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

we spoke of when we talked before.'"

We each cross-examined him in turn, but could not make him change his story in any essential. He merely exaggerated the parts that he guessed might please us, and begged to be allowed to run before Schillingschen could break loose and get after him.

By noontime, when we gave him his second meal, Schillingschen had made up his own mind that his case was desperate and called for heroic remedy.

"All right," he growled. "I need that diary. Hand it to me and I'll tell you how to find what you're after!"

"You mean about the man who's to meet you?" suggested Fred blandly.

Schillingschen started as if shot.

"One of your men is an eavesdropper," Fred assured him with a cheerful nod. "That plug has been pulled already, Professor!"

"Let's play the cards face up!" Will interrupted impatiently. "Listen, Schillingschen. You're an all-in scoundrel. You're a spy. You're a bloody murderer of women and defenseless natives. If we could prove that we wouldn't argue with you. We know you burned that dhow with the women in it, but we've got no evidence, that's all. We know the German government wants that ivory, and we know why. We also want it. Our only reason for secrecy is that we hope for better terms from the British government. We've nothing to fear, except possible financial loss. If you prefer to come with us to Kisumu and have the whole matter out in court, all you need do is just say so. On the other hand, if you want to get out of this country before your diary can reach the hands of the British High Commissioner—you'd just better slide, that's all!"

"You've only until dawn to think it over," remarked Fred. "You poor boob!" continued Will. "You imagine we're criminals because you're one yourself! The difference between your offer and ours is that you're bluffing and we know it, whereas we're not bluffing by as much as a hair, and the quicker you see that the better for you!"

"Oh, rats! Let's take him in with us to Kisumu!" said I, and at that
Professor Schillingschen capitulated.

"Very well," he said. "Kurtz und gut. I will leave the country. Permit me to take only food enough, and my porters, and one gun!"

"No guns!" said Fred promptly.

Schillingschen sighed resignedly, and we went out of the tent to talk over ways and means. In spite of our recent experience of Germany's colonial government we were still so ignorant of the workings of the mens germanica that we took his surrender at face value.

The problem of getting him down to the lake shore safely was none too simple. I was soft hearted and headed enough to propose that we should loose his hands, now that he had surrendered, and permit him reasonable liberty. Will—least inclined of all of us to cruelty—was disposed to agree with me. We might have overborne Fred's objections if Coutlass and Brown, returning from walking off their overnight debauch together, had not shouted and beckoned us in a mysterious sort of way, as if some new discovery puzzled them.

We walked about a hundred and fifty yards to where they stood by a row of low ant-hills. Neither of them was in a sociable frame of mind. It was obvious from the moment we could see their faces clearly that they had not called us to enjoy a joke. They stood like two dumb bird-dogs, pointing, and we had to come about abreast of them before we knew why we were summoned.

There lay five clean-picked skeletons, one on each ant-hill. One was a big bird's; one looked like a dog's; the third was a snake's; the fourth a young antelope's; and the fifth was certainly that of a yellow village cur, for some of the hairs from the tip of its tail were remaining, not yet borne off by the ants.

The skeletons lay as if the creatures had died writhing. There were pegs driven into the earth that had evidently held them in position by the sinews. Most peculiar circumstance of all, there was a camp-chair standing very near by, with its feet deep in the red earth, as if a very heavy man had sat in it.

I went back to the camp and told Kazimoto to bring one of the professor's men. Kazimoto had to do the talking, for we did not know the man's language, nor he ours.

Yes, the professor always did that to animals. He liked to sit and watch them and keep the kites away. He said it was white man's knowledge (science?). Yes, the animals were pegged out alive on the ant-hills, and the professor would sit with his watch in his hand, counting the minutes until they ceased from writhing. It was part of the duty of the ten to catch animals and bring them alive to him in camp for that purpose. No, they did not know why he did it, except that it was white man's knowledge. No, natives did not do that way, except now and then to their enemies. The professor always made threats he would do so to them if they ran away from him, or disobeyed, or misbehaved. Certainly they believed him! Why should they not believe him? Did not Germans always keep their word when they talked of punishment?

We decided after that to let Schillingschen lie bound, whether or not the iron wire cut his wrists. We did not trouble to go back to inquire whether he needed drink, but let him wait for that until supper-time. The remainder of that afternoon we spent discussing who should have the disagreeable and not too easy task of taking the professor to the lake and sending him on his way. We sat with our backs against a rock, with the firearms beside us and a good view of all the countryside, very much puzzled as to whether to leave Coutlass behind in camp (with Brown and the whisky) or send him (with or without Brown) and one or two of us on the errand. He was a dangerous ally in either case.

Evening fell, and the good smell of supper came along the wind to find us still undecided. We returned to the tent thinking that perhaps something Schillingschen himself might say would help us to decide one way or the other.

"Better see if the brute wants a drink," said Fred, and I went in ahead to offer him water.

He was gone! Clean gone, without a trace, or a hint as to how he managed it! I called the others, and we hunted. The sides of the tent were pegged down tight all around. The front, it is true, was wide open, but we had sat in full view of it and not so much as a rat could have crept out without our seeing. There were no signs of burrowing. He was not under the bed, or behind the boxes, or between the sides of the tent and the fly. The only cover for more than a hundred yards was the shallow depression along which we had come to the capture of the camp, and that was the way he must have taken. But that, too, had been practically in full view of us all the time.

We counted heads and called the roll. Coutlass was close by. It did not look as if he had played traitor this time. Brown was sleeping off his headache in the shade. Kazimoto and all the boys were accounted for. The prisoners were safe. No donkeys were missing—no firearms—and no loads. The earth had simply opened up and swallowed Schillingschen, and that was all about it!

He had not made off with his pocket diary. Fred had that. There and then we packed it in an empty biscuit tin and buried it under a rock, Will and I keeping watch while Fred did the digging and covering up. It was too likely that Schillingschen would come back in the night and try to steal it for any of us to care about keeping it on his person.

It was too late to look far and wide for him that evening. A hunter such as he could have lain unseen in the dark with us almost stepping on him. Gone was all appetite for supper! We nibbled, and swore, and smoked—locked up the whisky—defied either Brown or Coutlass to try to break the boxes open—and arranged to take turns on sentry-go all that night, Will, Fred, and I—declining very pointedly offers by the other two to have their part in keeping watch. In spite of lack of evidence we suspected Coutlass; and we knew no particular reason for having confidence in Brown.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN THE SONG OF THE DARK-LORDS

  Turn in! Turn in! The jungle lords come forth
        Cat-footed, blazing-eyed—the owners of the dark,
  What though ye steal the day! We know the worth
        Of vain tubes spitting at a phantom mark
  With only human eyes to guide the fire!
        Tremble, ye hairless ones, who only see by day,
  The night is ours! Who challenges our ire?
        Urrumph! Urrarrgh! Turn in there! Way!

  Ye come with iron lines and dare to camp
        Where we were lords when Daniel stood a test!
  Where once the tired safaris used to tramp
        On noisy wheels ye loll along at rest!
  Tremble, ye long-range lovers of the day,
        'Twas we who shook the circus walls of ancient Rome!
  The dark is ours! Take cover! Way there! Way!
        Urmmph! Urrarrgh! Take cover! Home!

The man who tries to explain away coincidences to men who were the victims of them is likely to need more sympathy than he will get. The dictionary defines them clumsily as instances of coinciding, apparently accidental, but which suggest a casual connection.

Lions paid us a visit that first night after Schillingschen's escape—the first lions we had seen or heard since landing on the north shore of the lake. We prayed they might get Schillingschen, yet they and he persisted until morning—they roaring and circling never near enough for the man on guard to get a shot—he also circling the camp, calling to his ten men, whom we had transferred from the native village to the second tent under guard of Kazimoto and our own men as a precaution.

Our boys slept as if drugged, but not his. He called to them in a language that even Kazimoto did not understand, and they kept answering at intervals. Once, when I was listening to locate Schillingschen if I could, the lions came sniffing and snuffing to the back side of the tent. I tried to stalk them—a rash, reprehensible, tenderfoot trick. Luck was with me; they slunk away in the shadows, and I lived to summon Fred and Will. We tried to save the donkeys, but the lions took three of them at their leisure, and scared the rest so that they broke out of the thorn-bush boma we had made the boys build (as a precaution against leopards, not lions). Next morning out of forty we recovered twenty-five, and wondered how many of them Schillingschen got.

Remembering how we ourselves had managed, without ammunition or supplies, we did not fool ourselves with the belief that Schillingschen, with his brutal personal magnetism and profound knowledge of natives, would not do better. The probability was he would stir up the countryside against us.

He had been doing missionary work; it might be the natives of that part were already sufficiently schooled to do murder at his bidding.

We decided to leave at once for a district where he had not yet done any of his infernal preaching.

"You should set a trap and shoot the swine!" Coutlass insisted. Will was inclined to agree with him, but Fred and I demurred. The British writ had never really run as far as the slopes of Elgon, and we could see them ahead of us not very many marches away. If Schillingschen intended to dog us and watch chances we preferred to have him do that in a remote wilderness, where our prospect of influencing natives would likely be as good as his,