FOREWORD
WHY THEY WENT TO THE SUDAN
OLD RELIABLE never did rightly get the hang of that white man's name—the one with the single-barreled specs who came to visit the Colonel on Sherwood Plantation. And 'twarn't only negroes that couldn't understand; even the white folks had a mighty lot of trouble. Zack heard Doctor Paulding laugh and inquire, "Look here, Colonel, I don't know what to call your English Lord. Can't quite get my tongue twisted around 'Your Lordship' or 'Your Serene Highness.' What's the correct thing, 'My Lord'? or 'Lord Meadowcroft'?"
"Reckon so," chuckled the Colonel. "This 'lord' business kinder got me for a while. I sasshayed around it until he commenced calling me 'Spottiswoode' and I called him 'Meadowcroft.' Fine fellow, isn't he?"
Zack cocked his head on one side and listened to everybody before addressing the distinguished stranger as, "Oh Lordy," and the problem of courtesy bothered Zack no more.
"Oh Lordy" rambled all over the plantation, horseback and afoot, poking into everything, just like that Health Officer who used to come spying around the Hot Cat Eating House. Oh Lordy would stick up his eyeglass and ask a million questions a minute about cotton and seed, and ginning and picking, and mules and negroes. When he switched off to "soil" and "climate" and "precipitation"—Zack knew there wasn't nothing like that on Sherwood.
"What makes Lord Meadowcroft so inquisitive?" Dr. Paulding asked.
"Business," the Colonel laughed. "He wants to learn how we raise cotton. You see, Doctor, it's this way: the British Cotton Growers' Association is making experiments all over the world, trying to find a soil and climate adapted to cotton culture. Meadowcroft is particularly interested in the Sudan———"
"Where's the Sudan?" for Dr. Paulding had hazy geographical ideas.
"Don't know, exactly—somewhere in Middle Africa. Ask your geography. Anyway, Meadowcroft thinks the Sudan will produce cotton. They've got all kinds of theoretical experts on the ground—and want some experienced planter who understands the practical side of it—just to give them a start, you know. I've agreed to go—for six months."
"You? Go to Africa?"
"Sure, why not? I've always wanted to see the negro at home—had a curiosity to know if he's like our negro."
"Heavens, Colonel, that's a mighty long trip."
"Yes, I know; but there'll be several British officers at the Concession. Of course, I'll take Zack along, to shave me and look after my baggage, so I won't get lonesome."
Dr. Paulding glanced at Old Reliable, "No, Colonel, you won't get lonesome—not if you have Zack."
Many a time before he got home again Colonel Spottiswoode remembered how Doctor Paulding had laughed and said, "You won't get lonesome—not if you have Zack."
CHAPTER I
THE OCEAN GAMBLERS
THE S. S. Trojan floated the sailing signal at her New York dock. Thin smoke curled upward from her funnels. Sea men laced her loins with many a ring and eyelet; deck-boys rubbed her windows and polished her brasses. Electricians, mechanics, cooks, and quick-stepping lads in white jackets hurried through hidden pasages within. Sooty-faced men in her grimy depths toiled at boilers and bunkers, heedless of what went on above, like coral insects that build beneath the waves. Officers ran their eyes along spar and rigging; tested every life-boat and davit—grooming their racer for the long, long track. Alertly still she lay, keel and wheel, breathing from the bottom of her lungs, holding her steely muscles in leash, calm without, but trembling through every nerve and fiber, like a Kentucky thoroughbred at the starter's post.
In contrast with the crew's strict discipline, masses of unorganized, undirected people surged back and forth across her decks. Like breakers they ebbed and flowed, congesting in the corners, and rushing out again. A mingled stream of comers and goers jostled each other along her gangplank, restless, excited people who spoke all tongues and wore all garbs. Some for the first time launched their adventures upon the deep; others, drawn by the lure of intangible horizons, longed for strange lands and craved the salt odor in their nostrils.
Through that motley throng upon the dock came a ruddy-faced man, with broad white Panama covering his gray hairs, and a linen suit that flapped like sail-cloth around his sturdy legs—Colonel Beverly, Spottiswoode, cotton-planter, of Vicksburg, Mississippi. Beside him walked two top-hatted Englishmen, men of affairs in their tight little Island.
At the head of the gangplank the Colonel turned, "Zack!" he shouted, "Where's Zack?"
"Comin', suh." Old Reliable tore through the crowd as if untangling himself from a wire fence, a half-sucked orange in one hand and a brand-new suitcase in the other. New store-bought clothes hung upon him in corrugations; a new, flaming red necktie climbed the back of his neck. He took out a new handkerchief, removed a new hat, and mopped the same old bald territory underneath. Everything was new except Old Reliable.
"Cunnel," he panted, "I never stopped a minute, 'cept jes to git dis orange; whole bunch o' trunks got me blocked off. Reckon dey don't know I'm gwine over to larn dem niggers at Africky Landin'."
"Get aboard, Zack!" the Colonel gave him a shove, "unless you want to swim."
Both Englishmen deferentially indicated the gangplank for Colonel Spottiswoode to descend. After them came Zack, followed by a couple of English servants with hand-luggage.
"May I venture to suggest, Colonel, that we inspect your cabin at once. Lord Meadowcroft instructed us to see that you were entirely comfortable."
They inspected in force. The cabin was more than comfortable; it was luxurious. The English men dissected it in detail, even to seeing that the magazines and newspapers were the very latest. "We hope you like your cabin, sir."
The Southerner glanced around him—sleeping room, sitting-room, bath, and quarters for Zack. "But I don't need all this," he laughed. "I'm not going on a wedding trip."
"Lord Meadowcroft's instructions, sir. Our government is your debtor, sir." The English men bowed together.
"His Lordship hopes, sir," The older Englishman indicated a stock of books, pamphlets and official reports piled upon the table. "His Lordship would be pleased, sir, if you see fit to examine these reports on our cotton-planting experiments in Nigeria, Uganda and Egypt. Then, sir, you might advise our Honorable Board of Governors more intelligently on the affairs of our new syndicate in the Sudan."
Both the Britishers stepped back while Colonel Spottiswoode ran through the documents. "I've read most of these," he said. "Your trouble seems to be lack of water, and the inefficient labor. I never saw an irrigated cotton-field—we have too much water, overflow, you know; our levees break. And nobody can understand a labor problem until he gets on the ground. That's why you long-distance planters go broke."
"Yes, sir," agreed the Englishmen; "our Honorable Board of Governors are a jolly good bit away from their plantations. But you will set all that to rights, sir."
Zack stood in the middle of the sitting-room, holding his grip-sack and pasting down the edges of a hotel label. "Huh!" he muttered. "Dat Irish feller at de eatin' house didn't want to paste nary tag on my grip-sack; huh!"
"Zack," remarked the Colonel; "there's your room; walk in and hang up your hat."
At first Zack peered gingerly into the servant's quarters, then like a pet coon he began to projeck with its glittering appliances. "Dis sholy is one curious wash-bowl—gotter spout like a pitcher. Seliny ain't never gwine to believe dis."
"Here, Zack," the Colonel called; "let's go up on the guards and see her shove off."
On deck again his English friends plied him with mature and deliberate suggestions while Colonel Spottiswoode watched the arrival of belated passengers. A tall young man, dressed in extreme fashion, halted at the upper end of the angplank. Two servants carried his small bags, while another held in his arms a bored-looking bull dog with spike-studded collar. The young man paid attention to nothing but the dog. His chauffeur inquired, "Shall I put your luggage aboard, sir?"
"No; beastly nuisance," the young man addressed the dog; "Jack, old fellow, do you want to go? I leave it to you. Shall we go or stay?"
The dog seemed more wearied than the master, with no hopes for a novelty on either side of the Atlantic. "Warren," asked the young man, "is it going to rain?"
"I think so, sir."
"Then put the baggage aboard." Mr. J. Blair Eaton ordered, as with languid indifference he and the dog descended the gangplank. Behind Mr. Eaton stepped Joe Sloan, the gambler. While Eaton hesitated whether to go or stay, this man never removed his shifty eyes. Joe Sloan's nose wasn't straight with his face, and Joe wasn't straight with anything. Nature never put such a crooked sign on straight goods. Mr. J. Blair Eaton didn't believe in signs.
At the lower end of the gangplank waited a burly man with a blue cap and hand satchel. "You're late, Joe," he whispered; "I thought your chicken had flew the coop, so I was fixing to get off this boat."
"Yes, Cap," Joe Sloan replied. "Eaton changed his mind forty times in twenty minutes—slippery fish; but mighty good when you catch him."
"Well," whispered the big man; "cabin's all ready; cigars and liquor, brands that he likes. We've got to make a killing." Cap Wright strolled off while Joe leaned casually against the rail.
In passing Cap Wright nudged his partner. "Look who's here! Prince Jim," pointing to Colonel Spottiswoode, between the Englishmen.
"Prince Jim," Joe Sloan exclaimed. The younger gambler turned to gaze admiringly upon a man of whom he had long heard as the acknowledged king of their craft—who had enriched their traditions with so many niceties of skill and daring.
"Don't the Prince put up a stiff front?" whispered Cap. "Tain't no other man in the business would be smooth enough to bring them respectable-looking blokes to the steamer, and stand 'em up before everybody. Them's his letter of credit. There's good pickin's on this ship, or he wouldn't be here. Jim ain't no tin-horn piker."
Reflecting upon Prince Jim's exploits set Cap's reminiscence mill to working: "Well, well, I ain't seen him for twenty years. Once in a while we'd get word of him working them P. & O. Steamers, out of Sydney to Ceylon. He's changed a heap, but I'd know him; linen clothes, Panama hat, Southern Planter style—that's Prince Jim."
Zack did not mean to get separated from the Colonel, but those people were doing so many interesting things, it was like a one-eyed boy watching a three-ringed circus. He just naturally drifted along deck and got caught in a jam at the foot of the gangplank. People shoved him backward until a timid voice spoke at his elbow. "I beg your pardon, sir, but I am in your way." It was a young girl, Miss Stanton, who wriggled around until she saw his black face, then laughed, "Oh, it's you, Uncle—Uncle Zack."
Zack beamed. "Yas'm, it's me. How come you know twuz me?"
Miss Stanton laughed again; "I heard that gentleman speak to you, the one in the linen suit; both of you are from the South, aren't you?"
"Sho is! Us come from Vicksburg, Mississippi. You come from down yonder too! I knowed dat de fust minute you spoke 'Uncle'."
"Aren't these people rough?" she nodded. "I'm afraid they'll break my violin."
Zack saw that Miss Stanton was hugging a violin case, so he reached out a lean arm behind her and braced himself against the rail. "Stand right still, Missy. Dey ain't gwine to shove you no mo'."
"Thank you, Uncle Zack."
"'Taint nothin' 'tall, Missy, an' not much o' dat. Is you gwine on dis 'scussion?"
"Yes," she smiled, "I'm going on the excursion, Uncle—what is your name?"
"Zack Foster, Miss; but ev'body, white an' black, calls me 'Ole Reliable'."
Miss Stanton giggled, which opened Zack's confidence. "Yas'm, all dem big bug white folks, up an' down Cherry Street, dey knows me reel good. And 'tain't nary one of 'em but what gives Ole Reliable a mighty high name. You know—Missy"
"Hush!" she said. "Look!" pointing to the dock.
On Doris Stanton's last night in New York, she had gone to hear a wonderful Italian woman sing her farewell to America, amidst a glitter of lights, a deluge of flowers, and an audience that cheered like mad. How the girl's heart beat! Jealously she maintained her position at the gang plank to watch this famous singer come aboard the Trojan.
Others were waiting too. The dock bristled with leveled cameras like cannon from a fortress. Dozens of reporters stood with notebooks ready. The world hungered to hear in detail what this woman wore, how she talked and walked—what colored ribbons were on her dog. Was the Count di Castelleone really her husband? or was she going to marry Reifenstein? Everything, anything pertaining to the celebrity. "Look, Uncle Zack!" Miss Stanton gasped as men began to clear a passage for the diva. She was going to see the Signorina Certosa, off the stage. The second officer of the Trojan waved his hand for people to stand aside. A retinue of men-servants stumbled along beneath their boxes, bags and bundles which had been forgotten until the last moment. Others came with arms full of flowers, gorgeous roses dropped their petals and made a path for the singer's feet.
A shrill-voiced duenna gave orders to the maids; Count di Castelleone held aloft a gay stack of American Beauties, marching in the van of her ladyship's escort. Signorina Aurora Certosa bowed herself along, between a swarthy young Italian with her pet dog and a blonde German who bore her parrot in its cage. Click! click! click! went the cameras. Aurora smiled and bowed so that the American newspapers might print very pretty pictures of her very pretty self. Miss Stanton clapped her hands, and joined in the general cheer.
When Castelleone put his foot upon the deck he turned to make some gallant remark to the Signorina. But he did not dare. She had wearied of his following her from Italy, all over America, and he knew it.
"Look, Cap," whispered Joe Sloan, "I saw them three fellows rollin' 'em mighty high in Washington. Maybe the Prince is after them."
"Hope so; then he'll let our chicken alone."
The great singer being safely aboard, an officer gave orders, "All ashore." Miss Stanton watched the tearful, laughing, hysterical good-bys; husbands and wives, parents and children, friends who were separating from friends—with farewell gifts of roses, boxes of candy, bundles of magazines. She glanced at the crowded dock. "There's nobody here to tell me good-by," she sobbed. "Nobody cares."
A stream of people poured back to the dock; a late passenger tumbled over them to get aboard. Chains rattled, ropes creaked—the vessel began to move, a thousand handkerchiefs went fluttering. Everybody was waving to somebody. For a moment the girl's eyes blurred. "Doris Stanton, you're a fool; you're going to cry," she gulped in her throat and lifted her head defiantly.
The ship began to tremble and groan. The hazy smoke from her funnels changed to dense black. A widening crevasse yawned between deck and dock. The jagged skyline of New York became visible, a vague and spectral city against a vague and spectral sky. Miss Stanton wormed her small self away from the rail, got clear, and fled with her precious violin. On the way to her modest cabin she passed an open door; the odor of flowers stopped her. She paused and stared inside, at a wilderness of roses, masses of carnations, beds of violets—a profusion of orchids, silk hangings, silver trappings. The singer's maids were setting things to rights.
"I don't care; I don't care, I'm happy," she insisted, then rushed into her own room and snatched a shriveled bouquet from the basin. These were not the kind of flowers that florists pack with purple ribbons, but the kind that come from country gardens, tied up by country girls. Doris remembered every bush, and knew where every blossom had grown. She darted to the right hand deck, which was almost deserted, hastily picked her flowers to pieces and began scattering petals on the water. One by one they fluttered down, and her dim eyes followed them as they drifted past.
"Dat's jes fer luck, ain't it, Missy?" Zack's sympathetic face at her elbow looked very homey and very kind. The old negro from home understood the girl from home.
"Yes," she smiled bravely, "and for pluck too—we all need pluck."
"Dat's jes what Selina keeps a-sayin' to me. She argufies dat I sets too much sto' on luck. But Lordee, Miss, when I gits in hard luck it mought rain twenty dollar gold pieces, an' ketch me wid boxin' gloves on—so I couldn't pick 'em up."
Miss Stanton laughed merrily, while Zack straightened up and responded to her encore. "Ole Uncle Aaron, he prophesy to me like dis, 'Zack,' he say, 'ef Luck's agin yer, you mought jes as well lie down flat er yo' back an' say 'Here I is, Luck; what yer gwine do wid me?"
Miss Stanton flung the last of her bouquet over board. "Now!" she announced, "I'm all right again."
"Yas'm, 'twarn't nothin' but luck when I seed you comin' round here wid dem flowers, an' sumpin' jes popped in my min', 'Missy is feelin' po'ly; Zack, you go an' talk to li' miss; she ain't likin' it much 'bout gwine so fer away from home.'"
Miss Stanton listened gladly, and made a fatal mistake, unless she wanted Zack tagging along. He was itching to talk; so he deserted Colonel Spottiswoode and followed the girl from home, who would laugh at his time-worn stories.
CHAPTER II
THE YOUNG VIOLINIST
WHEN Colonel Spottiswoode stuck out his head from a door, glanced up and down the deck and beckoned for Zack, the negro never saw him. Zack had his hat in his left hand, gesticulating with his right; Miss Stanton, half a yard ahead, kept turning and laughing as she walked. "Missy, I'm gwine to wait right here till dis here boat makes her fust landin'. I wants you to see how dat mate gwine to boss dese rousters. You ain't never been on no steamboat befo'—jes wait till us gits to de fust landin'."
"The first landing? We won't land for six or seven days."
"Six or seven days? Lordee, Missy, I sho' would love to be roustabout on dis boat—or git de job o' callin' stations. I got a friend what's porter on de A. & V. Railroad, an' I 'lowed he had er sof' snap. But, Lordee! Calling stations on dis boat, dat would be all right, all right."
"So you don't like hard work?"
"Yas'm, Missy, I ain't skeered o' work. Like Uncle Aaron he say about a triflin' nigger: 'dat nigger ain't what you call skeered o' work; he'll lie down beside de bigges' kind o' job an' go to sleep, jes ez nacheral.' Huh! you know Cunnel ain't gwine to take me way yonder to Afriky Landin', to larn dem niggers how to hoe cotton, 'cept I's a mighty good worker myself."
"Who is the Colonel?" Miss Stanton inquired with genuine interest.
"Lordee, Miss, he jes de Cunnel. How come you ain't heard o' Cunnel? Whar you been all yo' life?"
"I live in Virginia; in the mountains."
"Must be mighty high mountains, and mighty fer, ef you don't know Cunnel. Most ev'body knows Cunnel what knows me, all dem rich white folks up and down Cherry Street."
"Cherry Street? Where is that?"
Zack gazed upon her at first with a benevolent pity—then the smile broke: "Shucks, Missy, now you's prankin' wid me."
"No, really" Miss Stanton settled herself in a steamer-chair, and felt deliciously guilty at encouraging the gossip of a servant.
Zack gave an enthusiastic sketch of his most intimate friend, Colonel Beverly Spottiswoode, with personal details of all the rich white folks up and down Cherry Street. Then he launched into a description of Sherwood and Kathleen Plantations, cotton and negroes, bear hunting and levees breaking. Neither he nor the girl noticed that their vessel had passed into open sea. On either side, before, behind, lay the shoreless water, nothing but water. Zack looked up, then ran to the rail, gripped it with both hands and stared. "Lawd Gawd, Missy! levee's done broke; river's all over ev'ything! Never seed sech a overflow. Dat's why dem folks was all huddled in N'Yawk—to keep out o' de high water. I got to run tell Cunnel." Zack disappeared through a doorway, and dived down the stairs. Then Miss Stanton had a half hour to herself.
When Zack sneaked up the staircase again, and poked out his black face from the door, there was a humorous twitching at the corners of his mouth. He gave a sidelong glance around him before venturing on deck.
"Dat sho' is one big buzz on me. Huh! I oughter knowed 'twarn't nary overflow, 'cause tain't no houses, an' no levees. No trees ain't floatin' down, nothin', nothin' 'cept water. Dis is a mighty good place fer Baptists."
Zack grinned to himself, and watched for Miss Stanton. Then he leaned over the rail and gave himself up to a contemplation of the sea. "Well, well, well," he mumbled, "tain't nobody seed de beat o' dat. Jes like ole Missip was runnin' up an' down, an' sideways too—ev'y-which-way. Ef dis levee did break, hit's been a mighty long time ago, an' things got kinder settled down."
Zack hung over the rail and watched the fog that swirled upon the sea; a fine mist blew from the south. A sailor with rubber mop scraped the water from the deck, a deck as clean as Selina's kitchen table. Zack scarcely dared to step upon it. Other sailor men were beginning to hang strips of sail-cloth from the roof, and lash their flapping bottoms to the rail. The deck looked like those dripping lanes of canvas which led from the main circus to the side show. Zack couldn't remember a time when it hadn't rained on circus day in Vicksburg. Suddenly he straightened himself, and paid no more attention to the water; Miss Stanton came tripping along with a violin case under her arm. In order to shut off all allusion to overflows, Zack took first shot at the conversation: "Missy, is you gwine to play? Oughter hear ole man Jake play dat fiddle on Sherwood Plantation. He sets dem niggers crazy wid dancin' itch."
"No, I am not going to play; I only want to be sure that my violin is not strained: The case was bent this morning."
"Yas'm, dat's de time when I kep' 'em from shovin' you."
Doris Stanton wore a fur turban, so softly brown it seemed a part of her eyes and hair, and sun-tanned face. Zack rambled along behind her to the music room, stepped one foot inside the door and halted. The room was all white and gold and crimson, sparkling with pendants and mirrors; the furniture was so gilt and bench-legged, the carpet so crimson and Zack's foot sank so deep, that he instinctively drew back. "Huh! mighty few white folks oughter go in dere—an' no niggers a tall!"
But nobody hindered him. Miss Stanton had disappeared in a corner behind some kind of a gingerbread screen. Zack glanced around him, cautiously deposited his hat on that crimson car pet, passed inside the door, and followed her—picking up one foot after the other, like a rooster walking in deep mud.
Her violin case now lay open on the table, and Miss Stanton was taking out a green cloth. She wiped the instrument affectionately, and began to look it over in every seam and string and crevice. Zack turned his head this way and that, craned his neck and twisted his eyes in harmony with her movements. She drew her sigh in the treble, and Zack drew his in the bass. "It's all right, ain't it, Missy?" he asked.
"Yes," she nodded, then drew the bow, ever so lightly, across a string, and laid it down again. "What a tone you have!" she whispered and patted her best-beloved friend. The instrument rested against her shoulder and she caressed it with her chin; two slender fingers danced along its unawakened strings. Presently she picked up the bow and with a movement indescribably graceful stroked the chords so gently that they only purred.
"Ain't you gwine to play none, Missy?" Zack's inquiry was a prayer, yet Miss Stanton shook her head and glanced around at the shaded lights, through the crimson-and-gold silence of that deserted room. Outside the fog gathered like twilight; when twilight had settled in the valleys at home she always played her violin.
Unconsciously she lifted the bow and roused one long low note, as the sigh of a sleeper who begins to stir. Zack caught his breath, then begged, "Missy, play 'Ole Black Jo'; jes, a teeny bit."
Without dissent or volition the violin responded, inaudibly but distinctly, when Zack bent closer. He could almost hear the murmured words, "I'm comin'—I'm comin'." When it was quite done he whispered again, "Now, Missy, play 'Swanee Ribber.'"
Miss Stanton forgot, forgot the ship, and forgot these stranger-people, forgot the dismal evening, the raucous fog-horns, forgot everything. Out from her soul, and the soul of her violin that tender melody ebbed and flowed, lapping like the waves at the vessel's side; it filled the room with shadowy music; creeping out into the mist, it floated along deck, stopping men at their steady tramp, tramp, tramp—drawing them to the port holes, and in at the door. The girl's figure swayed imperceptibly, like a slender column of smoke on a windless day. Zack stood silent, bowing his gray bald head in unison with the old familiar song. His lips moved, but made no sound.
Their backs were to the door. They did not see man after man, woman after woman, slip in and sit upon the edges of their chairs. They did not see one glorious figure, standing erect in the center of the room, glittering in black and silver, with a scarlet rose in her hair—Signorina Aurora Certosa dressed for dinner, one jeweled hand upon her bosom, the other commanding silence from those behind her. Reifenstein had stopped midway the room, half starting forward, like a blond giant from his North German forest, listening. Doris Stanton did not see the groups of eyes that peered in at every port hole, nor the wall of faces massed at the door.
"Dar's whar my heart is turning ebber" the clear notes rose like a rocket and came back again in a shower of broken stars. Then something snapped. "Oh, I can't play it" The little Southern girl stopped short, laid down the violin and flung herself across the table. Zack wiped his eyes with the back of his hand. "Dar now, Missy, dar now" Then Zack stared at those people who rushed suddenly toward them, like water bursting through a broken levee.
Signorina Aurora ran forward impetuously, fell on one knee, and put her arm around Miss Stanton's waist. The girl struggled to her feet, amazed. "Oh! I'm so ashamed," she said, "so sorry—I—I—forgot."
"Sorry? Ashamed? You glorious child; Bellissimi! Magnifica!" Then the homesick girl broke down completely. Aurora looked up at the thronging passengers. "Go away," she ordered, "avanti. Go" Reifenstein bent low, kissed the tiny brown hand that trembled so nervously on the table, then turned with uplifted arms and cleared the room.
Signorina Aurora led Miss Stanton to a divan, and drew the brown head upon her breast. "La mia piccina—now tell me all about it." The self-contained and close-lipped Southerner could not have imagined herself talking so freely to a stranger—all about the homesickness, all about the loneliness, and the going away to Milan for five long years.
"Your mother," the sympathetic diva inquired, "is she with you?"
"No; mother's at home."
"Your sister; your"
Doris shook her head, "Nobody."
"You're not alone? Ma che! Bambino! That will never do—never. So young, so beautiful, and alone."
This same question had been so maddeningly discussed at home that Doris Stanton answered sharply, with all the confidence of a kitten spatting in a corner, "Yes, I'm alone, and quite able to take care of myself, thank you."
The wiser woman only smiled, and stroked the child's arm, "Going to Milan for five years; ah, but you Americans have so ridiculously much money, and"
Miss Stanton shook her head, "I have very little, very little. I shall support myself while I study." The great singer smiled again, and whispered, "Carissima fanciullo! Impossible."
The Signorina Aurora was very practical. She knew what it meant to support herself and study. She, like Doris, had been far too pretty for Milan, Vienna, Leipsic, Munich. So she held the girl very close, patted her brown hair, and talked of ways and means. Nobody could resist this woman: Doris Stanton told her exactly how much money she had in that scanty wallet which was entrusted to the purser—not the price of one song from the Signorina Aurora.
"Now, now," the singer said, "we shall mend that. I give you a benefit; I, Aurora Certosa, I have promised. You shall play. Ah, so wonderful you play; I shall sing once, twice, three times. There! In Milan you will live like one little brown princess—and when I come to Milan—ah, when I come, we shall see what we shall see." With her arm about Doris, the singer led her new-made friend away.
The first dinner on shipboard is apt to be a key-note affair. Acquaintances may be formed or not. Ultra-fashionable ladies, crossing to be measured for gloves, make known their missions and their exclusiveness at this function. One stiff bow at the table sets no precedent for another bow on deck.
Mr. J. Blair Eaton and Joe Sloan sitting next each other at dinner was an accident of Joe's contrivance—one sovereign to the steward. Joe accounted for the presence of Prince Jim at the same table upon precisely the same basis—another sovereign to the steward. Joe carried out his part of the program, nevertheless, by attracting Mr. Eaton's attention to Cap Wright, his big partner, who sat in full view, the only man in the room without a dinner coat. "There's that old lake captain over yonder; he knows your sister's brother-in-law in Chicago. Made a big fortune with his steamers from Chicago to Duluth. Plays poker like a child."
"Ah, really," observed Mr. Eaton.
Colonel Spottiswoode was no lady; neither did he feel the necessity for being exclusive. His manner of speaking directly to a fellow-being startled Mr. J. Blair Eaton out of his eye glasses and into an approximately human reply. The Colonel's frankly expressed ignorance as to who Mr. J. Blair Eaton was appealed to that gentleman's sense of humor. "Really refreshing, don't you know, refreshing," Mr. Eaton confided to Joe Sloan.
But it did not refresh Cap Wright when Joe Sloan, after dinner, darted into his cabin with the information that their fresh fish had taken up with Prince Jim, and wouldn't play poker unless "The Colonel" were invited.
"I suspected something like that," observed the Cap, "suspected it when I seen 'em settin' side by side."
In Cap Wright's business it was necessary to think quickly; that is their job. "The joke's on us, Joe; we'll have to grin. But Prince Jim is square, so we'd better get half than nothing. Invite him. If you don't invite him, he'll give a poker party and leave us out. No, siree! Prince Jim don't associate with gamblers."
"Ain't that hell?" Joe burst out. "Here I've been nursing that Eaton chap for three months—went to Chicago and got acquainted with his sister. O. K. credentials like that, and he quits me cold for the first stranger that comes along. Ain't that hell?"
"Shut up, Joe. Hell ain't no argument—that's a cuss word."
CHAPTER III
THE CROOKED DEAL
THE poker game was running eight-handed, which crowded Cap Wright's cabin. Cap could have got a bigger room, and a more comfortable table, but that savored too much of professionalism. Cap detested professional sport; friendly games paid the best; and there was less chance for a holler. Counting from Cap's left, the players were: Shields, Eaton, Spottiswoode, Castelleone, Joe Sloan, Torreale, and the Baron von Reifenstein, military attaché at Washington. Each man had some bank notes in front of him, weighted down by a little stack of sovereigns which jingled merrily on the table. Fortune swung back and forth coquettishly; so far, there seemed little difference in the stacks.
Their jovial game ran on—the men talked of that wonderful little violinist, and her luck in gaining Signorina's championship. A benefit by Signorina would amount to something. Being at the poker table, they spoke with well-bred restraint, and mentioned no names. Reifenstein seemed to understand music, and was particularly generous in praising the newly discovered artiste. Cap Wright encouraged these pauses, between deals, for a story or a drink. Drinks and stories bred an amiable carelessness in his players, and also gave Joe a good chance at the cards.
Colonel Spottiswoode was not conscious of sizing up the men; he did that unconsciously. Any student of character can tell more about a man in a single poker sitting than by serving for a life time with him on the same vestry. The yellow streak will show through his clothes, especially in the loser. The Colonel himself was in fine fettle for genial moralizing. Luck set his way, with a stream of gold clinging to her skirts. Twice when Cap dealt the Colonel raised 'em to a stand on prospects, and made his hand. "Now, gentlemen," he laughed jovially, "that's what I call breaking even." Torreale spread his second best hand and failed to appreciate the joke. Three times the Colonel held two pair against pat hands when Wright was dealing; thrice the Colonel drew one card and filled—unaccountable luck.
"Captain Wright," Spottiswoode remarked, "I've a hunch that you are my mascot."
Meanwhile Colonel Spottiswoode picked young Shields for a fine average American, and liked Reifenstein better than the other foreigners. The Italians seemed too eager to win; their eyes a gold piece so lustfully; they counted each pot as they stacked it, and were contentious about trifles.
The Colonel's luck continued, it improved, got versatile, and his stack grew taller. Now and again he changed a bank note for some less fortunate player. "Chips have no home, gentleman," he observed as he tucked the note under his stack.
Although the cards were running his way the Southerner did not quite enjoy the game. It was not his kind of game. He felt an undercurrent of hostility—vague as a chilling draft that creeps from nowhere. Once he had almost risen to quit when in a big pot he drew one card, and caught the fourth seven, beating Castelleone's pat flush. The Italian wrangled until Reifenstein laughed. Then Castelleone kept mumbling to himself about "American Luck."
Being more than a thousand dollars winner, Colonel Spottiswoode hated to jump the game. He passed off Castelleone's ill-temper, and played carelessly; it was his own carelessness that caused the final break. Every one remembered how the play came up.
Shields was dealing; he and the Colonel kept bantering each other about the story of a man who always drew one card. The Cap, being on Shields' right, had cut the deck and handed them to him. Eaton sat in "The age" at the left of Shields, with Colonel Spottiswoode next—"Under the gun," as he expressed it. Eaton had either grown reckless from drink, or he felt absolutely certain of his hand. The pot had been raised and back-raised, and raised again, until everybody dropped, except Eaton and the Colonel. Whenever the Colonel gave her "another lift" he made some jocular remark about that one card story.
"Cards, gentlemen?" asked the dealer—being Shields.
"I'll play these," said Eaton, turning to the Colonel.
"One card," promptly announced the Colonel, and Shields flipped it off the deck.
"Hold on! Hold on!" Cap Wright forgot himself and interfered. "How many cards did you say, Colonel Spotwood?"
"Oh, I beg your pardon," apologized the Colonel, "Mr. Dealer, I made a mistake. I don't want any cards, I'm pat."
Shields was already reaching out to take back the undesired card when Eaton stopped him, then spoke to the Colonel without meeting his eye, "Your card's on the table. You must take it."
"Yes, yes," Castelleone and Torreale chimed in eager chorus. "The card is called for and dealt. Under the rules"
"Perfectly correct, gentlemen, perfectly correct." Colonel Spottiswoode took a card from his hand, Buried it under his stack, and picked up the one which Shields had dealt him. Then he spread his entire hand, face upward, and nodded to Eaton: "You win, sir."
The Colonel showed three kings, a four, and a nine spot. "I drew this," he said, tossing away the four; then taking the buried card from under his stack, he matched it with the other nine; "I held a king full pat. Gentlemen, you may leave out my hand." And Colonel Spottiswoode pushed his chair from the table.
The Southerner thrust a handful of bills and gold into his trousers, then took a cigar from his pocket, lighted it and sauntered out, "Good night, gentlemen."
Joe and Cap Wright glanced at each other. Prince Jim had a peculiar way of doing business.
Colonel Spottiswoode strolled along the deck in very ill humor. "That's what I get for playing with strangers," he meditated. "Curious how luck runs. When that old ship-captain was dealing I could make any hand I drew to."
The deck-lights shone upon deserted boards and empty chairs folded back against the walls; a fog that was almost a drizzle shrouded the vessel and hid the sea. Spottiswoode stopped at the forward turn and stood gazing into leaden vacancy. A heavy step came around from the other deck, and a hand tapped him on the shoulder. The Colonel turned. It was Cap Wright. "Come, pardner," the Cap spoke with pleasant assurance, "split up."
"What do you mean?" the puzzled Colonel asked.
"You won $785.00," said Cap.
"Maybe so; I didn't count it. What of that?"
"Half for me and Joe—three ninety: two fifty. Quick settlement is our motto. We don't keep no books."
Colonel Spottiswoode stared at the gambler, "I—I do not understand."
Cap Wright stared back in bewilderment; was Prince Jim going to hog him for the whole pile? "Why don't you understand?" he argued. "Warn't it our room? Warn't they our suckers? Didn't Joe invite you there, and didn't I deal you the hands?" Cap Wright slapped him sportily on the shoulder, "Oh, hell, Prince, quit yer joshin'. You didn't think you got them hands fair, did you. Ef twarn't for my dealin' you'd a-been a thousand loser."
Deck lights glowed dimly, and fog horns gasped out their strangling cry. In his rain coat, gray as the night, Colonel Spottiswoode stood leaning against the rail where the mist blew in, until it sheathed him with silver like a fine white frost.
When the big gambler approached with his demand for a division of winnings, it was too dark for Cap to see the flush that overspread the Southerner's face. Neither did Cap Wright know the other man well enough to realize the danger in which he stood. The Colonel remembered distinctly that it was on Cap's deals that he had made various lucky draws, but never once supposed it to be anything more sinister than a caprice of the cards. It was well for both men that Spottiswoode did not understand, that he had to stop and think; well that he got control of his temper before muscles and tongue began. There was an instant, a bare moment, of silence during which old Zack came shuffling around the corner, and stopped. He saw the Colonel facing that big man, standing with both hands behind his back as if afraid he might be tempted to use them. Zack sidled up closer, and distinctly heard Cap Wright say, "Me an' Joe couldn't figure out how you happened to let that Eaton sucker get off with a six hundred dollar pot."
Then it was that the Colonel spoke, and Zack knew from his suppressed tones that something active was just about to take place. "I don't understand you." Spottiswoode almost whispered the words. "How did I let the sucker get away?" Prince Jim was beginning to talk hoss sense, and Cap warmed up. "It was jest this way: that was the only trick we turned where you made a good scoop that I didn't deal. You remember how I dealt you an ace to fill, a seven to make fours, two flushes under the whip, an' always had good hands out against 'em."
The Southerner flinched; each item in the count was perfectly true. Clenching his hands behind him, he let Cap Wright proceed: "That young feller Shields don't know a thing about cards; he never watches nobody. Joe fixed 'em up, and I slipped Shields a cold deck. That's how you got the king-full against Eaton's jack-full. We expected you to hit him for his stack. He was drinkin' an' bettin' wild."
"You infernal scoundrel!" Colonel Spottiswoode still spoke beneath his breath, but there was no mistaking what he said and no doubt that he meant it. Zack edged nearer to hear what else the Colonel was saying; "You common thief, you"
Cap Wright needed the hide of a rhinocerous—he was so accustomed to being denounced; but the suddenness of this surprised him into a movement toward his pocket.
Quicker than thought the Colonel grappled both his wrists, "No you don't; not on me."
"Cunnel! Cunnel! he's got a knife—got a knife!" Zack called from behind. Spottiswoode held Cap's wrists firmly, and whispered, "You stand still. Zack, chuck that knife in the creek." Overboard went a long knife in a leather sheath. "Now feel his pockets," the Colonel ordered.
Zack searched diligently and said, "He ain't got nuthin' else, Cunnel."
The big gambler breathed heavily; even he was no match for a seasoned bear-hunter who could sit his saddle for a week. Before the Colonel released Cap's wrists they held a one-sided, but mighty straight conversation, which ended with the Colonel's instruction, "Wright, don't you leave this deck until I come back. Understand me? Zack, watch this door, and holler if he tries to come in. I'll hear you."
"Yas, suh, Cunnel." Zack's teeth gleamed and his eyes showed white, like a runaway mustang, as he guarded the bulky Cap. "I'll sho holler."
CHAPTER IV
SIX SHOOTERS FOR FOUR
COLONEL SPOTTISWOODE, without another glance at the astounded gambler, wheeled and left the deck, vanishing down the grand stair-case. He strode back to the poker game, which was still running, five-handed. Stepping abruptly into the room, he left open the door behind him.
Mr. J. Blair Eaton, after winning the big pot of six hundred dollars, had left the game.
Except for Joe Sloan, the other men were all losers, playing for even; and Joe was playing to win. Which made a tight game, and no sociability. The players scarcely noticed Colonel Spottiswoode's entrance. Shields flung down a worthless hand. "Well, Mr. Spottiswoode, have you come back to get the balance of our chips?" he remarked pleasantly. "Sit in, and try it again."
"No, thank you, I won't play." The Colonel dropped into a vacant chair, and pushed back his hat. With one hand he drew out his wad of money, and with the other, stopped Reifenstein from dealing. "I beg your pardon, gentlemen, for interrupting you, but this game is crooked"
"Crooked!" exclaimed Shields. "What do you mean?"
"Just what I say. The game is crooked. Keep your seats; don't get excited."
Both Italians nervously stuck their money into their pockets and hung over the table as the Colonel announced, "I have seven hundred and eighty-five dollars which doesn't belong to me"
"What!" they ejaculated in one breath—then looked at each other suspiciously.
"It has been one swindle, you say?" Reifenstein spoke quite deliberately. Laying aside his cards, he rose and stood with his left hand resting upon the table. "May I inquire who is the swindler? Who has the money?"
"I have some of the money—here it is."
"But I do not understand." The German spoke with wrinkled brow, and gaze concentrated upon the American.
Joe Sloan kept his mouth shut, but his pocket opened, and his money disappeared. He fidgeted away from the table, and glanced towards the door. Why didn't Cap Wright come back? It took Cap to handle an awkward holler.
"Mr. Shields," asked the Colonel, "would you mind telling me how much you are loser?"
"Certainly not." Shields rapidly ran over his bank notes, and little stack of sovereigns. "I have been doing better these last few hands; I am now one hundred and twenty dollars loser."
The Colonel set down these figures. "And you, Count Castle—Cass"
"Castelleone." The Italian supplied his name with emphasis. "And you, Count Castelleone, how much are you the loser?"
There was no need for the Italian to recount his money. After each pot he knew exactly how he stood. "I have lost fifty-three sovereigns, sir."
"Say two hundred and sixty-five dollars—I understand better. And you, Signor Torreale?"
"Five hundred and forty-five dollars," that gentleman promptly responded.
The Baron von Reifenstein had been fingering his cash; now he suggested quietly, "I lose two hundred and ninety dollars."
The Colonel footed up these items, "That makes it twelve hundred and fifteen dollars. I am winner seven hundred and eighty-five dollars, which leaves four hundred and thirty dollars to be accounted for. Mr. Shields, may I ask you to go at once and find Mr. Eaton. Say to him that I should be greatly obliged by his return to this room with you."
When Shields had gone the Colonel turned to Joe Sloan and asked peremptorily, "How do you stand?" Joe answered straight, "Sixty dollars winner." The Colonel put that down.
"That leaves three hundred and seventy dollars between Mr. Eaton and the man you call Captain Wright." Joe Sloan squirmed at the way the Colonel said "the man you call Captain Wright."
Shields returned in a few moments, "Mr. Eaton complains that he's tired, and will not come back to-night."
The Colonel rose and said, "I think he will come," then went out of the door. Within five minutes he reëntered, pushing Eaton ahead of him. "Now, Mr. Eaton, I should be pleased to know how you stood in this game?"
"Well," Eaton replied languidly, "I think I won something in the neighborhood of two hundred and eighty dollars."
"Exactly how much?"
"Exactly that; beastly nuisance." Eaton turned to go.
"Wait one minute, Mr. Eaton. Don't hurry off. We desire to settle up this game."
"The game is already settled so far as I'm concerned," Eaton responded.
"But not so far as I am concerned." Spottiswoode added up the figures and showed the results:
"Now, gentlemen, the only way is to call off the game" Colonel Spottiswoode began shoving the money that he had won into the center of the table. Eaton turned towards the door, which the Colonel quickly closed with his foot, "I beg you, Mr. Eaton, not to hurry. We should like to settle this game properly.
"The game is settled for my part," Eaton repeated doggedly, Torreale and Castelleone had been whispering together, their eyes fixed covetously on the gold. They were sitting directly across the table. Torreale reached out his hand and succeeded in getting hold of the money. "It's a swindle," he ejaculated. "You have my money. I want my five hundred and forty-five dollars."
"I want my two hundred and sixty dollars" added Castelleone.
"Wait a moment," Shields urged. Reifenstein said nothing.
Spottiswoode glanced into each of their faces as if asking for suggestions. The Italians seized upon what they supposed a moment of weakness and indecision. With all of that cash in sight, they lost control of themselves, rose together and demanded, "You must give us our money; if you don't we will"
Colonel Spottiswoode swept the money from the table, folded up the bills and poured the jingling sovereigns into his pockets.
"Don't say 'must' to me. I have tried to straighten this game. Now I shall do as I like. You will not let me tell you what was wrong. Now you may protect yourselves the best way you can."
Both Italians drew close to the big German, while Reifenstein suggested, "It seems to me, sir, that the men to whom this money belongs should be consulted."
Colonel Spottiswoode was thoroughly angered and his face began to flush. "I tried to consult them," he said abruptly, "but you are too infernally crazy to get your clutches on a dime."
Castelleone suddenly pointed his finger and said, like a dog barking through a fence, "You're a cheat! You're a cheat!" The Colonel dashed a deck of cards into his face. "You are a swindler," Reifenstein spoke in a lower tone.
"You are a liar," retorted the Colonel.
For the first time Shields rose from his chair, standing calm and self-possessed.
"You shall fight me." Castelleone fumbled in his pocket for a card case and tossed his card on the table in front of the Colonel.
"Of course you shall fight me," added Reifenstein.
"And you shall fight me, also," said Torreale, with the bulwark of two men between himself and danger.
Reifenstein's case held but a single card which was spoiled by a spot of ink. He apologized for its condition as he gave it to the Colonel. "That's all right," remarked the Colonel, "the name is plain enough for me to read."
In the confusion Joe Sloan sneaked through the door and escaped.
"Mr. Shields," Colonel Spottiswoode turned to that gentleman, "please give me your card and make the deck complete."
"No, sir. I have no quarrel with you." Shields shook his head and smiled. Being a hard-headed American, the affair struck him as a bit of opéra bouffe.
"I insist upon it," the Colonel said; "I want your name and address."
"Very well," Shields gave him the card, whereupon Colonel Spottiswoode remarked, "Like yourself, Mr. Shields, I see no sense in fighting over a card game."
"You must fight. You must fight," chorused the Italians.
"Or be forced to disgorge," Reifenstein added with a sneer.
The blood mounted slowly into Colonel Spottiswoode's face, then faded out again, leaving him quite pale. If these men had understood weather signs, they would have siezed upon a most auspicious moment to leave Beverly Spottiswoode alone.
"Very well," he said coolly, "if there's no way to get out of it, we shall fight. Zack! Oh, Zack!" Zack came tumbling down, glad to leave his job on deck. "Zack, go get those two pistols that Dr. Paulding gave me when I left home."
During Zack's absence no one spoke a word; there was scarcely a change in their positions. Spottiswoode sat drumming on the table with his fingers. Shields leaned against the sideboard; the German and the Italians stuck close together until Zack returned. "Here dey is, Cunnel." Zack put down a heavy box, from which Colonel Spottiswoode laid out a pair of blue barreled six-shooters, with buck-horn handles. They were not lady-like; but they were honest, would never kick-up, and shot truly as a rifle.
"Gentlemen, I have the choice of weapons—here we are. Fifty paces, fire, advance, and fire at will. That is quite simple." He shoved one of the pistols across the table. Nobody touched it.
Colonel Spottiswoode rose, put the weapons back in their box and handed it to Shield. "Mr. Shields, will you kindly take charge of these until we reach Gibralter? That is the nearest port. A gentleman will meet me there to act as my second. Count Castelleone, I believe you are the first; Baron von Reifenstein comes next. Then I shall have the honor of meeting Signore Torreale."
The Italians stared at each other. These terms meant that somebody might get hurt. Castelleone, being the first, began to realize that he stood a chance of having something unpleasant happen to him.
Young Shields walked out of the cabin, some distance behind the Colonel. "Well," he thought; "I can't make out how much of this is bluff. But I'd hate to be in those fellows' shoes, shivering all the way to Gibraltar, and hoping it's a mistake."
CHAPTER V
STINGY WITH AMMUNITION
IMMEDIATELY after breakfast next morning Colonel Spottiswoode went upstairs, and Zack found him pacing the deck with a problem. Up and down the slippery boards he walked, up and down the long, long lanes of dripping canvas, passing an interminable line of empty chairs, with here and there a disgusted passenger swearing at the weather. Every three minutes the fog horn let out its raucous noise. To the left a hidden steamer was tooting another horn; behind them, still another. Back and forth the Colonel paced, with hands behind him, once in a while dropping into his chair, with a pad, and trying to figure out how much he had won from each of those men on Cap Wright's crooked deal. The effort was hopeless. There is no way to untangle the complications of a poker game. If the other winners had agreed to call off the game, and restore their fraudulent gains, a settlement would have been easy. Whatever the others did, the Colonel must square himself. He could not carry that sort of money in his pocket.
Zack tagged at his heels, full of enthusiasm over the big concert which Signorina Aurora was planning, when little Missy was goin' to play. He tried to tell about it, but after many shakes and turns caught the idea that the Colonel did not want to talk.
Meeting Mr. Shields, the Colonel nodded. Neither made an advance. There the matter stood.
The Italians and Reifenstein kept together, close together, walking or standing. They moved along jerkily, stopped, circled around each other, put their heads together, and talked in whispers. Whenever the Colonel passed he caught them looking the other way. "Cunnel," says Zack, "what you reckon ails dem gentmuns? Yistiddy dey axed mo' questions dan enuff 'bout Li Miss an' her fiddle. Jes now when I says 'good mornin'' dat biggest one kinder nodded; but dem yuthers never said nuthin'—'cept 'barbarous murder' an' 'big pistols.' Dey sholy is got sumpin' on dey min'."
As a matter of fact the three had ceased discussing the all-important seven hundred and eighty-five dollars, which they had lost. They spoke only of those pistols, guardedly, and evasively, even with each other. Having slept on the prospect, Castelleone modified his original enthusiasm at being the first man to get in a challenge.
Turning a corner and leading his dog, Mr. J. Blair Eaton came up blandly to the Colonel, with a greeting that for him was more than effusive. Colonel Spottiswoode cut him short.
"Our acquaintance, sir," he said, "began—and ended—last night." Then the Colonel resumed his tramp, while Eaton stood staring.
"Dear me. Dear me. What can be the matter with the fellow?"
When the Colonel turned and started back, Eaton dragged his bulldog around the corner and gave him a vicious kick.
A stir at the head of the stairs attracted Zack's attention, and he ran in to watch the elaborate forerunners of Signorina Aurora's progress to the music room. Zack loved the orderly confusion of a grand entrance at the beginning of the main circus. He watched with open mouth.
First came the maid, Constanza, who bustled into the music room, and with artistic eye chose the divan upon which Aurora would recline. The color scheme must harmonize. Deck stewards brought rugs and shawls, hung toilet bags over the back of Signorina's divan, placed bon-bon dishes, dainty baskets of fruit. Constanza stepped back, surveyed it critically, then a touch here, a pat there, and all was ready.
Aurora emerged from her cabin, radiantly, smilingly emerged. Fussy assistants draped her properly on the divan, and covered one of her pretty feet. The other pretty foot was left accidently and artistically visible, with a sufficient visibility above it to indicate what the other ankle and stocking were like. The Signorina affected purples and lavenders this morning—a purple deck-bonnet—of puritan primness, such as Priscilla might have worn to keep the wind from tossing her hair—leaving those long lavender streamers for the wind to play with.
"Sit here, Carissima," she said to Miss Stanton, drawing the girl beside her.
Miss Stanton wore no purples, lavenders or jewels—just a simple skirt and waist; her firm round forearms were bare of bracelets and her fingers devoid of rings. She had brushed her hair in soft curves from her forehead, and it billowed around her head. Perhaps the Signorina had thought of the foil that this gentle Southerner would make for her own voluptuous magnificence, and Miss Stanton lost nothing by the contrast.
Aurora's confident eyes turned to the happy brown ones, "Come now, Carissima, we shall talk about your benefit—what will you play?" Miss Stanton astounded the Signorina by her familiarity with the world's great music. "Very well, you shall play what you choose. You will surprise us, yes, yes. Captain, come here." She beckoned the bewhiskered officer. "I give a benefit, you know, for this young lady. She will play so wonderfully; I shall sing three times—three songs."
The gallant captain bent over her, "When have we such happiness?"
"This night, this very night. I cannot sleep until mia carissima is provided for."
Miss Stanton moved uneasily, and would have run away had not the other held her. "Please don't," she whispered; "it makes me feel"
"Tut—tut—tut, it is their privilege. They feed their pigs, they stable their cattle. Such an artiste as yourself comes once only in a lifetime. Captain, post a notice at once, that Aurora will sing to-night, at eight. Tickets $5.00. I shall myself buy twenty. It is worth twenty tickets to hear Miss Stanton play the violin."
The diva's enthusiasm gained strength like a rolling stone. She called passenger after passenger to her side. They were glad to come, proud to buy tickets from her own hand, by the twos and fives and tens.
Zack stood grinning at the door. He knew that something important was going on, some thing that made the little Miss look very flushed and happy. When Miss Stanton caught sight of him, she touched Aurora's hand, "There's the old black man that you wanted to hear talk."
"Call him, my dear, call him. He is so amusing."
Miss Stanton nodded cordially, and Zack came sidewise into the big room.
"What are you laughing at, Uncle Zack?" she inquired. Aurora sat up straight to hear what he said. Zack grinned: "I jes been lookin' at all dis water an' studyin' 'bout sump'n."
"Studying about what?" Miss Stanton drew him out.
"You say tain't nothin' but water up dat a-way?" pointing towards the north. Miss Stanton agreed.
"An' nothin' 'cept water down yonder way?" indicating the south. Miss Stanton nodded again.
"An' de onliest banks is over yonder, an' back yonder whar us come from?" Zack broke out into a loud laugh, "I war jes studyin', ef all de men was on one side, an' all de wimmen on de yuther, an twarn't no way to walk around dat water; it jes fell in my min' to laff at what a mighty scufflin' dere'd be 'mongst dem wimmen learning how to swim."
Aurora leaned back and laughed, which tickled Zack into showing all his teeth. Miss Stanton kept him talking, "Now, Uncle Zack, what did you say your name is?"
Zack bowed profoundly, and brushed his cap against the crimson carpet; then he straightened up, "Zack Foster, Ma'am; but ev'body, white an' black, in de whole ontire city o' Vicksburg, dey calls me 'Ole Reliable.'"
"Old Reliable?"
"Yas'm. Everybody sho do call me dat, an' I got a good right to it."
"What does he mean?" Aurora whispered.
"He means," Doris explained, "that people in America nickname a man for some trait of his character. And in that part of our country the people call Uncle Zack 'Old Reliable.'"
"What a splendid reputation!"
Zack smiled broadly at the radiant lady's praise, and opened his mouth so wide that if it hadn't been for his ears, the top of his head would have been an island.
"Yas'm, I got a pow'ful good reputation down yonder in Vicksburg, an' mos' everywhar. Ef you don't believe what I sez, you jes go an' ax Cunnel."
"Do you always travel with the Colonel?" Miss Stanton inquired.
"Yas'm; me and Cunnel allus goes together. He's gwine to Afriky Landin' to he'p me larn dem niggers how to raise cotton."
Reifenstein and the Italians drifted in and stood talking within a few feet of Aurora and never noticed her—which was quite insulting. Distinctly she caught Torreale's words, "Seven hundred and eighty-five dollars." Then she called out, "Torreale! Reifenstein! my dear Count, come here. You stupid, stupid creatures to talk about money. How vulgar, when I am giving a benefit to-night."
The three men bent over and listened politely until Reifenstein heard Zack say, "Yas'm, me an' Cunnel sojered durin' the whole entire war. An' sence den us been together all de time—continual—continual. Mos' in generally us hunts."
"The Colonel is a good shot, I suppose?" suggested Miss Stanton.
"Good shot? Did you say 'Good shot'? Sholy, Miss, you is heerd 'bout Cunnel's shootin'?"
Reifenstein did not intend a rudeness to Signorina Aurora, nor did Torreale; and Castelleone, who had followed her over three continents, had no thought of being ungallant. But all three turned from the lady and listened to the negro.
Zack sidled around until he could watch the door so that the Colonel wouldn't catch him; then took the bridles off his imagination and roamed through the gory fields of Spottiswoode's hunting exploits with specifications of certain marvelous shots. The three expectant duelists shivered as they listened, for Zack did his best.
"But the gentleman is getting old. His eyes?—" Castelleone suggested.
"Lordee, suh; 'pears like de Cunnel is jes now gittin' de hang o' dem eyes. Dis comin' fall I looks fer 'im to be at his best."
"Has he killed anybody lately?" inquired Torreale.
"No, suh, 'cep in de war. Dat war wouldn't lasted no time ef Cunnel hadn't been tuk down sick, an' I had to tote 'im home. Whilst he was outen his head wid fever de s'render come. You jes ought to heerd Cunnel stomp an' cuss when dey tole 'im dat. Fust he say he war gwine to git right up from dat bed an' do his fightin' all over agin. Fer de longest time nobody couldn't swade him dat Marse Robert done s'rendered. He wouldn't never b'lieved dat till now, 'ceptin' his own ma say twuz so. Doctor Pauldin' kep' 'im full o' medicine so he'd lie down and be still. Ef twarn't fer dat, 'tain't no tellin' what moughter happened. Lordee, gent'men, you all oughter see de Cunnel ketch his bridle wid his teef an' take a six-shooter in each han' he'd go gallopin' round a saplin' an' put every one o' dem twelve bullets smack in de middle—dat warn't nothin'. Everybody done dat, or dey couldn't stay in his army."
Doris Stanton turned her face away and gazed out of the port-hole; she hated for Zack to see her laughing. Then, at the first symptom of a halt, she set him going again, "Has your Colonel got in a good humor yet? about the war?"
Zack laughed, "Yas'm, Cunnel kin sorter smile 'bout it sometimes, 'cept when he sees one o' dem biggety niggers in Washington. But 'scusin' dem biggety niggers, Cunnel say now he sho is glad he got tuk down sick, so everything passed off nice an' pleasant. I heerd Cunnel speak dem very words to a passel o' white gent'men in N'Yawk."
"All of that—that shooting must be in—what do they call it—the wild West?" Torreale put the question in a whisper to Castelleone. Then he spoke aloud to Zack. "Does he kill many people in duels?"
"No, suh, Cunnel wouldn't hurt a fly. But he don't git no chance. Nobody won't fight no mo' duels wid Cunnel—dey done quit dat long ago. When folks notices dat de Cunnel is gittin' riled, dey jes goes out in de woods an' climbs a tree. Dat makes Cunnel grin, an' he sez: 'It's all right, boys; you kin come down agin, an' les' be friends.' 'Tain't nary yaller dog in Vicksburg what can't make friends wid Cunnel, 'scusin' dem times when he's pestered. And sump'n' sho did pester de Cunnel las' night. He's terrible riled to-day."
"Is he very, very rich?" inquired Aurora.
"Cunnel—he got a plenty—but, lady, he gives away money jes same as ef twuz buttons—fo' bits here, an' a dollar yonder. Folks jes laff an' say de onliest thing Cunnel is stingy 'bout is ammynition. He sho do hate to waste none o' dat. I been wid 'im, man an' boy, fer nigh on to fifty years, an' he ain't never wasted none to my knowin'. Comin', suh, comin'." Zack reached down, grabbed his hat and hustled out, for the Colonel himself had appeared at the door and beckoned him.
Three foreigners stared at each other. Castelleone wasn't satisfied. "Mees Stanton," he inquired, "what does the black mean when he says 'stingy wid ammynition'?"
Miss Stanton laughed outright and explained, "He says the Colonel never misses a shot—always hits something with each bullet. Hates to waste a shot, just as you hate to waste a dollar—to throw it away, to get nothing for it. Do you understand?"
"Si, Signorina—oh, yes—Mees" Castelleone answered slowly.
CHAPTER VI
THE MAN WHO RAN
LATER that same afternoon Colonel Spottiswoode sat in his steamer chair, still thinking, still figuring, while Zack lounged against the rail and gazed upon the water.
"Zack! Zack!" he glanced up and asked, "if you had some money that you didn't want, what would you do with it?"
Zack grinned, "Well, Cunnel, you know how niggers is. Dey's mighty ginrous wid money what dey ain't got. But ef I had a lot o' money, I'd buy tickets to Missy's concert. She sho is one high qualified young lady, an' ain't got no bizness puttin' her foot to de groun'. Dem gent'men is plumb crazy 'bout de way she plays dat fiddle."
The Colonel straightened up in his chair. Presently he untangled himself from the steamer rug and began to pace the deck. Wheeling at the last turn, he stopped abruptly: "Zack, you've got more sense than a lead mule. Go find that little sharp-faced steward, and bring him to the writing room." Then the Colonel disappeared.
In a corner of the writing room where nobody could see him, Colonel Spottiswoode placed seven hundred and eighty-five dollars in an envelope. Then he took the four cards—Reifenstein, Castelleone, Torreale, and Shields—enclosed them with the money, and sealed the package.
"Steward," he said, "take this envelope straight to Signorina Certosa, and tell her it is from these gentlemen whose cards are inside—to buy one ticket each. If you mention my name, you don't get a cent; if you keep your mouth shut, I'll give you five dollars."
As he started for the music room that steward's mouth could not have been opened with a jimmy. Colonel Spottiswoode hurried out on deck and watched through a port hole. He saw the steward as he laid the envelope in Signorina's hand, and delivered the message accurately.
"Four more tickets sold, my dear," the singer laughed, and patted Miss Stanton's hands. But when Aurora saw the large size of the bills, and the gold besides, her eyes widened. Excitedly she counted: "Seven hundred and eighty-five dollars. Who sent this? Who" She looked up but the steward had vanished. A card dropped out, "Carissima, look! It's that dear, dear Reifenstein. Where is he? Where is he? Come, we must find him dear, generous Reifenstein." Signorina sprang up and led Miss Stanton to the deck.
Reifenstein was standing near the forward screen, talking confidentially with the other two. Colonel Spottiswoode flattened himself against the wall as Aurora dragged the unwilling girl and went running past. Signorina Certosa rushed up behind Reifenstein, pulled him around, put both hands upon his shoulders and kissed his cheek: "Oh! you generous, generous darling" The German stepped back amazed; the Italians looked on with blank and stupid faces. "How splendid of you—princely!" Aurora continued unbrokenly. "And when I heard you say 'seven hundred and eighty-five dollars' I thought you were taking no interest in my benefit—oh!"
None of the men had spoken. "Seven eighty-five," Reifenstein repeated vaguely, then reached out and took the card from Aurora's hand, his own card, with the ink spot. "Who sent this?" he asked.
"You sent it with the money, such an odd amount—seven hundred and eighty-five dollars." The three men glanced wonderingly at each other until an idea occurred to Reifenstein. He turned and strode off with the card in his hand.
Half-way down the long deck Colonel Spottiswoode was standing. Reifenstein went directly up to him and presented the card: "Did you send this, sir, to Signorina Certosa?"
"I did, sir," the Colonel answered.
"And you sent her the money that was in dispute—for the young lady's benefit?"
"I did, sir."
Reifenstein tore up the card and extended his hand, "I shall make any apology you demand. You must be my friend."
"I never wanted to be anything else"; the Colonel wrung his hand warmly, and the two men leaned against a corner of the passage, laughing at the untangling of their troubles. Zack came slipping along and pulled the Colonel's sleeve and warned him, "Look out, Cunnel! Dey's comin'."
And they were coming, Signorina still dragging Doris by the wrist. Behind her followed the chattering and excited Italians, jubilant with delight. In their rear the Colonel saw, or imagined, hundreds and hundreds of curious eyes, watching to see what the Signorina was going to do. Every human being on the vessel seemed surging toward them. The Colonel gave one look, just one.
"I can't stand the gaff," he whispered to Reifenstein, then melting behind the corner, turned and fled.
"Where is he?" demanded the breathless Signorina. "Where is that dear, dear American Prince?"
"Gone." Reifenstein choked out the word, his face very red.
"Run away? From me? me?" Then the singer turned upon Zack and berated him. "So your terreeble, terreeble fighter is run away—run from a woman?"
"No, ma'am," Zack defended him. "No, ma'am, he ain't run away. I seen Cunnel look at his watch; he got er engagement down stairs to kill a man."
They could not embrace the Colonel, so Castelleone and Torreale embraced each other.
CHAPTER VII
THE TERRORIST
Sailing away through the boundless day
On a tub of the bluingest blue;
(It stretches from here to the Far-and-Near,
Over the rim of the Wonder-Where,
And back again from the Yonder-There.)
Gulls dip their duds in the trailing suds
We leave on the laundry blue.
THE Olga plowed a straight and purposeful furrow from the Greek port of Piræus towards Alexandria in Egypt. Behind her lay the purple haze of Hellas. Far ahead, across the Mediterranean, stretched a violet field whose tawny edge was Africa. Ripples of peacock blue broke across her bow, and burst into a shimmer of broken opals. Whirling white bubbles settled down in her wake. All around and about, above, below—there was naught but a vast and vacant globe, a fretted ball of water, with this smoking speck—the Olga—in its very middle.
Old Reliable warn't pestered in his mind about the peacock blue, and the violet field troubled him none whatever. It wasn't the vacant globe that bothered Zack. He hungered for the "Hot Cat Eating House," and for somebody who could understand that regular old-timey Unity States talk. From the minute he stepped off that first boat at Naples, Zack couldn't make out a word of what anybody was saying. Then they crossed Italy, and caught another boat. The Colonel said they were going to Greece, but Zack never saw any grease, just a lot of dry yellow hills, and no grass, where folks jabbered a whole lot worse than the Italians. That's where they took a third boat for Afriky Landing.
So here Zack was, on a Russian vessel, crowded with all kinds of people wearing their Mardi Gras clothes, Greeks, Slavs, Polacks, Turks, Russians, Huns, Gippies—squatting around the lower decks and jabbering to beat the band. But, some way or other, Zack couldn't get in on the jabber. He stood amongst them, tongue-tied and dumb; he, the Champeen Argufier of the Hot Cat Eating House, was staked out in the fields of silence, and fenced off from his kind. This gibble-gabble on the upper deck, and the gibberish amidships, made Zack's feet itch to get away. A lonesome black-faced figure, in store -bought clothes, and hat of wide-brimmed gray, he wandered from one chattering group to another, smiling in a neighborly fashion, but silent. Back, and back again he returned to the Colonel's chair.
Colonel Spottiswoode had dropped his magazine on deck, and was gazing across the blue waters. His mind went adventuring with Phœnician galleys that once had sailed these seas, the Carthaginians, the Normans, the fortunes of Cæsar
"Cunnel," Zack interrupted his thoughts; "Cunnel, don't you want me to do nuthin' fer you?" The Colonel shook his head; he was dreaming, smiling, drowsing. Old Reliable pushed himself along and mumbled, "I wish I wuz back home, sick in bed." If Zack had hold of the plow handles he could at least run a one-sided discussion with the mule.
Up and down the deck he rambled, desolate as a house-dog when the children have gone away, anxious to wag his tail, if somebody would only snap a finger.
At first he did not see a certain man who eyed him intently—one Gregory Lykoff who had caught the Olga at Piræus. How Lykoff smuggled himself out of Russia would always remain an enigma to the police. But he did smuggle himself out, for his affair was urgent. The government had captured a key to their secret cipher, and the Terrorists had to change it. Lykoff carried the new key which was to put them again in communication with comrades throughout the world. Immaculate, languid-looking, wearing a fastidious black mustache, with hands of girlish softness, nobody would pick Lykoff for a man who had toiled in Siberian mines, and now dared a second exile. That was fifteen years ago; and to-day Gregory Lykoff was only thirty-one. It behooved him to be cautious. In the first place he should have avoided any steamer which, like the Olga, flew the Russian flag. But Guinea Ryan, the American boiler-maker, brought him his imperative order, and he must sail at once to Alexandria. Even then Lykoff would never have trusted himself on board the Olga if he could have foreseen that the implacable Gargarin—known as the "Bloodhound"—and his shrewdest assistant, would climb the Olga's companionway five minutes before she sailed. It was then no surprise for Lykoff to find Gargarin assigned to him as a cabin-mate. So Lykoff grimly determined to merit the tribute which his government paid so young a man.
In St. Petersburg many intercepted letters lay waiting for this key before they could be read by the police; and the lives of many comrades depended upon him. The young Russian had been in serious situations before, and a French novel in his lap did not distract his attention from the Bloodhound, who leaned against a life-boat with eyes upon the sea. Gargarin was never squeamish in his methods, and Lykoff knew that he would be searched before their arrival at Alexandria—baggage, cabin, and person—that was inevitable. Lykoff also realized that his government wanted the key rather than himself. Gargarin on his part felt sure that Lykoff would carry that key in such a way as to be instantly destroyed—which had happened in several bunglesome arrests. Manifestly Lykoff could not take it ashore, even if he were permitted to leave the ship, which was not likely. Neither could he trust Guinea Ryan—the American boiler-maker being also under strict surveillance. He must get an unsuspected man. From the moment Lykoff first set eyes on Colonel Spottiswoode he saw that here was a man who could help, but who would not. No amount of persuasion or money—neither of which Lykoff lacked—could reach such men. But the black? the negro? An inspiration! Lykoff had lived in the United States and had become somewhat familiar with Southern negroes. This black servant would follow his master ashore, and pass unchallenged. Once ashore it might be very easy for himself, or friends, to reclaim his priceless scrap of paper. So Gregory Lykoff Terrorist, assassin, patriot, what you please—sat placidly in his chair, and made up his mind to use the services of Old Reliable.
At first it scared Zack shaky in the knees, the abruptness with which that snappy-eyed white man followed him into his cabin and locked the door. There was a command in Lykoff's gesture which kept the negro from making an outcry. "Your name is Zack?" he asked.
"Yas, suh, but ev'ybody, white an' black, calls me 'Ole Reliable'." Zack's smile was feeble, his intentions strong.
"Zack is enough; that's easier. Do you want a hundred dollars?" which reassured Zack mightily; the man talked United-States-talking; he said dollars instead of these other words which Zack could not understand; so the negro replied instantly and truthfully, "Yas, suh, I'd love to git a hundred dollars."
"You are going ashore with the Colonel?" the white man said.
"Sholy, sholy; Cunnel won't lemme git two foot out o' his sight. Cunnel ain't able to do nothin' fer hisself."
"Very good; I want to send a letter ashore. It is important. Here it is, rolled in this capsule. You must deliver it to the man who will come to you and say, 'Zack,' not another single word, just 'Zack.' He will hand you the other ten sovereigns when you give him the capsule; here is ten now."
It was no dream—that white man put ten gold pieces into Zack's hand, careless-like, same as if 'twas nothing but buttons—more money than Zack had seen since Drif quit fighting.
The negro grinned for better acquaintance sake, "Mister how come you knowed so good my name was Zack?"
"I heard the Colonel call you 'Zack'."
"Huh! You knows de Cunnel?" Zack brightened up for extended conversation,
"I heard you call him Colonel—don't interrupt me." Lykoff spoke peremptorily—Zack loved to hear a white man talk like he meant it. Suddenly Lykoff stopped; he heard a step in the passage, a knock on the door. There was an armor in the cabin for clothes to be hung—Lykoff hid himself inside, and closed it as Zack opened the cabin door in answer to a voice outside, calling, "Zack, where are my glasses?"—it was the Colonel's voice.
"I'll git 'em in a minute, Cunnel." The steps passed on.
Lykoff reappeared from the armor and took out a cigar, a peculiar cigar with a peculiar band. In deep thought he removed the band; it fell to the floor. "Now, Zack," he asked, "do you understand me perfectly?"
"Yas, suh, I sho do."
"You will keep beside your master, and never leave him?"
"Leave Cunnel? dat I won't. Who else he got to take keer o' him?"
"Very good—now in case anybody tries to get that capsule away from you"—Zack began to show the whites of his eyes—"or if any accident happens, you must swallow it."
Zack gasped, "Mister, dis here stuff ain't pizen?"
"It will not hurt you. I hid it in that capsule so I could swallow it myself if necessary. Or you can throw it into the sea; it will sink."
"Well, Mister, ef it's jes de same wid you, I'll chunk it in de water."
"Very good—but only in extremity. One more thing, you must not look at me, must not speak to me. You have never seen me before. Remember that." This tickled Old Reliable into a wink and a grin. He loved mystery; he gloried in lodge work; he loved the secret grips and signs and pass-words which ignorant niggers didn't know.
"Now tell me exactly what you are to do." Lykoff put him through his catechism. Old Reliable reeled it off like a parrot, "Give dis here pill to de man what calls me 'Zack.' An' I gits ten mo' o' dese. Ef anybody ack like he aims to take it away from me, jes drap it in de water. An' I ain't got to let on like I knows you."
"Very good." As Lykoff came, so Lykoff went, silently and without warning. He did not glance from the door to see if he were spied upon. He must take a chance. This left old Zack standing alone in his cabin, staring from the ten gold pieces to the capsule.
"Huh! dat white man cornduck hisself mighty brief about dis pill." Zack tested each sovereign with his teeth, to see if they were good, stuffed them deep in his breeches pockets, and put the capsule inside his vest. Still in a daze he picked up the cigar band which Lykoff had dropped to the floor and slipped it on his finger as though it were a ring.
When Old Reliable passed through the smoking room, Lykoff and the Bloodhound were taking their coffee together, and Lykoff felt a sudden chill to see his green-gold cigar band on the negro's finger. Of course the Bloodhound also noticed it. Neither man batted an eye. A few minutes later Gargarin examined the steward's stock of cigars. There were none to match the green-gold band; none amongst the various passengers—the American smoked a distinctly American brand. So Gargarin wanted to know how Zack got that cigar band, and Lykoff felt that he must account for it. Lykoff waited his chance until the Colonel and Zack were standing at the rail. Old Zack seemed restless with responsibility, glancing all around him, and missing nothing. Crafty Lykoff led the Bloodhound to their windward, and casually dropped the band from an other cigar. The wind bowled it towards Old Reliable. As Lykoff hoped, the negro saw it coming, stooped and picked up the glittering bit of paper. Lykoff said nothing. Gargarin said nothing. Zack's possession of the cigar band was accounted for.
Less than an hour afterwards the bearer of that secret cipher discovered that he had been none too quick in shifting it to other hands. At lunch he was taken violently ill and carried fainting from the table. The ship's surgeon administered certain medicines; Lykoff lapsed into unconsciousness. When he awaked next morning in the hospital, he wore a strange pair of pajamas, his clothing being folded on a chair—searched in every pocket and seam. Not a crevice in his cabin had been overlooked; even the soles of his shoes were ripped apart, his purse unstitched—Gargarin's scrutiny had been thorough.
"Luck's agin me," Old Reliable mused when his Russian ally showed himself on deck; "dar's de onliest white folks what kin talk my sort o' an' ain't 'lowed to say nothin' to him."
CHAPTER VIII
THREE-FINGERED CHOLERA
COLONEL Spottiswoode had composed himself in a steamer chair for another blissful day of gazing upon the sea. Zack invented all sorts of diverting novelties in conversation, but the Colonel wouldn't nibble. Then the negro straggled off and went foraging for companionship amongst the third-class passengers. On the forward deck he lingered beside a low platform carpeted with canvas and sheltered by an awning; four or five bumpy-legged men sprawled beneath this canopy. Maybe they belonged to a side show; anyhow they talked a-plenty,—some kind o' bird-store chatter. Zack couldn't argufy with them so he moved aft. On the open deck amidships he found other men, in accordian-pleated skirts, and wrapped-up women with curtains drawn across their faces—playing with crazy-looking cards—which didn't satisfy Zack.
It was then that a voice from heaven came unto him, saying, "Hello, old man! Where'd you come from?"
Old Reliable halted and grinned a noble grin: "I comes from Vicksburg, Missippi, suh."
Guinea Ryan, the freckle-faced nondescript, lay sprawling in the shade. He wore clothes, but of no describable kind. "What's your name?" he asked.
"Zack Foster, suh! But ev'ybody, white an' black, calls me 'Ole Reliable.'"
Guinea Ryan's hands, covered with sandy hair, showed how the desert had burned them raw, then healed over, but remained raw-colored. He gripped a stubby pipe with thumb and forefinger. Three fingers were missing from the left hand. Freckles, generously spattered, accounted for his name. Everybody from the Mersey to the Yang-tse-Kiang dubbed him "Guinea"—Guinea Ryan, cosmopolite citizen, whose hammer rang around the world, battering rivets from Buenos Ayres to Bombay, and patching boilers from Vicksburg to Vladivostok. His face cracked open in a noiseless laugh: "How's old Paddy Foley, the b'iler-maker on Levee Street?"
Zack switched on all his facial illuminations: "Lordee, Mister, is you 'quainted wid Mister Paddy? I knows 'im real good."
"Sure, I knows Paddy," the globe-trotter answered genially. "Many's the night I've laid flat o' me back in them steamboat b'ilers, holding the hammer whilst Paddy battered rivets from the outside." Guinea sat up, made a pivot of his middle-rear, swung around, and motioned Zack to a seat. "The world ain't no bigger'n a sardine box. Set down. Where are you going?"
Zack's tongue untied itself and started wagging, "I'm aimin' to git off at Afriky Landin'. Me an' Cunnel is done traveled a far ways to l'arn dem niggers how to plant cotton. I reckon I knows all 'bout cotton, an' all 'bout niggers too. Now dar's de Cunnel—yonder he, 'sleep in dat chair, wid dem white clothes on—he's gwine wid me to he'p show 'em how."
"Show 'em how to do what?"
"Make cotton. You see, Mister, I got a plantation, an' Cunnel he owns a little lan'—dat's how come dese gent'men 'vailed on me an' him. Dey jes nacherly had de fidgets till us got started to Afriky Landin'."
"I wonder if that can be new Sudan Syndicate—at Wadi Okar?" Guinea spoke aloud, but it was to himself.
"Yas, suh, I sho heered 'em call dat name 'Suzanne'—Mrs. Suzanne sumbody or 'nother. We's gwine up on her place. Widders can't never manage dey own property."
Far be it from Guinea to smile and scare off a good thing. But he knew that vast Sudan—and knew the syndicate whose ambition it was to plant fifty thousand acres in cotton. "So you are the man that's going to learn them niggers?"
Old Reliable tried to be modest, "I'm him."
"Do you think you'll get along with the Shillooks and Dinkas?"
"What's dem?"
"Them's the kind of niggers that live up yonder."
"Lordee, Mister, 'tain't no two kinds o' niggers—all of 'em jes de same. Some white folks argufies dat dey's diffunt—but d'aint."
Guinea drew himself closer. "How are you going to do it?" he questioned.
What was he going to do? Old Zack blossomed out and confided, "Tain't but one way to l'arn nothin' to niggers, git straight behine 'em every mornin' at fo' 'clock, an' hustle 'em out to de fiel'. Den foller ev'y track dey make. Dey got to git up when I rings dat bell. No sore toes, an' no misery in de back ain't gwine to keep 'em from wrastlin' wid a hoe. Sore toe niggers can't draw no rations on Saddy night. Now dar's de Cunnel; he ain't no more'n a baby. But dem niggers on Sherwood Plantation, dey thinks de sun rise an' set in Cunnel. Ef he say black is white, dey sets deir min' by dat, same as dey sets deir watch by dat big clock in Cunnel's sto'."
The smile at Guinea's mouth lost itself in a wilderness of freckles. He leaned forward and whispered, "Better get your Colonel to tell them quarantine soldiers about you; try to make them believe black is white"
"How come, mister?" Zack didn't relish the uneasy way in which Guinea glanced behind him. A negro couldn't feel anything but skittish when surrounded by gypsy-like men in skirts, and women whose black eyes peered at him through a slit in their face-cloths.
The Irishman began to talk; his Adam's apple went gulping up and down his scraggy neck. Zack got excited as he watched the performance, for Guinea might swallow it, or spit it out. In all the years since Guinea first won his fame for single-handed lying, he had never cornered such a ravenous listener. He pumped that negro's hide plum full. Old Reliable leaned forward breathlessly. Guinea gulped, and went on with his tale—"Ten thousand folks dyin' every day—cholera—three-fingered cholera, coffins piled up in the street, same as cross-ties longside the rail-road track. An' my pardner—Sh! my pardner turned black in the face whilst I was looking at 'im, and dropped dead."
"Dar now!" Zack exclaimed. "What did you do?"
Guinea winked, "Ole nigger, did you ever see a Irishman run? This ship was pullin' out—I made one leap an' grabbed them steps. Them Rooshians was goin' to fumigate me."
"Fumigate! Huh! war dat all? White folks in Vicksburg used to fumigate nigger houses continual in time of de yaller fever."
Guinea nodded complacently, as if he were merely letting Zack run on.
"At de fust off-startin' o' de epidemic, niggers tuk on mightily, den got so dey didn't min' it. One smart Aleck of a nigger claim he knowed how to fumigate and kill skeeters too. Twarn't no trick in dat. So he shet all de do's and winders an' pasted paper over de cracks, same as de white folks done. His ole gran'ma had been tuk down wid a misery, an' couldn't git out er bed. Dat nigger 'low twuz all right, jes let her be. He say she could stick 'er head under de kivers. Den he sot fire to dem sulphur pans. Huh! never made nary skeeter cough—but dat fool nigger cost my lodge forty-six dollars to bury ole gran'ma."
Guinea pulled deep on his pipe. "That ain't no way to fumigate. They fixes yo' clock over here, fixes it good and proper. See them fingers?" Zack had been wondering how Guinea lost those three fingers. "That's what they done to me in Alexandria, right where we are going. Made me stick out my tongue and squirted a lot o' stuff down my throat with a hoss-syringe; doctor commenced to feel my pulse, started way up here at the shoulder, an' kep' a-feelin' down. The minute he touched them three fingers, he said, 'Whack 'em off; he's got cholera in 'em.' No 'ifs' and 'ands' and 'buts' about it—Gippy soldiers whacked 'em off."
"Uh! Uh!" Zack grunted; "I heered you speak dem words 'bout three fingers o' cholera, but never knowed reel good what twuz." Guinea's lips twitched; he looked mighty mournful, and presently Zack voluntered in a subdued tone, "When us has quawnteen, de white folks sets aroun' de edge o' town wid shot guns, an' won't let nobody come in."
"That part's all right," Guinea admitted; "you wait 'til they git you at Alexandria—this evenin'. They stuffed me into one o' them tall fumigatin' boxes, like a coffin standing up on one end. Gippies was going to strangle me with sulphur and I couldn't speak a word o' their talk. I hollered out the grand hailin' sign o' distress—and a lodge brother heard it. He come pretty nigh not gettin' me out quick enough. That's what blistered me all over; look at my hands." "Lodge brudder?" Zack whispered eagerly, grasping the idea of help and protection. "Lodge brudder? I belongs."
Guinea nodded and winked, "Mighty good thing. Plenty brothers over here."
"What dey gwine to do to me when I gits to Afriky Landin'?" the frightened negro queried.
Guinea looked pained; he hated to say.
"Sh! keep yo' eyes skinned. If you see 'em comin' in a boat, with a yaller flag—look out for snakes. That yaller flag means they're goin' to fumigate. Heap of soldiers come aboard. Sergeant stands at the top o' the steps; doctor makes first class passengers stick out their tongues, feel their pulse an' gives 'em a certificate."
"I'm fust class," Zack announced proudly. Then Guinea added: "That's only the white folks; third cabin, an' dark-skinned people, they chuck 'em overboard in a barge, an' fumigates 'em."
"Dark-skinned? dark-skinned?" old Zack questioned, and Guinea explained very clearly, "When a feller catches cholera he turns black"
Zack squirmed, "I kin prove by Cunnel dat I always is been dark-complected."
"Better prove by Cunnel that you are white."
"Huh! I'm gwine straight to Cunnel with dat news." Zack's coat tails were already flapping against the stair rail when Guinea jerked him back, "Hold on, that's the worst thing you could do. When them gippies commence asking, 'Where's that black man, with the wide-brimmed hat?' the Colonel, he'd say, 'That must be Zack. He was here a minute ago.' Then they'll get you." The negro sank hopelessly on the covered hatchway. When he caught his breath again he asked, "What makes 'em fumigate black folks, and don't meddle wid white folks?"
Guinea whispered ominously, "This ship sailed out o' the Black Sea."
"My Gawd! my Gawd! Mister, what is we gwine to do?"
Then Guinea whispered, "When I see 'em dumpin' bed clothes in them barges, I'm going to hide."
"Whar at?" To Old Reliable the vessel was a labyrinth of hiding places.
"Come along, I'll show you. Don't sneak like that; walk straight." The Irishman went strolling across the open space and dived into a dark hatch. Like a big black child Old Reliable followed his new Moses.
Leaning over the rail, the Bloodhound and his subordinate watched the performance on the lower deck.
"Shall I arrest the negro?" his subordinate asked.
"No, he is perhaps an American citizen. Watch him, and we'll deal with him—the other way."
Far below in the third-class sleeping spaces, Old Reliable eyed those bunks ranged against the wails, and running in double rows down the middle—iron beds, one above the other, with scanty mattresses. The odor was not pleasant.
"See here," Guinea whispered and pointed; "a man that had any sense could crawl back in that corner. They must take us for suckers; we ain't going to be strangled, and maybe get three fingers chopped off."
"I'll show 'em; I'll show 'em," Old Reliable mumbled and shook his head.
Ryan climbed back to the deck, with Old Reliable following him. But Zack felt safer, now that he'd picked a good place to hide.
CHAPTER IX
THE YELLOW FLAG
THE Olga was nearing Alexandria, and emigrants from Russia, Greece, Roumania, were piling their plunder on the deck. Few of them smiled. Turkish children went stolidly about their work. Zack sniffed at their dirty bedding and evil-odored bundles that were being brought up from the hold. "Huh! dem things don't smell like no jewraniums; nigger as I is, dey makes me sick."
A sudden desire possessed Zack to be near the Colonel—where he could touch him with his hand when the crisis came. He started for the promenade deck, but Guinea cut him off at the steps with a caution, "Keep your mouth shet."
Zack nodded, "I ain't heered nuthin'."
With a heavy heart Old Reliable began climbing the steps to the first deck—"where de Cunnel was at."
It was an almost windless day—blue, immeasurable, unflecked on sea or sky. The Colonel's finger pointed straight ahead: "Look, Zack, there is the land of Egypt."
Zack could see something, something like a dusty fog that lay flat against the sea, but not his idea of mysterious Africa. The barbaric glamour did not appeal to Zack. Solid land up rose from the sea, the roofs of a city, and a harbor with long stone arms encircling countless masts—thicker than fishing-poles in a cane-brake. Zack saw nothing of the shore; he wasn't studying about those ridges of tiger yellow sands, with groups of plumy palms against an impalpable sky. They moved on slowly towards the harbor. The mosques and minarets of Alexandria never caught his shifty glances. He searched the sea and scanned the boats, kept his eyes peeled for yellow flags and not for scenery. The Fort of Kait Bay moved by unheeded; the Palace of Ras-el-Tin was nothing but a big yellow house—now if it had been a yellow flag.
Then, from somewhere—Zack hadn't heard it before—there came the "put-put-put" of a tug boat; he saw its blunt nose like an alligator, saw a yellow flag, and his breath stopped.
"Zack," the Colonel spoke and the negro jumped; "Zack, is our baggage ready?"
"Yas, suh, ready, suh."
"Get it up, and keep close to me."
"Yas, suh."
Lykoff listened with satisfaction. He had this much advantage over the Bloodhound, who understood no English. Then suddenly Lykoff went sick. Zack pulled something from his vest pocket and dropped the capsule. Lykoff had almost sprung forward when Zack picked it up again, and the Rusian smiled inwardly. The black must be an accomplished diplomat; his face never betrayed him. Nobody could have suspected that capsule. The fact was that Zack had forgot about it. He had cholera on his mind. Blindly he stumbled down the salon steps. Everything below rattled in confusion. Porters and stewards jostled each other, dumping trunks into the main passage. He saw a lot of black-whiskered Russians who would be glad to chop off his fingers. Zack got through safely to the Colonel's cabin and came back, panting like a lizard, with the bags.
That yellow flag was approaching with all speed. Things began to happen exactly as Guinea had foretold. Zack shivered behind the Colonel. The ugly little boat bulged ahead. He could make out white faces, brown faces, yellow faces, all kinds of faces looking straight at him. The Olga dropped anchor and lowered a shaky flight of steps to the water. From the prow of the quarantine boat a brown-skinned giant reached out with a long stick that had an iron hook on the end. That must be to snatch folks off the rail, and pull 'em down into the boat. The giant lowered his hook, grappled the Olga's steps, and made fast alongside. A slimmish white man, with a face like sun-cracked leather, marched up the steps. Cold blue eyes glinted underneath his helmet—Zack saw no mercy. This man took his stand at the head of those steps on a little platform overhanging the sea. Then he beckoned for his file of mulatto soldiers with red caps. Everything happened just as Guinea said. Two other white men climbed up the steps from the little boat, two men in white clothes and white helmets. That terrible Russian Captain didn't even try to stop them; 'peared to Zack like he was bluffed. The Captain took off his hat to one little fat fellow, and gave him a lot of papers. While they were reading those papers Zack made a sneak to the other side of the ship. Guinea was right again. Two barges had been made fast to the Olga; a long step-ladder reached down to their decks. A soldier stood guard on the top platform. Zack was almost scared to look for the fumigating boxes—there they were, right there, two of them, made of boards, exactly big enough for a man to stand up inside and get smothered.
The first-cabin white folks had assembled in the smoking room, where the fat doctor was calling names from a paper. Every time he spoke somebody stuck out a tongue, and let him feel a pulse. Zack didn't see any fingers whacked off, but folks looked mighty skittish.
Presently a thin-legged sergeant crossed over to the other side of the deck, and took his station at the head of the steps. He shouted something to his yellow soldiers. They scattered along the lower decks, and began shoving folks toward the stairway. If people didn't get along fast enough the soldiers pushed 'em down to the barge. Then the folks commenced tumbling their beds and bundles on to the barge. Exactly what Guinea Ryan had prophesied.
The sergeant thrashed his own legs with a raw-hide whip. Once in a while he tapped some fellow over the back, to keep him hustling. Some of the steerage passengers came voluntarily; some had to be toted bodily. The sergeant counted every one, and checked them on a paper.
Zack caught a whiff from that bucket which a soldier carried; it smelled like carbolic.
"Uh!" he groaned, "I ain't gwine to let 'em squirt none o' dat down my throat." He saw Guinea Ryan cross the lower deck with a bundle, and disappear down the hatchway.
Old Reliable had endured the strain to the last limit of negro nature. Then he stampeded and ducked. Fright got in his legs—his knees wabbled backwards and forwards, outwards and inwards; but he succeeded in dodging past the Colonel, without breaking into a run. Having tumbled down the main staircase, he doubled a corner, and there was nothing to hold him until he reached the open space amidships. He tried to saunter carelessly across the lower deck; at the hatchway he dropped out of sight, like a bucket into a well.
The sergeant went on counting and shoving, and swearing and waiting. His barges filled with an indiscriminate mass. "One fifteen," he counted; "should be one nineteen."
"One sixteen," corrected Guinea Ryan; "check me off, Danny; but I won't take your barge to-day." Guinea smiled and produced his health certificate.
"Hello, Guinea," laughed the Sergeant Danny; "couldn't stay out of Egypt? Haven't been gone a week. Get along into the barge; all third-class health certificates canceled."
"What's the bloody row?" Guinea demanded.
"Orders changed; cholera everywhere. Promenade along, down the steps, you know the way."
Guinea had seen too much of the Far East to argue with a British sergeant about his orders. "Hard luck, Guinea," laughed Danny; "now we've got to smoke out the hide-aways—only three to-day." The boiler-maker grinned and said nothing as he wormed himself into a position on the barge where he could witness what happened to Old Reliable.
CHAPTER X
THE HIDEAWAY
WHILE the quarantine formalities were being complied with Colonel Spottiswoode had waited inside the smoking-room door until, catching a few words of English, he looked out, glad to speak his own language with somebody. "Well, sergeant, you have a troublesome duty."
Danny tipped his helmet, "Beastly nuisance, sir Here, get along—you," he hurried a square-jawed Greek. The Colonel was about to ask a question when the Dutch doctor inside called a name resembling his own. He stepped to the table, held out his tongue, extended his pulse, opened his purse, paid six piasters for a health certificate, which he could not read, and stepped back—a simple transaction in one! two! three! After which he resumed his position, listening for Zack's name to be called.
Then he saw a scuffle outside; four Egyptian soldiers were dragging a man along the narrow deck,—a white man, a pallid-looking Russian with tall round Astrachan hat. The man's face was streaked with coal-dust, abject fear glittered in his eyes; he braced himself like a goat on the edge of a cliff, and gesticulated wildly. But the Gippies thrust him on the platform overhanging the sea; and there was nothing for him but to get on the barge. Sergeant Danny checked off another hide-away. "That leaves two," he remarked, and catching the Colonel's inquiring eye, he explained, "They try to hide, and get out of the fumigation. Can't keep these Russians clean," nodding towards a muck-heap of men and women on the barge.
"Must be a pretty hard job," assented the Colonel.
Sergeant Danny laughed: "Says Pharaoh to the sergeant, 'You go an' keep 'em clean.'"
All this time Gregory Lykoff leaned carelessly against the stair-rail in the smoking-room. Nothing had been discovered on his person or in his baggage, and he supposed that Gargarin meant to let him go ashore. Now he could look below, and out of either door. Not a muscle of his face suggested his intense anxiety to know where the black man had disappeared.
The Dutch Doctor began stammering over another name which sounded like "Zack Foster." Colonel Spottiswoode hurried inside, and found the Doctor's pudgy finger pointing to Old Reliable's name.
"Zack was here a minute ago," the Colonel said, leaned over the stair-rail and called, "Zack! Oh, Zack!" No answer. He shouted out of the port door—ran to the starboard side and called. No answer, no Zack.
"It's just like that nigger to stray off when we need him."
Lykoff saw all, heard all, understood all. He seemed wholly absorbed in cutting the end from a fresh cigar. Zack was not in the cabin nor the saloon. The Colonel hurried to the forward deck, and did not hear an uproar that broke out amidships.
Sergeant Danny had accounted for the last hide-away.
He was standing on the shaky platform checking up his list. "That's all of 'em," he remarked, and was about to give orders for the barge to cast off. Suddenly he heard a yell from his Gippies—not a casual yell, but a business yell. So Danny ran back to the railing which overlooked the lower deck. His Gippies were not in file, nor in line, but in jumble, a bobble of red tarboushes backing upwards from the hatchway. Their brown necks strained, their burly arms reached downwards into the darkness. Upwards and backwards, out of that square hole, they were dragging something. That something was more awkward to handle than a wind-mill with every sail revolving. "Lemme 'lone, you yaller niggers! turn me loose!" Zack shouted manfully. "I been black all my born days. Ax de Cunnel! Lemme go! lemme go!" Six stalwart Gippies jerked Zack into the open. "Whar's my hat?" he demanded. "An' my grip sack?" The Gippies did not smile—this was their daily job, and had long since lost its humor.
Sergeant Danny shouted a curt order; his Gippies hoisted Zack up the stairway, and rushed him along the narrow deck. He grabbed the rail. A Gippy whacked him over the knuckles; he suddenly remembered how Guinea lost three fingers—and stuck both hands into his pocket. Zack might just as well have argued with a sand-storm. The sergeant nodded; four men shoved him out on that wabbly platform. He caught with both hands for fear of tumbling into the sea. A Gippy cast his grip-sack into the barge, and Zack saw his hat go sailing after. "Turn me loose, yaller niggers; I kin walk."
The steps shook mightily as Zack climbed down. The sergeant nodded; the tug boat cast off her lines and Zack stood bareheaded, gazing up at the Olga's rail. He saw the Colonel struggling through the crowd, trying to reach the sergeant, and Zack yelled, "Here I is, Cunnel! here I is! Stop dis boat. Stop 'er."
The Bloodhound also leaned over the rail, smiled to himself and gave the negro no further thought. Lykoff turned away from the hubbub, and looked bored.
Sergeant Danny was hurrying to his gasoline boat when Colonel Spottiswoode halted him, "Sergeant, oh, sergeant! One moment, please. That fool nigger is my servant; he's a first-cabin passenger."
The sergeant's face lighted, "That accounts for it; I had one too many."
"He belongs up here with me," the Colonel insisted.
"Then why was he hiding in the steerage?"
"Nobody knows about a negro. Can't you stop your boat and put him off?"
"Sorry, sir; he's been with those suspects, and I hardly know what to do with him. I'll send him to your hotel, sir, if you like."
"But I don't know where I'm going to stop."
The distance was fast widening between the barge and the ship; the gasoline tooted her whistle impatiently. "It's late, sir," apologized the sergeant; "and we've got all these people to fumigate. Here's my address. Send a carriage for your negro."
Zack kept waving his hat and shouting until the sergeant descended to the launch, and Colonel Spottiswoode went back into the cabin. "Luck's agin' me," moaned Zack as he collapsed on his grip-sack, and commenced smoothing out the broad-brimmed hat.
The Olga moved shoreward, grated against the stone wharf, and tied fore and aft. Swarms of porters clambered aboard. Passengers began filing down the narrow gangway. Two British officers with their servants met Colonel Spottiswoode and relieved him of all custom-house annoyances. Lykoff carried a small satchel in his hand and was watching for his heavier baggage which never appeared. He had almost minded to go ashore without his trunks when Gargarin quietly took the satchel from him. "I'll take charge of this—and of you."
"Very good," assented Lykoff.
CHAPTER XI
THE BANDAGED BEGGAR
ALOW gray sea-wall defends the level sands at Alexandria. Against it throbs the ebb and flow of tepid waters. Behind that wall there runs a road, a faithful slavish road, conforming to every whim and curve and angle—a glaring sandy road, a staring vacant road. Beyond, is a row of cafés fronting the wall and facing the sea, empty as tombs—which can be seen from without, for customers never go within. But when the sun had turned to a copper ball and tumbled over the rim of the world, when evening winds toss spray above the wall, that road is transformed into a fashionable promenade. Tables and chairs appear in front of the cafés, and men come to occupy them. Out from their offices, from counting rooms of commerce, from palaces and dingy huts, come the beys and the beggars; the seller of lemonade clashes his cymbals, and the hawker of Indian figs shouts his wares.
It is a Noah's Ark of humanity, that promenade. The cocotte, painted and Parisian, swishes her skirts against the holy dervish; men of science touch elbows with fever-blooded adventurers; the swarthy Bedouin clicks his dice and calls his points across the café table to his blue-eyed Saxon opponent—for Alexandria is the strainer-rag of creation. She stretches her nets across the corner of three continents, and hauls a catch of motley fish—Copt and Kurd and Sudani, Scandinavian, Greek, and Scot—the flotsam of the Occident, the scum of the Orient. Tides of the East and tides of the West here mingle and fret in picturesque confusion. Every derelict drifts to Alexandria, for Alexandria is the strainer-rag of creation.
Somewhat retired from this skirmish line of cafés, with a broader waste of sand between its striped awnings and the sea-wall, stands the Grand Hotel Rameses. Here, as in less pretentious quarters, men dine in the open air, looking towards the water and drinking the Mediterranean breeze. The dining space is scarcely more than a booth, built on the level sands adjoining the hotel. But it is a very wide booth, a pavilion. A partition, the height of a man's waist, supports the framework for an awning which flaps and shivers in the wind. Those who pass and those who sit within, each may see the other, the beggar may look at the bey, and the pauper may observe the pacha as he dines. Men lounge in wicker chairs whilst drinking Turkish coffee and chatting over their cigarettes—men of the East, and women of the West. Women of the East appear not in public places.
Old Reliable had not yet emerged from his fumigation adventure, and the anxious Colonel awaited him. Colonel Spottiswoode sat in the Rameses smoking-room with the two British officers who had met him at the dock. They represented the New Sudan Syndicate and would conduct him to the proposed plantation. In this experiment, so dear to British hearts, and so close to British pockets, the government lent its active aid and contributed its best men. Lyttleton Bey was fifty, wiry, resolute, tanned; McDonald Bimbashi, somewhat younger, slim, resolute, tanned. Both wore white linens. The American had already put himself upon a cordial footing—there being little difference between them in blood, ideals or traditions. The British officer in the Sudan is a picked man—the pick of picked men—else he will not be assigned to Anglo-Egyptian service. Lyttleton had campaigned with Roberts at Kandahar, and with Kitchener at Khartum. McDonald was a subaltern at Mafeking, and lived in further hopes.
Colonel Spottiswoode leaned across the table, bowing to Gregory Lykoff and Demetrius Gargarin. The hunted and the hunter sat three tables away from him, in the center of the smoking room. While his acquaintance on board the Olga had been no more than a smile and nod in passing, yet the Colonel was glad to renew it, and to recognize a familiar face. Lykoff and Gargarin being compatriots and cabin-mates, it seemed natural that they should sit chatting over their coffee. They kept together because they feared to separate. Lykoff, on tenter-hooks until Old Reliable had delivered his priceless cipher, felt easier at knowing exactly where Gargarin was. And Gargarin's sole chance of capturing that cipher lay in cuddling close to Lykoff. Meanwhile he waited for a report from the man whom he had detailed to ascertain if Zack were entangled in their affair.
To Europeans in conventional dress Colonel Spottiswoode gave little heed. But the twisted turbans and filmy gowns of the Mahometans fascinated him. Nubian waiters moved noiselessly amongst the tables in garments of white, the red tarboush on their heads, red shoes on unsocked feet, and broad red bands about their middles. A beggar tottered past, clutching the low partition with both hands, and trembling in a palsy. The Colonel could only see the upper half of this man, a gaunt high-cheeked Arab with dirty band ages around his head. He groped along, peering under the canopy for such as might give alms to one groaning beneath the chastisements of Allah. When this beggar reached the front gap in the balustrade he fell, a limp huddle of rags from which came forth an open palm and wheedling voice: "For love of the Prophet—I am a famished man—Allah will reward thee" The Nubian waiter, reckless of Allah's rewards, kicked him up with none too soft a foot; he limped away like a crippled dog, and sank again from exhaustion. Fiercely he reviled the Nubian: "May thy hand be blasted—may thy sons desert thee—may" The waiter turned his back, intent upon the fetching of more cigarettes and the receiving of more piasters, with scant uneasiness for a beggar's malediction. Being no longer watched, the old man arose from the sands; his desert eyes roved across the spaces between himself and the sea-wall looking for something, or seeking for somebody. Then he came slipping back, inch by inch until he had resumed his crouching position and his old whine: "May Allah prosper thee; behold I perish." But none took notice of him. As he stumbled back his shrewd glance of scrutiny rested no longer upon Lykoff than upon any other man. Lykoff gave no sign of recognition. And beggars were far too common in Alexandria for the Bloodhound to observe him.
Darkness came, as darkness comes in Africa, with the down-going of the sun. Colonel Spottiswoode snapped his watch, "Isn't it time for that hackman to be getting back with my servant? I'm worried about old Zack."
McDonald laughed, "Patience, my dear Colonel Spottiswoode; nobody hurries in Egypt. 'Haste! haste!' we urge, and the Arab answers 'Bukra.'"
"That must be like the Italian 'domani'?"
"No, it's worse; 'Domani' means 'to-morrow'; 'bukra' signifies a vague and indeterminate future which will never come. Tarry in the Orient for a while; you'll get used to it, and like it."
Lyttleton Bey clapped his hands. "Wahid," he called. Instantly a slim yellow man appeared at his elbow with the respectful and scarcely uttered "Effendi?" A few words in Arabic sent Hassan the servant hastening to sentinel the approach of Old Reliable.
Everything was so new to the American that he took his eager chance to learn. "What was that you called out?" he asked—having already heard the word a dozen times.
"'Wahid.' It is the Arabic numeral meaning 'one'; we use it to summon a servant, one servant, any servant, the first servant who may hear."
"Oh! that's it. I was wondering if all these yellow men were named 'Wahee'"
"W-a-h-i-d," Lyttleton spelled the word and pronounced it. "By the way, we have engaged your servant, your personal attendant. You can't get along without him, and you can't get along with him."
"Fudl! Fudl!" Lyttleton clapped his hands again. "Effendi," the prompt answer came from a collection of benches and tables across the narrow side street, from a native coffee-house where servants waited the orders of their masters. Fudl stood before them—the same gown, a tarboush instead of a turban, and European shoes with white buttons. Fudl was a progressive.
"Fetch Mahomet Mansour."
"Very good, Effendi"; the Arab moved off silently and beckoned to a second man who had been sitting on the bench beside him.
"Peace upon you, Excellency. May Allah prosper thee and multiply his blessings" Mahomet Mansour greeted them in a parroted sentence. A squatty Berberine was Mahomet, the color of a russet orange, who stood half-bent and waited.
Colonel Spottiswoode was experienced in all sorts and conditions of negroes; but this introduced him to a new variety. It amused him to possess a servant with red shoes and no heels, a long-tailed shirt of silk, and confectionary stripes, and no breeches, eyes half-shut like those of a fat pig.
"What is your will, Effendi?"
"Is this my servant?" Colonel Spottiswoode inquired.
"If you like. Fudl has recommended him."
The inquiry lingered upon the Colonel's face so undecidedly that Mahomet dived into the conjurer's pocket of his robe. He might have produced a white rabbit or a pianola, which would not have surprised the Colonel. But he didn't. He merely unwrapped a handful of letters, well-worn, breaking into creases, and gaping at the folds.
"Dragoman for American Effendi in Noo-york; this that Effendi he say: I, Mahomet Mansour talk the Ingleese very good; honest man, he say, I, Mahomet Mansour."
Mahomet submitted this document as Exhibit No. 1. Colonel Spottiswoode put on his specs and examined—all things in this country interested him. The Britons had hired so many servants, and had disproved so many bogus eulogies that their faith grew censorious.
The Colonel indulged his curiosity concerning these letters wherein various American tourists extolled Mahomet Mansour as dragoman, interpreter, purchasing agent, washerwoman, cook, camel-driver, first aid to the injured—all the versatilities of Egypt.
"One great pacha, see! Americain prince; him you must could know. Sheekargo see!" The Colonel admitted his lamentable ignorance concerning Mr. Theophilus Warwine of Chicago, Illinois, but the peculiar name stuck in his memory.
"How much are your wages?" he asked.
"The month, three hundred piasters tariff; it is nothing; I, Mahomet can certify—for the love"
"Hold on," the Colonel stopped Mahomet's patter. "How much is all that?"
Lyttleton Bey interpreted, "A piaster is tuppence ha' penny—three hundred, that would be twelve sovereigns, about sixty dollars."
"What does he do for that?" the Colonel glanced towards Mahomet and wanted to hear him talk.
Mahomet warmed up, turned on his orotund inflection, and gesticulated: "I show you the bazaars, the Mosque Ahmad. We see the birrymeed"
"The what?"
"The birrymeed; birrymeed—tall—so, aglib."
"Burymede? where is that?" the American shifted his inquiry to McDonald; the place had such a sporty name, like a race course.
"Birrymeed! birrymeed!" repeated Mahomet.
"He means the pyramids," suggested McDonald.
"Aiwah! very good, Effendi; yes, birrymeed; birrymeed very much high, big climb up. Tomb of great King"—Mahomet paused at a sign from Lyttleton Bey, who again explained, "The Arabs have no letter 'P' in their language, and they can not pronounce it. They say 'byramid.'"
"Aiwah! Aiwah!—yes, yes, birrymeed; birrymeed," Mahomet smiled his satisfaction; "I show you dembles"
"Peace, Mahomet," Lyttleton silenced the Berberine.
"Thy will, Effendi." Mahomet bowed and listened with all deference. Then Lyttleton announced the contract in English for the American's benefit: "Colonel Spottiswoode engages you for his servant. Your wages will be seventy-five piasters the month, and all expense."
"What the Effendi says, so it must be. Ikattar Allah kherak."
"We depart this night for Cairo," Lyttleton further informed Mahomet; "then travel to the Sudan, south of Khartum in the country of the sun; a far journey. Go now, Mahomet, and make you ready."
Mahomet's eyes glistened. This meant long service at good pay. His master must purchase much food and many necessaries along the route; Mahomet, being thrifty, would profit greatly in these traffickings. He lost those letters again in his robe, and, bowing, went his way. Mahomet had gone but a few moments, when Colonel Spottiswoode burst into a laugh. "Maybe I'll have to hire another one like him for Zack."
"Who is Zack? your friend? Of course, he must have a servant." Lyttleton lifted his hand to clap for Fudl, but the Colonel stopped him, "Zack is my negro. I brought him from home to wait on me; but since we left New York the shoe has been on the other foot. It takes all my time to look after him."
"By all means; by all means"
"No; I was joking. Yet I don't know. It might be worth fifteen dollars a month to be rid of wondering what has happened to Zack. He's a faithful negro, but can be of no help to me. We might use him on the plantation to show the new hands how to plow and hoe Look! Look! who are those people? there in the corner? standing?" The Colonel directing Lyttleton's attention to a spectacular group of silent men. Just inside the room, beneath the canopy, he beheld an Oriental tableau the like of which his American eyes had never rested upon. The central figure—he would have been a central figure anywhere—was a powerfully built man, scarcely brown, near to that sandy-reddish color of the desert. His elevated brow, incisive eyes, clear-cut nose and thin lips, marked him as a man of distinction in any land. Draped in robes of many colors, an elaborate and graceful turban, he stood with arms folded in repose, as if his superior soul scarcely noted the kaleidoscopic follies of humankind. Six gleaming spears formed a hedge behind him, in the hands of six rigid tribesmen. It was as if some desert sultan with his bodyguard had stepped out from the Arabian Nights. No wonder the Colonel whispered, "Who is that?"
Lyttleton glanced around; his face grew serious as he bent nearer Colonel Spottiswoode, and whispered, "Some day we may hear too much of that man—perhaps as a more dangerous Mahdi. Even now his name is on the lips of all the Faithful—Mahomet ben Muza Gazan, a sheikh from the North Sahara. See that green in his turban? He's a descendant of the Prophet, and gives the French no end of trouble. He dreams of uniting all Northern Africa into a Moslem Empire, Morocco, Algiers, Tunis—Egypt, perhaps. This is the month of the pilgrimage; he journeys to Mecca with a retinue of holy men and warriors—they are camped outside the city. Then he will be a 'Hadji,' enormously increasing his prestige. His next step, possibly, is to preach a 'jehad' or holy war."
"There's fighting already amongst the Riffs," added McDonald.
Lyttleton Bey spoke in the most guarded tones; the American listened with eyes fixed upon that unmoving figure, while Mahomet Mansour hurried across the sands, entered like a fluttering shadow, and said something to his master.
"Good! Colonel Spottiswoode, here's the carriage with your black man."
Lykoff and Gargarin were sitting much nearer to the sheikh, but Lykoff was not interested in desert problems. Through the gap in the low partition he could still see the beggar, and was the first to hear the crunch of wheels which toiled through muffling sand. The carriage halted and a British soldier stepped out.
"Here you are," he said, and Old Reliable climbed down from the box where he had been sitting beside the driver.
CHAPTER XII
THE GRAND HAILING SIGN
GARGARIN and Lykoff both observed a second carriage which followed Old Reliable, and deposited the police agent whom Gargarin had dispatched to the quarantine station. Lykoff did not know this; but to offset his ignorance, he saw something else which Gargarin never suspected. He alone saw the veiled inspection which the beggar made of Old Reliable. A pair of shrewd Arab eyes searched the negro's face, gray hat, woolen suit, heavy shoes—and the beggar knew it could only be the man with the message; for Zack's like was not in the land of Egypt. The beggar groveled, and whined, and waited. Time is nothing to a beggar. The British soldier marched in, between the chairs and tables, and saluted Lyttleton Bey, "Here is your man, sir."
"Very good," and Lyttleton dismissed him.
Zack shuffled along behind his liberator, indignant at the outrages which had been heaped upon him. He passed the beggar, he passed the desert sheikh; Ole Reliable warn't studyin' these folks. He itched to find the Colonel.
"Well, Zack," Spottiswoode laughed, "I'm glad they didn't clap you in jail. Next time maybe you'll stick to me, and keep out of trouble."
"Gawd's troof, Cunnel; you hadn't no more'n turned your back befo' dem yaller policemens grabbed me. It sho is worrysome to be 'rested by niggers. Dey wouldn't lissen to no sense; jes shoved me in dat flatboat and"
"Never mind, Zack. We'll talk about that to-morrow; I'm busy now. Are you hungry?"
"Yas, suh; ain't touched a bite o' vittles."
"Wahid!" called Lyttleton Bey. Zack looked around curiously; Fudl appeared and Lyttleton ordered: "Take this man and give him food."
"Very good, sir," Fudl answered his master.
Zack felt mighty dubious about this long-shirted negro, but followed without protest in the direction of victuals.
Then an extraordinary thing happened, for Zack got quick action, action so sudden, so dramatic that it jerked every man to his feet. Everything was perfectly quiet in that room when Zack came abreast the desert Sheikh, Muza, who stood with his spearmen in the full glare of an electric light. The negro stopped and stared at the Mahometan leader, from head to foot, for one long moment of solemn surprise. Slowly a grin appeared, lengthened and broadened, and overspread Zack's countenance. Recognize that fellow? Of course Zack recognized him. Hadn't Guinea tipped him the wink that there were plenty of lodge brothers around here? Zack cast a stealthy glance towards his white folks. The white folks weren't payin' him no mind. So Zack whispered a magic word to the sheikh and made a complicated sign with his fingers; after which he raised his right arm and strode boldly towards the desert chieftain. Nobody knew exactly how it happened—it happened in silence except for Zack, who rent the peaceful night. The first that Colonel Spottiswoode heard was a yell from Old Reliable, "You niggers ack too rough! Lemme git up. Lemme git up."
Colonel Spottiswoode sprang to his feet and ran towards Zack; Lykoff darted between the tables and stood beside the Southerner, while Gargarin bolted forward, with the British officers. Old Reliable lay flat on his back, struggling in the sand. Four spearmen held him down, their weapons flashing in the light. Not a word they spoke, but pinned him firmly, and looked to their sacred sheikh for orders. Mahomet ben Muza Gazan stood motionless, his arms folded, contemplating the presumptuous black who had dared to threaten his consecrated person.
Lyttleton and McDonald seized the Colonel and prevented him from trying to release Zack by force; for well they knew the temper of these Saharan visionaries.
"Lemme go! lemme go! quit dis foolishness. I'm financial jes same as you." Zack struggled vainly with Muza's fierce-eyed bodyguard, who were selected for their strength. Then Lyttleton spoke in Arabic to Sheikh Muza but gained no answer. Muza's sharp, black eyes glittered with hate for these sons of Christian dogs. Hundreds of turbans were massed in the sandy space outside, waiting but a word from him who represented the sanctity of their religion. Behind the little group of Europeans stood other silent men in robes and turbans and sun-scorced faces. It was the month of fervor and fanatics, it was Ramadan, the month of the pilgrimage. A hasty word might fan their smoldering zeal into a whirlwind of riot; and the British hesitated while Lyttleton consulted with McDonald. McDonald shook his head. From the throng behind them an aged man came forth, richly dressed, with a band of blue in his turban. With grave salutations he salaamed before the sheikh, addressing him in a tongue which even Lyttleton could not understand. Muza neither moved nor changed countenance; the old Arab continued speaking smoothly and his words were few. The spearmen heard him with reverence, yet looked only to their sheikh. Muza nodded imperceptibly, but sufficiently unto them who obeyed his lightest nod as law.
Then did the sullen spearmen loose their hold; Zack scrambled to his feet, brushing off the sand, and grumbling, "Dat ain't no way to treat a brudder—gittin' all dese white folks mixed up in nigger foolishness. I done been 'nishiated anyway."
Lykoff edged closer to Gargarin, clutching a keen knife in his pocket. He turned intensely pale as he passionately scanned the Bloodhound's face. If by this trick Gargarin got possession of his cipher, Lykoff meant to cut his throat—that much he could do for his slaughtered friends. His eyes flamed, but Lykoff never acted in haste. Old Reliable continued to brush the sand from his clothes. Not once did the negro feel his pocket to see if the capsule had been disturbed. For which Lykoff thought him wise. Presently Gargarin strolled back and took his seat; but there was no triumph in his step, and the other Russian knew it.
"Come along, Zack," Colonel Spottiswoode drew his negro towards the table they had just vacated. The loungers about the room settled down and in bated breath discussed the significant incident.
"Now, Zack," urged the Colonel, "tell me the truth! What was that racket about?"
Zack hung his head and paid strict attention to picking off a few grains of sand.
"Out with it," ordered the Colonel.
Old Reliable grinned sheepishly. "Twarn't nothin', Cunnel, nothin' 'cept a passel o' tomfoolery. Some niggers, jes soon as dey gits lodge clothes on 'em, dey commence to ack biggety—specially dese yaller niggers. Yonder's dat Grand Gardeen, jes look at 'im, all puffed up wid hisself."
"That what?"
"Grand Gardeen. I hailed him wid de sign an' password, an' dem four niggers shoved me down. Dey can't have no 'nishiashun right in front o' white folks' hotel. Must be new members what don't know deir business."
Lyttleton and McDonald listened intently, trying to get the straight of what had occurred. Perhaps there might be a deeper meaning and they wanted to know.
"Kindly repeat that; I do not understand," inquired Lyttleton. Zack began to feel easier; his apologetic grin became beautiful and beaming, "You see, Mister, dem niggers is members o' my lodge. Dat fellow wid striped clothes on, he's de Gran' Noble Gardeen; dat's de head-leader-boss. Dey must be holdin' gran' lodge. Ev'y nigger considers he got a right to ack fool at gran' lodge."
Both Britons stared at Zack with stolid faces. The matter was beyond them. Colonel Spottiswoode listened, almost as mystified. Then he began to laugh, and asked, "Zack, what did you take that man for?"
"Take 'im for? I knows. He's Gran' Gardeen o' de Sons o' David. I knowed 'im fust minute I sot eyes on dem clothes."
The Colonel in turn stared at Old Reliable, whose serene smile reassured him. The negro had wriggled from beneath the heel of death without a thought of having been in danger. "Zack, weren't you afraid they might kill you with those spears?"
Zack grinned tolerantly at the Colonel's ignorance, "Lordee, Cunnel, dem stickers can't hurt nobody. Dey ain't nothin' 'cept pasteboard, wid silver paper on 'em."
The American couldn't help it; he threw back his head and laughed. Lyttleton and McDonald promptly hushed him, "Sh! these Arabs might consider that we are making sport of their religion. See, they are passing the news from mouth to mouth—but what was it all about?"
Colonel choked an hysterical merriment. "Go along, Zack, and get something to eat." Lyttleton Bey added a few words in Arabic to Fudl, as that prudent person led his dangerous companion out by another way where he would not come in contact with the tribesmen. Meeting his own people in the shadows, Fudl touched his forehead and pointed significantly to Zack.
"Madman," the people said unsmilingly, and went their way with the tidings.
"Rather singular person that, I fancy," McDonald remarked after Colonel Spottiswdode had failed to make either of them understand what Old Reliable had done.
"No, he's just an ordinary bullet-headed negro. He'll be lucky if he gets yard-broke before he gets his neck broke. Let's hire him a servant—a good cautious wet-nurse."
"Yes," assented McDonald, "he might cause much annoyance," and Lyttleton promptly agreed. "I shall send for a man. Wahid! Fudl!"
Fudl came running, "Effendi."
"I have need for a servant."
CHAPTER XIII
THE RUNNING PILL
THE adroitness with which these Arabs produced other Arabs amazed the Colonel; it was like rubbing the magic lamp for a jinn to appear. This newest acquisition, scrawnier and somewhat darker than the others, was a Dongalawi, and his name was Said. Like Mahomet, Said possessed letters. In fact he produced the same letters. When Said unfolded them the first name to catch the Colonel's eye was "Theophilus Warwine of Chicago, III." "Here," he said, "this is the same letter that Mahomet"
Immediately Said and Fudl joined their voices in a duet of explanation—"Said's wife had made the mistake—true it is, Excellency"
Said snatched up the package and darted out, winging his way like a bat through the lights, and dodging into the darkness. Breathless he came to the coffee house of Selim, where Mustafa, the dragoman, was playing at draughts. Said threw down his letters: "Mustafa, give me quickly other letters" A fair exchange is no robbery. Said swapped recommendations with Mustafa. Each could use one as well as the other—legal tender in any hands. Then Said sped back to his prospective employer. "True is it, O thou Excellency—they were of my brother—my wife—forgiveness, Excellency" Simple-hearted Said, he got the job, and Old Reliable got a servant.
When Fudl choked Zack from the feeding-trough Lyttleton clapped his hands, and shouted, "Wahid! Said! Said!"
"Effendi," made answer Said, the scrawny, brown man.
"Zack," the Colonel pointed to Said, "here is your servant. He will take charge of you."
Zack did not smile; it was too momentous an occasion for mirth. From the fullness of his active day he remarked, "Yas, suh, Cunnel, I got bizness a plenty fer him to 'tend to."
"No doubt of it," laughed the Colonel. "Now don't bother us for awhile."
Meanwhile McDonald and Lyttleton had spread a stack of invoices on the table—lists of planting machinery, plows, hoes, every thinkable variety of cotton-seed, bagging, ties, supplies of all descriptions, a list of the articles suggested by Colonel Spottiswoode as probably necessary to stock a new plantation. To this the British had added many curious things of which a Southerner could not guess the use. They discussed it item by item—seeking to discover what might be lacking.
"You must remember, my dear Colonel," said Lyttleton, "that if we need a tool we can't walk into a shop and purchase it. We must send to England, or America—which requires weeks, perhaps months."
Hence the formidable outfit.
"I'm afraid, gentlemen," remarked the Colonel, "that you will find this a very costly experiment."
Lyttleton shrugged his shoulders, "We want to see if those lands will produce cotton. If it costs ten shillings a pound, our directors care nothing for that. They must produce cotton." Then they plunged into a wilderness of plantation detail—labor, water, climate, soil, every thing.
Their preoccupation left Zack to his own devices. The Sheikh Muza had departed with his retinue, and Zack was glad of that. A band commenced playing, somewhere along the front; and Zack was even gladder. The awnings flapped overhead. White spray arose lie a sheeted rain-ghost, appearing above the sea-wall and dropping back again. The beggar had returned. His skinny arm stuck out, like the withered limb of a tree. Zack rambled aimlessly towards the front. Lykoff watched closely and saw the old negro pause at the doorway, almost beside the beggar, and the two were quite alone. The whining voice went on whining, then pronounced a single word "Zack"—the beggar spoke it quite distinctly—"Zack" and Old Reliable heard. Lykoff saw the black man jump as if one had called him from the tomb; he whirled to run, then glanced down. The beggar's hand stretched up towards him: "Zack"—that single word again, low, but distinct, unmistakable.
"Who dat know me so good?"
Zack observed the beggar's left hand sneaking from beneath its dirty rags, and saw the glitter of gold. "Huh!" Zack grunted to himself: "dese sho is funny folks."
For a moment Old Reliable gazed down curiously at the money, then a half-forgotten recollection stirred within him. "Dar now! dat white man—on de steamboat!" He rummaged hastily through his pockets, fished out the capsule, and held it in his fingers. Lykoff was talking with Gargarin; Lykoff saw everything, yet spilled not a drop of the liqueur as he poured.
"What dat you say?" Zack leaned closer and asked the beggar again.
"Zack," repeated the beggar; but ten gold pieces were assurance enough. Zack reached for the coins. The beggar's long lean fingers clinched upon his gold; the hand was sinewy, with fingers made of whip cords and whitleather. The beggar nodded towards the capsule.
"Oh! Sholy, sholy! You want dis here pill." Zack dropped the capsule into the beggar's hand which transferred it instantly to the beggar's mouth, and the beggar's left hand loosed its gold. It was a wide-open transaction fairly conducted under the electric lights. Even then Lykoff did not tremble as he raised the liqueur to his lips. As yet Gargarin had gathered no suspicion.
After getting his money, Zack stepped inside, to a brighter zone of light, counting his gold as he came, and biting it with strong white teeth. He hadn't an idea whether it were good or bad, but he had once seen a white man testing gold money in that way. The beggar moved off very slowly—as a cloud dissolves. A quick-stepping European approached, and the beggar straightened visibly; he even stood erect for an instant, then relapsed into senility. That single movement betrayed him to Gargarin, and the Bloodhound sprang up, over-turning his chair. At his signal, three other men who sat in a corner leaped to their feet; another pair of men came running from the servant's café; and yet two others from across the sands.
The beggar saw them all. He dropped his staff and shook himself free of rags, revealing a slender body, lithe as a reed. Seven men closed in upon him, from as many directions.
Gargarin rushed across the dining room and vaulted the partition. Then the beggar moved, like a thin brown flash. Swiftly he crossed those shining spaces of sand and vanished into the yawning cavern of an alley. A naked man, the color of the night, like a night-bird he had disappeared. The chase vanished behind him, a silent chase of close-lipped men, darting as swallows dart into the black mouth of a chimney. They were gone. For one moment only Lykoff stood erect beside his table and watched those flying figures through the dark. Then he settled down quietly to his liqueur.
Old Reliable stood dazed: "Dar now! don't dat beat de Jews. Dat beggar nigger sho did arrive away from dis hotel in a mighty hurry."
There was no outcry, no confusion except the overturning of Gargarin's chair; which attracted no attention. Old Reliable chuckled to himself. "Huh! beggar swallowed dat pill; den lit out, same as a rabbit in a sedge fiel'. Dat must ha' been a runnin' pill."
The British officers had gone inside the hotel. Colonel Spottiswoode strolled toward Zack, where he stood with mouth wide-open, "Well, Zack," the Colonel asked, "how do you like this town?"
Zack grinned as he slipped the easy money into his pocket, "Dis place ain't a patchin' to Vicksburg. Lordee! I never see so many niggers wid so many diffunt kinds o' night shirts on."
"Aren't they curious?" the Colonel laughed. "Now, we're going to a country where they don't wear anything at all. You better be getting ready for the train."
Spottiswoode glanced around to see if anyone observed him before trying to use his first lesson in Arabic. Then he clapped his hands and shouted, "Wa-heed!"
"Here, Effendi," and Mahomet Mansour ran from across the street so promptly that Zack laughed.
"Come." The Colonel turned into the hotel with his servant. At the door he stopped, "Zack! call your man and get the baggage ready."
Zack adjusted the lapels of his coat and glanced across to the café, where Said was sitting, doing nothing. It would be so much fun to stir up Said, and Zack felt mightily tickled with the idea of calling a man who had to come. Zack Foster liked this town. Just as the Colonel had looked around, so did Zack, to be sure that none of his white folks were noticing. He grinned and grinned, then wiped the grins off his face, and pitching his voice at the full, Zack yelled, "Whar he? Whar he?"
"Here, Effendi." Said bowed low before his master. Zack wanted to laugh but received his servant with impressive solemnity.
Nobody paid attention to Zack; he was not getting his due attention. So Old Reliable drew out a broken cigar, licked it all around to make it draw, then fired up. "Come 'long, nigger," he ordered; and puffing, like a switch-engine, Old Reliable turned to enter the Grand Hotel Rameses.
CHAPTER XV
SEEKING THE MIRAGE
IMMEDIATELY after going ashore the energetic McDonald insisted upon making an inspection of the property before darkness fell; which afforded Colonel Spottiswoode a novel experience in riding over cotton fields on camel-back, with Kali, the camel-driver, to manage his beast.
Night had come when Fergus Cameron led back his straggling squad to the plantation home. The Scotchman rode with slow consideration for the American at his side, who sat awkwardly upon his enormous mehari, and was glad enough to reach home, thoroughly churned, but still hanging together. Cameron's mount dropped promptly to its knees, while Kali whacked the Colonel's camel until the big gray fellow snarled.
"Lean back, Colonel Spottiswoode—far back!" Cameron warned his guest, as Kali brought down the ungainly animal and the American stepped off.
Zack's feelings had been lacerated in the very beginning, because the white folks didn't provide him with a camel.
"I kin ride plenty o' dese little ole roan ponies at home," he grumbled. Yet, not being seasoned to horseback, his feelings kept on being chafed by the nervous, wiry Abyssinian stallion; until old Zack finally climbed down as stiffly as a man with glass legs.
"It is a revelation, sir—a revelation," remarked the Colonel. "I never saw lands lie better—nor better lands."
"Oh, the land is all right enough; it is the people," Cameron spoke wearily. "We are at a standstill for lack of labor. I could put four thousand feddan in cultivation if we had labor. Beni Yeb needs two hundred hoe men and women; fifty plowmen; and two hundred others to do the grading. I could use five hundred men to-morrow,"
Colonel Spottiswoode laughed. "Better get Zack to hustle 'em up for you. Last fall he got me two carloads of negroes in two days."
"Sho did—sho did," Zack bobbed his head, and endorsed the Colonel's eulogy.
Cameron was Scotch and serious; he gazed thoughtfully at Zack and meant to consider the matter further when he got all the statistics. Then four dusty white men stepped upon the broad paved terrace and entered the house.
"Me for a tubbing," said McDonald.
"And change the kit a bit for dinner," added Lyttleton.
After three hours in the whirling sand everybody needed a tubbing and the change of kit. Colonel Spottiswoode went straight to his room, and Zack limped upstairs behind him, as a half-crippled hound limps home from a long chase.
Naturally the British would dress for dinner—wherever two or three are gathered together in the name of Britain they always dress for dinner. With his face gritty and his eyelashes full of sand, the Colonel said, "Zack, pour some water in that basin."
Zack poured about a cupful and then stopped. "Cunnel, I ain't gwine to let you wash in dis stuff. Tain't nothin' 'cept coffee paste. Lemme fetch you some clean water right quick."
"All right. Hurry up."
"Tain't gwine to take me no time. I'll run back to dat spring, 'bout fifty yards behind de house."
The Colonel heard what Zack said—heard him distinctly, and afterwards remembered very clearly. At the moment, however, with his mind full of queer-looking people and the strange life around him, he never imagined that even a fool nigger might ramble off into the desert seeking water out of a mirage. Yet that's precisely what Zack did, grabbed his wool hat and started to find that mystic pool, where only angels drink.
The moon rode high in the heavens, big as a wagon-wheel, clear as a mirror, and so very near that if Zack had carried a step ladder, he could have tickled the old man in the face. Zack himself was not tickled; he was disgusted at the Cameron servants.
"Huh!" he snorted; "dat's jes like a nigger. Fetch a bucket o' water for Cunnel out o' de fust ditch he come acrost." He paused beside the tiny canal that wound in and out among the shrubbery; it flowed sluggishly with muddy eddies and looked like streaky brown gravy.
"Dis must be whar he got it. Cunnel wouldn't let nary one o' his mules git washed in sech water ez dat."
So Zack paid no heed to a group of servants who rose from their haunches and salaamed; he passed the stables; passed the low hovels of the fellaheen. Through an opening in the hedge went a little ditch; so did Zack.
Without difficulty he located the lone palm which he and the Colonel had observed from the boat, and figured that the spring must be some fifty yards behind it. This distance he had pledged himself to step off and measure, so as to prove the Colonel's bet. Starting from his landmark, Zack commenced stepping and measuring —twenty-five, forty, fifty paces. No spring. Seventy-five, a hundred, two hundred paces. No spring, no seven palms.
"Dar now!" he muttered; "dat spring oughter be right here. An' I'm 'bleeged to find it."
Zack kept on stepping, but lost count, in his zigzag and rapid rambles. Then he halted and mopped his brow. He couldn't see a soul. It was mighty lonesome. Everything was level and shiny in the moonlight, white wastes and no shadows—nothing but here and there a clump of Sodom apples. Zack shied skittishly around these things, for he had been warned that they would put out his eyes. The spring persisted in being absent. "Huh! dat sho is curyus."
Looking back, he got his bearings from the palm and moved in a direct line. Then some thing happened; two somethings happened. The Big Gray Things didn't come from anywhere; they just happened. Right up out of the ground. First he saw a clump bf Sodom apple bushes—and paid no particular mind, but felt certain they were Sodom apples. Anyhow it was something in the bushes which let out a snarl and a roar, and then began a mighty scrambling. The bushes scrambled, and so did Zack. Once he glanced back over his shoulder at two Big Gray Things, four times taller than himself, which seemed to be reaching out to get him. They reached out mighty far, but Zack wasn't there. He had departed thence. Even if that pair of camels had not been hobbled, they could never have caught old Zack in his first quarter of a mile. Not until his breath gave out and he sat down on a little ridge of sand.
"Huh!" he gasped. "What you reckin' dem things was?"
Whatever they were, the two Big Gray Things, dropped down on the sand and Zack knew that he would never disturb them. The bucket had been abandoned long ago, and forgotten.
"Dis sho is one big ole sandbar," Zack observed, and began to squint around him. In fear of the hobbled camels, Zack had dodged, like a rabbit. The lone palm had vanished. Zack's guide-post was gone. True, there was another big tree to his left, but Zack knew he had not stampeded from that direction. He looked uneasily for some road or path. There was none. Zack would have been in the middle of a bad fix if he hadn't glimpsed a light. A light is real—it gives something to travel by; a fellow knows he's going to somebody. Folks make lights. So Zack rose up and started towards this one, which he suppose to be the plantation house.
"Huh!" he grinned, "nobody can't git me lost—leastways not in open groun' like dis. I knowed de big house wuz dis way—knowed it all de time."
As he traveled, Zack kept his eye skinned for Sodom apple bushes. Then forgot, trudging along with his head down, studying an excuse to give the Colonel for losing the bucket and failing to bring fresh water. At a distance the black speck from which the light proceeded had been nothing more than a blur upon the sand. Gradually it began to disintegrate into separate specks which resembled haystacks; other black specks seemed to be moving about among them. Zack drew nearer. A pack of dogs dashed out, not exactly dogs, but ghosts of dogs, or skeleton dogs—dogs which were all legs and mouths, with tails so incredibly slender that they looked like a succession of knots tied in a plow-line. These dogs never barked, and Zack distrusted their intentions; he was scared of dogs that didn't bark and niggers that didn't brag. It gave Zack a crick in the neck trying to watch all the dogs at once. Eagerly he looked around for a brickbat. Bricks don't grow in the desert, and Zack hated to fool away his time throwing loose sand. He couldn't run from those limber-legged gallinippers, so he slapped about him with his wide brimmed hat, and yelled, and yelled, and yelled.
A black speck straightened up from in front of a ragged tent. The speck became a man who ran toward him, shouting gibberish, and Zack had a hunch that he wasn't going to be popular with this man. "Mister, oh mister," he called, "will yo' dog bite?"
The answer did not reassure Zack; it was more of an avalanche than an answer. Swarms of people came running, some with plenty of clothes, and some with none—long-legged skinny folks, blacker than Zack ever feared to be. Zack did not see all that happened. He had only two eyes. Everybody was doing things at once. Some of the folks picked up spears that glittered in the moonlight. Zack edged away from the spears, and bumped into a group of women. The women ducked and disappeared like prairie dogs. A pot-bellied black child ran out, perfectly naked, stared at Zack for an instant, then turned and fled without a sound. Zack talked mightily, but nobody paid any attention. Throughout the hullabaloo, one old man—a very old man—sat cross-legged on a mat in front of his tent. He looked up in the moonlight and Zack thought he was blind. Zack was half-right, the Sheikh Tabira being one-eyed. Tabira's face was no bigger than a cocoanut, with features squeezed together and smoothed out as if some one had tried to rub off the face when it was soft. Lifting his dime-sized countenance, old Tabira listened to much chatter. The first word he spoke was a question, but Zack would not have known what he was talking about even if he had understood their language, for Tabira asked, "Is it the Expected One?"
The jabbering broke out again—like a gabble of geese scared up at midnight. Some said "No" and some said "Yes"—everybody said something. Then a big man came striding out from a tent—a man who was born white but who had got over it—for this was Sandy McNish, ex-bushranger in Australia, ex-slave trader in Darfur, ex-ivory hunter in the Congo, now prospecting for gold in Nubia. Zack failed to relish the looks of McNish. McNish knew that Zack didn't belong in the Sudan, nor yet in Egypt. "Where did you come from?" he demanded, to Zack's great joy, in English.
"Vicksburg, Missippi, suh."
"What is your name?"
"Zack Foster, suh; but ev'ybody, white an' black, calls me 'Ole Reliable.'"
McNish made a gesture of impatience. "What are you doing here?"
"I come over to teach dese niggers"
"I mean, what are you doing out here—near this camp?"
Then Zack told him about going for the bucket of water. McNish turned to the sheikh, who already began to inquire, "Is it the Expected One, the Great Teacher?"
Of course, Zack couldn't understand their jabbering, but it seemed like the white man was arguing with the black people, trying to get some notion out of their heads.
"Bloody fools!" McNish exclaimed. "Have it your way." He swore a lot in picturesque English, then marched back to his own tent.
CHAPTER XVI
THE EXPECTED ONE
LUCKILY for Colonel Spottiswoode, his dinner did not depend upon Zack's return with a bucket of mirage water. And the Colonel soon forgot, as Zack frequently departed on hurry errands and neglected to come back. Dinner was served on a broad brick terrace, fronting the Nile and open to the heavens. Red-shaded candles on the table glowed dim beneath that vivid moon of Africa. A ragged skyline hemmed them in with a fantastic silhouette of palms; curving lines followed the spread of low acacias, tapering off into a feathery fringe of shrubs in which pale green paroquets had chattered themselves to sleep. Behind each chair stood a silent Jaalin in purest white, with tribal gashes across his cheeks. Cameron rested his powerful forearm on the table and talked—he talked of things, for Cameron was a man who did things. Now he talked steadily and forcefully of what was being done on Beni Yeb. It was a triumph for this stranger of the despised religion, coming to deserted lands upon the heels of a massacre, reassuring a terrified population and setting them to work again. As Cameron individually had triumphed, on Beni Yeb, so had the British triumphed throughout that measureless Sudan. And, as part of their success, they meant to grow cotton for Lancashire spindles.
They had sat long at the table, and it was very late when McDonald pushed back his chair. and suggested, "My dear Colonel, would you be so kind as to call your black man? Let Cameron hear his method for getting labor. You know that's my part of the show at Wadi Okar."
The Colonel smiled and shouted for Zack. No Zack. Then: "Wahid! Mahomet Mansour!" Mahomet slipped in like a phantom, but knew nothing. Said came after, salaaming to the very ground, and in the name of Allah the Compassionate, he protested ignorance of his master's whereabouts. Colonel Spottiswoode shook his head, "Sorry, gentlemen. Zack is an old reprobate; he's probably gone a-rambling, and won't turn up until morning."
Cameron looked annoyed; if a reprobate went rambling around these fellaheen—particularly their women he might never turn up at all. The Nile was too near. So Cameron dispatched Kali to find the rambler—Kali, the young sheikh, versed in the white man's tongue and the Jaalin circumlocution. It was Kali who brought Fudl to the table—Fudl of the tarboush and white-buttoned shoes. Allah had given Fudl with his own eyes to see the worshipful black Effendi moving toward the desert, with a bucket in his hand. Fudl had remained seated beneath the acacia tree, but the Effendi did not return.
"Bucket? Bucket?" the Colonel repeated vaguely. "Oh yes, I remember. He started out just before dinner to bring me a bucket of water from the spring."
"Spring? What spring?"
"He said there was a spring about fifty yards back of the house—oh!" Colonel Spottiswoode sprang up from, his chair and exclaimed: "That fool went out to find the mirage! Lyttleton, McDonald, you remember the mirage? When we called Zack to count those trees? That's where he went."
"Extr'ord'n'ry! 'pon my word! Extr'ord'n'ry!" ejaculated McDonald and Lyttleton.
Cameron spoke bluntly: "I trust you are mistaken. It would be a grubby matter for him to get lost—and might be far worse if he met any one. Kali cannot find him in the village."
The Colonel laughed. "You don't know Zack. He's all right." Yet the Colonel felt uneasy when he went to bed.
In that first pale light before the dawn, Kali mounted to the topmost roof, where Cameron slept, and waked the Scotchman by gently rubbing his foot after the manner of the East. The Jaalin stood at the foot of Cameron's angereb—slender, erect, with the straight nose and black eyes that belong to desert men. He spoke rapidly, and, although Colonel Spottiswoode could not understand a syllable, it was evident that something unusual had occurred. Cameron's square jaw set firmly; he asked one incisive question, then bounded up. Kali leaned over the edge of the parapet and shouted. Three servants went flying with orders. McDonald understood Arabic imperfectly; he had not served in the Sudan during those murderous years of the Mahdi and Khalifah. He glanced at Lyttleton, while Cameron tersely explained the situation. "Dress; full arms—and quickly!" That was all Lyttleton said. Something had happened which meant a fight. McDonald understood that.
When Colonel Spottiswoode ran downstairs, buckling on his pistols, he found Lyttleton and McDonald unlocking their rifle case.
"Where are the peas?" asked McDonald in a business voice. Cameron pointed to the cartridge boxes, then wheeled upon Spottiswoode.
"Your man is in no end of a stew. Kali reports two hundred tribesmen approaching Beni Yeb. Your man is with them, on foot, a prisoner."
"What's the trouble?" the Colonel questioned. "Are these people hostile?"
Cameron shook his head. "No; they've been quiet for years. Can't understand them. Nobody understands an Arab. We must run out there and take a look at them. I suggest that you remain"
"No. I shall go with you." The Colonel reached out to McDonald, who silently handed him a rifle.
"McDonald," he said, "I wish you would see that I get a horse. I couldn't shoot from a camel."
Messengers on swift camels were already padding away like the wind to summon Cameron's overseers—five stalwart British lads, sun-tempered and desert-wise, who would be worth a hundred of the fellaheen if it came to a brush. The Jaalins of Beni Yeb had learned promptitude from the Khalifah. Raid after raid had taught them to mount and vanish without delay—this tarteeb being followed with the precision of a fire-drill.
An even dozen white men, almost as brown as the Jaalins, fell in behind Cameron. The American, who felt that this was his quarrel, insisted upon riding in front. Horses, camels, donkeys, and a few timid stragglers on foot, headed west to meet the tribesmen. They crossed the narrowest part of Beni Yeb, not more than two hundred yards, between the Nile and the desert.
Pausing at the sands, Kali nodded towards a creeping mass of men and camels, donkeys, dogs, women and children. Cameron leveled his glass, scanned them critically, then lowered his glass and remarked: "Nigerines?"
Kali nodded.
"The Sheikh Tabira?"
Again Kali nodded, muttering words of Arabic explanation. What he said was for Cameron alone and seemed to puzzle him.
"Kali," he asked, "why do they come?"
"Allah knoweth their affairs," the Jaalin sheikh replied.
Colonel Spottiswoode grew anxious and McDonald whispered to him, "Might be a nasty row!" Spottiswoode drew his horse closer to Cameron and inquired, "Who are these Nigerines?"
"They're from the west, several thousand miles across the desert"—without taking his eyes from the approaching tribe.
"What are they doing here?"
"Small parties sometimes pass this way on their pilgrimage to Mecca. They travel slowly, working a week here, a few months there. Before the wars, half a tribe once stopped on Beni Yeb and made a crop."
"Do you think we'll have to fight them?"
"Can't tell. Old Tabira may want to ease his soul by killing a few Christians. He's a hadji now—a holy man; spent twenty-two years going to Mecca. See those children? They were born on the pilgrimage."
All of this was very curious, and tensely interesting to Colonel Spottiswoode. They sat their horses together, watching the half-orderly mob which pressed onward with the sun shining in their faces.
"I say, Spottiswoode"—Cameron spoke out suddenly, and earnestly—"can you imagine what it means to spend twenty-two years in that solitude, brooding on religion? A man goes daft with a fanatical, murderous madness. Can't you see how old Tabira might fancy himself inspired to run amuck with his tribe, and send a few Christians ahead of him to Paradise?"
The Nigerines continued to move across the empty sands, like figures cut out of card-board. The Sheikh Tabira, with the squeezed face, rode a tall camel, wearing an enormous white turban on his head. His long spear, held upright, reached to the ground. He muttered to himself, as one in an ecstatic trance. Ten paces behind their sheikh rode a rank of other blacks on excellent camels, armed with the same vicious-looking spears.
"Yonder's Zack!" the Colonel pointed. "See his gray hat?"
In an open space Zack walked alone. At even distances, on each side, almost as if they marched in a hollow square, rode files of men on donkeys; and across their rear came other donkeys with children, tents, plunder, dogs, goats—and women on foot.
When Zack saw the Colonel, he took two or three nervous steps, then slowed down again. He couldn't get out of that square, except by mixing up with those camels. The Colonel saw the whites of his eyes, and knew that Zack was scared. At a sign from Cameron, Kali rode out, dignified and deliberate, to greet the coming Nigerines: "May Allah give thee greatness upon thy greatness."
The sheikh halted. Every man, woman, child and animal stopped. Tabira lifted his hand, giving the desert sign of peace; and Kali responded likewise. What they said no one could hear, but they talked for so long a time that Lyttleton began to show his impatience. Then Kali came riding back, perplexed by the words of Tabira the Nigerine. In quick Arabic he delivered his message, and transferred the bewilderment to Cameron.
"Lyttleton Bey," Cameron called that experienced officer. "You understand these Mahometans much better than I do. Tabira says that his tribe has come to live on Beni Yeb. They follow their Expected One, who will remain with them as leader and teacher. Kali seems in a blue funk over it all. What can the devils mean?"
Lyttleton narrowed his eyes and squinted at the rigid band of Nigerines. "The Expected One?" he muttered. "I don't fancy the sound of that." When an old campaigner in that fanatical country of the sun hears of an Expected One having announced himself, he gives a quick gasp in the throat, then buckles on his fighting toggery. It means that people are going to get killed. McDonald vaguely understood, but Colonel Spottiswoode not at all. So the Colonel inquired: "What is an Expected One?"
Lyttleton's jaws snapped on the explanation. "These Mahometans look forward to a Deliverer, as foretold by the Koran. Once in a while some bally-brown beggar goes wild with hasheesh and proclaims himself the Expected One—the Mahdi. Somebody always believes him, and the slaughter starts."
"This may be different," Cameron suggested hopefully. "Tabira says that his people wish to plow and hoe and raise cotton—to settle on Beni Yeb."
"Be not deceived," warned Lyttleton. "I suggest that you give them a place to camp until we can talk it over."
Cameron conveyed his salaams and salutations, then watched Kali delivering the message: "The Sheikh Tabira and his people will rest in the shade, beside flowing water. When the sheikh is refreshed, then will Cameron Effendi talk with him. May Allah lengthen the days of the sheikh."
All of which sounded mighty fine, but Zack didn't like the way in which these people continued to surround him, when Sheikh Tabira led his tribe to the left. As they came opposite the Colonel, Zack dodged between a couple of donkeys and broke out of line. Having side-stepped the whole Nigerine proposition, he scuttled over to the Colonel.
"Zack, what the devil were you doing out there with those folks?"
Old Reliable did not answer. A cry from the Nigerines drew all attention back to them. From mouth to mouth the cry went forward until it reached Tabira, who wheeled his camel and hurried back. His people disorganized into a rabble, and swarmed towards the whites. Zack melted against the Colonel's horse, and looked uneasily at his late associates.
"Kali," ordered Cameron, "stop them! See what they want."
Kali urged his camel forward. Tabira shook his head and at first refused to be halted. His thin lips uncovered a row of jagged yellow teeth, his solitary eye changed into all the hues of blues and blacks, like a pot of boiling pitch. Kali had great trouble in persuading the sheikh to wait until his message should be communicated. Lyttleton and Cameron advanced and met the returning Kali, who told them excitedly, "Sheikh Tabira says the Inglesi must not take from him the Great Teacher. The Expected One is the guest of Sheikh Tabira, and must lie in his tent."
"Kali, what does the sheikh mean? Who is this Great Teacher?"
Kali, with a new deference in his voice and manner, indicated Old Reliable standing at the Colonel's saddlebow.
Cameron knew better than to laugh. "He's no teacher. He's Colonel Spottiswoode's servant."
"Servant?" Kali repeated, and shook his head stubbornly. They argued, but to no purpose. Cameron turned and called: "Colonel Spottiswoode, have your man step out and speak to those people. Tell them he will visit their camp this noon. Speak loudly. Kali will translate."
Zack walked forward gingerly a few steps—not too far. Those spears were long, and a skinny-armed wild man might perforate him.
"Say," he said. "You folks listen! I got to hurry up wid Cunnel to de big house an' git some breakfas'. Us is got plenty business. Den I'll come back to see you-all atter-while. Jes tell 'em dat." Kali bowed low and translated to the sheikh. Old Tabira listened reverently to those words from the Great Teacher.
First he dropped his head in obedience, then stretched forth a hand towards Fergus Cameron and said, "Allah hath given unto thee strong friends. I remain here." Then his tribe began to pitch their tents beneath the shade of the acacias.
Colonel Spottiswoode was very angry. "Zack—you infernal fool! What do you mean, bringing this herd of crazy men over here?"
"Now, Cunnel, please, suh, don't specify so rough. I ain't had nothin' to do wid 'em. Us jes met up wid one another in de big road; I couldn't make 'em go back. Dat's one hard-headed ole nigger—dat one-eyed feller."
Cameron spurred over, with as much of a smile as a Scotchman's face can ever wear, and broke into the conversation. "Tabira insists that his people want to become permanent tenants. Your man has agreed to teach them how to plant cotton."
Zack held his tongue and listened, while Cameron talked on fluently. "These Nigerines make excellent tenants. I'm glad to get every one of them. But how did your man persuade them?"
The Colonel didn't know, so Zack answered for himself, "Huh, mister! I don't have no trouble 'swadin' niggers. You-all gentlemen wuz talkin' 'bout needin' hoe-hands, an' dese niggers wuz lookin' for a good home; so I jes fotch 'em in. Dey been 'spectin' me for de longes' kin' o' time. Somebody must ha' tole 'em I wuz comin'."
"Extr'ord'n'ry! extr'ord'n'ry! 'pon my word—most extr'ord'n'ry!" Cameron repeated over and over to himself.
In the silence and safety of the plantation house Colonel Spottiswoode got Zack cornered, and nailed him. "Here, Zack! Now tell me the truth about these people? How did you manage to talk to them? That's what I can't understand."
"You see, Cunnel, it all come up dis way: Dar wuz a white feller livin' wid 'em. He didn't foller 'long wid de res', cause he 'peared shamed to meet you-all. When I fust arrived out to de camp, dey made a big rookus. Dis white feller axed me what wuz I doin' in dis country, an' I tol' him I come to teach dese niggers. Jes soon as he toted dat news to de crowd, dey said a whole lot, and den de white man axed me wuz I de 'Spected One, an' I 'plies back, I reckin' so—lots o' folks wuz lookin' fer me to come. When he 'spressed dat word to dem niggers, dey raised a terrible 'miration, an' he couldn't argue wid 'em no mo'. Dey 'sputed and 'sputed back'ards an' forrards till de white man got red in de face an' went back to his tent. Dis mornin' dat ole one-eyed nigger he wouldn't have it no other, way 'cept dey wuz all comin' 'long wid me."
"Well, Zack, you're in for it. You've got to stay here now and teach 'em. I'm going on up the river."
Zack worked off one of his sickest grins. "Cunnel, d'ain't nuff ropes on dis plantation to tie me. Dem folks danced all night, put ashes on deir heads an' stuck knives in deyselves. Made me so skittish I never slept a wink. I'm gwine when you goes. Fur's I'm concerned, I could travel right now!"
Lyttleton agreed with Zack. It might save an awkward situation for the strangers to travel at once. When the boat took them away, the Sheikh Tabira and his tribe gathered on the bank, howling at the departure of their long Expected One.
From Wadi Haifa to Khartum the lean Sudan flattens like a famished tiger, with lips against the Nile, sucking greedily at the chocolate colored water that is meat as well as drink. Gaunt from a million years of sun, the starveling creature falls prone at the river's brink. Yonder a knoll uprises; on the far horizon lies a reddish ridge.
Limitless spaces shimmer in the sun; space—nothing but space—desert spaces which, like eternity, have no beginning and no end. Beyond the imaginings of hasheesh dreams, run billowy waves of sand, leading to remoter red-brown purples. A half-buried temple stares out from its drift-piled tomb—stares through the glare and the heat and the silence.
In places a frazzled ribbon divides the water and the waste. This strip of arable Sudan is so narrow at times, that a date-palm, dabbling its feet in the water, casts its shadow into the irreclaimable desert. Here, perhaps, is a nile-wheel, a noggur's sail, a square yellow hut, or the white tomb of some religious devotee—and the pitiless sun. A monotone of river crawls across a ravenous land; vacancy, emptiness, a vastitude of sky and sand, and sunshine. Through the Sudan Zack and the Colonel passed from Wadi Haifa to Khartum.
CHAPTER XVII
THE DESERT CAPITAL
DUSK came on, a feverish, throbbing dusk that went gasping and panting through the sandy vacancies of Khartum. A dazzle clung to the twin minarets of the mosque, and struck the Sirdar's palace, lighting his Star-and-Crescent banner that floated beside the Union Jack. Below, it darkened upon many a mud-built hovel from which languid creatures crept, and began to stir amidst the wide silences of empty streets.
The Blue Nile pulsed against the bank, choking with its rich red silt from Abyssinia which would turn to wheat and cotton for children of the Nile in Lower Egypt. This had been his duty for so many thousand years that Father Nile pursued his drudgery in the changeless, patient way of the East. His thick waters rolled in eddies, against which the lateen sail of a lone noggur made no headway. The winds came puffy and uncertain, hot as the breath of a panting beast that had staggered across the desert. The foremost winds halted at the river, came to a trembling stop. The lateen sail shivered, and the noggur dropped backward with the current. Starving winds behind pushed the others onward, as famished cattle thrust their leaders from the drinking pool. Hot gasps blew into the faces of three white men who strolled along the embankment beside the river—Lyttleton Bey, McDonald Bimbashi and Colonel Beverly Spottiswoode of Vicksburg, Mississippi. A black shadow followed the planter, three paces behind, the shadow being one Zack Foster, Effendi, in white linens and a Panama hat, which had once belonged to the boss. Zack, in turn, had a shadow of his own, the faithful Said, who also carried a broad grin when donkey boys belabored their animals into a trot and stopped eagerly before the party. Zack wanted to ride, but Lyttleton, the tawnier of the British officers, shook his head at the donkey boys' supplications.
"Imshi, Imshi! Begone!" he said, not unkindly, yet finally, as one must speak to donkey boys. It was after six o'clock, so the gentlemen wore dinner coats and soft white shirts, starch being unknown in the Sudan. While his British friends talked of cotton prospects in the Ghezireh, the American found himself more interested in the Sudan's desert capital. He strolled between a double row of trees that overhung a broad white road running parallel with the river. To his right were houses of sun-dried brick and some of wood, gazing out from palmy groves and irrigated gardens. These houses were British built and modern according to the Khartum idea; to the American they were less fascinating than the robed and turbaned Arabs who dotted the embankment, with here and there the straw hat of some European official, glad to lay aside his helmet when the sun went down. A Sudani girl squatted beside the water—flat-faced and black, with tribal gashes on her cheeks; a naked girl except for a necklace, and a kirtle of loose strings which dangled like a portière from the cord at her waist. Glistening and unabashed, she watched these foreign men.
Khartum was waking; throughout the day swaddled figures had dozed along the roadway, or drowsed against the shade of low mud walls, sleeping like rag dummies, with dirty robes wound around their heads. Flies swarmed and buzzed and tickled their callous feet. Now they sat up and blinked. Date-sellers nodded beside their shallow baskets, until twilight set them to sorting out their wares. A group of porters and donkey-boys gathered round two Berberines who played a game with bits of broken stones upon a checker board marked in the sand. A sakia boy halted his team to watch them; his oxen stopped, his wheel stopped, and the trickle of water ceased to flow. All day long, every day, through all the ages, the nile-wheel on the river's brink had clicked, clicked, clicked. Old Zack watched the oxen plodding round and round while a boy slept on the end of their scarcely moving pole.
"Look yonder, Cunnel," he grinned and pointed; "dat boy thinks he's ridin' on a flyin' jinny."
Through the lassitude of tepid hours this wheel turned round; its water jars rose from the river, slow—slow—slow, and emptied themselves into a trough; the stream disappeared under a mud-wall into a garden where the greedy soil drank it up. The boy roused himself and beat the oxen. His jars rose rapidly, and water gurgled as it hastened to feed the palms.
Old, old women, naked to the waist, with skins of wrinkled rubber, trudged to and fro, bearing water jars upon their heads, a never-ending file that began with the dawn of time. A camel sprawled awkwardly and laid its long neck, like a suction pipe, to the river. Other camels knelt, with square iron tanks across their backs, while Egyptian drivers filled them for the soldiers.
Colonel Spottiswoode tried to see everything at once, but did not observe the pairs of keen black eyes that were fastened upon Zack. Zack did not see them, but the eyes saw him, and the lips of desert men muttered to each other.
Behind his black effendi Said shuffled along, craving the world's pardon for living in it; nevertheless his furtive glances conveyed a message of pride to every faithful Mussulman. One very old man, in dingy burnous and turban, reached out and touched the hem of Zack's coat-tail. Zack wheeled, clutched the gold pieces in his pocket, and hurried to the Colonel's heels. The seller of dates understood; the sakia boy understood. But two tall black Nigerines who had come as spies from Sheikh Tabira at Beni Yeb, they understood best of all. With folded arms and lowered eyes they saw their Great Teacher pass. It was only the foreign unbelievers who did not comprehend.
Ignorant of the suppressed attention which Old Reliable attracted, three sauntering white heretics turned in at the Sirdar's latticed gate in a yellow mud-wall, and passed along a feathery avenue of what might have been huge asparagus plants. Arab servants at the gate rose, salaamed, then dropped on their haunches again. Bidding their own servants to remain behind, McDonald beckoned for Zack to follow. Old Reliable tilted his nose high in the air and marched in; Said nodded triumphantly. The two Nigerine spies moved over and stood near at hand to await the pleasure of their Expected One.
Within the Sirdar's garden the African stars blinked down upon a table brilliantly set in sandy spaces of the night. White lamps of Heaven shone through a lacery of palms—street lamps in the City of Jewels, which is the Capital of the Country of Delight. With the calm of eternity they gazed at evanescent candles flickering upon the stranger-people's board. Silver glittered, crystal sparkled, and soft-footed Nubians moved like phantoms across the hush of Eastern rugs. Dinner had almost ended, a dinner of men, eight men who spoke in low-toned monosyllables, men who felt the somber oppressiveness of Africa. The Nubians began placing queer-shaped glasses amongst the candles, glasses filled with parti-colored liqueurs. Cigarette boxes appeared, and matches; guests negligently shoved back their chairs and meditative columns of smoke arose; some curled downward amongst the shadows, and some floated upward through the shine.
Zack Foster, Effendi, dined in lonely grandeur at a table apart, with a Nubian servant of his own. Zack dined diligently. Said slunk outside along the darkened avenue and peeped over the mud wall to see what his master was about. Then he scurried back and reported to other Arabs beyond the gates, "He breaks no bread with the unbeliever. He eats alone. May Allah burn my eyes if I speak not truth."
At his second reconnoissance Said led one of the Nigerines from the street, so that all doubters might be convinced. "Behold!" whispered the Nigerine; "he drinks from the wine-cup, forbidden by the Prophet."
"It is true," Said stolidly maintained, "yet the wine doth turn to milk within his mouth—which proves the Holy One." Every Mussulman knew that Zack's wine was being changed to milk in his throat, but they were kind enough not to tell Zack.
Young McDonald waited for a pause in the conversation, and then suggested, "My dear Colonel Spottiswoode, will you call the black man and let him tell General Durham how he secured three hundred Nigerine tenants for Cameron on Beni Yeb plantation?"
General Durham—Acting Sirdar, blue-eyed, grizzled, ribbed with whale-bone and covered with sun-tanned leather—General Durham smiled "Yes, Colonel Spottiswoode, that was an exploit worthy to be mentioned in the dispatches."
The American planter glanced over his shoulder at Zack. It needed only a glance, for Zack was watching the white folks' table, listening and hoping for the summons: "Zack, come here."
"Yas, suh, yas, suh." Zack wiped his mouth with great care before he came, then bent over the table between Colonel Spottiswoode and that hatchet-faced white man.
"Zack," said the Colonel, "this is the Sirdar—we call him Governor at home. He wants to hear how you put those negroes to work at Beni Yeb."
"You mean dem niggers on Cunnel Cameron's place?" Zack did not even grin, it was too slight an achievement. "Lordee, Cunnel, twarn't nothin' at all, an' not much o' dat. Twarn't like hustlin' for cotton pickers 'mongst dem Vicksburg niggers. I wuz jes' walkin' bout on dat big ole san' bar back o' de house an' met up wid dem niggers. At fus' dey cornduck deyselves mighty discontemptuous, but dat wuz befo' dey knowed reel good who I wuz. Dey talked some kind o' jabber talk what didn't have no heads nor no tails to it. Direc'ly dat white feller what lived wid 'em, he come out an' axed me what wuz I doin' dar. He wuz de onlies' one what knowed how to talk. I 'plied right back dat I wuz jes' walkin' 'bout, twarn't no law 'ginst walkin' 'bout, wuz it? He spoke pow'ful sudden, 'Whar did I come from?' Jes quick as I specify Vicksburg, Miss., dat made him easy in his min'. Den he 'quired what fer I come to deir camp? I wuz fixin' to tell him, but dat ole one-eyed nigger never 'lowed me to 'splain nothin'. He jes put in his mouth. Ev'ybody stop an' listen to what he say; I knowed he must be some kind o' overseer. Him an' dat white feller, dey kep' 'sputin' an 'sputin' up an' down, till dat white feller axed me Vuz I de Great Teacher dey was expectin'?' I tole him I warn't no sech Great Teacher ez all dat, but I could teach some, bein' as I had come a mighty fur ways to teach. Jes' soon as de white man tell dat to de one-eyed nigger, dey talked a mighty heap in deir jabber. Twarn't no sense in nothin' dey said. Den de white feller got so mad he stomped back to his tent an' lef me 'mongst all dem niggers. Dey capered roun' scan'lous, rubbed sand on deir faces, an' butted dey heads 'ginst de groun'. I got right fidgety seein' 'em stick knives in deyselyes. Next mawnin', bein' as dey wuz huntin' for a home, an' dat gen'leman on de plantation needed a lot o' hoe hands, I jes led 'em to him."
Zack's enthusiasm dwindled as he talked, for the Sirdar refused to smile. The experienced Dervish fighter listened rigidly as if Zack's statement were a military report. Zack kept glancing at the Colonel, and Colonel Spottiswoode supposed that the Britisher failed to catch the negro humor. But General Durham did understand, far better than Colonel Spottiswoode, and more clearly than any of his guests, except Lyttleton. Lyttleton, who had fought through the Khalifah campaign—getting his spear thrust and promotion at Omdurman—sat at the far end of the table eyeing his superior officer. To both of these men the phrases "Expected One" and "Great Teacher" were slogans of dread which had lighted many a torch and hurled many a spear in the Sudan. Durham's mustache lowered grimly above a pair of thin lips, and Colonel Spottiswoode felt that Zack's story had gone wrong. So he attempted to help out by adding, "When we left Beni Yeb, old Tabira and his Nigerines crowded to the landing. If we had not already got on board the boat we might have had trouble in bringing Zack away. They waved their hands and shouted that they would follow—Lyttleton, wasn't that what they said?"
Lyttleton only nodded, and Durham nodded too.
The single-minded McDonald thought of nothing except the help he would have in getting labor for their cotton experiment, and spoke up inopportunely: "General, do you agree that he may prove of great service on Wadi Okar?"
"Possibly, sir, possibly; if he can set those Shilluks and Dinkas to work. But what about the Nigerines? What if they should proceed to Wadi Okar?"
McDonald answered promptly: "They won't come; it's a month's journey."
Durham shook his head. "Doesn't matter. Tabira's tribe has spent more than twenty years on the pilgrimage to Mecca. I fancy a few months more will not stop him."
McDonald hadn't considered that; neither had it occurred to Colonel Sportiswoode. But the possibility lurked in the mind of Lyttleton.
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