The Ivory Trail Part 18

We made room for his belongings, and leaned from the window all on one seat together. The time to start arrived and pa.s.sed; hot pa.s.sengers continued spurting for the train at intervals--all sorts of pa.s.sengers--English, Mauritius--French, Arab, Goanese, German, Swahili, Indian, Biluchi, one j.a.panese, two Chinamen, half-breeds, quarter-breeds of all the hues from ivory to dull red, guinea-yellow, and bleached out black; but the second-cla.s.s compartment facing our door remained empty. There was a name on the card in the little metal reservation frame, and every pa.s.senger who could read English glanced at it, but n.o.body came to claim it even when the engine's extra shrill screaming and at last the ringing of a bell warned Courtney that time was really up, and he got out on the platform.

"Good-by," he said through the window. "I've done what I could to bring you luck. Don't be tempted to engage the first servants who apply to you at Nairobi. If you wait there a week I'll send my Kazimoto to you; he's a very good gun-bearer. He'll be out of a job when I'm gone. I shall give him his fare to Nairobi. Engage him if you want a dependable boy, but remember the rule about dogs: a good one has one master! I don't mean Kazimoto is a dog--far from it. I mean, treat him as reasonably as you would a dog, and he'll serve you well. He's a first-cla.s.s Nyamwezi, from German East. Oh, and one more sc.r.a.p of advice--":

He came close to the window, but at that moment the engine gave a final scream and really started. Pa.s.sengers yelled farewells. The engine's apoplectic coughs divided the din into spasms, and there came a great bellowing from the ticket office. He could not speak softly and be heard at all. Louder he had to speak, and then louder, ending almost with a shout.

"The best way to Elgon is by way of Kisumu and Mumias, whatever anybody else may tell you. And if you find the stuff, or any of it," (he was running beside the train now)--"be in no hurry to advertise the fact!

Go and make terms first with government--then--after you've made terms--tell 'em you've found it! Find the stuff--make terms--then produce what you've found! Get my meaning? Good-by, all. Good luck!"

We left him behind then, wiping the sweat from his wrinkled, freckled forehead, gazing after us as if we had all been lifelong friends of his. He made no distinction between us and Fred, but was equally anxious to serve us all.

"If that man isn't white, who is?" demanded Will, and then there was new interest.

We had left the ticket office far behind, but the train was moving slowly and there was still a good length of platform before our car would be clear of the station altogether. We heard a roar like a bull's from behind, and a dozen men--white, black and yellow--came careering down the platform carrying guns, baggage, bedding, and all the paraphernalia that travelers in Africa affect.

First in the van was Georges Coutla.s.s, showing a fine turn of speed but tripping on a bed-sheet at every other step, with his uncased rifle in one hand, his hat in the other, an empty bandolier over one shoulder and a bag slung by a strap swinging out behind him. He made a leap for the second-cla.s.s compartment in front of us, and landed on all fours on the platform. We opened the door of our compartment to watch him better.

Once on the platform he threw his rifle into the compartment and braced himself to catch the things his stampeding followers hurled after him--caught them deftly and tossed them in, yelling instructions in Greek, Kiswahili, Arabic, English, and two or three other languages.

It may be that the engineer looked back and saw what was happening (or perhaps the guard signaled with the cord that pa.s.sed through eyeholes the whole length of the train) for though we did not slow down we gained no speed until all his belongings had been hurled, and caught, and flung inside. Then came his traveling companions--caught by one hand and dragged on their knees up the steps. They were heavy men, but he s.n.a.t.c.hed all three in like a boy pulling chestnuts from the fire.

The first was a Greek--evil-looking, and without the spirit that in the case of Coutla.s.s made a stranger p.r.o.ne to over-look shortcomings--dressed in khaki, with rifle and empty bandolier. Next, chin, elbow, hand and knee up the steps came a fat, tough-looking Goanese, dressed anyhow at all in pink-colored dirty s.h.i.+rt, dark pants, and a helmet, also with rifle and empty bandolier. I judged he weighed about two hundred and eighty pounds, but Coutla.s.s yanked him in like a fish coming overside. Last came a man who might be Arab, or part-Arab, part-Swahili, whom I did not recognize at first, fat, black, dressed in the white cotton garments and red fez of the more or less well-to-do native, and voluble with rare profanity.

"Johnson!" shouted Fred with almost the joy of greeting an old acquaintance.

It was Ha.s.san, sure enough, short-winded and afraid, but more afraid of being left behind than of the manhandling. Coutla.s.s took hold of his outstretched arm, hoisted him, cracked his s.h.i.+ns for him against the top step, and hurled him rump-over-shoulders into the compartment, where the other Greek and the Goanese grabbed him by the arms and legs and hove him to an upper berth, on which he lay gasping like a fish out of water and moaning miserably. Their compartment was a mess of luggage, blankets, odds-and-ends, and angry men. Coutla.s.s found a whisky bottle out of the confusion, and swallowed the stuff neat while the other Greek and the Goanese waited their turn greedily. There was nothing much in that compartment to make a man like Ha.s.san feel at home.

"Those Greeks," said our red-bearded traveling companion as we shut the door again, "are only one degree better than Indians--a shade less depraved perhaps--a sight more dangerous. I sure do hate a Punjabi, but I don't love Greeks! The natives call 'em bwana masikini to their faces--that means Mister Mean White y'know. They're a lawless lot, the Greeks you'll run across in these parts. My advice is, shoot first!

Walk behind 'em! If they ain't armed, hoof 'em till they cut an' run!

Greeks are no good!"

We introduced ourselves. He told us his name was Brown.

"There's three Browns in this country: h.e.l.l-fire Brown of Elementaita, Joseph Henry Brown of Gilgil, and Brown of Lumbwa. Brown of Lumbwa's me. Don't believe a word either of the other two Browns tell you!

Yes, we're all settlers. Country good to settle in? Depends what you call good. If you like lots of room, an' hunting, natives to wait an'

your own house on your own square mile--comfortable climate--no conventions--nor no ten commandments, why, it's pretty hard to beat.

But if you want to wear a white s.h.i.+rt, and be moral, and get rich, it's rotten! You've a chance to make money if you're not over law-abiding, for there's elephants. But if you're moral, and obey the laws, you haven't but one chance, an' she's a slim one."

"Well," said Fred, genially, "tell us about the only one. We're men to whom the ten commandments are--"

"You look it!" Brown interrupted. "Well, what's the odds? You'll never find it, and anyhow, everybody knows it's Tippoo Tib's ivory. I mean to have a crack at spotting it myself, soon as I get my farm fenced an' one or two other matters attended to. Gov'ment offers ten per cent. to whoever leads 'em to it, but they can't believe any one's as soft as that surely! They'll be lucky if they get ten per cent. of it themselves! Man alive, but they say there's a whale of a h.o.a.rd of it! Hundreds o' tons of ivory, all waiting to be found, and fossicked out, an' took! Say--if I was some o' those Greeks for instance, tell you what I'd do: I'd off to Zanzibar, an' kidnap Tippoo Tib. The old card's still living. I'd apply a red-hot poker to his silver-side an'

the under-parts o' his tripe-casings. He'd tell me where the stuff is quicker'n winking! Supposin' I was a Greek without morals or no compunctions or nothin', that's what I'd do! I don't hold with allowin' any man to play dog in the manger with all that plunder!"

"Have you a notion where the stuff might be?" Fred wondered guilelessly.

"Ah! That 'ud be tellin'!"

We had crossed the water that divides Mombasa from the mainland.

Behind us lay the prettiest and safest harbor on all that thousand-league-long coast; before us was the narrow territory that still paid revenue and owed nominal allegiance to the Sultan of Zanzibar, although really like the rest of those parts under British rule. We were bowling along beside plantations of cocoanut, peanut, plantain and pineapple, with here and there a thicket of strange trees to show what the aboriginal jungle had once looked like. When we stopped at wayside stations the heat increased insufferably, until we entered the great red desert that divides the coast-land from the hills, and after that all seemed death and dust, and haziness, and h.e.l.l.

At first we pa.s.sed occasional baobabs, with trunks fifteen or twenty feet thick and offshoots covering a quarter of an acre. Then the trees thinned out to the spa.r.s.e and shriveled all-but-dead things that struggle for existence on the border-lines between man's land and desolation. At last we drew down the smoked panes over the window to escape the glare and sight of the depressing desolation.

The sun beat down on the iron roof. The heat beat up from the tracks.

Red dust polluted the drinking water in the little upright tank. Dust filled eyes, nostrils, hair. Dust caked and grew stiff in the sweat that streamed down us. Yet we stopped once at a station, and humans lived there and a man got off the train. A lone lean babu and his leaner, more miserable native crew came out and eyed the train like vultures waiting for a beast to die. But we did not die, and the train pa.s.sed on into illimitable dusty redness, leaving them to watch the hot rails ribbon out behind our grumbling caboose.

There began to be carousing in the second-cla.s.s compartment next ahead of us. Our own Brown of Lumbwa produced a stone crock of Irish whisky from a basket, imbibed copiously, offered us in turn the glistening neck, looked relieved at our refusal, and grew voluble.

"Hear them Greeks an' that Goa. You'd think they were gentlemen o'

breeding to hear 'em carryin' on! Truth is we've no government worth a moment's consid'ration, an' everybody knows it, Greeks included! You men lookin' for farms? Take your time! Once you get a farm, an' get your house built, an' stock bought, an' stuff planted--once you've got your capital invested so to speak, they've got you! Till then you're free! Till then they'll maybe treat you with consideration! Till then you leave the country when you like an' kiss yourselves good-by to them an' Africa. Till then they've got no hold! The courts can fine you, maybe, but can they make you pay? It's none so easy if you're half awake! But take me: Suppose I break a reggylation. What happens?

They know where to find me--how much I've got--where it is--an' if I don't pay the fine, they come an' collar my cattle an' sticks! D'you notice any Greeks applyin' for farms? Not no crowds of 'em you don't!

I don't know one single Greek who has a farm in all East Africa! Any Goas? Not a bit of it! Any Indians? Not one! So when a few extry elephants get shot, I get the blame--down at Lumbwa, where there ain't no elephants; an' the Greeks, Goas, Arabs an' Indians get fat on the swag! It's easy to keep track of a white man; the natives all know him, an' his name, an' where he lives, an' report everything he does to the nearest gov'ment officer. But Greeks an' Goas an' Indians an'

Arabs ain't white, so the natives make no mention of 'em. They do the lootin'; we settlers get the blame; an' the whole peris.h.i.+ng country's going to blazes as fast as a lump of ice melting in h.e.l.l--but not so fast as I'd like to see it go. Have some o' this whisky, won't you?"

I was scarcely listening to him, but he seemed to get drunk just "so far and no further," and Fred found him worth attention. It happened that Fred, Will and I were all thinking of the same thing. Will put a hand to his neck and stroked the little scar the Arab knife had made in Zanzibar.

"What sort of a country's this for women?" Fred demanded.

"Which women?" Brown asked in sort of mild amazement.

"White women?"

"Rotten! Leastwise, there aren't any. Yes, there's three. Two officials' wives, an' Pioneer Jane French. Heard o' her? Walked from South Africa, Jane did--hoofed it along o' French, bossed his boys, drove the cattle, shot the meat, ran the whole shootin' match, an' runs him, too, when he's sober an' she's drunk. When they're both drunk everybody ducks. She's scarcely a woman, she's sort of three-men-rolled-into-one. Give her a horsewhip ae she'll manage the unruliest crowd o' savages ever you or she set eyes on! Countin' her as one, an' the two officials wives, an' her on this train, there's four!"

Our eyes met. I awoke to sudden interest that startled our informant and made him curious in turn.

"On this train?"

"On this train. Didn't you see her? She was watching you chaps through the window slits like the Queen o' Sheba keepin' tabs on Solomon. Say, what's she doing in this country anyhow? I made a try to get a seat in her carriage, but she ordered me out like Aunt Jemima puttin' out the cat the last thing. She's got a maid in with her, but the maid ain't white--Jew--Syrian--Levantine--Dago--some such breed. She's in this compartment next behind."

Our eyes met again. Fred laughed, and Will leaned forward to whisper to me: "She heard what Courtney said to us about the way to Mount Elgon!"

"D'you know her name?" asked Brown.

"No!" we all three lied together with one voice.

"I do! I seen it on the reservation card. Lady Isobel Saffren Waldon!

Pretty high-soundin' patronymic, what? Lady Isobel Saffren Waldon!"

He repeated the name over and over, crescendo, with growing fervor.

"What's a woman with a t.i.tle doin' d'you suppose? The t.i.tle's no fake.

She's got the blood all right, all right! You ought to ha' heard her shoo me out! Lummy! A nestin' hen giving the office to a snake weren't in it to her an' me! Good looker, too! What's she doin' in East Africa?"

We made no s.h.i.+ft to answer.

"The officials' wives," he went on, "are keen after Tippoo's ivory, but, bein' obliged to stay in the station except when their husbands go on safari, an' then only go where their husbands go, they've no show to speak of. Pioneer Jane's nuts on it, an' she's dangerous. Jane's as likely to find the stuff as any one. She's independent--go where she blooming well pleases--game as a lioness--looks like one, too, only a lioness is kind o' softer an' not so quick in the uptake. My money's on Jane for a place. But d'you suppose this Lady Saffren Whatshername's another one? Them Greeks ahead of us I'm sure of; all the Greeks in Africa are huntin' for nothin' else. But what about the dame?"

"Going to join her husband, perhaps," suggested Fred to put him off.

"There's no man o' that name in British East or Uganda. I know 'em all--every one."

"Father--brother--uncle--nephew--oh, perhaps she's just traveling,"

said Fred.