The Ivory Trail Part 53

"Don't let's argue ethics!" Fred interrupted, for Will's ears were getting red. "Can you tell us for certain, Lady Waldon, whether all the askaris and German sergeants really run to a fire? Or do a certain number remain in the boma?"

"Oh, I know about that," she answered. "Until the prisoners are all locked in--that is to say, in case of fire in the daytime--six or eight askaris remain inside the boma. The minute they are locked 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 every side except the water-front. n.o.body guards the water-front; I don't know why, unless it is that the gate on that side is kept locked almost always and the wall runs along the water's edge."

"As a matter of fact," said I, "those two sentries on the wall will be too busy staring at the fire, if the Greeks really make a big one, to see anything else unless we march by under their noses with a bra.s.s band."

"Bah!" sneered Lady Waldon. "If I get that rifle I would dare shoot them both for you myself!"

"If you overstep one detail of Will's plan, I guarantee to put you ash.o.r.e on the first barren island we come to!" said Fred. "Leave shooting to us!"

The next problem was to draw away from the Greeks the attention of the askari at the cross-roads. We could not see him, for it was one of those black African nights when the stars look like tiny pin-p.r.i.c.ks 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 was always a chance that he might be patrolling down near the Greek camp; doubtless acting on orders, he had a trick of approaching their tents very closely once in a while.

So when Lady Waldon had slipped out into the darkness we lit half a dozen lamps and started a concert, Fred playing and we singing the sort of tunes that black men love. He took the bait, hook, sinker, and all; in the silence at the end of the first song we heard his b.u.t.t ground on the gravel just beyond the cactus hedge in front of us; and there he stayed, we entertaining him for an hour. By that time we were quite sure that Lady Waldon had pa.s.sed along the road behind him; so Fred went out and gave him tobacco.

"It's time you went and looked at those Greeks again!" he advised him.

"You would be in trouble if they slipped away in the night!"

Now that a plan of campaign was finally decided on, there seemed much less to do than we had feared. Mapping out in our minds the way round the back of the hill to the dhow was perfectly simple; we went and smoked on the hilltop, and within an hour after breakfast had every turn and twist memorized. Fred drew a chart of the track for safety's sake.

Persuading Brown of Lumbwa proved unexpectedly to be much the most difficult task. Added to the fact that the askaris who marched behind and the Greeks who marched in front were unusually inquisitive, Brown himself was afraid.

"We'll all be shot in the dark!" he objected.

"Would you rather," Will asked, "be shot in the dark with a run for your money, or fed to the crocks in the doctor's pond?" And he told him about the crocodiles to encourage him.

"They'll have to let me out of jail at the end of the month," Brown argued.

"Don't you believe it! In less than a week from now we'll all be in on one and the same charge of filibustering! They'll not let you go back to British East to tell tales about their treatment of the rest of us,"

Will a.s.sured him.

But Brown proved tinged with a little streak of yellow somewhere. It was not until the afternoon march that Fred and Will, one on either side 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 he vowed he would see the thing through to the end; but he was the weak link; he was afraid; and he disbelieved in the wisdom of the attempt.

It was Kazimoto in the end who kept Brown up to the mark, and shamed him into action by superior courage. Fred found a chance to speak 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 was intended.

(The askaris, almost as leg-weary as the gang, were sprawling at the far end of the line, gambling at pitch-and-toss.)

"Be sure you sleep as near to the part.i.tion as you can. Get details of the plan from Mr. Brown, and then drill the porters one by one! Don't let them tell one another. You tell each one of them yourself!"

Then he walked down the line and ordered the porters in a loud voice to obey the askaris implicitly, and to work harder in return for the good food and care they were getting, winking at the same time very emphatically, with the eye the askaris could not see.

The night work was the hardest, because, although we were quite sure about direction, even in the dark, it was another matter to feel our way and carry unaccustomed loads. By day we decided what to take and what to leave behind, and we cut down what to take with us to the irreducible, dangerous minimum. Then we broke that up into thirty- or forty-pound packages, so that when we all three made the trip to the dhow 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 within three yards of him, while the ants crawled over me and he dozed leaning on his rifle. Once a long snake crawled over my wrist and my very marrow curdled with fear and loathing; but except for mosquitoes, who were legion and sucked their fill, there was no other contretemps. I don't know what I would have done if the askari had taken alarm and set off to investigate. I trusted to intuition should that happen.

The work of arranging the stuff in the dhow was the most difficult of all, because we dared not light a lantern, yet we also dared not stow things carelessly for fear of confusion when the hour of action came.

The s.p.a.ce was ridiculously small for ourselves and all those men, 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, and we could only guess at the condition of the sails; the feel of them in the dark gave us small a.s.surance. But fortunately we had a couple of hundred feet of good half-inch manila in camp with us, and that Fred and Will took out and stowed in the hold the night following.

We bought such things at the D.O.A.G. as we could without arousing suspicion, as, for instance, a quant.i.ty of German dried pea-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 dare buy, for fear of the noise it would make; but we laid in some eggs and bananas. Most of the thirty-pound loads were rice.

It troubled us sorely to leave our good tents, beds, and equipment behind, yet all we could take was the blankets and one gladstone bag packed 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, who would escape from jail practically naked, were an essential; but fortunately we had a sixty-pound bale of trade-blankets among our loads.

Not one word did we exchange all this while with Coutla.s.s and his friends. Not one overture did we make to them, or they to us. But there was no doubt of their 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 having us jailed for their misdeed that they positively ached to come and jeer at us, and I believe were only saved from doing that by the shortness of the time.

At last, three days after decision had been reached, we threw our blankets with a red one uppermost over the top of both tents in the sun; and within thirty minutes after that Lady Saffren Waldon had spread on the commandant'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 whisky bottle, and we began to pray they might not get too drunk before night. Judging by their meaning glances at us, they considered us their mortal and cruel enemies whom it would be an act of sublime virtue to bring to book.

The trial of the natives for murder had taken place, accompanied by the usual amount of thras.h.i.+ng of witnesses and the usual stir throughout the countryside. These were charged with having 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 women. So German military honor had to be upheld exemplarily. Condign vengeance was sure and swift. The execution was to take place on the drill-ground on the day we chose for our departure.

There was no risk of investigations that day. Had we known it, we could have gone away in all likelihood in broad daylight, so busy was the garrison in marshaling into place and 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, and that was our only real ground for uneasiness, for it prevented our having a last talk with Brown of Lumbwa and a.s.suring ourselves that courage would not fail him in the pinch.

We worried in plenty without cause, as it seems that humans must do on the eve of putting plans, however well laid, to the test. We had a thousand scares--a thousand 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 probably fail to do his part, although why we should have doubted him after his faithful record, and knowing his hatred of German rule, we would have found it hard to say.

Several times that morning we showed ourselves about the town, with the purpose of allaying any possible suspicion and saving the authorities the trouble of asking what we were up to. With the same end in view we attended the execution in the afternoon, and sincerely wished before it was over that we had stayed away.

On this occasion even the chain-gangs were included among the spectators, in the front row, on the ground that, being proved criminals, they needed the lesson more than the hempen-noose-food not yet caught and tried and brought to book.

The same sort of sermon, only this time more fiery and full of ranting humbug about German righteousness, was preached by the commandant. The miserable victims had received a simple death sentence, but he explained that in virtue of his superior office he had seen fit to add to it. "Death" he explained, "would certainly rid the German protectorate 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 government is as far-reaching as its arm! In your villages--in your homes--in your families--there is always an agent of the government listening! Your own brother--your wife--your child may be that agent of the government! Now, watch carefully and see what happens to men with bad hearts--aye, and to women with bad hearts, who conspire against German rule!"

What followed was more impressive because of the determination we had heard of to bring all Africa under the German yoke. In vain should the wretched natives in after years escape by the hundreds northward in the hope of living under British government. The fools--the "easy people"--the "folk who gave without a price"--the "truth tellers"--the "men who wish to forget"--the unwise, c.o.c.ksure, cleaner-living, unbelievably credulous, foolishly honest British officials would be all gone. The pikelhaube and the lash, blackmail and coercion would take the place of generosity. Africa would better be back under the Arabs again, for the Arabs had no system to speak of and were inefficient.

Some Arabs have a heart--some a very soft heart.

The crowd grew bright-eyed, little children straining forward between their elders in the bull-fight frenzy--that same intoxication of the senses that held the Roman freemen spellbound at the sight of suffering.

One at a time, that the last might see the torture of the first, the victims were noosed by the heel (one heel)--thrown with a jerk--hauled heel-first to the overhanging branch--and flogged into unconsciousness with slow blows, the lieutenant standing by to reprove the askaris if they struck too fast, for that would have been merciful. Not until the victims ceased to struggle were they lowered and thrown on the ground, to lie bleeding, awaiting their turn to be hanged.

The last two--supposed to have been the culprits who actually held the spear that pierced the marauding askari's heart--were hauled up heel-to-heel together, and hanged presently in the same noose, the commandant laughing at their struggles and Professor Schillingschen studying their agony with strictly scientific interest.

When the last had ceased struggling Schillingschen permitted himself one more pleasure. He strolled over to us and blocked Fred's way, standing with hands behind him and out-thrust chin.

"You flatter yourself, don't you!" he sneered. He was just drunk enough to be boastful, while thoroughly sure of what he was saying.

"You expect to tell a fine tale! I know the psychology of the Englis.h.!.+

I know it like a book! Let me tell you two things: First, your English would not believe you. They are such supremely c.o.c.ksure 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 is prudery--sham--false pride--veneer! Only the Germans are truly civilized, because they alone are not afraid to face naked animalism without its mask! The British dare not! They hide from it--shut their eyes! The fools! If you could tell them their story they would never listen!

"Second: You will never tell the story! Being English, you were such dull-witted fools that you did not even hide the cartridge cases, or the bones of the Masai you shot! Bah-ha-ha-ha-hah! You can escape hanging yet by telling your secret. Jail you can not escape! Try it if you don't believe me! Try to escape--go on!"

He turned on his heel and left us, striding heavily with the strength of an ox and about the alertness of a traction engine, turning his head every once in a while to enjoy the spectacle of our discomfort.

We judged it best to appear concerned, as if that was indeed our first realization of the extent of the case against us and the nature of the evidence. But we did not find it difficult. We were all three startled by the fear that in some way he had got wind of our plans, and that he meant to play with us cat-and-mouse fas.h.i.+on.

That night it stormed--not rain, but wind from east to west, blowing such clouds of dust that one could scarcely see across the narrow streets. Every element favored us. Even the askari at the cross-roads, 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 sunset when we saw both Greeks and the Goanese sneak out of the camping place in Indian file with their pockets full of cotton waste. They had soaked the stuff in kerosene right under our eye that afternoon.

There ought to have been a sliver of moon, but the wind and dust hid it. Fifteen minutes after sundown the only light was from the lamps in windows and the cooking fires glowing in the open here and there.

Thirty minutes later 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 than five minutes after that the whole of the southern, gra.s.s-roofed section of the town was going up in flames, and every living man, black, white, gray, mulatto, brown and mixed, was running full pelt to the scene of action.

We waited ten minutes longer, rather expecting the Greeks to double back and begin denouncing us at once. In that case we intended to stretch 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 the back of it without killing him. Fred had a long tent-peg.

Will chose a wooden mallet that our porters carried to help in pitching tents.

But the Greeks did not come, and there streamed such a perfect screen of crimson dust, sparkling in the reflected blaze and more beautiful than all the fireworks 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 chisel for striking off the porters' chain) and started off quietly round the hill, not beginning to hurry until the hill lay between us and the burning town.