The Ivory Trail

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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 m

ion if we had tried to escort her. It was after she had gone, while we sat listening for the sound of a challen

His ears were sticking out from his head and he had the naughty boy look t

to make even a poker

Ace number two is the fact that these German officials are brutes pure and simple-brutes who

like the joke

unt 'em-one, two, three! Queens? One of 'em left a few minutes ago! The other's the dhow! We'll call that blessed boat the Queen of Sheba for luck! The Queen of Sheba

first, though! There's an awful

gh a strenuous day and had right to be tired out. It was broad daylight when I awoke, and breakfast was ready. Fred and Will had returned from their march around the

d the commandant. "Either tal

on his stock of pat

et 'em help keep the township clean. We'll pay their board and wages as long as you're responsible for their not escaping! And say! If you want to get real work out of 'em I'll give you a tip. There never was a savage like that Kazimoto of ours for getting r

hat your porters be made pris

e exactly!

terhooks, and I began to believe the German had simply become more suspicious than ever and would keep closer watch on us without troubling at all about the men. But at the end of an hour we

ns when the roofs of

was headed for jail, where it was locked behind doors, in order that every askari in Muanza might be free to pile arms and hurry to the fire. It was not only askaris; the whole township turned out as to the circus, with Schubert and his long kiboko rulin

handsful of the thatch on which he stood and tore them out, to the huge discontent of the owner. The crowd saw what he wanted and began at once tearing off roofs in a wide circle around the fire so

pulling. Whoever had an enemy ran and tore his roof off, and there were several instances of reci

e fire lasted, and when it was put out it took another hour to stop

it?" asked Will. "D'ye

ting the town on fire; any coward could have yelped about the danger of it, and improbability of success. It needed adventurers

we've got!" agreed Fre

ric

pull it off!" sa

e we built on. Luckily Professor Schillingschen continued drunk, which meant that he would sleep early and give Lady Waldon another chance to pay us a nocturnal visit. One of our boys t

trial would come the hanging (it would have been impossible to convince any one, German or native, that the verdict and sentence were not foregone conclusions). The st

st it at first-and it was impossible far-fetched-ridiculous. She insisted again on our simply

of the party whose plan we have adopted. On this occasion we have agreed to Mr. Yerkes' plan, and you've got to obey him implicitly if you want to ha

r at last to subject her views to those of men whose pu

er would brag. The Germans would be 'on' in a minute. We've simply got to steal it. It's up to you to find out

ay for it afterward. The owner will think you are crazy, and if the Germans ever d

But we'll need scant rations for ourselves and all our men until we reach some place where more are to

ut that avoided all sentries and habitations. We agreed that all three of us should climb to the top of the hill, which was not out of bounds-and study the

gh the corrugated iron partition in the jail at night, and have them all ready to break loose at the signal and bring him along with them.

be the signa

he next question is, who is to start the fire? We'll need a good one! Yet if we

ed suddenly. "Coutlass

, "but none of us would trust those Greek

f being seen by you. I will tell them that the Germans want a good excuse for putting you three men in jail and that they will be sent away free as a reward if they will s

l advised. "They might otherwi

f the start, and I will spread red, white and blue laundry

s away and locked them up. At a pinch I suppose we could manage with one rifle, provided we had lots of a

ood leaning in a corner of the living-room beside a book-case. Whether she could make away with one or both of those wi

es?" she asked. "The sentry on duty watching the Greeks

shall have about enough on our consciences setting fire t

he town on fire! The

d. "Can you tell us for certain, Lady Waldon, whether all the askaris and Ger

ked in, if the fire is serious, and in case of fire by night, they all go except two, who stand on the eastern boma wall, one at each corner. From there they are supposed to be able to see on e

too busy staring at the fire, if the Greeks really make a big one, to s

I get that rifle I would dare

rantee to put you ashore on the first barren isla

he stars look like tiny pin-pricks and there are no shadows because all is dark. To go out and look what he was doing would have been to arouse his suspicion. Yet there wa

took the bait, hook, sinker, and all; in the silence at the end of the first song we heard his butt ground on the gravel just beyond the cactus hedge in front of us; and t

looked at those Greeks

uble if they slipped

our minds the way round the back of the hill to the dhow was perfectly simple; we went and smoked on the hilltop, an

t task. Added to the fact that the askaris who marched behind and the Greek

hot in the dark

run for your money, or fed to the crocks in the doctor's p

ut of jail at the end of

nd the same charge of filibustering! They'll not let you go back to British

of him, by appeals to his racial instinct and recalling the methods of the military court, induced him to do his part. Once having promised

eak to him as the long string rested al noon under the narrow shade of a cactus hedge, and warned him in about fifty words of what

of the plan from Mr. Brown, and then drill the porters one by one! D

is implicitly, and to work harder in return for the good food and care they were getti

how the most we took at one time was about a hundred pounds' weight. In the condition I was in I could take not more than one trip to the others' two; after the first it was agreed that I would better stay behind and keep an eye on the askari. The minute he showed symptoms of becoming inquisitive I was to invent some way of keeping his attention; so all unsuspected by him I lay in the sand by the roadside with

n, and every inch had to be economized. In addition to that the dhow had to be worked backward off the mud far enough to be shoved off easily, and then made fast by a rope to the bushes in such way as not to be noticeable. Most of the ropes turned out to be rather rotten,

a-soup-not that the porters would take to it kindly, but it would go a long way among them at a pinch. Live stock we did not

ked with clothes for us all. Kettles and pots and pans were a noisy nuisance, yet we had to have them, and blankets for all those porters,

heir intention to do their worst. They gloated over us-eyed us with lofty disdain and scornful superior knowledge. They were so full of the notion of havin

t's roof a blue cotton dress, a white petticoat, and a blazing red piece of silken stuff. There and then the Greeks and the Goanese pledged one another out in the open with copious draughts in turn from the neck of one whis

ving murdered an askari near their village-a big bully sent to arrest a man, who had taken leave to help himself to more than rations, and had made a lot too free with the village wome

d policing the swarms of villagers brought in from as far as sixty miles away to witness German justice. Even the customary parade of the band was canceled for that occasion, a

d doubts-and overlooked at least a thousand evidences that fortune favored us. Toward the end our hearts turned to water at the thought that Kazimoto would probabl

uspicion and saving the authorities the trouble of asking what we were up to. With the same end in view we

he front row, on the ground that, being proved criminals, they needed the less

of such conscienceless scalawags as these, but might not be enough to discourage the bad element that disliked German rule. Natives must be taught that the very name of all that is German must be reverenced, and that German punishment is as terrible and sure as the German arm is long! And be sure of this!" he continued. "The ear of the German gov

overnment. The fools-the "easy people"-the "folk who gave without a price"-the "truth tellers"-the "men who wish to forget"-the unwise, cocksure, cleaner-living, unbelievably credulous, foolishly honest British officials would be all gone. The

their elders in the bull-fight frenzy-that same intoxication of the se

overhanging branch-and flogged into unconsciousness with slow blows, the lieutenant standing by to reprove the askaris if they struck too fast, for that wou

ri's heart-were hauled up heel-to-heel together, and hanged presently in the same noose, the commandant lau

imself one more pleasure. He strolled over to us and blocked F

would not believe you. They are such supremely cocksure fools that they can not be made to believe that another so-called civilized nation would act as they, in their egoism, would be ashamed to act! Civilization! That is a fine word, full of false meanings! Civilization i

en hide the cartridge cases, or the bones of the Masai you shot! Bah-ha-ha-ha-hah! You can escape hanging

h of an ox and about the alertness of a traction engine, turning his

against us and the nature of the evidence. But we did not find it difficult. We were all three startled by th

ds, supposed to be watching the Greeks, turned his back to the wind, and what with rubbing sand in and out of smarting eyes and fingering it out of his ears, heard and saw nothing. It was scarcely suns

there began to be a red glow in three directions. Less than one second after we saw the first indications of the holocaust a regular volley of shots broke out from the boma as the sentries on duty gave the general alarm. Less

tch them out with the first weapons handy. I sat feeling the weight of an ax, and wondering just how hard I could hit a Greek's head with

ks ever loosed off at a coronation, that it was folly to linger. We each seized the load left for that last trip (Fred's included the hammer, pincers, and cold

oise we made, however openly we ran. Over and above the tumult we could hear Schubert's bull-throated bellowing, and then

laze. As we crossed the shoulder of the far side of the hill we could see them standing on the dr

or secure the key to it; otherwise their only chance was to climb the wall by the cook-house roof and jump twenty feet on the far side. I was for running to the l

d of the plan to them!

en, near the boat bow, Kazimoto suddenly recognized Fred and nearly throttled him in a fierce embrace, releasing all his pent-up rage, agony, resentment

ang first! Get down below, and lie down! The first he

res left on shore then than we expected. Brown we could make out dimly in the dark: he was chattering nervously, and admitted that but for Kazimoto he would

by a nigger

load from her, and helped her overside. Fred took the rifle and succumbed to the hunter's habit of opening the breach first thing. It was a German sporting Mauser, with a hair trigger attachment and magazine, as handy a

eave us! By hell, no! We go or you stay! Birds of a feather fly together! One of you is America

ed the rif

back to town with

!" Coutlass yelled. "

I'll spoil the whole

-e-e

rison. It was true, the unearthly yelling was carried out over the water, and very likely not a sound of it reached twenty yards inland; but it rattled our ne

e was captain for the day,

u!" he orde

ds, but he came up again and insisted on leaning his weight on the poles with which we began shoving off into deeper water. It was hard work, for with her human cargo and several hundred gallons of water that had leaked through

, just about to lay the pole along the deck and haul on the halyards. She spok

trying to pole the dhow b

there!" Fred shouted, hardly mak

n. "Give me that rifle, and I'

head in deep water, taking our hempen warp with him (I had made one e

ightened, and then by the strain on it I knew that Coutlass was trying to haul us back inshore. Failing to do that, for the strength of the wind was increasing, he seized the Syrian woman by the waist and plunged into the water with her. I saw them disappear and hauled on t

had fainted, either from fright or from being half-drowned, there was no guessing which. The

sail up single-handed, had no compass, knew nothing whatever of the rocks and shoals, except by rumor that there were plenty of both. There app

t the blaze stood out the lakeward boma wall. I stood due east away from it, and discovered presently th

North Sea only know. The big curved spar, now that it was hanging low, bucked and swung and the dhow steered like an omnibus on slippery pavement. Luckily, I had living ballast and could trim the sh

orters' necks through which the chain passed. The job took him two hours, but at the end of it we owned a

be aware of the existence of either of them. The other Greek and the Goanese had been driven below, where they started to smoke until I saw the glow of their pipes and shouted to Will to stop that foolishness. He snatched both pipes and threw them overboard

s a trough running thwartwise of the ship into which the water had to be lifted from the midship well. It took the gang of eight men, wor

ndred yards. That would have been the obvious course to take had we not been afraid of pursuit, had we dared get away by daylight, and provided I had known the way. As it was I intended to add another h

would search the narrow passage first. They would expect us to take the narrow passage, as the shortest, and depend

at any minute, it was not long before I began to pray for the lee of Ukerewe, and to stand in closer toward whe

ll afford to take the outside course to start with. Then they could take a good look for us in the open water next morni

ut at her maid and sweeping the dark waste of water with eyes

at light?"

I saw a red glow on the water to o

o sooner said it than I knew the answer was foolish. It was

ove of God make every one keep silence! Show no lights! Don't speak above a whi

to come up into the wind because nobody but I knew how the spar would have to be passed a

ered. "I'm going to hold this course