A MAN AND A STORY--BOTH UNEMOTIONAL
Warden, running the gauntlet of doorkeepers and other human watch-dogs,
was finally ushered into the presence of an Under Secretary. To him
he detailed his business, and, lacking neither the perception nor the
modesty that often characterize men of action, he had barely begun to
speak ere he fancied that his recital did not command a tenth part
of the interest it warranted. Few talkers can withstand the apparent
boredom of a hearer, and Warden happened not to be one of the few.
Condensing his account of the proceedings on board the _Sans Souci_ to
the barest summary, he stopped abruptly.
The Under Secretary, leaning back in his chair, rested his elbows on
its comfortable arms, and pressed together the tips of his outspread
fingers. He scrutinized his nails, and seemingly was much troubled
because he had not called in at the manicurist's after lunch.
Nevertheless, being an Under Secretary, he owned suave manners, and the
significance of Warden's docket-like sentences did not escape him.
"Is that all?" he asked, turning his hands and examining their backs
intently.
"Practically all."
There was silence for a while. A clock ticked softly as if to emphasize
the peace that reigned on the park side of Whitehall.
"But you make certain deductions, I take it?" murmured the official.
"I could hardly fail to do that, knowing West Africa as I do," was the
curt answer. Warden was really annoyed with the man. Without wishing
him any positive evil, he wondered how far the Foreign Office cult
would carry such an exquisite through a Bush campaign, with its wasting
fever, its appalling monotony, its pathless wanderings midst foul swamp
and rain-soaked forest--perhaps a month's floundering through quagmire
and jungle with a speedy end under a shower of scrap iron fired from
some bell-mouthed cannon.
"Will you be good enough to favor me with them?" purred the other, now
absorbed in his palms.
"If I had a map--" began Warden, almost contemptuously.
The Under Secretary rose with a certain languid elegance. He was really
tired, having worked at the Macedonian gendarmerie regulations until
three o'clock that morning. High on the wall, behind Warden's chair,
were several long, narrow, mahogany cases, each fitted with a pendent
cord. The Under Secretary pulled one, and a large map of Africa fell
from its cover.
"I am fairly well acquainted with the Protectorate, but now you can
talk to scale," he said, going back to his seat and resuming his
nonchalant attitude.
Warden, still smarting under a sense of the evident insignificance of
Britain beyond the seas in the eyes of its home-dwelling custodians,
spoke brusquely enough.
"On the Benuë river, a tributary of the Niger, four hundred miles
from the coast," he said, "you will find the town of Giré in the Yola
District. You see it is just within the sphere of British influence.
Germany claims the opposite bank. Well, Oku is near Giré. Oku is not on
the map----"
"I put it there myself yesterday," broke in the Under Secretary.
Warden was gifted with keen sight. He swung round and gave the huge
sheet on the wall a closer scrutiny. A great many corrections had been
made on it with pen and ink. They were carried out so neatly that they
resembled the engraved lettering.
For an instant his eyes met those of the Under Secretary; thenceforth a
better understanding reigned.
"I beg your pardon," he said. "Since you gave attention to the position
of Oku so recently, I am half inclined to believe that not only my
information but my opinions are forestalled."
"We have been at cross purposes," murmured the tired voice. "You are
Captain Arthur Warden, who commanded the Oku punitive expedition
thirteen months ago. Since early yesterday morning the Colonial Office,
at my request, has been trying to discover your whereabouts--trying in
vain, I gather--or you would have mentioned the fact. I really wished
to consult you with reference to this very topic. It is all the more
gratifying that chance should have led you to be a witness of events
which were surmises on our part, and that your sense of duty should
bring you here at the earliest possible moment."
Warden positively blushed. It was a relief that the Under Secretary was
obviously inclined to visit his manicurist that afternoon rather than
wait till the morrow. Such preoccupation gave him time to recover. But
he devoted no more time to silent theories anent the disgraceful apathy
of the home authorities with reference to West African affairs.
"I cannot insist too strongly on the efforts that are being made by our
neighbors to undermine British influence in that quarter," he said.
"Their traders pander to native excesses and humor their prejudices.
Their pioneers are constantly pushing northward toward the shores
of Lake Tchad. Arms and ammunition are being smuggled across the
boundary at many points. Preparations are quietly in progress for a
transfer of power if ever British authority shows signs of weakening.
Therefore, I draw the worst auguries from the presence in Cowes of a
clever and unscrupulous filibuster like Figuero, especially when he
acts as bear-leader to three disaffected chiefs. Oku, as you know, is
an insignificant place, but it has one supreme attribute that gives
it among the negroes the importance of Mecca in the Mohammedan world.
It is the center of African witchcraft. Its ju-ju men are the most
noted in the whole continent. Their fetish is deadly and irresistible.
They can compass the ruin of tribal leaders who are immeasurably more
wealthy and powerful than any of their own men. I do not pretend to
explain the reason--I can only state the fact--but there can be no
gainsaying the simple truth that if men of Oku place their ban on any
tribe or individual, that tribe or that man is doomed."
"Can you give instances?"
"Yes. As far away as the river Akini, in the Yoruba District"--and
this time Warden did not point to the map, though his words bridged
six hundred miles miles--"there was a quarrel between the up-country
traders and the shippers at Lagos. The merchants in the interior tried
to close the trade routes, but the local chiefs refused to help them.
By some means the traders secured the Oku ban on their side. The Yoruba
natives resisted it.
"By Jove! both they and the factors at Lagos were glad enough to come
to heel when every ounce of stuff was diverted into French Dahomey.
There was no overt act or threat. Oku methods are too clever for
that. The authorities were powerless. Hunger coerced the natives, and
financial loss brought the people on the coast to terms. And this took
place where we were paramount! Heaven only knows what excesses the Oku
fetish has caused in inter-tribal wars. Why, when I attacked them, I
had to break with my own hands every ju-ju token on the road. Not even
our Hausa troops would pass them otherwise."
"They had no ill effect on you, then?" said the other, smiling a little.
"None--at present."
Warden himself was surprised when his lips framed the qualification.
For no assignable cause his mind traveled to the lowering face on the
gourd, then reposing in his portmanteau at Waterloo Station, and he
remembered the curled scrap of tattooed skin in his pocket. He had not
mentioned the calabash to the official. Though it bore curiously on the
visit of the men of Oku to the Isle of Wight, he believed that such a
far-fetched incident would weaken his statements. Since he was inclined
at first to err so greatly in his estimate of the Under Secretary's
knowledge of West African politics, he was now more resolved than
ever not to bring an extravagant toy into a serious discussion. Any
reference to it would be ludicrously out of place. He was beginning to
entertain a deep and abiding respect for the Foreign Office and its
denizens.
The Under Secretary asked a few additional questions before he rose to
fold up the map. Warden took the hint, and was about to depart when he
received an unlooked-for piece of news.
"By the way, it is almost a certainty that Count von Rippenbach
accompanied the Emperor in the visit paid to the _Sans Souci_?" said
the official.
"I assume his identity solely from paragraphs in the newspapers."
"It will interest you to learn that the Count has just returned from
an exploring and hunting trip in the Tuburi region."
Now, Tuburi lies in the no-man's land that separates Lake Tchad from
German West Africa, and Warden met the Under Secretary's bored glance a
second time with quick comprehension.
"I think," went on the quiet voice, "I think it would be well if
you kept the Colonial Office posted as to your movements during
the remainder of your furlough. Personally, I expect no immediate
developments. The Emperor is a busy man. He can only devote half an
hour each year to affairs that affect the Niger. But, keep in touch.
You may be wanted. I am exceedingly obliged to you. One learns so much
from the men who have passed their active lives in lands which one has
never seen except in dreams. I dream here sometimes, in front of that
map--and its companions. Oh, I had almost forgotten. Do you know Mr.
Baumgartner?"
"Only by sight."
"That is useful. It might help if you were to meet him in some
unexpected locality. And his yacht, the _Sans Souci_, you have noted
her main features, such as the exact number of windows in her deck
houses, or the cabin ports fore and aft of the bridge?"
"I watched her closely many hours last night, but I fear I missed those
precise details," laughed Warden. "I shall correct the lapse at the
earliest opportunity."
"That sort of definite fact assists one's judgment. Paint and rig can
be altered, but structural features remain. I recall the case of the
_Sylph_, a foreign cargo-steamer loaded to the funnel with dynamite,
and about to pass Port Said at a time when it was peculiarly important
to the British fleet that the canal should remain open. She resembled a
hundred other disreputable-looking craft of her class, but a lieutenant
on the _Cossack_ had seen her a year earlier at Bombay, and noticed
a dent in the plates on the port bow. His haphazard memory settled
a delicate and complicated discussion in Pekin. Good morning! Don't
forget to send your address."
Standing in Downing Street to light a cigar, Warden glanced up at
the stately building he had just quitted. His views on "red-tape"
officialdom had undergone a rapid change during the past hour. It
was borne in on him that generations of men like himself had come
from the ends of the earth to that storehouse of secrets, and each
was convinced that he alone could reveal the solemn tidings which
might be the forerunner of modern Europe's Battle of Armageddon. And
the Under Secretary was called on to hear every prophet! From such
a standpoint the presence in England of a half-caste Portuguese and
three full-blooded negroes dwindled to insignificance. True, the Under
Secretary had listened, and Warden almost shivered when he realized how
narrow was his escape from committing the grave error of discounting
his hearer's sympathy and measure of comprehension.
It was not his business to ask questions, but he gathered that others
than himself were alive to the dangers that might spring from a
conference between semi-rebellious subjects of Britain in West Africa
and the ruler of a mighty nation pent within cramped confines for
want of colonies. Oddly enough, the bent plates of the dynamite-laden
_Sylph_ suggested a strange connection between the carved gourd and
the strained position of affairs in the Cameroons. He had no manner
of doubt that when the royal yacht crashed into a sunken wreck the
previous day it liberated the calabash, which forthwith drifted into
the Solent, and escaped notice until discovered by Evelyn Dane. Suppose
she had not seen it? All their subsequent actions would have been
affected. He might never have known of the strange gathering on board
the yacht.
"Queer train of circumstances!" he thought. "If only I could use a pen,
what a romance I might contrive with that as a beginning--and this," he
added, when, in searching for a box of matches, his fingers closed on
the crisp roll of skin, "this as the frontispiece."
He hailed a cab. He wanted to open the bag left at the railway terminus
and deposit the gourd with the rest of his belongings in a small flat
hired months ago as a _pied-a-terre_. His stock of cigars needed
replenishing, and the weird document that had just made its presence
felt reminded him that a Portuguese dictionary was lacking. A glance at
his watch showed that he could not reach Cowes until a late hour, so he
resolved to pass the night in town, go to a theatre, and return to the
_Nancy_ next morning.
From Waterloo, therefore, he telegraphed to Peter:
"Remaining here until to-morrow. Keep your weather eye open."
He was sure that his friendly factotum would grasp the full meaning of
the second sentence, but he would have been the most surprised man in
London could he have known that Peter at that moment was plying the
three men of Oku with gin.
An accident brought about a slight variation of his plans. It happened
that no other passenger claimed the attention of the luggage-room clerk
at Waterloo when the portmanteau was unlocked. Warden deposited the
gourd on the zinc counter and groped among his belongings for something
to cover it.
The attendant, who was watching him, uttered a gasping exclamation.
"Good Lord! sir," he cried, "what sort of horrible thing is that?"
It was then that a hitherto undiscovered property in the gourd brought
itself in evidence. No sooner was it placed on a smooth surface than
it promptly wobbled into a half upright position, with the negro's
face on the upper part. Chance could hardly accomplish this movement.
It was the designer's intent, brought about by concealed weights, and
Warden instantly remembered that the calabash floated much deeper in
the water than would have been the case otherwise. A shaft of sunlight
came through a broken pane in the glass roof, and fell directly on the
scowling apparition.
The effect on the clerk was phenomenal. He grew livid, and backed away
from the counter.
"Well, that's the limit," he muttered. "If I'd ha' known old Hoof an'
Horns was so near to me since I kem on duty I'd 'ave gone sick."
Warden laughed, stuffed the gourd into the portmanteau, and hurried to
the waiting cab. So preoccupied was he with other matters, he had not
realized earlier that under the new conditions he would be in need of
some portion of the bag's contents.
It was no easy task to find a Portuguese-English dictionary. He
tried half a dozen booksellers in vain, but ultimately unearthed a
serviceable volume at a second-hand shop in Charing Cross Road. By the
time he reached his flat, five o'clock, he was desperately hungry,
having eaten nothing since breakfast.
His rooms looked dismal, and an apologetic hall-porter explained
that if the gentleman 'ad on'y sent a wire he'd ha' tidied the place
up a bit. Warden went to a restaurant, dined well, and returned at
half-past six. There was still an hour or more of daylight, so he
began to decipher the unsolved section of the strange manuscript. It
was a longer job than he anticipated. Arabic characters, being largely
phonetic, do not give a literal rendering of European words. Many pages
of the dictionary were searched ere he hit upon the exact rendering of
the blurred phrases. But the quest fascinated him. Before it was ended
he found it necessary to consult an atlas and an encyclopedia.
At last, allowing for a margin of error in his guesses at tenses and
other variants of root words, he completed a translation, and this is
what he had written:
"I, Domenico Garcia, artist and musician in the city of Lisbon, am
justly punished for my sins. Being desperate and needy, I joined in
an attack on the _Santo Espirito_, homeward-bound from the Indies,
and helped in the slaying of all the ship's company. We attacked her
when she left Lisbon on the voyage to Oporto, but a great gale from
the northeast drove us far out to sea, and then the wind veered to
the northwest, and cast us miserably ashore on the African desert. We
abode there many days, and saw no means of succor, so we buried most
of our ill-gotten gains in that unknown place and turned our faces to
the north, thinking to find a Portuguese settlement in the land of the
Moors. We died one by one, some from hunger, some from fever, some
from the ravages of wild beasts. Six out of fifty-four men reached the
town of Rabat in the train of a Moorish merchant. There we were sold
as slaves. Three were dead within a month. We who were left, Tommaso
Rodriguez, Manoel of Serpa and myself, were sent as presents over the
caravan road to that cruel tyrant the black king of Benin. Rodriguez
went mad, and was flayed alive for refusing to worship a heathen god.
This message is written on his skin. Manoel of Serpa was drowned in the
river which these monsters term 'Mother of Waters,' while I, though my
life is preserved by reason of my skill in carving, am utterly bereft
of hope in this world while filled with fear of God's justice in the
next. Christian, you who read these words, for which I have devised
a cunning receptacle that may long survive me, if you would help an
erring brother to regain salvation, go yourself, or send some trusty
person, to the above-named town of Rabat. I hid there a great ruby
which I took from a golden pyx found on board the _Santo Espirito_. It
lies in the Hassan Tower, the tomb of an infidel buried outside the
walls. A causeway leads to the door, which is three cubits from the
ground, and my ruby is in a deep crack between the center stones of the
sill of the third window on the left. I placed it there for safety,
thinking that perchance I might escape and secure it again. Friend, I
am many marches from Rabat but few from death. Find that gem of great
price, and cause masses to be said for my soul in the Cathedral of the
Patriarch at Lisbon. Inscribed by me, the unhappy Domenico Garcia, in
the year 1634, to pleasure that loathly barbarian, M'Wanga, King of
Benin, who holds that writing on a white man's skin is most potent
magic against fever, even while I, the alchemist, am yielding to its
ravages."
The violet-tinted gloom that marks the close of a fine summer's day in
London was filling the room with its shadows when Warden had written
the last words of a fair copy. He lit a cigar, placed an easy chair
so that he might sit with his back to the window, and was about to
analyze the queer document which had fallen into his hands in such an
extraordinary manner when he noticed that the face on the gourd, though
tilted on the table exactly in the same fashion as on the counter of
the luggage-room at Waterloo, appeared to be watching him. Now, no man
of strong nervous power likes to feel startled, and that the stealthy
menace in those evil eyes was startling he did not attempt to deny.
He had not noticed previously that--no matter what the angle--so long
as the eyes were visible they seemed to look fixedly at the beholder.
Thinking that the waning light was deceptive, he sprang up and built
some books into a V-shaped support that enabled him to set the scowling
face in many positions. The varying tests all had the same result. The
snake-like glance followed him everywhere. The very orbs appeared to
turn in the head. In the deepening twilight they seemed to gleam with
a dull fire, and Warden was absolutely forced to reason himself out of
the expectation that soon those brutal lips would open and overwhelm
him with threats.
"Confound you!" he muttered, scarce knowing whether to laugh or fly
into a rage at the foolish fancy that led him to address a carven mask,
"if you looked that way at poor Domenico Garcia it is not surprising
that he should use his comrade's skin as vellum. You black beauty! Are
there any of your breed left in Nigeria, I wonder?"
[Illustration: The stealthy menace of those evil eyes was startling
_Page_ 84]
It demanded almost an effort to sink into the chair and disregard
the sinister object glaring at him from the table. He picked up the
sheet of note-paper containing the translation and set his mind to its
proper understanding. While intent on the intricacies of cases and
genders--difficulties intensified by the use of archaic phrases and the
Arabic script--he had given but passing thought to the general drift
of the words. True, the reference to a river named "Mother of Waters"
was amazing, because that was the native name for the Benuë, while a
search through the encyclopedia showed that the seaport town of Rabat,
in Morocco, was famous for its ruined monuments. But now, pondering
each sentence, he became alive to their tremendous significance. Their
very simplicity was the best witness to the underlying tragedy. A man
who dismissed the massacre on board the _Santo Espirito_ with the curt
statement that he "helped in the slaying of all the ship's company,"
was not likely to use unnecessary adjectives. "Six out of fifty-four"
was also a summary magnificent in its brevity. Garcia reached the sheer
apex of the direct narrative style when he said that he and Rodriguez,
and Manoel of Serpa, were sent as presents to the King of Benin "over
the caravan route." Those four words covered a journey of 2500 miles
across mountains, deserts, and jungle-covered swamps, where road there
was none, and towns, even the most wretched communities of savages,
were hundreds of miles apart. The track probably led through Bel Abbas,
Taudeni, and Timbuctu, traversing the very heart of the Sahara, a
region so forbidding and inhospitable that even to-day it remains one
of the secret places of the world.
And again, there was a grim humor discoverable in a man who,
concentrating his life's story into so few words, could yet indulge his
mordant wit by writing: "I am many marches from Rabat but few from
death," and even poke a bitter jest at M'Wanga for his fantastic notion
of a specific against backwater fever!
It was a forceful picture that Warden conceived when in his mind's
eye he saw the "artist and musician," and ex-pirate, too, sitting in
the shade of a giant tree near the king's hut, and pricking out with
needle and dyes, on parchment torn from the back of his dead comrade,
the record of those terrible years. He could limn the hollow cheeks,
the wasted frame, the fever-light in the dark eyes, and the melancholy
smile that must have lifted the cloud of suffering for a little while
when the concluding lines were written. Warden knew the scene so
intimately that if he put pencil to paper, and Garcia's long-forgotten
shade were permitted to testify to the accuracy of the sketch, there
could be no reasonable doubt that imagination must have come very near
the truth.
Though the Portuguese did not say as much, it was not hard to guess
that the "cunning receptacle" he had devised for his last manuscript
was the graven image of M'Wanga himself. His artist's eye had caught
the possibilities of the curiously-shaped gourd, and, as he said
in his own way, he had used his "skill in carving" as a means of
preservation--perhaps of securing a certain measure of good treatment.
No doubt the King of Benin, sitting on the state stool in front of his
palace of mats and wattle, was greatly flattered by the portrait. He
would appreciate its realism while missing its subtle irony. In the
circle of subordinate chiefs and witch-doctors surrounding him there
must have been many who hated the white man because he won the royal
favor even for a moment. But they would be wary, and join loudly in the
chorus of praise, for there was a grove near by in which the latest
victims of M'Wanga's wrath fouled the air with their dead bodies.
Garcia's description of the black ruler as "King of Benin" puzzled
Warden at first. Modern Benin was far enough removed from Oku and the
upper reaches of the Benuë to render the title vague and seemingly
mistaken.
Yet Garcia's sparse record already promised an astounding truthfulness.
Warden was quite sure he would discover some contemporary proof of the
loss of the _Santo Espirito_. He believed that any one who visited the
tomb of Hassan beyond the walls of Rabat would find the ruby placed
there nearly one hundred and eighty years ago. Why, then, should the
chronicler err in his allusion to M'Wanga's rank?
M'Wanga's counterfeit answered the unspoken question. Warden happened
to look at the calabash, now hardly visible in the ever-increasing
darkness. But the cruel eyes still glinted at him, and he could almost
discover a sardonic grin on the thick lips.
"By Jove!" he muttered, "When that fellow reigned in Benin his empire
spread as far as his reputation. I have no manner of doubt but he
lived in the interior, where it is healthier than on the coast. Yes,
you man-devil!" he added, leaping excitedly to his feet as a new and
discomforting thought possessed him. "You did mischief enough during
your evil life, and now you have resurrected yourself just in time to
take a silent part in more of the wild doings in which you would have
gloried."
For he was spurred to this sudden outburst by the knowledge that not
only did political trouble loom across the West African sky, but that
he, and he only, was the Christian and friend to whom Domenico Garcia
made his dying appeal. There was a ruby of great price to be won, and
masses to be said in the Cathedral of the Patriarch at Lisbon. Could he
refuse to fulfil the terms of that pathetic bequest? He had nearly six
months of unexpired furlough at disposal, and the Under Secretary did
not appear to have any dread of immediate developments in Nigeria, such
as would demand the recall of officers to their duties. What argument
would convince his own mind that he might justly decline an almost
intolerable legacy?
Well, he would go into the pros and cons of a doubtful problem later.
He was not a rich man, and the journey to Rabat and back would probably
be very expensive. Certainly that ruby would look very well on the
white throat of Evelyn Dane, though people might well wonder how the
wife of a poorly-paid official could afford to wear a "gem of great
price."
The conceit so tickled him that he laughed, laughed all the louder,
perhaps, because he was conscious that the black king of Benin was
scoffing at him maliciously from the table. But the glee died in his
throat when a thunderous double rat-tat shook the outer door of the
flat, and Warden was prepared, for one thrilling instant, to fight a
legion of ghosts and demons if need be. Then his scattered wits told
him that His Majesty's post demanded his appearance. He struck a match,
lighted the gas, and went to the door, where a small boy, who seemed to
be physically incapable of using a knocker with such vehemence, handed
him a telegram.
It was brief and to the point:
"_Sans Souci_ sailed 3 P.M. Niggers and friend left for London 6.30.
Thought you would like to know. Peter."