The Blind Lion of the Congo Part 6

"Three o'clock, John. Here's a hundred pounds." Mr. Wallace peeled off five twenty-pound bank notes and handed them to the negro; "that ought to buy your outfit, eh?"

"By hall means, sar! Thank you. Hi'll 'ave most helegant bra.s.s pots, sar!"

"Good gracious!" exclaimed Burt as the cook withdrew. "You hand out bank notes as if you're made o' money! S'pose the c.o.o.n'll ever show up with all that wad on him?"

"Show up?" repeated Mr. Wallace. "Why, I'd turn over my bill book to him and never count it when he gave it back! He's a blamed sight more honest than most white men you'll meet down there. And nerve! He carried me five miles on his back once, in northern China, stopping occasionally to fight off a bunch of bandits. That's the kind of man John is."

"Funny accent he's got," said Critch. "I thought all c.o.o.ns talked like they do down south."

"You'll get over that pretty quick!" laughed the explorer heartily.

"John can use West Coast, c.o.c.kney, Spanish and half a dozen other accents accordin' to whom he's been mixing up with latest. When we strike the Congo he'll probably fall into French. Well, let's trot along to Piccadilly and get measured. It's gettin' on toward noon."

CHAPTER V

THE CONGO

The boys were now due to receive another surprise. When their taxi drew up they jumped out, fully expecting to see a wonderful store like those of New York. Instead they found themselves before a dingy little shop whose aspect gave them distinct disappointment.

"No," laughed Mr. Wallace as he dismissed the taxi, "it's all right!

Doesn't look up to much but it sends out good stuff."

This was the gunshop and they found it very different inside. Mr.

Wallace had no time to waste in having special guns made, so the clerks measured the boys' shoulders and arms and that was all there was to it, for the guns would be slightly altered and sent on board.

Now the party went to the Boma Trading Company's store. Here they found that the chop-boxes had all gone on board their s.h.i.+p. Mr. Wallace ordered three Borroughs and Wellcome medicine cases, specially made up for the West Coast. He also procured two hypodermic syringes and a small quant.i.ty of Pasteur serums.

"We'll probably never need them," he explained, as they left the store, "but in case our men strike a snake a quick hypodermic is the only thing to save them. Then we have poisoned arrows to consider also. If we happened to get into the pigmy country--which I hope we won't--it'll take a powerful anti-tetanic serum to kill their poisons."

After a lunch they returned to the Boma Company. The lists which Mr.

Wallace had given the clerks had been filled and now each of them was measured for the clothes and personal equipment. This consumed an hour, after which they took another taxi and went to a camera supply house.

The boys went into extravagant delight over the small and compact moving-picture outfit. Burt promptly took charge of this, or rather promised to take charge, for when the whole outfit had been sealed up it would be sent down to the steamer like the other supplies.

"Tell you what," he cried, "we'll get some great little old pictures!

You let an elephant chase you, Uncle George, while I get a good view and Critch shoots him!"

"Don't want much, do you?" laughed his uncle. "Nothing like that for mine. I'd sooner have an elephant after me, at that, than a big buffalo.

That's the most dangerous animal we'll find in Africa."

"How 'bout rhinoceros?" challenged Critch.

"All poppyc.o.c.k," snorted the explorer. "A rhino can't see ten feet away.

He goes by smell. He'll usually run away unless he's wounded. But a buffalo doesn't wait to be wounded. You rouse him up out of a comfortable feeding place and he'll go for you. Takes more than one bullet to kill him unless you're lucky."

The boys now stocked up with fresh linen for the voyage while Mr.

Wallace looked up his own guns, which he usually stored in London. They stopped at the Carleton over Sunday and Monday. As Burt's father had sales offices in London they secured a large touring car without cost and spent the two days riding about the historic city. There were various minor details of their outfits to be attended to on Monday and on Tuesday noon they went aboard the _Benguela_, when she arrived from Liverpool.

She proved to be a large cargo and pa.s.senger boat and was very comfortably fitted up. They had seen nothing of John Quincy Adams Was.h.i.+ngton but Mr. Wallace smilingly a.s.sured them that he would show up in time. Sure enough, when they went up the gangplank the big negro was waiting with his all-embracing grin.

"Good mornin', sar, good mornin'!" he cried, taking charge of their hand baggage and a.s.suming a lordly att.i.tude over the stewards. "Very hauspicious day, sar! John t'ink we 'ave very fine trip, sar!"

And a fine trip they had. There were a dozen other pa.s.sengers on board.

Most of these were clerks or traders going out to positions at Sierra Leone or the Gold Coast, with one or two Frenchmen and officials of the Congo State. When they crossed the Equator there were the usual ceremonies and horseplay among the sailors, and the boys thoroughly enjoyed themselves. By the time they left the Gold Coast behind and headed for Banana Point Burt felt better than he had ever been in his life and his uncle a.s.sured him that he need not worry about the fever.

Finally the long reddish cliffs and gra.s.sy up-lands of the Congo coast drew into sight late on the fifteenth afternoon. The _Benguela_ took a black pilot aboard and proceeded straight up to the port of Banana. Mr.

Wallace and the boys at once disembarked and interviewed the customs officials and took a launch up to the capital, Boma. The steamer would follow them after discharging some cargo.

The next morning Mr. Wallace put on his ribbon of Commander of the Legion of Honor. The boys were amazed at the respect which this gained for all of them when they sought an audience with the governor general.

After explaining to him the object of their trip and the length of time they would be gone, Mr. Wallace arranged to have all the necessary papers made out and to charter one of the State steamers to take their outfit up the river.

"I can give you only a small one," said the governor general.

"Unfortunately, there are few at my disposal just now. Stay! You might arrange with Captain Montenay. He chartered _La Belgique_ two days since for a similar trip, but surely he'll have plenty of room to spare."

"Montenay?" repeated Mr. Wallace. "Isn't he the Scotch explorer?"

"Yes!" smiled the governor. "Come to think of it I believe he is at the palace now." Clapping his hands, he dispatched a gendarme. "If you can arrange matters with him I will see that your baggage is pa.s.sed directly to _La Belgique_ through the customs. You have no liquor, I presume?"

"Half a dozen pint flasks of brandy," replied the explorer and the governor nodded. It is one of the strictest laws of the Congo that no liquors shall be brought into the country, save in small personal amounts. A moment later the gendarme returned with a small, khaki-clad man. He was very sallow of complexion, had dark hair and eyes, and carried his left arm awkwardly. When the governor introduced him to the three Americans his thin face lit up with a quick smile and he gripped Mr. Wallace's hand impulsively.

"So you're Wallace!" he cried, looking deep into the other's eyes. "Man, I've been wantin' to meet ye for ten years! I ran across your trail in China and got within fifty miles o' ye when the Cape to Cairo was surveyin'. Man, I'm pleased to meet ye!"

"I'm mighty glad to meet you, too," smiled Mr. Wallace. "I've heard a lot about you, Montenay!"

Mr. Wallace then introduced the boys and suggested that they have a talk in another room of the palace. Thanking the governor for his a.s.sistance and kindness they followed the gendarme to another room.

"Now, Captain," said Mr. Wallace, "we're going up the Aruwimi after ivory. We can't get a large boat here and the Governor suggested that you could take us up on the _Belgique_."

"O' course I can!" exclaimed the small but famous Scotchman. "An' that's precisely where I'm bound for too. How'd ye guess it?"

"Good!" cried Mr. Wallace. "When do you start up?"

"I was meanin' to go in the mornin'," answered the other, rubbing his stubbly chin reflectively. "We'll get your stuff out o' the _Benguela_ to-morrow or ma name ain't McAllister Montenay!"

"We'll split expenses on the _Belgique_, of course," declared the American. "It's mighty good of--"

"None o' that now, none o' that," interrupted Captain Montenay hastily.

"Why, man, I'd give a hundred pound for the benefeet o' your company up the stream! Ivory, you say?"

"Partly." Mr. Wallace answered the keen questioning look with a nod.

"I'm going up past the Avatiko country to the Makua and down the river under the French flag. I've chartered a tramp to be waiting at Loanga by November. Get the idea?"

"Aye!" Montenay threw back his head in a noiseless laugh. "Man, ye're no fool! I brought down ten tusks two year gone. When I got down to Stanley Pool the Afrique Concessions jumped me an' laid claim to the lot. The rank thieves! They had witnesses to swear that I got the ivory in their land an' before I knew where I was they fined me twenty pound--_an'_ the ivory! By cripes, they won't monkey twice with McAllister Montenay though! Well, let's be movin'. It'll be vera tiresome gettin' these blacks to work."

As they pa.s.sed a water cooler on their way out the captain paused. The boys saw him take a bottle from his pocket and pour out a palmful of white powder into a cigarette paper. This he rolled up and threw into his mouth, tossing a gla.s.s of water after it.