The Ivory Trail by Talbot Mundy (top fiction books of all time TXT) 📗

sneered. "All the letters you have written since you came to Muanza lie in a drawer in the commandant's desk! I myself have read them!"

In the dark, with shifting shadows thrown by the cheap trade lantern, it was difficult to judge what was going on behind that beard of Fred's. I had begun to suspect he was coming over to my way of thinking and would yield to her presently, but he returned to the attack—very directly and abruptly.

"What is it you know against the German government?" he demanded, and sat with his jaw in the palm of his hand waiting for her answer.

"Why should I tell you? Why should I put myself completely in your power?"

"Why not?" asked Fred.

"What would prevent you from stealing my thunder, and telling my story as your own—leaving me at the Germans' mercy?"

"Something very potent that I think you would not understand if I talked of it," Fred answered. "Listen to me now a minute. I haven't conferred with my friends here, as you know. Whatever I tell you is subject to their agreeing with me. The only condition on which I, for one, would consent to taking part with you in anything—after all our experience of you!—would be that you should put yourself so completely in our power that we could feel we had your safekeeping. On those terms I would be willing to do my best to help you out."

"I agree to that like a shot!" said Will; and I nodded.

"You mean—?"

"All or nothing!" Fred insisted.

"You mean that you also, just like these Germans, must have a sword to hold over me?"

"I thought you wouldn't understand!" Fred answered. "What we demand, Lady Saffren Walden, is proof that you really do give us your confidence. Without that we have nothing to say to you, and nothing to do with you!"

She broke down then and cried a little, tearing herself with sobs she hated to release. Suddenly she raised her head and glared at us wildly, dry-eyed; not a tear had accompanied the sobbing.

"If I tell you—if you fail me after that—I shall kill myself in such way that you shall know—my blood is on your heads!"

Fred laughed. It was no doubt the best thing to do, but I wondered how he managed it.

"Suppose you begin by telling us," he said. "We can discuss the blood-stains afterward!"

Then she suddenly burst into her tale, as if she had rehearsed it a hundred times in readiness to pour into the ears of the first British official who had power enough to shield her. She told it dramatically, in few words, wasting no breath on side-issues, and without once pausing to explain, letting her words smash down the barriers of unbelief and pave their own way for explanations afterward.

"Germany is planning to conquer the world!—not now, but ten or a dozen years from now! She is getting ready ceaselessly! Part of the plan is to undermine British rule in Africa by means of a religious influence among the natives. That is the special duty of Professor Schillinschen. As soon as possible a great native army is to be trained, and thoroughly schooled in the fanatical precepts of Islam. But the German people are too heavily taxed already, and refuse to vote money for this miserable colony, where the great beginning must be made because it is only here that they can work unsuspected. So funds must be found in some other way!"

She paused for breath. No woman pleading at the bar of justice could have seemed more in earnest. Of one thing I was quite sure: she had found it worth her while to convince us if that were possible. She was playing no half-hearted game.

"Do you begin to see now why the Germans are so set on finding Tippoo Tib's hoard of ivory? Do you begin to understand why they are determined, not only to prevent your finding it, but to learn your secret? If rumor is one-half true, the Arab buried somewhere enough ivory to finance this plan of theirs! They have been going about the search systematically, and sooner or later they feel they must stumble on it. They will not let you forestall them!"

She paused again. Her very earnestness exhausted her more than the walk through the dark in danger had done.

"Take your time," Fred advised her. "We're all listening!"

"When I told you in Nairobi that Lord Montdidier had been murdered, I believed I was so near the truth that you would never know the difference. I knew the order had been given to have him killed on board ship—given by men who are accustomed to be obeyed—who do not excuse failure on any ground. They feared he might be going to divulge the secret of the ivory to his government in London. Oh, I tell you they stop at nothing! To-day London is the ivory market of the world, but they have their arrangements made for transferring that center of trade to Hamburg! They mean first to crush competitors, and then monopolize! They hope the ivory is in this country. In that case their task will be easy. But if it should be found in British East, they are all ready with the necessary men of influence to apply for a mining or agricultural concession, and they will fence that place off so thoroughly that no one will ever be the wiser until they have carried the ivory out of the country!"

"They could never get it out of British East without the government knowing," objected Fred; but she laughed at him.

"If worse came to the worst, they are ready with an offer to exchange ten times the territory elsewhere for just that small section of the country. They would give up German New Guinea, or Southwest Africa—anything! They have fooled the French and Russian governments until they are ready to bring pressure to bear on England diplomatically to induce her to make almost any bargain of that kind that the Germans want. They are even willing to concede to England the whole of Abyssinia, which nobody owns yet, and to back her up against the claims of France and Italy! Why should they not be willing to make temporary concessions, when all Africa is to be theirs in ten years' time! They will give to-day, and with the help of the money that ivory will bring they will create an army that shall take away to-morrow!"

"But how can you prove all this?" Fred asked her.

"How? I know the names of the men who are preaching Germany's sermons all through British East! I know all Schillingschen's secrets! Why should I not? I have suffered enough! He is a drunken brute nearly always after the sun goes down, and his caresses are disgusting; I have endured them until I know all he knows! Now he realizes that I know his secrets and have none of my own to tell, so he hopes to send me to my doom at the hands of the government I have betrayed too many times! What is the use of my pretending to be better than I am? I am a spy—a traitress—a divorced woman with worse than no reputation! I am not a person likely to be shown much mercy! I never would have recanted unless the end of my rope had come! Now I know I must buy my pardon—I must earn it—I must pay for it with solid value! Luckily I can do that! I do not ask you men for mercy. I know what is in store for you if you do not escape! I offer to help you to escape, in exchange for helping me!"

"Better be more precise!" suggested Fred. "Exactly what is in store for us?"

She pointed her finger at me. "You went out of bounds to-day with Schillingschen! Well and good; he was with you. But you, and you—" She pointed at Fred and Will. "—went without permission. Why do you suppose they over-looked such a splendid chance of jailing you legally? Schillingschen came up to the commandant's house in a towering passion, demanding the immediate arrest and close confinement of all three of you. He was only persuaded to wait a few days longer because a runner has come in with word that the bodies of several Masai whom you shot on this side of the German border have been found! The bones—the bullets found among the bones—and cartridge cases that will fit your rifles are being brought to Muanza! After that—the deluge, my friends! That is why Professor Schillingschen gets drunk and sings himself to sleep in spite of your being still at liberty! Either escape before that evidence reaches Muanza, or make up your minds for the worst! It is growing late—answer me—do you agree?"

Fred glanced once at each of us. We both nodded.

"We agree with reservations," he said.

"What are they? Man—don't be a fool! Don't fritter the lives of all of us away!"

"They're simple. We've a friend in the jail here. His name's Brown."

"That drunkard? Leave him! He's worthless!"

"We've a servant on the chain-gang. His name is Kazimoto."

"A nigger? You'd risk another day in this place for a nigger? How absurd! They're never grateful. They don't see things from the white man's standpoint. They don't expect ideal treatment. Leave him his wages and tell him to follow when they let him off the chain!"

"And we have a string of porters," Fred continued. "We will not leave
Muanza without the porters, our man Kazimoto, and Mr. Brown of Lumbwa!"

"You are mad! You are crazy!"

"We are the men you have invited to trust you," Fred answered kindly. "Those are our conditions. We will not 'bate one iota! Take 'em or leave 'em, Lady Waldon!"

CHAPTER TEN IN HOC SIGNO VADE

  Lean, loveless, hungry lanes are these!
        The longest has an end.
  Ill luck tasted to the bitter lees
        Soonest shall mend.
  From out the foe's ranks if Heaven please
        Shall come your friend.

We came to no fixed decision that night, although we knew there was no alternative. She held out, in the vain hope of making us agree to leave Kazimoto and Brown behind. The porters, she agreed, might come in very handy, although it was at least doubtful that we should be able to slip out of Muanza by land. The Germans had taken latterly to counting our porters every morning, to supplying them with ration money once every day, and to sending the bill to us by an askari, who waited for the cash. At any rate, she conceded the porters, provided we would leave the two others behind. And of course we were adamant.

She left us an hour and a half before dawn, we letting her return alone because of the greater danger of detection if we had tried to escort her. It was after she had gone, while we sat listening for the sound of a challenge that would have ruined all her hopes, if not ours, that Will conceived the bright idea which finally saved us.

"The Heinies don't know that we're wise to their game," he said cheerfully. His ears were sticking out from his head and he had the naughty boy look that always presaged wisdom. "Why don't we play that card for all it's worth?"

"We need five cards to make even a poker hand," Fred objected.

"Will a full house suit you—aces and queens?" he answered. "I've named you one ace already. Ace number two is the fact that these German officials are brutes pure and simple—brutes who don't understand how to be anything else, with brutal low cunning and no other cleverness."

"That sounds like the joker!" said Fred.

"It's ace number two, I tell you! The third is the fact that Brown of Lumbwa can talk with Kazimoto in the night through that corrugated iron partition! Three aces—count 'em—one, two, three! Queens? One of 'em