Ten were the plagues that Israel fled, and leaving left no cure,
Whose progeny self-multiplied a million-fold remain,
The cloak of each one ignorance, idolatry its lure,
And death the goal till, clarion-called, lost Israel come again.
Till then that loaded lash that bade the tale of bricks increase
(Eye for an eye, and limb for limb!) shall fail not though
ye weep;
The conqueror's heel for Africa!--The fear that shall not cease!--
Desire, distrust, the alien law!--The sleep that is no sleep!
------------------
* It is a characteristic of the so-called Sleeping Sickness that is
decimating the tribes around Victoria Nyanza that the victim, although
he goes into a coma, never actually sleeps from the time of taking the
disease until the end, usually more than a year later. The natives, a
tribe that came originally down from Egypt, themselves say that the
dreaded sickness is a "visitation" by way of revenge on them for former
sins, although what sins, and whose vengeance, they are at a total loss
to explain.
------------------
Kazimoto was gone five days, and then came preceded by proof of the
news he brought. He came in the evening. In the morning,
unaccountably from the northward, instead of from the westward where
Uganda lay,--avoiding the regular safari route and the belt of sleeping
sickness villages, came a genial, sleek, shiny Baganda, arrayed in
khaki coat, red fez, and bordered loin-cloth, gifted with tongues, and
self-confident beyond belief.
He knew nothing of us at first, for we sat in our hut with a smudge
going, nervous about flies, even Coutlass, reckless as a rule of
anything he could not see, and perfectly indifferent to death for
others, now fidgety and afraid to swagger forth.
One of our Nyamwezi porters suddenly made a great shout of "Hodi!"* and
came stooping through the low door, standing erect again inside to
await our pleasure. We could hear others outside, listening under the
eaves. When we had kept him waiting sufficiently long to prevent his
getting too much notion of his own importance, Fred nodded to him to
speak. [* Hodi! Equivalent to "May I come In!"]
"Is it true, bwana," he asked, "that the Germans will come soon and
conquer this part of Africa?"
"Certainly not!" said Fred.
"There is one out here, a Baganda, who says they will surely come. He
says the religion of Islam will be preached from end to end of
everywhere, and that the Germans are the true priests of Islam. They
will come, says he, when the time is ripe, and call on all the converts
of Islam to rise and slay all other people, including all white folk,
like the English, who do not accept that creed. If that is true,
bwana, whither shall we go, and whither shall you go, to escape such
terrible things?"
"Does the Baganda know there are white men in this village?" Fred asked.
"Not yet, bwana."
"Don't tell him, then, but bring him in here. Tell him there are folk
in here who say he is a liar."
The Nyamwezi backed out, and we heard whispering outside. There is
precious little performance in Africa without a deal of talk. At the
end of about ten minutes the porter again shouted "Hodi!" and this time
was followed in by the stranger, seven other of our own men, uninvited,
bringing up the rear.
"Jambo!"* said the Baganda, with a great effort at bravado, when his
eyes had grown accustomed to the gloom and the first severe surprise of
seeing white men had worn off. He was a very cool customer indeed. [*
Jambo! Kiswahili equivalent of "How d'you do?"]
"Whose pimp are you?" demanded Fred, without answering the salutation.
The man fell back on insolence at once. There is no native in Africa
who takes more keenly to that weapon than the mission-schooled Baganda.
"I am employed by a gentleman of superior position," he answered in
perfectly good English.
"In what capacity?" demanded Fred.
"I am not employed to tell his secrets to the first strangers who ask
me!"
"Do you obey him implicitly?"
"I do. I am honorable person. I receive his pay and do his bidding."
"Is his name Schillingschen?"
The Baganda hesitated.
"All right," said Fred. "I know his name is Schillingschen. You have
boasted that you do what he orders you. These men tell me you have
said that the Germans are coming to conquer the country and destroy all
people, including the English, who have not accepted Islam!"
The man hesitated again, glancing over his shoulder to discover his
retreat cut off by our porters, and eying Fred with malignity that
reminded one of a cornered beast of prey. He could control his face,
but not his eyes.
"Oh, no, sir!" he answered after swallowing a time or two. "How could
they tell such lies against me! I am a person born in Uganda, now a
British protectorate and enjoying all blessings of British rule. I am
educated at the mission college at Entebbe. How should I tell such a
tale against my benefactors?"
"That is what you are here to explain!" Fred answered. "No! You can't
escape, you hellion! Squat down and answer!"
"All this stuff is pretty familiar," Will interrupted. "In the States
there are always people going the rounds among our darkies preaching
some form of treason. Over there we can afford to treat it as a
joke--now and then an ugly one, and on the darkies!"
"This is an ugly joke on a darkie, too!" grinned Fred.
The Baganda made a sudden dive and a determined struggle to get through
the door, but our porters were too quick and strong for him.
"Confession is your one chance!" said Fred.
"Put hot irons to his feet!" advised Coutlass. (The native beer had
left him villainously evil-tempered.) "Gassharamminy! Leave me alone
with that fat Baganda for half an hour, and I will make him tell me
what is on the far side of the moon, as well as what his mother said
and did before she bore him!"
"Shall I hand you over to this Greek gentleman?" suggested Fred.
"Oh, my God, no!" the Baganda answered, trembling. "Hand me over to
the bwana collector! He will put me in jail. I am not afraid of
British jail! It will not be for long! The English do not punish as
the Germans do! You dare not assault me! You dare not torture me!
You must hand me over to the bwana collector to be tried in court of
law. Nothing else is permissible! I shall receive short sentence,
that is all, with reprieve after two-thirds time on account of good
conduct!"
"Make him prisoner in the sleeping sickness village you told us about!"
advised Coutlass, lolling at ease on his elbow to watch the man's
increasing fear.
"Oh, no, no! Oh, gentlemen! That is not how white Englishmen behave!
You must either let me go, or--"
He made another terrific dive for liberty, biting and kicking at his
captors, and finally lying on his back to scream as if the hot irons
Coutlass had recommended were being applied in earnest.
"What shall we do with the beast?" asked Fred. The hut was so full of
his infernal screaming that we could talk without his hearing us.
"Tie him up," I said. "If we let him go he'll run straight to
Schillingschen."
"Leave him here with Coutlass and me!" urged Brown. (He and Coutlass
had grown almost friendly since getting drunk together on the native
beer.)
"I recommend," said Will, "that we take the law in our own hands--"
The Baganda ceased screaming and listened. For some reason he suspected
Will of being the deciding factor in our councils--perhaps because Will
had said least.
"--take the law in our own hands, and thrash him soundly. Later on we
can report what we have done to the British government, and ask for
condonation under the circumstances or pay whatever piffling fine they
care to impose for the sake of appearances. The point is, there's no
court of law in these parts to hand him over to, and he needs
punishing."
"I agree," said Fred. "Let's thrash him to begin with."
"Let's thrash him," went on Will, "as thoroughly as we've seen his
friends the Germans do the job!"
"Both sides!" agreed Brown.
"Oh, no, no, no! You can not do that, gentlemen!"
"Lay him out!" ordered Fred. "Let's begin on him. Who shall beat him
first?"
At a nod from Fred our porters stretched him face downward on the dry
dung floor, and knelt on his arms and legs. One of them staffed a good
handful of the dry dung into his mouth to stop his yelling.
"Of course," said Will, rather slowly and distinctly, "if he told us
about Schillingschen, we'd have to let him off. Let's hope he holds
his tongue, for I never wanted to flog a man so much in all my life!"
The most palpable absurdity at the moment was that there was nothing in
the hut to beat him with. There were dozens of strips of the recently
shot hippo hide hanging in the sun outside to dry, with stones tied to
the end of each, to keep them taut and straight, but nobody made a move
to bring one in.
"Take off his loin-cloth!" ordered Fred. "It won't hurt him enough
with that thing on!"
The Baganda spat the cow-dung from his mouth and struggled violently.
"Oh, no, no!" he shouted. "I will tell! I will tell everything!"
"Too late now!" said Will jubilantly.
"No, gentlemen, no! Not too late! I tell all--I tell quickly! Only
listen! Bwana Schillingschen will shoot me if he knows! He is very
bad man--very kali--very fierce--and oh, too clever! You must protect
me!"
He could hardly get the words out, for the knees of our porters pinned
him down, and his chin was pressed hard on the floor.
"I ordered that loin-cloth removed!" was all Fred commented. One of
the porters attended to the task, and the Baganda hurried with his
tale, drawing in breath in noisy gasps like a man with asthma because
of the weight of his captors on him and the strained position of his
neck.
"Bwana Schillingschen is sending me and many other men--not all
Baganda, but of many tribes--to go through all parts and say Islam is
the only good religion--all Germans are high-priests of Islam--soon the
Germans are coming with great armies to destroy the British and all
other foolish people who have not accepted Islam as their creed! All
are to get ready to receive the Germans."
"Where is Schillingschen now?" demanded Fred.
"Beyond Mumias."
"How far beyond Mumias?"
"Who knows? He is marching."
"In which direction? What for?"
"To Mount Elgon. I do not know what for."
"How do you know he is going to Mount Elgon?"
"He told me to go there and find him after my work is done."
"How long were you to continue at what you call your work?"
"A month or five weeks."
"So he expects to stay a long time up there?"
"Yes."
"Why?"
"I do not know."
"Has he many loads with him?"
"Very many provisions for a long time."
"Guns?"
"Several. I do not know how many. He gives guns to some of his men
when he gets to where the government will not know about it."
"How many men has he?"
"Not many. Ten, I think."
"How can they carry all those loads?"
"He brought a hundred porters from Kisumu to Mumias, and there bought
more than forty donkeys, sending the porters back again."
"Then are the men he has with him his own?"
"Yes."
"From German East?"
"Yes."
"What orders did he give you besides to tell these lies about German
conquest?"
"None.
"Pass me that whip!" ordered Fred. There was no whip, but the Baganda
could not know that.
"He gave the same order to all of us," he yelled. "We are to stay out
a month or five weeks unless we meet white men. If we meet white men
we are to discover the white men's plans by talking with their
servants, and then hurry to him and report."
"Ah! How many other spies has he out in this direction?"
"None."
"Why don't you pass me that whip when I ask for it?" demanded Fred.
"None! None! None, bwana! I am the only man in this direction! He
has sent them north, south, east and west, but I am the only one down
here."
"He has a lot more to tell yet," said Coutlass. "Let me put hot irons
on his feet!"
Fred demurred. "He couldn't march with us if we did that!" he said
with a perfectly straight face.
"Who cares whether or not he marches!" answered Coutlass. "To tell all
he knows is his business! Wait while I heat the iron!"
The Baganda began to scream again, babbling that he knew no more. He
assured us that Schillingschen had set the closest watch along the old
caravan route, and toward his own rear in the direction of Kisumu,
whence officials might come on chance errands.
"All right," said Fred. "Truss him up tight and keep him prisoner
among our men in their hut."
"Our men are likely to get drunk tonight," warned Will.
"Let me watch him!" urged Coutlass. "Leave me with him alone!"
To the Greek's disgust we decided to trust the prisoner with our own
men, and to keep very careful watch on them, threatening them with loss
of all their pay if they dared get drunk and lose him--a threat they
accepted at its full face value, but resented because of Brown's and
the Greek's behavior the night before. They begged to get a little
drunk--to get half as drunk as Brown had been--half as drunk as
Coutlass had been--not drunk at all, but just to drink a little. We
were adamant, and Brown added to their resentment by preaching them a
sermon in their own tongue on the importance of being respectful toward
white folk.
Kazimoto came in toward dark, foot-weary, but primed with news, and
most of what he had to say confirmed the Baganda's story.
Schillingschen, he said, was making for Mount Elgon in very leisurely
stages, letting his loaded donkeys graze their way along, and spending
hours of his time in questioning natives along the way on every subject
under the sun.
Besides the fact of his leisurely progress, which was sufficiently
important in itself, we learned from Kazimoto that Schillingschen's own
ten boys were unable to speak the language of the country beyond a few
of the commonest words--that they all slept in a tent together at
night, usually quite a little distance apart from Schillingschen's--and
that the donkeys were usually picketed between the two tents in a long
line. He also told us the ten men had five Mauser rifles between them,
in addition to the German's own battery of three guns, one of which he
carried all day and kept beside his bed at night; the other two were
carried behind him in the daytime by a gun-bearer.
That was good news on the whole. Coutlass went out on the strength of
it and began to drink beer from the big earthenware crock in which the
women had just brewed a fresh supply. Brown joined him within five
minutes, and at the end of an hour, they were swearing everlasting
friendship, Coutlass promising Brown his cattle back, and Brown
assuring him that Greece and the Greeks had always held his warmest
possible regards.
"Thermopylae, y'know, old boy, an' Marathon, an' all that kind o'
thing! How many miles in a day could a Greek run in them days? Gosh!"
They two drank themselves to sleep among the gentle cattle in the
circular enclosure in the midst of the village, and we--going out in
turns at intervals to make sure our own boys were not drinking--matured
our plans in peace.
We were too few to dare undertake the task in front of us without the
aid of Brown and the Greek. It was a case of who was not against us
must be for us, and the end must justify both men and means. We tried
to work out ways of managing without them, but when we thought of our
Baganda prisoner, and the almost certainty that both he and Coutlass
would race to give our game away to Schillingschen if let out of sight
for a minute, the necessity of making the best, not the worst, of the
Greek seemed overwhelming.
Early next morning, before the village had awakened from its glut of
beer and hippo meat, we shook Coutlass and Brown to their feet none too
gently, and, with the Baganda firmly secured by the wrists between two
of our men, started off, Fred leading.
The village awoke as if by magic before we had dragged away the thorns
from the gate, and the chief leaped to the realization that the beads
he had promised his women were about as concrete as his drunken dreams.
He and a swarm of his younger men followed us, begging and
arguing--mile after mile--growing angrier and more importunate. It was
by my advice that we crossed the stream into the sleeping sickness zone
and left them shuddering on their own side. Our own men did not know
so much about the ravages of that plague, and in any case were willing
to dare whatever risks we despised. But we took a long bend back and
crossed the stream again higher up as soon as the chief and his beggars
were out of sight. It was a pity not to keep exact faith and give them
the promised beads, if only for the sake of other white men who might
camp there in the future; but more than two tons of hippo meat was not
bad pay for their hospitality.
We wished we had as good price to offer at the villages on our way, for
sleep under cover we must, if we hoped to escape the ravages of fever;
and the primitive savage, at least in those parts, had the principle
down fine of nothing whatever for nothing. Yet as it turned out, the
very man whose company we looked on as a nuisance proved to be a key to
all gates. We marched along the track the Baganda had taken. The
chiefs of all villages knew him again; and the men who dared take such
a prophet of evil prisoner were looked upon as high government
officials at least.
We accepted that description of ourselves, letting it go by silent
assent, and explained our lack of tents and almost every other thing
the white man generally travels with as due to haste. Heaven only knew
what lies Kazimoto told those credulous folk, to the perfectly worthy
end of making our lot bearable, but we were fed after a fashion, and
lodged after a worse one all along our road. And who should send in
reports about us--and to whom? Obviously white men with a prisoner,
marching in such a hurry toward the north, were government officials.
Who should report officials to their government? As for the tale about
our having left our loads behind--are not all white people crazy? Who
shall explain their craziness?
From being a nuisance the Baganda became a joke. When it dawned on
his fat intellect that we were hurrying toward Schillingschen with only
one rifle among us and no baggage at all, he jumped at once to the
conclusion we must be Schillingschen's friends; and his fear that we
intended to hand him over to that ruthless brute for summary punishment
was more melting to his backbone than the dread of our imaginary whip,
that had caused him to give Schillingschen away.
He tried to bite through the thongs that held him, but Will twisted for
him handcuffs out of thick iron wire that we begged from a chief, who
had intended to make ornaments with it for his own legs. We did not
dare let the man escape, nor care to prevent our men from using force
when he threw himself on the ground and wept like a spoiled child.
"I will tell you" he said at last, deciding he might as well be hanged
for mutton as for lamb, "what Bwana Schillingschen is searching for! I
will tell you who knows where to find it! I will tell you where to
find the man who knows! Only let me run away then to my own home in
Uganda, and I will never again leave it! I am afraid! I am afraid!"
But that was only one more reason for keeping him with us, and no
ground at all for delay. He would not tell unless we loosed his hands
first, so we pressed on, camping late and starting early, until about
noon of the fourth day we caught sight of Schillingschen's tents in the
distance, and gathered our party at once into a little rocky hollow to
discuss the situation.
Behind us the land sloped gradually for thirty or forty miles toward a
sharp escarpment that overlooked the level land beside the lake. At
times between the hills and trees we could glimpse Nyanza itself,
looking like the vast rim of forever, mysterious and calm. In front of
us the rolling hills, broken out here and there into rocky knolls,
piled up on one another toward the hump of Elgon, on which the blue sky
rested. In every direction were villages of folk who knew so little of
white men that they paid no taxes yet and did no work--marrying and
giving in marriage--fighting and running away--eating and drinking and
watching their women cultivate the corn and beans and sweet
potatoes--without as much as foreboding of the taxes, work for wages,
missionaries, law and commerce soon to come.
Schillingschen was more than taking his time, he was dawdling, keeping
his donkeys fat, and letting his men wander at pleasure to right and
left gathering reports for him of unusual folk or things. We came very
close to being seen by one of them, who emerged from a village near us
with a pair of chickens he had foraged, followed by the owner of the
luckless birds in a great hurry and fury to get paid for them.
Schillingschen's tent could fairly easily be stalked from the far side
in broad daylight, and I was for making the attempt. There was the
risk that one of our porters might grow restless and break bounds if we
waited, or that the Baganda might take to yelling. We gagged him as
soon as I talked of the danger of that.
Coutlass and Brown, however, were the only two who would agree with me.
Like me, they were weary to death of mtama porridge, with or without
milk, and the sight of Schillingschen's distant campfire with a great
pot resting on stones in the midst of it whetted appetite for white
man's food. They and I were for supping as soon as possible from the
German's provender, and sleeping under his canvas roof.
But Fred and Will insisted on caution, claiming reasonably that
surprise would be infinitely easier after dark. It was unlikely that
Schillingschen would post any sentries, and not much matter if he did.
His knowledge of natives and natural air of authority made him quite
safe among any but the wildest, and these were a comparatively peaceful
folk. In all probability he would sit and read by candle light, with
his boys all snoring a hundred yards away. There was no making Fred
and Will see the virtue of my contention that a sudden attack while his
boys were scattered all about among the villages would be just as
likely to succeed; so we settled down to wait where we were with what
patience we could summon.
It was a miserable, hungry business, under a blazing hot sky, packed
tightly together among men who objected to our smell as strongly as we
to theirs. It is the fixed opinion of all black people that the white
man smells like "bad water"; and no word seems discoverable that will
quite return the compliment. That afternoon was reminiscent of the
long days on the dhow, when nobody could move without disturbing
everybody else, and we all breathed the same hot mixed stench over and
over.
We posted two sentries to lie with their eyes on the level of the rim
and guard against surprise. But there was so little to watch, except
kites wheeling overhead everlastingly, that they went to sleep; and we
were so bored, and so sure of our hiding-place and Schillingschen's
unsuspicion that we did not notice them. I myself fell asleep toward
five o'clock, and when I awoke the sun was so low in the west that our
hollow lay in deep gloom.
Fred was lying on his elbow, sucking an unfilled, unlighted pipe. Will
lay on his side, too, with back toward both of us, ruminating.
Coutlass and Brown were both asleep, but Coutlass awoke as I rolled
over and struck him with my heel. Nearly all the porters were snoring.
It was a sharp exclamation from the Greek that caused me to sit up and
face due westward. The others lay as they were. It was the gloom in
our hollow--the velvety shadows in which we lay with granite boulders
scattered between us, and no alertness on our part that saved that day,
although Coutlass acted instantly and creditably, once awake.
Schillingschen stood there looking down on us, with his feet planted
squarely on the rim of the hollow, and Mauser rifle under one arm. His
great splay beard flowed sidewise in the evening wind. One hand he
held over his eyes, trying to make out details in the dark, as stupid
as we were. He stood with his back to the setting sun, exposing
himself without any thought of the risk he ran, his huge, filled-out
head refusing stubbornly to take in the truth of what had happened.
Once convinced, the Prussian mind is not readily unconvinced. He had
assured himself long ago that our party was at the bottom of Victoria
Nyanza.
The second he did make out details he was swift to act, but that was
already too late, although he did not know it at the moment. He threw
up his rifle and laughed--a great deep guffaw from the stomach, that
awoke every one.
"So, so!" he gloated. "So Mr. Oakes and his fellow escaped convicts
are alive after all! Ha-ha-ho-ho! So you followed me all this way,
only to forget that kites are curious! A fine comfortless journey you
must have had, too! There were twenty kites wheeling over you. I
counted, and wondered. Curiosity drove me to come and see. The first
man who moves a finger, Mr. Oakes, will die that instant! Let your
rifle lie where it is!"
It would be no use pretending the man had not courage, at all events of
the sort that glories in the upper hand of a fight. He chuckled, and
reveled in our predicament, taking in, now that his eyes had grown
accustomed to the darkness of our hollow, the utter lack of comforts or
provisions, and enjoying our disappointment. He certainly knew himself
master of the situation.
"I suspect you have a man of mine down there with you!" he announced
presently. "Is not that my Baganda? Is he gagged? Is he bound?
Loose him, Mr. Oakes, at once! I say at once! Otherwise you die now!"
He pointed his rifle directly at Fred, and the next second fired it,
but not intentionally. Coutlass sprang from behind him, having crawled
out through a shadow, and hit him so hard with a stone on the back of
the skull that he loosed off the rifle and pitched head-foremost down
among us. The Greek promptly jumped on top of him with a yell like a
maniac's, failing to land with both heels on his backbone by nothing
but luck. As it was, he lost balance and sat down so hard on
Schillingschen's head that there was no need of the energy with which
we all followed suit, piling all over him to pin him down like hounds
that have rolled their quarry over.
The German was stunned--knocked into utter oblivion--breathing like a
sleeping drunkard, and bleeding freely from the nose. Coutlass jumped
off him and began to execute a war dance up and down, yelling like a
madman until Fred threatened him with the rifle and Will gagged him
from behind.
"Do you want his armed men down on us, you ass?"
"Gassharamminy!" he laughed. "I forgot about them! Let us go and eat
their supper!" He spoke as a man who had full right now to be
considered a member in good standing. We all noticed it, and exchanged
glances; but that was no time for argument about men's rights.
Brown was already over the rim of the hollow and making in the
direction of the tents. We called him back and compelled him to stay
on guard over the prisoners, to his awful disgust, for he suspected
there was whisky among Schillingschen's "chop-boxes." But so did we!
We left all our boys with him except Kazimoto, threatening them with
hitherto unheard of penalties if they dared as much as show a lock of
hair above the rim of the hollow while we were gone.
Then the rest of us, with Fred leading and Kazimoto last of all, crept
out and sought the lowest level along which to reach the camp. Will
had taken Schillingschen's rifle and went next after Fred. Coutlass
followed so close on my heels that more than once he trod on them, and
once so nearly tripped me that Fred called a halt behind some bushes
and cursed me for clumsiness.
But it turned out to be easy hunting. The ten boys had tied the
donkeys up to a rope in line and sat crooning while their supper cooked
at a long bright fire. We came up to Schillingschen's tent from
behind, crept around the side of it, and in a moment had three more
good weapons, I taking the big-bore elephant gun that had dealt with us
so savagely on the lake, Coutlass seizing another Mauser, and Kazimoto
adopting the shot-gun.
The rest was child's play. We marched out of the tent all abreast and
called on the ten boys to surrender, making them put up their hands
until Coutlass had found their five rifles and ammunition. They were
too astonished even to ask questions. Accustomed to Schillingschen's
despotic orders, they obeyed ours silently, showing no symptoms of
trying to bolt, having nowhere to bolt to; but we took precautions.
Kazimoto ran back to bring our party, and we took a coil of iron wire
from Schillingschen's trade goods and fastened every prisoner's hands
firmly behind his back, including the unconscious German's. That done,
we ate the meat, beans and vegetable supper that the ten had cooked.
Brown and Coutlass found Schillingschen's whisky after that, and under
its influence again swore ceaseless friendship beneath the
non-committal stars. While they feasted we took Coutlass' rifle away
as a plain precaution.