but could get no
information, so came along to us.
"Where you schaps going?" he demanded, leaning against the wall. Fred
took advantage of the opportunity and examined him narrowly as to his
knowledge of German East and ways of getting there. He was in an
aggravating mood that made at one moment a very well of information of
him, and at the next a mere garrulous ass.
"Come along o' me t' Lumbwa," was his final word on the matter. "I'll
put you on a road nobody knows an' nobody, uses!"
We spent that night under canvas and talked the matter out. The usual
way to reach Lumbwa was to wait for a freight, or construction train
and beg leave to ride on that, for as yet, no passenger trains were
running regularly on the western section of the line. But there was no
rule against traveling anywhere south of the equator, and it was our
purpose to march down into German East without any one being the wiser.
The next morning we imagined Brown was sober and sorry enough to hold
his tongue, so, without going into details with him, we agreed to go
with him "some of the way," and Fred spent the whole of that morning in
the bazaar buying loads of food and general supplies. Will and I
engaged porters, and with Kazimoto's aid as interpreter, had fifty
ready to march that afternoon.
The whole trick of starting on a journey is to start. If you only make
a mile or two the first day you have at least done better than stand
still; loads have been apportioned and porters broken in to some
extent; you have broken the spell of inertia, and hereafter there is
less likely to be trouble. We made up our minds to get away that
afternoon, and I was sent back to the hotel to find Brown, who had gone
for his belongings.
If Brown had stayed sober all might have been well, but his headache
and feeling of unworthiness had been too much for him and I found him
with a straw in the neck of a bottle of whisky alternately laying down
law to Georges Coutlass and drinking himself into a state of temporary
bliss.
"You Greeks dunno nothin'!" he asserted as I came in. "You never did
know nothin', an' you're never goin' to know nothin'! 'Cause why?
'I'll tell you. Simply because I am goin' to tell! I'm mum, I am!
When s'mother gents an' me 'ave business, that's our business--see!
None o' your business--'ss our business, an' I'm not goin' to tell you
Greeks nothin' about where we're off to, nor why, nor when. An' you
put that in your pipe an' smoke it!"
I sat in the dining-room for a while, hoping that the Greek would go
away; but as Brown was fast drinking himself into a condition when he
could not have been moved except on stretcher, and was momentarily
edging closer to an admission of all he knew or guessed about our
intention, I took the bull by the horns at last--snatched away his
whisky bottle, and walked off with it.
He came after me swearing like a trooper, and his own porters, who had
been waiting for more than an hour beside his loads, trailed along
after him. Once in our camp we made a hammock for him out of a blanket
tied to a pole, and made him over to two porters with the promise that
they would get no supper if they lost him. Then we started--uphill,
toward the red Kikuyu heights, where settlers were already trying to
grow potatoes for which there was no market, and onions that would only
run to seed.
To our left rear and right front were the highest mountain ranges in
Africa. Before us was the pass through which the railway threaded over
the wide high table-land before dipping downward to Victoria Nyanza.
On our left front was all Kikuyu country, and after that Lumbwa, and
native reserves, and forest, and swamp, and desert, and the German
boundary.
We made a long march of it that first day, and camped after dark within
two miles of Kikuyu station. Most of the scrub thereabouts was castor
oil plant, that makes very poor fuel; yet there were lions in plenty
that roared and scouted around us even before the tents were pitched.
Nobody got much sleep that night, although the porters were perfectly
indifferent to the risk of snoozing on the watch. Kazimoto produced a
thing called a kiboko--a whip of hippopotamus-hide a yard and a half
long, and with the aid of that and Will's good humor we constituted a
yelling brigade, whose business was to make the welkin ring with
godless noises whenever a lion came close enough to be dangerous.
I made up a signal party of all our personal boys with our lanterns,
swinging them in frantic patterns in the darkness in a way to terrify
the very night itself. Fred played concertina nearly all night long,
and when dawn came, though there were tracks of lions all about the
camp we were only tired and sleepy. Nobody was missing; nobody killed.
We never again took lions so seriously, although we always built fires
about the camp in lion country when that was possible. Partly by dint
of carelessness that brought no ill results, and partly from
observation we learned that where game is plentiful lions are more
curious than dangerous, and that unless something should happen to
enrage them, or the game has gone away and they are hungry, they are
likely to let well alone.
If there are dogs in camp--and we bought three terrier pups that
morning from a settler at Kikuyu--leopards are likely to be more
troublesome than lions. The leopards seemed to yearn for dog-meat much
as Brown of Lumbwa yearned for whisky.
The journey to Lumbwa is one of the pleasantest I remember. We took
Brown's supply of whisky from him, locked up with our own, sent him
ahead in the hammock, and let him work as guide by promises of
whisky for supper if he did his duty, and threats of mere cold water if
he failed.
"But water rots my stomach!" he objected.
"Lead on, then!" was the invariable, remorseless answer. So Brown led
until we reached Naivasha with its strange lake full of hippo at an
elevation so great that the mornings are frosty (and that within sight
of the line). There was never a day that we were once out of sight of
game from dawn to dark. When we awoke the morning mist would scatter
slowly and betray sleepy herds of antelope, that would rise leisurely,
stand staring at us, suddenly become suspicious, and then gallop off
until the whole plain was a panorama of wheeling herds, reminding one
of the cavalry maneuvers at Aldershot when the Guards regiments were
pitted against the regular cavalry--all riding and no wits.
Although we had to shoot enough meat for ourselves and men, we never
once took advantage of those surprise parties in the early morning,
preferring to stalk warier game at the end of a long march. The rains
were a thing of the past, and we seldom troubled to pitch tents but
slept under the stars with a sensation that the universe was one vast
place of peace.
Occasionally we reached an elevation from which we could look down and
see men toiling to build the railway, that already reached Nyanza after
the unfinished fashion of work whose chief aim is making a showing.
Profits, performances were secondary matters; that railway's one
purpose was to establish occupation of the head waters of the Nile and
refute the German claim to prior rights there. At irregular intervals
trains already went down to the lake, and passengers might ride on
suffrance; but we deluded ourselves with the belief that by marching
we threw enemies off the scent. It was pure delusion, but extremely
pleasant while it lasted. Where Africa is green and high she is a
lovely land to march across.
Brown grew sober on the trip, as if approaching his chosen home gave
him a sense of responsibility. His own reason for preferring the march
to a ride in a construction train was simple:
"Every favor you ask o' gov'ment, boys, leaves one less to fall back on
in a pinch! Ask not, and they'll forget some o' your peccadillos. Ask
too often, and one day when you really need a kindness you'll find the
Bank o' Good Hope bu'sted! And, believe me, boys, that 'ud be a hell
of a predicament for a poor sufferin' settler to find himself in!"
The approach to Lumbwa was over steep hilly grass land, between forests
of cedar--perfect country, kept clean by a wind that smelt of fern and
clover.
"You can tell we're gettin' near my place," said Brown, "by the number
o' leopards that's about."
We had to keep our three pups close at heel all the time, and even at
that we lost two of them. One was taken from between Will's feet as he
sat in camp cleaning his rifle. All he heard was the dog's yelp, and
all he saw was a flash of yellow as the leopard made for the boulders
close at hand. The other was taken out of my tent. I had tied it to
the tent pole, but the stout cord snapped like a hair and the darkness
swallowed both leopard and its prey before I could as much as reach my
rifle to get a shot.
"Splendid country for farmin'," Brown remarked, "Splendid. Only you
can't keep sheep because the leopards take 'em. You can't keep hens
for the same reason. Nor yet cows, because the leopards get the
calves--leastways, that's to say unless you watch out awful cautious.
Nor yet you can't keep pigeons, 'cause the leopards take them too. I
sent to England for fancy pigeons--a dozen of em. Leopards got all but
one, so I put him in the loft above my own house, where it seemed to me
'tweren't possible for a leopard to get, supposin' he'd dared. Went
away the next day for some shootin', an' lo and behold!--came back that
evenin' to discover my cook an' three others carryin' on as if Kingdom
Come had took place at last. Never heard or saw such a jamboree. The
blamed leopard was up in the loft; and had eaten the pigeon, feathers
and all, but couldn't get out again!"
"What happened? Nothin'! I was that riled I didn't stop to
think--fixed a bayonet on the old Martini the gov'ment supplies to
settlers out of the depths of its wisdom an' generosity--climbed up by
the same route the leopard took--invaded him--an' skewered him wi' the
bayonet in the dark! I wouldn't do it again for a kingdom--but I won't
buy more pigeons either!"
"What do you raise on your farm, then--pigs?" we asked.
"No, the leopards take pigs."
"What then?"
"Well--as I was explainin' to that Greek Georges Coutlass at
Nairobi--there's a way of farmin' out your cattle among the natives
that beats keepin' 'em yourself. The natives put 'em in the village
pen o' nights; an' besides, they know about the business.
"All you need do is give 'em a heifer calf once in a while, and they're
contented. I keep a herd o' two hundred cows in a native village not
far from my place. The natural increase o' them will make me
well-to-do some day."
The day before we reached Brown's tiny homestead we heard a lot of
shooting over the hill behind us.
"That'll be railway men takin' a day off after leopards," announced
Brown with the air of a man who can not be mistaken.
Nevertheless, Fred and I went back to see, but could make out nothing.
We lay on the top of the hill and watched for two or three hours, but
although we heard rifle firing repeatedly we did not once catch sight
of smoke or men. We marched into camp late that night with a feeling
of foreboding that we could not explain but that troubled us both
equally.
Once or twice in the night we heard firing again, as if somebody's camp
not very far away was invaded by leopards, or perhaps lions. Yet at
dawn there were no signs of tents. And when that night we arrived at
Brown's homestead we seemed to have the whole world to ourselves.
Brown's house was a tiny wooden affair with a thick grass roof. It
boasted a big fireplace at one end of the living-room, and a chimney
that Brown had built himself so cunningly that smoke could go up and
out but no leopards could come down.
He got very drunk that night to celebrate the home-coming, and stayed
completely drunk for three days, we making use of his barn to give our
porters a good rest. By day we shot enough meat for the camp, and at
night we sat over the log fire, praying that Brown might sober up, Fred
singing songs to his infernal concertina, and all the natives who could
crowd in the doorway listening to him with all their ears. Fred made
vast headway in native favor, and learned a lot of two languages at
once.
Every day we sent Kazimoto and another boy exploring among the Lumbwa
tribe, gathering information as to routes and villages, and it was
Kazimoto who came running in breathless one night just as Brown was at
last sobering up, with the news that some Greeks had swooped down on
Brown's cattle, had wounded two or three of the villagers who herded
them, and had driven the whole herd away southward.
That news sobered Brown completely. He took the bottle of whisky he
had just brought up from the cellar and replaced it unopened.
"There's on'y one Greek in the world knew where my cattle were!" he
announced grimly. "There's on'y one Greek I ever talked to about
cattle. Coutlass, by the great horn spoon! The blackguard swore he
was after you chaps--swore he didn't care nothing about me! What he
did to you was none o' my business, o' course--an' I figured anyway as
you could look out for yourselves! Not that I told the swine any o'
your business, mind! Not me! I was so sure he was gunnin' for you
that I told him my own business to throw him off your track! And now
the devil goes an' turns on me!"
He got down his rifle and began overhauling it, feverishly, yet with a
deliberate care that was curious in a man so recently drunk. While he
cleaned and oiled be gave orders to his own boys; and what with having
servants of our own and having to talk to them mostly in the native
tongue, we were able to understand pretty well the whole of what he
said.
"You're not going to start after them to-night?" Fred objected. But he
and Will were also already overhauling weapons, for the second time
that evening. (It is religion with the true hunter never to eat supper
until his rifle is cleaned and oiled.) I got my own rifle down from
the shelf over Brown's stone mantelpiece.
"What d'you take me for?" demanded Brown. "There's one pace they'll go
at, an' that's the fastest possible. There's one place they'll head
for, an' that's German East. They can't march faster than the cattle,
an' the cattle'll have to eat. Maybe they'll drive 'em all through the
first night, and on into the next day; but after that they'll have to
rest 'em an' graze 'em a while. That's when we'll begin to gain. The
tireder the cattle get, the faster we'll overhaul 'em, for we can eat
while we're marchin', which the cattle can't! You chaps just stay here
an' look after my farm till I come back!"
"You mean you propose to go alone after them?" asked Fred.
"Why not? Whose cattle are they?"
He was actually disposed to argue the point.
"Man alive, there'll be shootin'!" he insisted. "If they once get over
the border with all those cattle, the Germans'll never hand 'em over
until every head o' cattle's gone. They'll fine 'em, an' arrest 'em,
an' trick 'em, an' fine 'em again until the Germans own the herd all
legal an' proper--an' then they'll chase the Greeks back to British
East for punishment same as they always do. What good 'ud that be to
me? No, no! Me--I'm going to catch 'em this side o' the line, or else
bu'st--an' I won't be too partic'lar where the line's drawn either!
There's maybe a hundred miles to the south o' their line that the
Germans don't patrol more often than once in a leap-year. If I catch
them Greeks in any o' that country, I'm going to kid myself deliberate
that it's British East, and act accordin'!"
At last we convinced him, although I don't remember how, for he was
obstinate from the aftermath of whisky, that we would no more permit
him to go alone than he would consider abandoning his cattle. Then we
had to decide who should follow with our string of porters, for if
forced marching was in order it was obvious that we should far
outdistance our train.
We invited Brown to follow with all the men while we three skirmished
ahead, but he waxed so apoplectically blasphemous at the very thought
of it that Fred assured him the proposal was intended for a joke. Then
we argued among ourselves, coaxed, blarneyed, persuaded, and tried to
bribe one another. Finally, all else failing, we tossed a coin for it,
odd man out, and Fred lost.
So Brown, Will Yerkes and I, with Kazimoto, our two personal servants,
and six boys to carry one tent for the lot of us and food and cooking
pots, started off just as the moon rose over the nearest cedars, and
laughed at Fred marshaling the sleepy porters by lamplight in the open
space between the house and barn. He was to follow as fast as the
loaded porters could be made to travel, and with that concertina of his
to spur them on there was little likelihood of losing touch. But the
rear-guard, when it comes to pursuing a retreating enemy, is ever the
least alluring place.
"You've got all the luck," he shouted. "Make the most of it or I'll
never gamble on the fall of a coin again!"
That pursuit was a journey of accidents, chapter after chapter of them
in such close sequence that the whole was a nightmare without let-up or
reason. I began the book by falling into an elephant pit.
Before we had gone a mile in the dark we stood in doubt as to whether
the most practicable trail went right or left. Brown set his own
indecision down frankly to the whisky that had muddled him. Even
Kazimoto, who had passed that way three times, did not know for
certain. So I went forward to scout--stepped into the deep shadow of
some jungle--trod on nothing--threw the other foot forward to save
myself--and fell downward into blackness for an eternity.
I brought up at last unhurt in the trash and decaying vegetation at the
bottom of a pit, and looked up to see the stars in a rough
parallelogram above me, whose edge I guessed was more than thirty feet
above my head. I started to dig my way out, but the crumbling sides
fell in and threatened to bury me alive unless I kept still. So I
shouted until my lungs ached, but without result. I suppose the noise
went trumpeting upward out of the hole and away to the clouds and the
stars. At any rate, Will and Brown swore afterward they never heard it.
I was fifteen minutes in the hole that very likely had held many an
elephant with his legs wedged together under him until the poor brute
perished of thirst, before it occurred to me to fire my rifle. I fired
several shots when I did think of it; but we had agreed on no system
of signals, and instead of coming to find me at once, the other two
cursed me for wasting time shooting at leopards in the dark instead of
scouting for the track. I used twenty cartridges before they came to
see what sort of battle I was waging, and with the last shot I nearly
blew Brown's helmet off as he stooped over the hole to look down in.
Then there were more precious minutes wasted while someone cut a long
pole for me to swarm up, and at the end of that time, when I stood on
firm ground at last and wiped the blood from hands and knees, we were
no wiser about the proper direction to take.
The next accident was a little before midnight. Will Yerkes was
leading, I following, next the boys, and Brown bringing up the rear
(for in those wild hills there is never a good track wide enough for
two men to march abreast. Even the cattle proceed in single file
unless driven furiously.) Will came on a leopard devouring its kill, a
fat buck, in the midst of the track in the moonlight, and the brute
resented the interruption of his meal. It slunk into the shadows
before Will could get a shot at it, and for the next two hours followed
us, slinking from shadow to shadow, snarling and growling. It plainly
intended murder, but which of us was to be the victim, and when, there
was no means of guessing, so that the nerves of all of us were tortured
every time the brute approached.
We wasted at least thirty cartridges on futile efforts to guess his
whereabouts in velvet black shadows, and Brown went through all the
stages from simple nervousness to fear, and then to frenzy, until we
feared he would shoot one of us in frantic determination to ring the
leopard's knell.
At last the brute did rush in, and of course where least expected. He
seized one of our porters by the shoulder, his claws doing more damage
than his teeth. I shot him by thrusting my rifle into his ear, and
although that dropped him instantly his claws, in the dying spasm and
by the weight of his fall, tore wounds in the man's arm eighteen or
twenty inches long.
One of the things we did have with us was bandages. But it took time
to attend to the man's wounds properly by lamp and moonlight, and after
that he could neither march fast, nor was there anywhere to leave him.
So just before dawn Fred came up with us, and was more pleased at our
discomfiture than sympathetic. He told off two men to carry the injured
porter to a mission station more than a day's march away, and
redistributed the loads. Then we went on again, once more placing rock,
hill, and cedar forest between us and our supply column, this time with
Fred's counsel ringing in our ears.
"Better send for nursemaids and perambulators, and have yourselves
pushed!"
At noon that day we found the track of the driven cattle, and soon
after that came on the half-devoured carcass of a heifer that the
Greeks had shot, presumably because it could not march, and perhaps
with the added reason that freshly-killed meat would draw off leopards
and hyenas and provide peace for a few miles.
Once on the trail it would not have been easy to lose it, except in the
dark, for the Greek marauders were bent on speed and the driven cattle
had smashed down the undergrowth in addition to leaving deep
hoof-prints at every water-course.
The first suspicion that dawned on me of something more than mere
freebooting on the part of Coutlass, was due to the discovery of
hoof-prints of either mules or horses. I was marching alone in
advance, and came on them beside a stream that was only apparently
fordable in that one place. After making sure of what they were I
halted to let Will and Brown catch up.
"Did Coutlass have money enough to buy mules for himself and gang?"
wondered Will.
"That robber?" snorted Brown. "When Lady Saffren Waldon refused him
tobacco money in the hotel he tried to borrow from me!"
"Where could be steal mules?" Will asked.
"Nowhere. Aren't any!"
"Horses' then?"
"He'd never take horses. They'd die."
"What are they riding, then?"
"Unless he stole trained zebras from the gov'ment farm at Naivasha,"
said Brown, "an' they're difficulter to ride 'an a greasy pole up-ended
on a earthquake, he must ha' bought mules from the one man who has any
to sell. And he lives t'other side o' Nairobi. There are none between
there and here--none whatever. Zachariah Korn--him who owns mules--is
too wide awake to be stolen from. He bought 'em, you take it from me,
and paid twice what they were worth into the bargain."
"Then he bought them with her money!" said Will.
"If not Schillingschen's," said I.
"Or the Sultan of Zanzibar's" said Will, "or the German government's."
"But why? Why should she, or they, conspire at great expense and risk
to steal Brown's cattle?"
"They'll figure," said Will, "that Brown is helping us, and therefore,
Brown is an enemy. Prob'ly they surmise Brown is in league with us to
show us a short cut to what we're after. If that's how they work it
out, then they wouldn't need think much to conclude that putting Brown
on the blink would hoodoo us. Maybe they allow that that much bad luck
to begin with would unsettle Brown's friendly feelings for us.
Anyway--somebody bought the mules--somebody stole the cattle--cattle
are somewhere ahead. Let's hurry forward and see!"
We did hurry, but made disgustingly poor time. Once a dozen buffalo
stampeded our tiny column. Our five porters dropped their loads, and
the biggest old bull mistook our only tent for our captain's dead body
and proceeded to play ball with it, tossing it and tearing it to pieces
until at last Will got a chance for a shoulder shot and drilled him
neatly. Two other bulls took to fighting in the midst of the
excitement and we got both of them. Then the rest trotted off; so we
packed the horns of the dead ones on the head of our free porter (for
the tent he had carried was now utterly no use) and hastened on.
Once, in trying to make a cut that should have saved us ten or fifteen
miles between two rivers, we fell shoulder-deep into a bog and only
escaped after an hour's struggle during which we all but lost two
porters. We had to retrace our steps and follow the Greek's route,
only to have the mortification of seeing Fred and our column of
supplies coming over the top of a rise not eight miles behind us.
Determined not to be overtaken by him a second time and treated to
advice about nursemaids, we dispensed with sleep altogether for that
night, and nearly got drowned at the second river.
We found a native who owned a thing he called a mtungi--a near-canoe,
burned out of a tree-trunk. He assured us the ford was very winding
(he drew a wiggly finger-mark in the mud by way of illustration) but
that his boat would hold twice our number, and that he could take us
over easily in the dark. In fact he swore he had ferried twice our
number over on darker nights more than twenty or thirty times. He also
said that he had taken the cattle over by the ford early that morning,
and then had crossed over in the boat with two Greeks and a bwana Goa.
He showed us the brass wire and beads they gave him in proof of that
statement, and we began to put some faith in his tale.
So we all piled into his crazy boat with our belongings, and he
promptly lost the way amid the twelve-foot grass-papyrus mostly--that
divided the river into narrow streams and afforded protection to the
most savagely hungry mosquitoes in the world. Our faces and hands were
wet with blood in less than two minutes.
Presently, instead of finding bottom for his pole, he pushed us into
deep water. The grass disappeared, and a ripple on the water lipping
dangerously within three inches of our uneven gunwale proved that we
were more or less in the main stream. We had enjoyed that sensation
for about a minute, and were headed toward where we supposed the
opposite bank must be, when a hippo in a hurry to breathe blew just
beside us--saw, smelt, or heard us (it was all one to him)--and dived
again.
I suppose in order to get his head down fast enough he shoved his rump
up, and his great fat back made a wave that ended that voyage abruptly.
Our three inches of broadside vanished. The canoe rocked violently,
filled, turned over, and floated wrong side up.
"All the same," laughed Will, spluttering and spitting dirty water,
"here's where the crocks get fooled! They don't eat me for supper!"
He was first on top of the overturned boat, and dragged me up after
him. Together we hauled up Brown, who could not swim but was
bombastically furious and unafraid; and the three of us pulled out the
porters and the fatuous boat's owner. The pole was floating near by,
and I swam down-stream and fetched it. When they had dragged me back
on to the wreck the moon came out, and we saw the far bank hazily
through mist and papyrus.
The boat floated far more steadily wrong side up, perhaps because we
had lashed all our loads in place and they acted as ballast. Will took
the pole and acted the part of Charon, our proper pilot contenting
himself with perching on the rear end lamenting the ill-fortune noisily
until Kazimoto struck him and threatened to throw him back into the
water.
"They don't want a fool like you in the other world," he assured him.
"You will die of old age!"
The papyrus inshore was high enough to screen the moon from us, and we
had to hunt a passage through it in pitch darkness. Then, having found
the muddy bank at last (and more trillions of mosquitoes) we had to
drag the overturned boat out high and dry to rescue our belongings.
And that was ticklish work, because most of the crocodiles, and
practically all the largest ones, spend the night alongshore.
Matches were wet. We had no means of making a flare to frighten the
monsters away. We simply had to "chance it" as cheerfully and swiftly
as we could, and at the end of a half-hour's slimy toil we carried our
muddied loads to the nearest high ground and settled down there for the
night.
It would be mad exaggeration to say we camped. Wet to the skin--dirty
to the verge of feeling suicidal--bitten by insects until the blood ran
down from us--lost (for we had no notion where the end of the ford
might be)--at the mercy of any prowling beasts that might discover us
(for our rifle locks were fouled with mud)--we sat with chattering
teeth and waited for the morning.
When the sun rose we found a village less than four hundred yards away
and sent the boys down to it to unpack the loads and spread everything
in the sun to dry, while we went down to the river again and washed our
rifles. Then we dried and oiled them, and without a word of bargain or
explanation, invaded the cleanest looking hut, lay down on the stamped
clay floor, and slept. It was only clean-looking, that hut. It housed
more myraids of fleas than the air outside supported "skeeters"; but we
slept, unconscious of them all.
At four that afternoon we had the mortification of being roused by
Fred's voice, and the dumping of loads as his sixty porters dropped
their burdens inside the village stockade. He had scorned the ferry
and crossed the ford on foot, making a prodigious splash to keep
crocodiles away, and was as full of life and fun as a schoolboy on
vacation.
"Wake up, you vorloopers!" he shouted. "Wake up! Shake off the fleas
and come, and I'll show you something."
He had already had the tale of our night's misfortune in detail from
the owner of the only canoe (who claimed double pay on the ground that
we had lost no loads in spite of over-turning. "The last really white
man who crossed lost all his loads!" he explained.).
"Come and I'll show you something you never saw before, you
scouts!--you advance guard!--you line of skirmishers!"
Will hurled a lump of earth at him, and chased him to the river, where
they wrestled, trying to throw each other in, until both were
breathless. Then, when neither could make another effort:
"Look!" gasped Fred.
There was an island in mid-stream below where we must have crossed.
The stream was straight, and from where we stood we could see more than
half a mile of alluvial mud with an arm of the river on either side.
The mud was white, not black--so white that it dazzled the eyes to look
at it.
"Know what it is?" Fred panted.
We did not know, and it was no use guessing. It looked like burned
lime, or else the secretions of about a billion birds; and there were
no birds to speak of.
"Crocodile eggs!" said Fred.
We did not believe that. Even Brown did not believe it. There was no
time to spare, but Brown out of curiosity agreed, so we took the absurd
canoe and poled down to investigate. As we came nearer the solid white
broke up into a myriad dots, and Fred's tale stood confirmed.
They were as long as two hens' eggs laid end to end, or longer. They
lay in the sun in batches in every stage of incubation, and from almost
every batch there were little crocodiles emerging, that made straight
for the water. What worse monster preyed on them to keep their numbers
down, or what disease took care of their prolixity we could not guess.
Perhaps they ate one another, or just died of hunger. The owner of the
boat vowed there were no fish left in the river, and that the
crocodiles did not eat hippo unless it were first dead.
We took another tent from among Fred's loads, changed two of our
porters for stronger ones, and went forward that evening; for it began
to be obvious that the speed had been telling on the cattle. We passed
two more dead heifers within a few miles of the river bank, and there
were other signs that for all our long sleep we were gaining on them.
Perhaps the Greeks thought they had shaken off pursuit. Judging by the
compass they were headed for the shore of Victoria Nyanza, where the
grazing would be better, food for men would be purchaseable, and the
number of villages closely spaced would make the task of night-herding
vastly easier. There isn't a village in that part of Africa that is
not proud to be a host to anybody's cattle, if only because the
ownership of so much living wealth casts glory on all who come in
contact with it.
There was no means of telling whether or not we were over the German
border. The boundary line had not been surveyed yet, and on the map
the part where we were was set down as "unexplored," although that was
scarcely accurate; the route was well enough known to Greeks and
Arabs, and other bad characters bent on smuggling or in some other way
defeating the ends of justice.
We marched that night until midnight, slept until dawn, and were off
again. At noon we reached rising ground, and Kazimoto ran ahead of us
to the summit. We saw him standing at gaze for three or four minutes
with one hand shading his eyes before he came scampering back, as
excited as if his own fortune were in the balance.
"Hooko-chini!" he shouted. "Hooko-chini--mba-a-a-li sana!"--(They're
down below there, very far away!)
We hurried up-hill, but for many minutes could see nothing except a
plain of waving grass higher than a man's head and almost as
impenetrable as bamboo-country that carried small hope in it for man or
beast, that would be a holocaust in the dry season when the heat set
fire to the grass, and was an insect-haunted marsh at most other times.
However, path across it there must be, for the Greeks had driven
Brown's cattle that way that very morning, and Kazimoto swore he could
see them in the distance, although Brown, and Will, and I--all three
keen-sighted--could see nothing whatever but immeasurable, worthless
waving grass.
At last I detected a movement near the horizon that did not synchronize
with the wind-blown motion of the rest. I pointed it out to the
others, and after a few minutes we agreed that it moved against the
wind.
"They're hurrying again," said Brown, peering under both hands.
"There's no feed for cattle on all this plain. They're racing to get
to short grass before the cattle all die. Come on--let's hurry after
'em!"
For the second time on that trip we essayed a short cut, making as
straight as a bee would fly for the point on the horizon where we knew
the Greeks to be. And for the second time we fell into a bog, nearly
losing our lives in it. We had to pull one another out, using even our
precious rifles as supports in the yielding mud, and then spending
equally precious time in cleaning locks and sights again.
After that we hunted for the cattle trail and followed that closely;
and that was not so easy as it reads, because the trampled grass had
risen again, and cattle and mounted men can cross easily ground that
delays men on foot.
The heat was that of an oven. The water--what there was of it in the
holes and swampy places--stank, and tasted acrid. The flies seemed to
greet us as their only prospect of food that year. The monotony of
hurrying through grass-stems that cut off all view and only showed the
sky through a waving curtain overhead was more nerve-trying than the
physical weariness and thirst.
We slept a night in that grass, burning some of it for a smudge to keep
mosquitoes at bay, and an hour after dawn, reaching rising ground
again, realized that we had our quarry within reach at last.
They were out in the open on short good grazing. The Greeks' tent was
pitched. We could see their mules, like brown insects, tied under a
tree, and the cattle dotted here and there, some lying down, some
feeding.
"At last!" said Brown. "Boys, they're our meat! There's a tree to
hang the Greeks and the Goa to! When we've done that, if you'll all
come back with me I'll send to Nairobi for an extra jar of Irish
whisky, and we'll have a spree at Lumbwa that'll make the fall of Rome
sound like a Sunday-school picnic! We're in German territory now, all
right. There's not a white man for a hundred miles in any
direction--except your friend that's coming along behind. There's
nobody to carry tales or prevent! I'm no savage. I'm no degenerate.
I don't hold with too much of anything, but--"
"There'll be no dirty work, if that's what you mean," said Will quietly.
Brown stared hard at him.
"D'you mean you'll object to hanging 'em?"
"Not in the least. We hang or shoot cattle thieves in the States. I
said there'll be no dirty work, that's all."
"Shall we rest a while, and come on them fresh in the morning?" I
proposed.
"Forward!" snorted Brown. "Why d'you want to wait?"
"Forward it is!" agreed Will. "When we get a bit closer we'll stop and
hold council of war."
"One minute!" said I. "Tell me what that is?"
I had been searching the whole countryside, looking for some means of
stealing on the marauders unawares and finding none. They had chosen
their camping place very wisely from the point of view of men unwilling
to be taken by surprise. Far away over to our right, appearing and
disappearing as I watched them, were a number of tiny black dots in
sort of wide half-moon formation, and a larger number of rather larger
dots contained within the semicircle.
"Cattle!" exploded Brown.
"And men!" added Will.
"Black men!" said I. "Black men with spears!"
"Masai!" said Kazimoto excitedly. He had far the keenest eyes of all
of us.
We were silent for several minutes. The veriest stranger in that land
knows about the feats and bravery of the Masai, who alone of all tribes
did not fear the Arabs, and who terrorized a quarter of a continent
before the British came and broke their power.
"Mbaia cabisa!" muttered Kazimoto, meaning that the development was
very bad indeed. And he had right to know.
He explained it was a raid. The Masai, in accordance with time-honored
custom, had come from British East to raid the lake-shore villages of
German territory, and were driving back the plundered cattle. None can
drive cattle as Masai can. They can take leg-weary beasts by the tail
and make them gallop, one beast encouraging the next until they all go
like the wind. For food they drink hot blood, opening a vein in a
beast's neck and closing it again when they have had their fill. Their
only luggage is a spear. Their only speed-limit the maximum the cattle
can be stung to. On a raid three hundred and sixty miles in six days
is an ordinary rate of traveling.
Just now they did not seem in much hurry. They had probably butchered
the fighting men of all the villages in their rear, and were well
informed as to the disposition of the nearest German forces. There
were probably no Germans within a hundred miles. There was no
telegraph in all those parts. To notify Muanza by runner and Bagamoyo
on the coast from there by wire would take several days. Then Bagamoyo
would have to wire the station at Kilimanjaro, and there was no earthly
chance of Germans intercepting them before they could reach British
East.
Nor was there any treaty provision between British and German colonial
governments for handing over raiders. The Germans had refused to make
any such agreement for reasons best known to themselves. The fact that
they were far the heaviest losers by the lack of reciprocal police
arrangements was due to the fact that most of the Masai lived in
British East. The Masai would have raided across either border with
supreme indifference.
"Masai not talking. Masai using spear and kill!" remarked Kazimoto.
"One good thing our gov'ment's done," said Brown. "Just one. It has
kept those rascals from owning rifles! But lordy! They've got spears
that give a man the creeps to see!"
He began looking to his rifle. So did Will and I.
"Now this here is my fight," he explained. "Them's my cattle. They're
all the wealth I own in the world. If I lose 'em I'm minded to die
anyhow. There's nothing in life for a drunkard like me with all his
money gone and nothing to do but take a mean white's job. You chaps
just wait here and watch while I 'tend to my own affairs."
"Exactly!" Will answered dryly. "I've a hundred rounds in my pockets.
That ought to be enough."
While we made ready, leaving our loads and porters in a safe place and
giving the boys orders, I saw two things happen. First, the Masai
became aware of the little Greek encampment and the two hundred head of
cattle waiting at their mercy; and second, the Greeks grew aware of
the Masai.
The Greeks had boys with them; I saw at least half a dozen go
scattering to round up the cattle. The tents began to come down, and I
saw three figures that might be the Greeks and the Goanese holding a
consultation near the tree.
"And now," remarked Will, "I begin to see the humor in this comedy.
Which are we--allies of the Greeks or of the Masai? Are we to help the
Greeks get away with Brown's cattle, or help the Masai steal 'em from
the Greeks? Are your cattle all branded, Brown?"
"You blooming well bet they are!"
"Masai know enough to alter a brand?"
"Never heard o' their doing it."
"Then if the Masai get away with them to British East, if you can find
'em you can claim 'em, eh?"
"Claim 'em in court wi' the whole blooming tribe o' Masai--more'n a
quarter of a million of 'em--all on hand to swear they bought 'em from
me; an' the British gov'ment takin' sides with the black men, as it
always does? Oh, yes! It sounds easy, that does!"
"But if the Greeks get away with 'em," argued Will, "you've no chance
of recovering at all."
"I'll not take sides with Masai--even against Greeks!" Brown answered
grimly, and Will laughed.
"If we attack the Greeks first," I said, "perhaps they'll run. We're
nearer to them than the Masai are. The Masai, will have to corral
their own cattle before they can leave them to raid a new lot. We can
open fire at long range to begin with. If that scares the Greeks away,
then we can round up Brown's cattle and drive them back northward. We
may possibly escape with them too quickly for the Masai to think it
worth while to follow."
Brown laughed cynically.
"We can try it," he said. "An' if the Greeks don't run pretty quick
they'll never run again--I'll warrant that!"
Nobody had a better plan to propose, so we emptied our pockets of all
but fifty rounds of ammunition each, and gave the rest to Kazimoto to
carry, with orders to keep in hiding and watch, and run with cartridges
to whoever should first need them.
Then, because instead of corraling their cattle the Masai were already
dividing themselves into two parties, one of which drove the cattle
forward and the other diverged to study the attack, we ducked down
under a ridge and ran toward the Greeks. The sooner we could get the
first stage of the fighting off our hands the better.
It proved a long way--far longer than I expected, and the going was
rougher. Moreover, the Greeks' boys were losing no time about rounding
up the cattle. By the time they were ready to make a move we were
still more than a mile away, and out of breath.
"If they go south," panted Brown, throwing himself down by a clump of
grass to gasp for his third or fourth wind, "the Masai'll catch 'em
sure, an' we'll be out o' the running! Lord send they head 'em back
toward British East!"
He was in much the worst physical condition because of the whisky, but
his wits were working well enough. The Greeks on the other hand seemed
undecided and appeared to be arguing. Then Brown's prayer was
answered. The Greeks' boys decided the matter for them by stampeding
the herd northward toward us. They did not come fast. They were lame,
and bone-weary from hard driving, but they knew the way home again and
made a bee line. Within a minute they were spread fan-wise between us
and the Greeks, making a screen we could not shoot through.
"Scatter to right and left!" Brown shouted. "Get round the wings!"
But what was the use? He was in the center, and short-winded. I
climbed on an ant-hill.
"The Greeks are on the run!" I said. "They are headed southward!
They've got their boys together, and have abandoned the cattle!
They're off with their tent and belongings due south!"
"The cowards!" swore Brown, with such disappointment that Will and I
laughed.
"Laugh all you like!" he said. "I've a long job on my hands! I'll
have revenge on 'em if it takes the rest o' my life! I'll follow 'em
to hell-and-gone!"
"Meanwhile," I said, still standing on the ant-hill, "the Masai are
following the cattle! They're smoking this way in two single columns
of about twenty spears in each. The remainder are driving their own
cattle about due eastward so as to be out of the way of trouble."
"All right," said Brown, growing suddenly cheerful again. "Then it'll
be a rear-guard action. Let the cattle through, and open fire behind
'em! Send that Kazimoto o' yours to warn our boys to round 'em up and
drive 'em slow and steady northward!"
Kazimoto ran back and gave the necessary orders. He lost no time about
it, but returned panting, and lay down in a hollow behind us with
cartridges in either fist and a grin on his face that would have done
credit to a circus clown. I never, anywhere, saw any one more pleased
than Kazimoto at the prospect of a fight.
We let the cattle through and lay hidden, waiting for the raiders.
They were in full war dress, which is to say as nearly naked as
possible except for their spears, a leg ornament made from the hair of
the colobus monkey, a leather apron hung on just as suited the
individual wearer's fancy, a great shield, and an enormous
ostrich-feather head-dress. They seemed in no hurry, for they probably
guessed that the cattle would stop to graze again when the first scare
was over; yet they came along as smoke comes, swiftly and easily,
making no noise.
Suddenly those in the lead caught sight of our boys getting behind the
cattle to herd them northward. They halted to hold
consultation--apparently decided that they had only unarmed natives to
deal with--and came on again, faster than before.
"Better open fire now!" said Brown, when they were still a quarter of a
mile away.
"Wait till you can see their eyes!" Will advised. "An unexpected
volley at close quarters will do more havoc than hours of long-range
shooting.
"This ain't a long range!" Brown objected. "As for unexpected--just
watch me startle 'em! My sight's fixed at four hundred. Watch!"
He fired--we wished he had not. The leading Masai of the right-hand
column jerked his head sidewise as the whistling bullet passed, and
then there was nothing for it but to follow his lead and blaze away for
all we were worth. If Brown had been willing to accept Will's advice
there is nothing more likely than that the close-quarter surprise would
have won the day for us. We would have done much more execution with
three volleys at ten-yard range. As it was, we all missed with our
finest shots, and the Masai took heart and charged in open order.
The worst of it was that, although we dropped several of them, now the
others had a chance to discover there were only three of us. Their
leader shouted. The right-hand column continued to attack, but changed
its tactics. The left-hand party made a circuit at top speed,
outflanked us, and pursued the cattle.
Supposing my count was right, we had laid out, either wounded or dead,
seven of the crowd attacking us. This left perhaps fourteen against
us, to be dealt with before the others could come back with the cattle
and take us in the rear.
Will brought another man down; I saw the blood splash on his forehead
as the bullet drilled the skull cleanly. Then one man shouted and they
all lay prone, beginning to crawl toward us with their shields held
before, not as protection against bullets (for as that they were
utterly worthless) but as cover that made their exact position merest
guesswork.
I fell back and took position on the ant-hill from which I had first
seen them, thus making our position triangular and giving myself a
chance to protect the other two should they feel forced to retire. The
extra height also gave me a distinct advantage, for I could see the
legs of the Masai over the tops of their shields, and was able to wound
more than one of them so severely that they crawled to the rear.
But the rest came on. Kazimoto began to be busy supplying cartridges.
In that first real pinch we were in he certainly lived up to all
Courtney had said of him, for without the stimulus of his proper
master's eye he neither flinched nor faltered, but crawled from one to
the other, dividing the spare rounds equally.
The Masai began to attempt to outflank us, but my position on the
ant-hill to the rear made that impossible; they found themselves faced
by a side of the triangle from whichever side they attacked. But in
turning to keep an eye on the flank I became aware of a greater danger.
The cattle were coming back. That meant that the other Masai were
coming, too, and that in a few moments we were likely to be
overwhelmed. I shouted to Will and Brown, but either they did not hear
me, or did not have time to answer.
I fired half a dozen shots, and then distinctly heard the crack of a
rifle from beyond the cattle. That gave matters the worst turn yet.
If one of the raiders had a rifle, then unless I could spot him at once
and put him out of action our cause was likely lost. I stood up to
look for him and heard a wild cheer, followed by three more shots in
quick succession. Then at last I saw Fred Oakes running along a
depression in the ground, followed at a considerable distance by the
advance-guard of his porters. He was running, and then kneeling to
fire--running, and kneeling again. And he was not wasting ammunition.
He was much the best shot of us all, now that Monty was absent.
The terrified cattle stampeded past us, too wild to be cheeked by any
noise. Seeing them, and sure now of their booty, the party attacking
us hauled off and took to their heels. Will and Brown were for
speeding them with bullets in the rear, but I yelled again, and this
time made myself heard. Those who had got behind the cattle and were
driving them were coming on with spears and shields raised to slay us
in passing. The other two joined me, and we stood on the ant-hill
three abreast. They charged us--seven or eight of them. Three bit the
dust, but the rest came on, and if it had not been for two swift shots
from Fred's rifle in the very nick of time we should have all been dead
men.
As it was, one seized me by the knees and we went over together,
rolling down the ant-hill, he slashing at me with his great
broad-bladed spear, I ahold of his wrist with one hand, and with the
other fist belaboring him in the face. He was stronger than
I--greasier--sweatier--harder to hold. He slipped from under me,
rolled on top, wrenched his wrist free, and in another second grinned
in my face as, with both knees in my stomach, he raised the spear to
kill. I shut my eyes. I had not another breath left, nor an effort in
me, I thought I would deny him the pleasure of watching my death agony.
But I could not keep my eyes shut. Opening them to see why he did not
strike, I saw Kazimoto with my rifle in both hands swing for his skull
with the full weight of the butt and all his strength. Kazimoto
grunted. The Masai half turned his head at the sound. The butt hit
home--broke off--and my face and breast were deluged with blood and
brains.
When I had wiped off that mess with Kazimoto's help I saw Fred and Will
and Brown pursuing the retreating Masai, kneeling to shoot every few
yards, at every other shot or so bringing down a victim, but being
rapidly out-distanced. Cattle are all the Masai care about. They had
the cattle. They had hold of tails and were making the whole herd
scamper due east, where they no doubt knew of a trail not in maps.
They made no attempt to defend themselves--left their dead lying--and
ran. I saw two or three wounded ones riding on cows, and no doubt some
of those who ran holding to the cows' tails were wounded, too.
I was useless now, as far as fighting was concerned, for the butt of my
rifle was broken clean off at the grip, but I ran on, and heard Brown
shout:
"Shoot cattle! Don't let the brutes get away with them all!"
He was shooting cows himself when I came up, but it was Fred who
stopped him.
"Never mind that, old man. We'll follow 'em up! Our time's our own.
We'll get your cattle back, never fear. Dead ones are no use."
Brown stopped shooting and began to blubber. Whisky had not left him
manhood enough to see his whole available resources carried away before
his eyes, and he broke down as utterly as any child. It was neither
agreeable nor decent to watch, and I turned away. I was feeling sick
myself from the pressure of the Masai's knees in my stomach. That, and
the sun, and the long march, and hunger (for we had not stopped to eat
a meal that day) combined in argument, and I hunted about for a soft
place and a little shade. It happened that Fred Oakes was watching me,
although I did not know it. He suspected sunstroke.
I saw a clump of rushes that gave shade enough. I could crush down
some, and lie on those. I hurried, for I was feeling deathly sick now.
As I reached the grass my knees began giving under me. I staggered,
but did not quite fall.
That, and Fred's watchfulness, saved my life; for at the moment that
my head and shoulders gave the sudden forward lurch, a wounded Masai
jumped out of the rushes and drove with his spear at my breast. The
blade passed down my back and split my jacket.
He sprang back, and made another lunge at me, but Fred's rifle barked
at the same second and he fell over sidewise, driving the spear into my
leg in his death spasm.
The twenty minutes following that are the worst in memory. Kazimoto
broke the gruesome news that the spear-blade was almost surely
poisoned--dipped in gangrene. The Masai are no believers in wounded
enemies, or mercy on the battlefield.
We doubted the assertion for a while--I especially, for none but a
hypochondriac would care to admit without proof that gangrene had been
forced into his system. Kazimoto grew indignant, and offered to prove
the truth of his claim on some animal. But there was no living animal
in sight on which to prove it. We asked him how long gangrene,
injected in that way, took to kill a man.
"Very few minutes!" he answered.
Then it occurred that none of us knew what to do. Kazimoto announced
that he knew, and offered to make good at once if given permission. He
demanded permission again and again from each one of us, making me
especially repeat my words. Then he gathered stems of grass a third of
an inch thick from the bed of the tiny watercourse, and proceeded to
make a tiny fire, talking in a hurry as he did it to several of Fred's
string of porters, who were now arriving on the scene.
While I watched with a sort of tortured interest what he was doing at
the fire, five of the largest boys with whom he had been speaking
rushed me from behind, and before I could struggle, or even swear, had
me pinned out on my back on the ground. One sat on my head; one on my
poor bruised stomach; the others held wrists and ankles in such way
that I could not break free, nor even kick much, however hard I tried.
Then Kazimoto came with glowing ends of grass from the fire, blowing on
them to keep them cherry-red, and inserted one after another into the
open spear-wound. I could not cry out, because of the man sitting on
my face, but I could bite. And to the everlasting glory of the
man--Ali bin Yema, his name was--be it written that he neither spoke
nor moved a muscle, although my front teeth met in his flesh.
I do not know how long the process lasted, or how many times Kazimoto
returned to the fire for more of his sizzling sticks, for I fainted;
and when I came round the agony was still too intense to permit
interest in anything but agony. They had my leg bandaged, how and with
what I neither knew nor cared. And it was evident that unless they
chose to leave me in camp where I was they would have to abandon all
thought of pursuing Masai for the present. Even Brown saw the force of
that, and he was the first to refuse flatly to leave me there.
For a while they hunted through the grass for more wounded men, but
found none. There must have been several, but they probably feared the
sort of mercy from us that they habitually gave to their own enemies,
and crawled away--in all likelihood to die of thirst and hunger, unless
some beast of prey should smell them out and make an earlier end.
Then there was consultation. It was decided a doctor for me was the
most urgent need; that Muanza, the largest German station on Victoria
Nyanza, was probably as near as anywhere, and that German East being
our immediate destination anyway, the best course to take was forward,
roughly south by west. So I was slung in a blanket on a tent-pole, and
we started, I swearing like a pirate every time a boy stumbled and
jolted me. (There is something in the nature of a burn that makes bad
language feel like singing hymns.)
Our troubles were not all over, for we passed through a country where
buck were fairly plentiful, and that meant lions. They did no damage,
but they kept us awake; and one night near the first village we came
to, where our porters all quartered themselves with the villagers for
sake of the change from their crowded tents, the fires that we made
went out, and five lions (we counted their foot-prints afterward) came
and sniffed around the pegs of the tent in which Fred and I lay, we
lying still and shamming dead. To have lifted a rifle in the darkness
and tried to shoot would have been suicide.
Then there were trees we passed among--baobabs, whose youngest tendrils
swung to and fro in the evening breeze like snakes head-downward. And
taking advantage of that natural provision, twenty-foot pythons swung
among them, in coloring and marking aping the habit of the tree. One
of them knocked Fred's helmet off as he marched beside me. They are
easy to kill. He shot it, and it dropped like a stone, three hundred
pounds or more, but the sweat ran down Fred's face for half an hour
afterward.
(Since then I have seen pythons kill their prey a score of times. I
never once saw one kill by crushing. The end of their nose is as hard
as iron, and they strike a terrific blow with that, so swift that the
eye can not follow it. Then, having killed by striking, they crawl
around their prey and crush it into shape for swallowing.)
But the worst of the journey was the wayside villages--dirty beyond
belief, governed in a crude way by a headman whom the Germans honored
with the title of sultani. These wayside beggars (for they were no
better)--destitute paupers, taxed until their wits failed them in the
effort to scrape together surplus enough out of which to pay--were
supplied with a mockery of a crown apiece, a thing of brass and
imitation plush that they wore in the presence of strangers. To add to
the irony of that, the law of the land permitted any white man passing
through to beat them, with as many as twenty-five lashes, if they
failed to do his bidding.
On arriving at such a village, the first thing we did was to ask for
milk. If they had any they brought it, not daring to refuse for fear
lest a German sergeant-major should be sent along to wreak vengeance
later. But it was always too dirty to drink.
That ceremony over, the headman retired and the village sick were
brought for our inspection. Gruesome sores, running ulcers, wounds and
crippled limbs were stripped and exposed to our most reluctant gaze.
There was little we could do for them. Our own supply of medicines and
bandages was almost too small for our own needs to begin with. By the
time we passed three villages we scarcely had enough lint and liniment
left to take care of my wound; but even that scant supply we cut in
half for a particularly bad case.
"Don't the Germans do anything for you?" we demanded, over and over
again.
The answer was always the same.
"Germani mbaia!" (The Germans are bad!)
They were lifeless--listless--tamed until neither ambition nor courage
was left. When their cattle had brought forth young and it looked as
if there might be some profit at last, the Masai came and raided them,
taking away all but the very old ones and the youngest calves. The
Germans, they said, taxed them and took their weapons away, but gave
them no protection.
At one place we passed a rifle, lying all rusted by the track. At the
next village we asked about it. They told us that a German native
soldier had deserted six months before and had thrown his rifle away.
Since that day no one had dared touch it, and they begged us to send
back and lay it where we found it, lest the Germans come and punish
them for touching it. So we did that, to oblige them, and they were
grateful to the extent of offering us one of their only two male sheep.
I forget now for how many days we traveled across that sad and
saddening land, Fred always cheerful in spite of everything, Will more
angry at each village with its dirt and sores, Brown moaning always
about his lovely herd of cows, and I groaning oftener than not.
My leg grew no better, what with jolting and our ignorance of how to
treat it. Sometimes, in efforts to obtain relief, I borrowed a cow at
one village and rode it to the next; but a cow is a poor mount and
takes as a rule unkindly to the business. Now and then I tried to walk
for a while, on crutches that Fred made for me; but most of the time I
was carried in a blanket that grew hotter and more comfortless as day
dragged after day.
At last, however, we topped a low rise and saw Muanza lying on the
lake-shore, with the great island of Ukereweto to northward in the
distance. From where we first glimpsed it it was a tidy, tree-shaded,
pleasant-looking place, with a square fort, and a big house for the
commandant on a rise overlooking the town.
"Now we'll wire Monty at last!" said Fred.
"Now we'll shave and wash and write letters!" said Will.
"Now at last for a doctor!" said I.
But Brown said nothing, and Kazimoto wore a look of anxious discontent.