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.
CHAPTER XVIII
THE TRAGEDIES OF AFRICA
FOR some little while after Old Reliable had told his disquieting story of the Sheikh Tabira, General Durham and his guests sat talking, two and two, in undertones. Presently the general turned to a scar-faced man at his left—the Count di Favara, adventurer, ex-officer of the Foreign Legion in Algiers, refugee from the Italian disaster in Abyssinia, and who had served with the British at Majuba Hill.
"Favara," asked the General, "you tried some Chinese labor in the Niger basin, at—I forget the name of the place?"
Di Favara—darker than an Arab, with black beard trimmed to a point, and a marvelous command of many languages—di Favara leaned forward, smiling: "My dear Sirdar, the place is of no consequence."
Favara had a keen dramatic instinct which focused all attention upon himself as he began, "We were trying to build a railroad around a certain waterfall—bare rock, much blasting. White men shriveled under the heat, and natives ran away from the work. So we contracted with the Chinese Six Companies for three thousand coolies. Work? They were very devils for work! We needed devils; we were moving red hot stones in hell. Chinamen died like flies; sun-stroke, fever, reptiles and insects. We had agreed to ship every Chinese body home for burial. They did their own embalming, stowed the bodies in coffins, and we stacked the coffins on the river bank, where a boat came twice a week. More Chinamen died; others worked madly, ahead of death. We were succeeding, we were building; death did not matter—until three Chinamen went fishing. Never before had any coolie taken a holiday. Two miles below our landing place a little river tumbled into the big one. There amongst the rocks they found the mangled bodies of their friends—some of their friends. As for the others—well, the crocodiles were said to be very, very fat. Those three coolies rushed back to camp and spread the news. Every coolie stopped. That work is stopped to this day. Nobody will ever complete it. They held a meeting. We tried to pacify them. The frenzied demons would listen to nothing. At daylight three thousand yellow men, without food, guides, or arms, marched out of camp, headed toward the sunrise. That mob started from middle Africa and went shouting on their way to China."
Di Favara hushed; it was Colonel Spottiswoode who inquired, "What became of them?"
The Italian shrugged his shoulders: "Chi lo sa? That was nine years ago. Last summer I passed through Zanzibar. In the Sultan's gardens I saw a lone Chinese slave, that his traders had captured in a razzia, while sacking the village of a savage tribe. The last survivor of the three thousand. Madonna mia! What a tale that man could tell!"
The Italian lighted another cigarette and let the imagination of his hearers run riot with those Chinese struggling in the jungle.
Colonel Spottiswoode stared at Favara, and nobody moved until Durham's even voice asked another question: "Yes, I heard of that, but never believed it to be true. Did you know a man named Vinizzi—Balthazar Vinizzi?"
Favara made a queer gesture of Latin assent: "Yes, oh, yes. Vinizzi was everywhere; a bold man, Balthazar, but not good, not good." Even in Favara's code there were things which men should not do. Vinizzi had left nothing undone.
The Sirdar stirred the crushed ice in his crème de menthe. "Pardon my curiosity about Vinizzi. But did you ever hear that he had a necklace of interlaced rings for which our Government has been searching, an Indian heirloom called the 'Tangle of Badar Khan'—or 'the Seven and Seventy Rings'?" Durham was no diplomat. His blunt question startled the suave Italian. Favara glanced up quickly, then down again. Then he leaned both elbows on the table and replied: "Ebbene! I will tell you. Why not? Vinizzi had that necklace while we were together in the Congo. It was of no value, but perilous to keep. Vinizzi delighted to do dangerous things."
Colonel Spottiswoode glanced from one man to the other with intense curiosity, which General Durham gratified: "We never learned the history of this heirloom. The hill people of India said it had been a Mahometan emblem captured centuries ago by Badar Khan. It descended in the family of a certain prince from whom it was looted during our troubles. When peace came this prince made a special stipulation that we should return this trinket. That was easy. An Englishman had the curio in Algiers. When we sent for it, the Englishman had disappeared. People whispered he was murdered. Others said no, that the Englishman had journeyed south into the Kabyle country. Later we heard that the Tangle of Badar Khan was in possession of a man named Balthazar Vinizzi in the Belgian Congo. Favara, what became of Vinizzi?"
This was the second awkward question that General Durham had asked. For a moment the Italian held his tongue, then laughed airily: "Why not, amongst friends? That night is three years gone. Vinizzi is dead. I think it was Yambio who killed him. Poor Balthazar—but I shall tell you."
Durham the unimaginative sat upright in his chair; everybody else leaned forward as the Italian began: "Vinizzi commanded the post; I served under him. He had a sergeant named Yambio. Nobody knew where Yambio came from; it might have been unpleasant to inquire—that is the way of the Congo. But imagine Yambio, the color of old ivory, the length of my arm taller than I, half robed, half bare. Yambio might have been a prince—or perhaps a pirate, or a giant fighting his Carthaginian galley against the Romans. We found him a marvel in controlling the blacks; he spoke their language, and was a born soldier. One day Yambio asked permission to bring his favorite wife to the post—a young girl from the Barcine desert. Vinizzi granted the unfortunate permission. Early one morning the young wife came, a mere child, smiling, very happy and beautiful. She was called Sitt il Milah, the Lady of the Moon. As she dismounted from a camel, Vinizzi and two of his boon companions caught one glimpse of her. Which was enough. Men must be amused in the Congo. At once he ordered me to take Yambio with a detachment and proceed to the frontier, two days' journey. Yambio made no protest; Allah had willed it so. He went with me, but kept very silent. Four days later we returned. His girl wife was not in Yambio's hut. Yambio heard the grewsome story, how she had been carried, screaming, to the officers' quarters. His blacks told him all, in their own tongue. Yambio rushed straight to headquarters. There they sat, Vinizzi and his cronies, around a table, reckless with wine. Yambio demanded his wife. Vinizzi pointed to an inner room—'She is there,' he said. That was all. She was there, lying on the floor, not yet dead, but worse than dead. Yambio gathered the limp creature in his arms and strode out to the jungle. She died that night—sometimes God may be merciful, even in Africa. Yambio buried her, and went back to Vinizzi. Blood of Christ! How he looked, blocking that door with arms folded, glaring at those men who sneered at him. Yambio spoke, very, very slowly: 'Allah is just, and Allah sees the sorrow you have put upon his servant.' That is all he said; I remember every syllable. He went about his duties and the post was quiet. One sultry night two weeks afterwards, I was awakened by a hand that closed my mouth—'Be still,' a voice whispered, 'you shall meet no harm.' It was Yambio himself who bound and gagged me, then set a guard upon me in the forest I heard no shots; there were none. The knife is more deadly, and the knife is silent. I heard a scream, just one, short, sharp—the shriek of poor Balthazar. It was not like Balthazar to cry aloud. I have always wondered what Yambio could have done to extort such a scream. Then fire came, bursting from every tukul and the quarters. At morn there was no army post, only the ashes of a place accurst. Yambio conducted me to the seacoast. Day by day, week by week, we journeyed in silence, and reached the shark-infested waters of the Bight of Benin. A Dutch vessel lay at anchor. In a small boat we passed the sharks, and he lifted me to the vessel's deck. There he said farewell, kissing his own hand after the fashion of his people. And then—then—for one instant Yambio stood erect, balancing himself upon the rail, and plunged headlong into the sea. A flurry of white, the rush of a shark's fin, a dash of red blood—e fineto!"
A stark white moon had sunk behind the house and only the stars looked down, stars that were used to looking down upon tragedies in Africa. Silence, silence except for that maddening click—click—click of the Nile wheels. Colonel Spottiswoode knew that oxen were trudging round and round, that water flowed, that the boy slept, that all things went on just the same. He glanced at the Italian and shivered. But to those who had served long in the Sudan, uncompromising necessities had blunted the edge of their imaginations. So General Durham pursued his practical idea, and inquired, "Favara, do you know what became of the Tangle?"
For answer Favara spread his palms with an almost imperceptible gesture of ignorance. "No, nor what became of anything." Then Favara nodded to the Nubian waiter, who refilled his brandy glass.
Durham persisted. "I have a reason. This necklace has lately been heard of in Omdurman; a crippled beggar is said to have it, a holy man called El Hadj Nejuma."
To which Lyttleton added quickly: "That's the beggar whose hands and feet were cut off by the Khalifah? I've seen him."
"He should be easy to find," Colonel Spottiswoode suggested. "Couldn't you send over and get it? Just across the river."
"My dear Colonel Spottiswoode," Durham smiled, "we might as well send across the Milky Way. No Mahometan would tell us of it. There's no human way to locate that necklace."
"Perhaps it may turn up," the Colonel said. "I should like to hear more about it."
"Turn up? Oh, yes, it may turn up—around the neck of a Mahdi, with ten thousand Dervishes flashing their spears beside him. That's what these sacred relics mean. You are planning to visit Omdurman to-morrow? Look at the people, look at the place, smell it—but more than that, feel it, feel the sullen mystery of its heat—its mad people—and then tell me whether you would care to see them roused."
The next afternoon Colonel Spottiswoode and McDonald, with Zack and Said, climbed aboard the little toy tram-car which clatters to the ferry, and crossed into Omdurman, that mud-and-dung city to which the Khalifah enjoined a pilgrimage, forbidding the age-old pilgrimage to Mecca. It was a city of pillage and massacre and mysterious death. In narrow alleys the artisans toiled; across its scorching spaces the fluttering robes moved swiftly. It was a holy city of most unholy odors and stagnant wells; a labyrinth where anything might happen; a city of ominous name, even for Africa.
Before dusk fell again upon Khartum, the American had returned and rushed to General Durham's headquarters. He passed through the garden where they had dined the previous night; in daylight it seemed dingy and glary. The general sat inside at his desk.
"General, I beg pardon for interrupting you, but have you seen my negro, old man Zack, who was here last night?"
"No, what's the matter? Is he gone?"
"He's missing, and we can't find him."
"Can't find him? Where did you see him last?"
"In Omdurman. A swarm of Arabs crowded round him, and we got separated. I thought he'd come back to the hotel, or here."
The British general sprang up, clapped his hands, and shouted, "Wahid!" An Egyptian orderly appeared, and received sharp orders in Arabic. Then Durham sent for an Irish sergeant, remarking to Colonel Spottiswoode, "If anything goes wrong we can't depend upon these Mahometans, especially where it touches their religion." So he dispatched Sergeant Flynn to find the negro.
Having sent his men to search the byways of two cities, General Durham turned to Colonel Spottiswoode and demanded, "How did it happen? Give details."
The American could not comprehend why such a muss should be stirred about a lost negro. "We were passing through an alley where men squatted on the ground making camel-saddles, with frames like saw-bucks. Zack and I watched them for awhile, then started to the corner of a wide roadway and saw a train of camels ridden by naked negroes—great big fellows. Zack must have taken it for a circus parade, and lagged behind to look."
"Suspicious!" remarked the general curtly.
"Oh, no, our negroes always do that on circus day. McDonald and I both noticed that a crowd of Arabs began to gather around us, and Zack was in the thick of it. Not one of them spoke a word that I could hear, but they all seemed to be watching Zack. I took my eyes off him for a moment, and when I glanced back again his helmet had disappeared; and the servant Said was also missing. McDonald and I tried to find out which way he had gone; a very respectable-looking Arab directed us to a crooked alley. We followed that alley, and got lost."
"He sent you wrong, intentionally."
"Yes, I think he deliberately misled us. Anyhow, the negro could not be found. We spent two hours searching for him, and then supposed he had come back here. His servant was with him, and he couldn't get lost."
"He's not lost. Nobody gets lost here—accidentally. Answer me, Colonel Spottiswoode," the Sirdar's voice grew harsh; "what do you know about your black? Where did he come from?"
"Where did he come from? He's just a common ordinary nigger—came from nowhere in particular."
"Mahometan, of course."
"No. He's a Baptist—or Methodist maybe."
"You don't mean to say he's a Christian?"
"Not enough Christian to hurt."
"Where did you get him?"
"Just picked him up."
"Where?"
"At home, rambling around. He's a faithful servant and knows my ways—that's why I brought him along."
"How is it he has his own servant—and"
In spite of General Durham's seriousness the American could not restrain a laugh. "Zack has a servant, yes; I hired Said to keep Zack out of trouble."
"To keep him out of trouble?"
"Yes; he's such a fool that I was afraid he might get hurt."
Durham paced up and down the room, unconvinced. "Now he's getting us into trouble. I don't like that affair at Beni Yeb. There's a madness in this Sudan sun that addles the brains of men. Two of Tabira's Nigerines have followed him to Khartum. Do you know what that means? I do. No doubt they were in the crowd at Omdurman, spreading news amongst the people. Suppose your negro should take it into his head to start a row? There'll be plenty of fanatics to hail him as a prophet."
Colonel Spottiswoode laughed outright, then stopped short: "General Durham, you don't seem to understand negroes."
"And you don't understand Mahometans."
"This old negro is harmless as a baby."
"So was Mahomet Achmet. Yet he raised a war and built a military power which killed eight millions of people."
"Raised a war? Zack never could raise any thing but cotton—and mighty little of that."
"We will see, we will see. Unless he has been safely hid, my men should find him within an hour."
CHAPTER XIX
THE PROPHET WHO SLIPPED
ZACK FOSTER, Effendi, was not safely hid, and he tarried for nobody to find him. Old Reliable found himself in less time than an hour. General Durham and he American planter were still talking about him when they heard Zack's voice outside the gate, calling, "Whar's de Cunnel?" Helmet in hand, Old Reliable strode between two lines of salaaming servants, wiping his face on a red handkerchief. Said dropped to his haunches at the gate, as if nothing had happened. Arab glances were exchanged between lowered eyes; the date-sellers did not look up from their baskets. Two silent Nigerines, with their backs turned, stood contemplating the river.
General Durham fastened his eyes upon Old Reliable's sweaty black face, which seemed to conceal nothing; but the British had learned that they never saw beneath the skins of these people. Old Reliable burst out in wrath: "Cunnel, dem niggers got me cut off. You tole me to keep side an' side wid you-all, an' I wuz doin' it. But when dem camels come along I jes nacherly looked at 'em a minute, an' de fus thing I knowed dere was sech a crowd I couldn't git nowhar. You-all was gone, an' I hollers to dis nigger, 'Side, which way did de Cunnel go?'—and 'peared like he couldn't understand nothin'. Jes den a big yaller feller come up an' p'inted us de wrong way. Dat crowd kept shovin' an' shovin' till us got wedged in one o' dem crookety alleys an' couldn't go no place."
"Why didn't you come home?"
"Couldn't, Cunnel; whole passel o' dem niggers crowded roun' an' p'inted at me."
"What did they say?" demanded General Durham so abruptly that Zack jerked for breath.
"Lordee, Mister, couldn't nobody tell what dem niggers wuz sayin'. Dey said a-plenty jes jabber, jabber, jabber—all at de same time. I tried to push through 'em an' git back to de big road, but twarn't no use. Dey kep' scrougin' an' crowdin' an' shovin' 'til dey got me furder an' furder from whar de Cunnel was at. 'Peared to me like some of 'em wanted to crowd me plumb down to de fur end o' de street. D'rec'ly one ole man come along in a long blue night shirt an' a big head-hankcher; he step out an' lif up his han'. Den all of 'em shet up whilst he makes 'em a speech—an' all de time he bowed to me mighty nice. He was sholy one polite ole man. Reckin' he was tellin' 'em to git out o' my way an' lemme go home. About dat time another cripple feller—pow'ful dirty—he hobbles up, an' ev'ybody kep' mighty still whilst he throws dis here thing roun' my neck. Den ev'ybody hollered. Tain't nothin' 'cept a bunch o' skeeter bar rings, an' rusty at dat. Huh!" Zack drew something from his pocket and dropped it disgustedly on the table, a tangle of brass rings which might have belonged to a low-class dancing girl. "Dat's de time when dey all commenced to kneel down befo' me, an' butt deir heads aginst de groun'."
"Knelt down and butted their heads against the ground, eh?" repeated General Durham with emphasis.
"Yas, suh, Gov'nor, yas, suh. Dat's de Gawd's troof. Dey sho done it fer a fac', an' blocked de road so nobody couldn't pass. Dat old crippled man, he sot 'em plum crazy."
"Old cripple man, you say? What did he look like?"
"He look mighty curyous. Never had no hands, nor yit no feet—all of 'em cut smack off. But dat nigger sho could scramble mightily on his nubbins."
"El Hadj Nejuma!" Durham exclaimed, then snatched up the tangle of brass which Zack had tossed upon the table. "By the nine Gods, Spottiswoode, look! Look at this! The Seven and Seventy Rings of Badar Khan!"
The Sirdar sat down, trembling; and Colonel Spottiswoode began to catch the infection of his excitement. They leaned over the table, put their heads together, and straightened out the knotted links of brass. It took shape as a necklace, curiously wrought, an interlacing of many-sized rings. Zack shuffled around from one side of the table to the other; neither of the white men looked up. Lyttleton Bey and McDonald hurried in. They had heard of Zack's disappearance, but seeing him standing there so quietly, at once transferred their curiosity to the recovered heirloom. Other officers arrived, some in khaki, some in linens, just as the disquieting news had found them. But a harmless negro in the Sirdar's quarters was far less thrilling than a possible Prophet strewing fire in Omdurman. So they crowded to the Sirdar's table and paid no attention to Old Reliable.
"Huh! Now ain't dat jes like white folks—makin' all dat humbug over some skeeter bar rings? Huh!"
No attention being paid to him, and there being nobody to talk with, Old Reliable straggled off, like a camel that slipped his hobble-string. Down the avenue he swaggered, looking over his shoulder to see if the white folks were going to call him back. Every Arab at the gate rose promptly and salaamed, which tickled Zack into good humor again. So he strolled out smiling, and sat down upon the river bank to watch some Gippy soldiers who were loading donkeys on a barge. Zack loved to see those yellow negroes work, but sniffed in contempt at their uniforms.
He had long ceased to consider General Durham, who was taking counsel with his officers, "Lyttleton, what do you think? Shall we let this negro stay in the Sudan, and take a chance? Or had we better ask Colonel Spottiswoode to send him home?"
If Lyttleton had been a Roman he would have fought as Fabius—cautiously. So he answered, "You know, General, I always advise the safer course—take no chances with these people. This black man seems to get them excited."
"Gentlemen, I beg your pardon," Colonel Spottiswoode arose and spoke most earnestly, "I regret this annoyance. Of course, I cannot understand the Sudan, but I do know that this old negro will never make trouble for anybody except himself—or me. He's forgot all about that necklace, and"
"What's that?" Every officer wheeled and faced toward the gate. Outside a cry uprose, a wild excited cry from many Arab throats. For a moment Lyttleton and the General looked at each other, sickened with memories of what that cry had often meant. Sergeant Flynn, the red-headed Irishman, came running in. As he passed Moriarity he grinned—"Hell to pay"; then froze his face and saluted the Sirdar.
"What is it, Flynn?"
"That bloomin' naygur, sorr. They're makin' a bally big row over him."
In the first rush, side by side with General Durham, the American planter passed the gate. Not a servant waited on his haunches—all gone. The embankment was thronged with bat-like Arabs darting here and there. From afar off in the native quarters came the patter of bare feet, the flutter of rags, and the muttering of voices. Donkey boys left their beasts, date-sellers forsook their baskets; the sakia had stopped. Everybody crowded along the river bank. Zack was not in sight.
In sturdy bounds Colonel Spottiswoode leaped across the road and forced an opening through the crowd, following the direction of every eye. Arabs ran along the edge, of the water, and shouted, as a boy came swimming ashore with Old Reliable's helmet. The Colonel saw five heads bobbing up and down in the thick red water. One of those heads was Zack's. Four brawny brown men struggled around him, battling with the current. A Gippy soldier threw them a rope from the barge. Four nearly naked Arabs dragged Zack up the slippery bank, dripping, muddy, hatless and enraged. The Colonel grabbed him, "Zack, what the devil are you doing?"
Old Reliable took his helmet from the proud boy and carefully smoothed out its ribbons. "Lordee, Cunnel, I come putty nigh tumblin' in dat water. You oughter seed what a big catfish dat wuz! An' he got away—right yonder."
"What is that? What is that?" Lyttleton questioned breathlesly.
"How was it, Zack? All this row?"
"Cunnel, I warn't meddlin' wid nobody—warn't payin' 'em no min'. Jes' settin' dar watchin' dat boy tryin' to ketch a fish. D'rec'ly he made a big holler, an' I seen him raslin' wid a fish longer'n what he wuz. Co'se I couldn't set still. I jumped down de bank an' made one grab at dat fish; an' bein' he was so slippery an' de bank so slippery, I nacherly went right on in. Dese niggers ain't got no sense; dey oughter lemme 'lone—I kin swim; but dey hopped in an' hopped in an' hopped in, an' kep' a hoppin' in. Dey grabbed holt o' my arms an' laigs till I couldn't swim nowhar. Dat's what made de humbug. But, Cunnel, dat sho' was a whoppin' big ole catfish."
Lyttleton said nothing, nothing whatever. He watched those Arab faces and sensed the relaxing temper of the mob. Durham stood like an iron man until Lyttleton caught his arm—"Come, General. It's all over. Don't you see they're beginning to smile?"
The mass of Arabs began to melt away, singly, in groups of twos and threes. The two Nigerines looked amazed; they stood apart and whispered. Of the others some shook their heads; some even laughed and showed their teeth.
"Cunnel, I don't ax you to believe me widout you seen it—but dat catfish wuz more longer dan what I is."
Before Colonel Spottiswoode drove him from the river to get some dry clothes, Zack stopped for one last long, regretful look at the bubbly waters where the prize catfish had disappeared.
"General," observed Lyttleton, "there'll be no more trouble. It's all right. Their Prophet has slipped. The Arabs have laughed at him. We'll take Zack up the river with us to-morrow."
CHAPTER XX
TRICKY TRADERS
IT came unto the morning of their departure for Wadi Okar. Since the first pale hint of dawn Said, the scrawny Dongalawi, had been vigilantly watching at the gate. This gate was no more than a square breach in a mud wall, behind which stood the Grand Hotel of Khartum. In front ran a white road—then the sluggish Nile; four equidistant parallels—the river, the road, the wall, the hotel piazza.
Said squatted upon his haunches, talking with a stringy-necked porter who reclined upon an angereb. At times Said rose and walked apart, whispering with those who came to seek his counsel. There was Achmet the camel-driver, Hamuda Hamad who trafficked in donkeys, and Mohammed ben Idris, cloth-seller in the bazaar. Singly these merchants did talk with Said, yet—as if of one mind—each glanced hawkishly over the wall into that vacant garden, and along the deserted piazza. Said counseled patience, and to each his tongue dripped pearls of wisdom. "The Black Effendi has not yet roused from his sleep; he will soon appear. You must wait. The Black Effendi is a great one in his own land, with gold like unto the sands of the desert, or the drops of the Nile. Allah hath consumed him with craving for a camel; he burneth to possess a donkey; he yearns for the rich stuffs that Said hath already pointed him in the bazaar of Mohammed ben Idris. He, Said, alone could persuade the Black Effendi to shower them all with gold. He, Said, was a poor man and must have just reward. So he encouraged each according to his desire; until they departed each unto his own place, waiting in peace until Said should fetch the customer. Achmet, the insistent, returned, and came again—Achmet whose arms were of brass and whose kick could break a bullock's thigh. Said trifled not with Achmet, but gave heed as Achmet extolled his beast. Verily this camel was a jewel, and the foal of a jewel, wearing a marvelous fringed makloofa and striped trappings from Syria. While they discoursed thus together, Hamuda Hamad came almost upon the twain, which would not have been to Said's liking; for Hamuda desired to sell a wondrous donkey. Thereupon Said persuaded Achmet to depart, so that no clamor of contention might uprise between them.
Dawn warmed into morning. A white-hot sun slanted across the narrow, dusty gardens when Old Reliable emerged from the great front door of the hotel, and the wind immediately began to flirt with speckled streamers on his helmet. There was never a helmet so white, nor streamers so long and blue, with such a dancing of polka-dots upon them. Clothes may not wholly make a man, but Zack's new khaki suit had made a sight of Old Reliable.
"Huh! Got hitched up wrong," he mumbled, stopping on the piazza to tighten a belly-band and loosen the breeching. Then Zack lifted his head and shouted, "Whar he? Side!"
"Effendi—Excellency," Said emphasized his usual homage.
"Lissen to me, Side; us gwine travelin' to-day, and I got to buy a lot o' things from de sto'." Zack considered ponderously, and clinked the twenty gold coins in his pockets. "I needs a silk handkercher, an' a walkin' stick, an' er—er—er a seegar, an'"
"Excellency say he buy one camel," Said craftily suggested.
"Dar now! I liketer fergot dat camel. I can't be ridin' dese here runty little bosses no mo'."
"Excellency buy much donkeys"
"Suttinly, suttinly. Donkeys is heap better fer short rides."
"And robes of honor—which great ones wear"
"Co'se I got to have plenty good clo'es." Zack gazed complacently at his present attire, and Said groveled to the very floor.
Both of them lowered their voices as Colonel Spottiswoode strode out of his door at the far end of the piazza, while Zack hurriedly instructed Said: "When de Cunnel starts up town, you an' me is goin' to de sto'—fus' class white folks' sto'. Mawin', Cunnel, mawnin', suh."
"Good morning, Zack. How do they fit?"
"Fine, Cunnel, fine; leetle too tight in some places, an' den too baggy. Ain't quite got sot to my figger."
Said discreetly retired to the gate and waited; the East is always waiting.
Mahomet Mansour having served the Colonel's breakfast, the White Effendi took his seat at another table after the manner of scribes, and began writing interminable letters, while the Black Effendi followed that pig of a German steward about the garden, talking endlessly. Said watched and waited. Said spat vehemently upon the ground. Said loathed them both. "Patience of Allah!" he muttered. "How long, how long!"
Four black women, naked to the waist, with dirty rags twisted around their middles, fetched water from a canal that came gurgling under the wall. Reinhardt, the steward, directed their irrigation of his flowers. Zack dogged the steward's footsteps, for the German, like a Greek, understood every human lingo. Delightedly Old Reliable gabbled on:—"Yas suh, mister. But dat ain't Cunnel's way o' tradin'. Cunnel walks into de sto' an' say, 'John, gimme a hat; you knows what kin' I wants.' De clerk pulls out de same kin' o' hat what Cunnel's been wearin' sence de s'render. Ev'ybody in Vicksburg, white an' black, is well 'quainted wid dat hat. Den de Cunnel say, 'Joe,'—dat's de nigger porter what works in de sto'—'here, Joe, take dis ole hat. It'll keep off de sun when you goes a-fishin'. Cunnel claps dat new hat on his head an' marches out. He don't never know what he pay fer nothin', till de bill comes roun'."
The steward lifted a warning finger, "Ach! But it must not be so in this land; he will at once pay the large price already."
"Yas, suh, yas, suh, dat's 'zackly what I keeps a-tellin' him. Cunnel say, 'Shucks, life's too short an' full o' blisters fer me to be fussin' 'bout a nickel."
Zack glanced at the planter, who was absorbed in his letters. Then drew breath for more extensive conversation with the steward.
"Me an' de Cunnel went over dar to—how you speak de name o' dat landin' on tother side de river?"
"Omdurman."
"Sholy, sholy—dat's what I said. Me an' de Cunnel wanted to buy some o' dese fedders what ladies wears in dey hats. Cunnel's got a niece what's plum crazy 'bout 'em. Lordee, mister, dat sho is one more sharp yaller nigger what runs de awstrich-fedder sto'."
The German smiled, having recommended his American friend to Osman ben Issa, the most artful dealer in the Sudan.
Zack stuck at the steward's elbow, walking as he talked. Money jingled in his pocket and Said followed his every movement with ravening eyes. "Dis nigger, Hommit, he specify to Cunnel dat us kin git fedders mighty cheap; dat feller is nacherly givin' 'em away. Hommit, he talk so rapid, I begins to 'spicion Hommit. Huh! Dat yaller sto'-keeper pulls out a lot o' tin boxes an' piles up fedders on de flo', more'n 'nuff to stuff a bolster. Jes' soon as Cunnel picks out one fedder, dat yaller nigger 'low he don't want to sell dat'n, 'cause he grandaddy give it to him, but he'll let Cunnel have it for one hundred plasters. Ef Cunnel wouldn't give dat, how much would Cunnel give? He sot cross-legged, and kep' on axin', 'What'll you gimme? What'll you gimme?' Dat riled de Cunnel mightily when Hommit tole him dem words. So he riz up, Cunnel did, an' 'low he warn't gwine to do no tradin' wid him—yas, suh, Cunnel! Comin', suh."
Colonel Spottiswoode clapped his hands and shouted: "Wahid! Mahomet."
"Effendi," Mahomet Mansour answered promptly, and went running through the gate.
"Here, Mahomet, take these letters to the post office."
"Very good, Effendi." The russet Berberine started briskly, his pink gown flapping out behind.
"Hold up," the Colonel called; "has that man come with the feathers?"
"Him no come, Effendi. Him maybe come soon."
The Colonel glanced at his watch. "I can't wait."
"Him come." Mahomet's obsequious face betrayed no symptom of his anxiety, "Effendi will wait."
Said glanced uneasily at Mahomet. Both of these honest servants knew that Ibrahim waited, around the corner, until he should be sent for when his customer had become too impatient to make a successful barter. "Him come bimeby, bimeby," Mahomet assured his master, glancing along the river bank to a group of barges where the Ingleezi devil-boat was already belching up smoke before it started for the Shilluk country.
"Reinhardt! Oh, Reinhardt!" Colonel Spottiswoode called to the German. "Reinhardt, I couldn't trade with your friend in Omdurman, so I told him to send fifty of his best feathers to you, with the lowest price marked on each. I will buy on your judgment."
"It is very good, very good; I choose him for you. We look maybe at some feather to-day, and send man away; he come back to-morrow and"
"No to-morrow about it; got to buy 'em right off."
"Much days it takes to buy feathers," the German answered stolidly. "When he come we smoke cigarette; to-morrow we drink some coffee; by and by we begin talk of feather."
"None of that. I can buy a railroad in Grand Rapids and lay it down in Arizona while you fellows are haggling over a dime's worth of feathers. I'm going. Tell him he didn't come in time, and I couldn't wait."
In a panic Said glanced at Mahomet, then suggested, "At the bazaar is Sheikh Ibrahim; bimeby he come with blumes."
The Colonel turned abruptly and Said abased himself to the earth. "Ibrahim is servant from Osman ben Issa—bery good blume."
"Oh, you know where he is? Go get him—quick."
"Better not so," the steward objected, "Ibrahim will think you want much to buy; he will then make high price."
"No; the price will be marked on every feather—take it or leave it. Run along, Said."
Mahomet glared at Said, who started off in a willing trot. Then Mahomet himself whirled away towards the post office, like a dust-devil, so as to return in haste, for he had no mind to let that Dongalawi usurp his rights in chaffering with Ibrahim.
Colonel Spottiswoode hurried back to his room. "Here, Zack," he ordered, "get everything ready for that two o'clock boat. Don't budge out of this room until the packing is done."
"Now dar you is agin, Cunnel; talkin' to me like I was goin' to run off somewhar. Huh! Dis here little dab o' packin' is jes good as did. It'll be right dar on de boat waitin' for you." Old Reliable fell upon the scattered contents of a suitcase while the Colonel went out and waited for Ibrahim. "Hello!" he laughed; "who's that? Can't be a feather peddler. That must be Abou ben Adhem, may his tribe increase."
It was even he—the feather man from Osman ben Issa. Mahomet and Said flanked a venerable white-bearded man clad in a cascade of spotless robes, surmounted by a turban that looked like a huge twisted drop of confectioner's icing. Three abreast, they paused middlewise of the gate while the porter salaamed profoundly—"May Allah increase thy goodness."
"On you be peace and the blessings of Allah," Ibrahim replied, and moved majestically along the wide path to halt at the piazza steps. After exchanging elaborate salutations, Sheikh Ibrahim presented to Reinhardt his letter from Osman ben Issa. Turning then to the American Pasha, Ibrahim opened his bulky parcel, reverently as if he were unbinding the Sacred Carpet of Mecca, and proceeded to lay out some twenty plumes. Reinhardt promptly swept the bunch aside. The unmoved Ibrahim spread another lot upon the table, another, and still another. "Trash; litter; rubbish," said Reinhardt.
"What's wrong with those feathers?" demanded the Colonel.
The steward stooped, brushed a feather on the floor, then held it close to his bare arm—"See? It does not cling. The bird was dead, already."
Mahomet Mansour had returned in a rush from the post-office, and now stood watching his charge to wedge into the argument, as Reinhardt proceeded to pick over the feathers.
"Ach!" exclaimed the German. "Here is one not so bad, not so very bad."
Again Reinhardt brushed the plume in the dust; when he held it near his arm every fiber reached out as if attracted by a magnet—"Good feathers always so," he observed.
It was a long, wide plume, uncleaned and uncurled, yet exceedingly beautiful. "I'll take that one," said the Colonel, looking it over for the price mark. "What is the price, Reinhardt? You'll find it in that letter."
"No, the letter say for me to get most price—it is always so."
The psychological moment had arrived for Mahomet Mansour. Sternly he questioned Ibrahim, rolled his eyes in horror, and stamped his foot and interpreted between buyer and seller. "Ibrahim say hundred piaster. Too much. Bad blume, very bad. I say, Ibrahim, you pay five piaster, no more. It is a robbery for five piaster, that blume."
"Five piasters make one shilling," Reinhardt explained; "same as the twenty-five cent in your money."
"Is that a pretty good feather?" asked the Colonel.
"So-so, so-so," with a depreciating shrug.
Old Reliable kept peeping out of the Colonel's door, but he couldn't see all that was going on. He now came shuffling along the piazza with a flannel shirt in his hand. "Cunnel, you wants dese here kind o' shirts to go in dat littlest grip sack, don't you?"
"Yes. Tuck 'em in anywhere—don't bother me."
Zack side-stepped behind the Colonel's chair and listened to Mahomet's noisy chaffering. Piaster by piaster Mahomet advanced his bid to eleven, while Ibrahim dropped doggedly to fifty. Suddenly they struck a bargain—a quick, decisive, violent bargain. Mahomet thrust the sheikh aside with—"Eighteen piaster"—triumphantly depositing the purchase in his master's lap. Sheikh Ibrahim lifted both hands to heaven, and burst into bewailing; he was being robbed, his master would be beggared; he would appeal to the Mudir. Mahomet confronted him with a fierce glint in his eye.
Zack thought they were going to fight. He ducked backward into the hotel and watched them through the door-crack. Colonel Spottiswoode jerked himself up to intervene, but Reinhardt proceeded calmly to select another feather until the Colonel had acquired a lapful, and nobody slaughtered. Having cowed old Ibrahim into a succession of moans, Mahomet named his own figures.
"Stop, stop, Mahomet! That's plenty," broke in the Colonel. Yet the Berberine bought two or three more before his master could put on the brake, then counted their purchases in front of Ibrahim. These Mahomet wrapped swiftly and handed to Zack—"Take away! Take away!"
"How much do I owe him?" asked the Colonel, opening his purse.
"Nine hundred piaster and eighty," the honest Mahomet answered.
Reinhardt shook his head: "Not so! What you buy comes to five hundred and ninety-four piaster, for the lot." Reinhardt seemed not to hear the frenzy raised by Mahomet and the Sheikh. From the American's purse he counted six gold pieces, and nine smaller coins which Zack regarded as nickels.
"It is the cost of about thirty dollars and forty-five cents of America," Reinhardt explained.
Ibrahim bundled up his rejected plumes. No sooner had his greedy fist closed upon the cash than Mahomet rushed him down the steps.
"Here, Mahomet! Stop that!" With courteous apologies to the old man, Colonel Spottiswoode pressed an additional half sovereign into his hand. Mahomet stared, Said's jaw dropped open. They were madmen, these unbelievers. Ibrahim clutched this manna from heaven, and passed swiftly around the corner of the piazza. Once out of sight he paused under the palms in the garden and began counting his gains. Said slunk away, behind Ibrahim, and nobody noticed—except Mahomet, who raged inwardly. The soft-footed Mahomet Mansour took one backward step, thinking to escape through the rotunda before Said could have truck with the departing Ibrahim. But his master called: "Wahid! Mahomet. Come here, Zack."
With Zack at his heels, the Colonel strode down the long piazza, to the room where his belongings lay scattered. Mahomet followed surlily, while his mind went chasing after Said, who would surely cheat him. It was not until the linen-clad American started towards the steamer landing that Mahomet dodged out of the door, dropped off the piazza and went bounding like a panther toward Ibrahim and Said.
Being sure that the Colonel had gone, Zack thrust his black face through the doorway, and grinned. "Did anybody ever see de beat o' dat? Hommit specs me to do all dis packin' whilst—Lawd Gawd! Look yonder! All three o' dem niggers is fightin'."
CHAPTER XXI
UNSPENT GOLD
LOOKING towards the uproar, Old Reliable stole out from the Colonel's room and peeped warily around a corner of the gallery. "Lordee! Dem niggers sho is fightin'." The three Arabs in the garden—Mahomet, Ibrahim and Said—were not actually fighting, merely clutching one another's wrists with much tussling and many ferocious words.
"Huh! Lissen!" Zack cocked up his ear. "Dey mus' be cussin' scan'lous." Seeing no weapons, he moved nearer, step by step, as Mahomet wrested a gold piece from Ibrahim. Said protested with a screech, and Mahomet demanded more. Ibrahim sweated a few drops of silver to the clamorous Said, while Mahomet grabbed his wrist to prevent Said from getting more. Old Reliable had never seen it done exactly that way, yet his kindred instinct laid the transaction bare. "Dar now!" he snorted. "Jes' look at dem niggers, 'vidin' up de Cunnel's money. I'll fix 'em." He moved back stealthily into Colonel Spottiswoode's room, and peered from the window; then he flung open the blinds and shouted, "Whar he? Said! Hommit!" At the scatteration of Arabs, Old Reliable fell back against the window-sill and chuckled with joy. Like a half-plucked rooster Ibrahim tore himself loose, and went flapping through the garden; Mahomet wrangled and jowled with Said until they reached the very door, where these faithful servants answered together, "Here, Effendi."
"What you niggers been doin'? Hump yo'self, Hommit, an' git busy wid dis packin'. Tote Cunnel's stuff to de boat. Come 'long, Said, I got bizness up town." Thrusting a hand into his pocket, Old Zack stirred up the golden coins, letting them drip back with a most pleasing sound. Mahomet glared at the fortunate Said who followed his master—by a rear exit to avoid meeting the Colonel.
Spent money never troubled Zack; it was the unspent kind that gave him the fidgets. Colonel Spottiswoode knew nothing of the twenty sovereigns so innocently gained by Old Reliable at Alexandria. But Zack knew. They had fermented in his pocket and galled his thigh.
Said and Zack passed out of the garden into the openness of a glaring street. Rounding the first corner, they came upon two men busily clip ping a donkey, men in jibbas and scanty turbans intent upon their task. Zack halted and exclaimed, "Huh! Dat sho' mus' be one fine little mule; dem niggers is trimming him up so partick'lar." To one of the donkey men Said whispered fiercely: "Hamuda, thy mind is the mind of a sheep. Why dost thou wait here?"
"The place is good," responded Hamuda undisturbed.
It had been the thrifty Said's desire that his master should first proceed to Achmet, and buy his camel at a high price; but Hamuda waylaid them along the road.
Zack sidled up closer to the donkey and admired the lace-like patterns of his clipping. He even stroked the friendly little beast—"Dat's jes 'zackly de kind o' mule I needs. Is he a good plow mule?"
Hamuda knew three words of English, and spoke them: "Excellency will ride?"
"Reckin I mought jes as well try him; I tries ev'ything I buys, 'specially mules."
Hamuda looked meaningly to Said, who began earning his commission by helping the trade. "Him very fine donkey; very fine donkey. Excellency will ride."
They piled up goatskins on the donkey's back and strapped them down, making a seat most soft. Then all three Arabs hoisted Zack straddle-wise across the beast. Zack pulled the bridle tight, and felt around with both feet for the absent stirrups, then clung with his knees, but could get no grip on the yielding mass of skins. "Hol' up, Side!" he yelled. "Hol' him. I'm a-slippin'."
In a chorus Said and Hamuda strove to make the Excellency comprehend that donkeys must not be ridden with a pressure of knees and a foot in the stirrup, after the fashion of horses.
"No, no, La, La," they insisted, "not so." Effendi must spread his legs much wide. Legs must dangle, so—and balance himself, so—Said stretched out his arms like a soaring vulture, and made the demonstration clear. "Excellency shall guide donkey with stick, not by bridle."
Being nimble-minded with a mule, old Zack caught on to their suggestions: "Sholy, jes bat him over de head on 'tother side fum de way you 'zires him to travel? Lemme try."
Hamuda trotted at the donkey's head, and Said jogged along behind. Zack grinned, and guided with his stick. At a turn too sharp he careened, gripped frantically with his knees and would have fallen but for Hamuda, who restored the proper equilibrium. Then they demonstrated again, until Zack got the hang of it. "Dat's easy; jes like a feller settin' on a tight-rope wid a balancin' pole." Possessing such long legs and heavy feet, there was no sense in Zack's losing his balance. Now he rode alone, laughed aloud, and forged ahead. But it was poor fun in an empty street. Where none admire 'tis fruitless to excel. Beyond the corner Zack saw many people moving amongst the bazaars:
"I'm gwine up dis here street," he called to those behind him. So Old Reliable whacked his donkey on the left ear, aroused a burst of speed, and wheeled to the right—up the middle of the Street of the Bazaars. Said stared aghast at Hamuda, for Achmet would be waiting on that street—Achmet, the desert man of strong arm and savage mood. Nor did Hamuda have mind to seek a crowd until his donkey were well sold. Of which the donkey was not informed, so from the distant rear Said reviled Hamuda's beast, then he stopped, wiped the sweat from his face, and resigned himself to whatever fortune Allah might be pleased to send. But Hamuda was not to be so lightly cheated. He ran doggedly, and by calls, hisses, shouts, and other private blandishments, brought his donkey to a stop. Breathing very hard, Hamuda jerked the bridle and turned him back. After which Hamuda never ceased berating his beast until he dragged both runaways behind the corner again.
"I hates to git off dis here little saddle mule. Gwineter buy him right now. How much do he cost?"
"Ten pounds," Said panted out the price, and Hamuda never blinked at the greatness of it. Together they lifted their prospective purchaser to the ground; both men heard the jingle of money when Zack stamped his feet, and stood critically observing the donkey.
"Him ten pounds," Said repeated.
"Huh! is dat all he weigh? Reckin he mus' be some kin' of a holler donkey. Drif' weighed a heap more'n dat, an' Drif warn't nothin' but a dog."
"Ten pounds; Ingleezi money; price," Said maintained.
"Oh! I 'lowed you was argufyin' 'bout how much did he weigh. Ten pounds o' money? Fer dat donkey? Nigger, does you take me fer a plum fool? Why don't you jes specify a bale o' money an' be done wid it?"
"Ten pounds—it is nothing, Excellency."
"Y'all niggers talks so foolish. What you mean by ten pounds o' money?" Zack drew out a handful of coins, twenty pieces of gold and some trivial silver, while Hamuda grappled Said by the arm and whispered hoarsely, "Fool. Thou shouldst have named twenty pounds. It is little."
The two of them—Said and Hamuda—put their heads close together above the Black Effendi's palm where the money glistened; but every time Hamuda reached forward old Zack clomped his fist.
"I show, I show"—Said spoke so pitifully that Zack opened his gold to the sunlight, and to him. Said licked his dry lips and touched a sovereign with trembling fingers.
"Ten pounds."
"Ten o' dese?" Zack turned them over one by one.
"Yes, yes," answered Said. "Aiwah, aiwah," chorused Hamuda. The lust of gold having deafened their ears, none heard a rapid padding on the sands, nor suspected aught of peril, until a camel fell to his knees, and Achmet thrust his blazing face amongst them. Zack withdrew, and listened to their mutual vilifications. But nothing else happened, so he remarked disgustedly:
"Huh! You niggers talks mighty scrapageous fer de ittle bit o' fightin' what you does." Then he turned away to the camel, an ungainly creature which had always fascinated him. Never, not even in the circus, had he beheld such a vision of luxury and striped tassels. Zack's breath came fast. How those Vicksburg negroes would stare when he went riding past the Hot Cat Eating House!
"Here, Side! Shet up dat jay-bird jabber an' lissen to me. Dat gen'leman wouldn't sell dis here camel, you reckin'?"
Said rejoiced to be summoned from a wrangle which promised no gain. His master had put the gold back into his pocket, and faithful Said must coax it forth again. Hamuda, the donkey-owner, extricated himself from the mêlée, and plucked Zack by the sleeve. Zack shook him off—"G'way from here! Don't you see me studyin' 'bout dis here camel? I ain't got no time to be foolin' wid mules." Thereupon the camel-seller further rebuked the covetous Hamuda with a buffet which caused him to whirl as a spinning-top, and himself took Hamuda's place before the Black Effendi. Zack's bland black face shifted towards Achmet with the childlike inquiry, "Mister, is dem camels hard to ride?"
Said translated rapidly, and for answer Achmet waved his hand to that luxuriant makloofa—a saddle the like of which no Vicksburg negro had ever bestrode.
"Honest, mister? Sho' nuff? Kin I ride? I'd buy dis camel in a minute, ef I could ride him."
The wily Achmet never hinted a promise to sell; he only helped Zack to a seat and crossed the Black Effendi's legs around the little post that stuck up in front of the saddle. There was another peg behind, but Zack didn't know what that was for. With due solemnity, Achmet placed the richly woven halter in Old Reliable's hand.
The camel snarled and reached around with an India rubber neck. His upper lip had a beard; the lower lip hung loose enough to wrap plum around a nigger's leg and bite out a chunk. Zack jerked his legs away.
"Wait, mister, wait! I wants to git down."
But it was too late to get down; Achmet would not hear, and the angels were far away.
"Gawd A'mighty! He's gittin' up."
Said ran in front and bent his body forward, almost double, indicating how Zack should ride.
"Sit so," Said shouted, but Zack got rattled and didn't understand; and he got worse rattled before that camel finished the process of getting up. The camel rose simultaneously, but in disconnected sections, like the folding and unfolding of a jointed rule. His front legs stiffened, which threw Zack violently backward. Then the creature elevated suddenly from his rear and Zack lunged forward until the saddle-peg punched his stomach. With four legs sprawling, the great beast swayed from side to side, while Zack clung to his saddle-peg and dropped the halter.
It might have been the scream of a whistle from the gun-boat that frightened the camel; maybe it was Zack, who clawed and clutched like a kitten on a colt's back. By some mischance the camel escaped from Achmet, whirled, and started up the street. His first get-away was somewhat tentative, but no Achmet held the halter, and that clinging creature upon his back was worse than scared. Then he moved like a camel who knew his business. Luckily for Zack, the camel-yard was only three hundred yards away, instead of three hundred miles across the desert. With his long neck craned ahead, Achmet's beast split the Street of the Bazaars, scattering Arabs who knew better than to get in the way of a bolting camel.
"I wants to git off," Zack yelled. Then he got off. There was nothing deliberate or dignified about the dismounting. Neither man nor beast seemed to have a premonition of it. When a bolting camel stops, he stops, totally and completely—flat as a wet rag hurled upon the floor. All at once, like the collapse of a step-ladder, Achmet's camel stopped. Zack did not. He proceeded—over the camel's head.
CHAPTER XXII
A MAN OF SINGULAR BEARD
BRUISED and humiliated, Old Reliable was picking up his helmet and wiping the gritty sweat from his face when Said arrived. If every bone in his body were broken he wouldn't let those folks suspect that it hurt. They shouldn't grin at him; Zack did all the grinning himself. "Huh!" he remarked. "Dis here camel ridin' sho' is swif'."
Hamuda galloped up on his donkey, and jeered at Achmet, who fell to beating his beast, while a rabble gathered. Amongst that rabble appeared a man who tinkled two little brass saucers in his left hand, and carried a wondrous bottle swung across the front of him—big as a beer-keg, with spigots, thumb-screws and a yellow liquid within. Old Reliable began to smile upon this queer contraption, just as a bumped-headed baby quits crying and smiles at a rattle.
"Side, what is that thing?" Said explained that it was snow of the mountains, with lemon juice, most refreshing to the thirsty. Zack kept wiping the grit from his face and eyeing the bottle—"Side, ax dis feller how do he sell dat lemonade."
Achmet left off beating his camel and engaged in disputation with Hamuda. "He is wise," said Achmet, "this Black Effendi is very wise. That is known. He did but fall so that he might show displeasure with my beast and cheapen its price. He will buy. I speak the truth."
"Not so, not so," contended Hamuda; "he but turned to the camel for a deception, so that I would sell my donkey for less. He is more wise than thou."
"Give heed, Humuda," Achmet sneered, "and may thine ears carry somewhat of sense to thine understanding"
Zack paid them no mind, being absorbed in contemplating that marvelous glass beer keg full of lemonade. He drank three glasses, and the lemonade man asked for no pay, not wishing to annoy so capacious a customer.
"Come along, Side; I wants to git in de shade. I been takin' too much exercise in dis here hot sun."
At first Said did not hear, he being engaged in discourse with an old man, a man of singular beard, robed in striped blue and yellow, and a face that seemed fitted to the Father of Kindness. This was Mchammed ben Idris, keeper of the bazaar, who led Old Reliable gently by the sleeve: "My house is thy house, and all that there is in it. Deign to enter. Be thou seated"—which Said dutifully translated—with decorations—to his master.
"Tell him thankee, suh; he sho' is a nice ole gen'leman."
The servant of Ben Idris placed a stool for Zack in the shade of a matting which overhung the front of his bazaar. Zack removed his helmet, and mopped his brow. Another salaaming servant set a tabourette before him, then a tiny cup of coffee, thick and syrupy, with cigarettes. Zack smacked his lips, lighted a cigarette, and his soul gained peace. It was shady in the bazaar, where Zack might gaze serenely upon cloths of many stripes and the gay handkerchiefs that hung within. Mohammed ben, Idris, with all dignity, laid out his wares—fluffy stuffs in billows of a vari-colored sea. Zack fingered them, and contrary to every tradition of the East, he praised Mohammed's goods.
"Dem sho' is good lookin' hankerchers. I wants a lot o' dem for Seliny."
From the river came the persistent shrieking of a whistle; the Ingleezi devil-boat was calling for all who meant to go aboard of her. Hamuda rushed forward in a frenzy and demanded that the Black Effendi be left to complete his purchase of a donkey. Achmet's knotted arms jerked Hamuda backward, and Mohammed ben Idris clapped his hands for servants to clear these brawlers from his house.
Even so, Mohammed ben Idris betrayed no exultation, as Zack selected fabric after fabric, until the stack beside him grew larger than that which yet remained with Mohammed. At times Said and Mohammed quibbled about the price, until Zack nodded his complete satisfaction.
"It's a heap easier to tote dese things dan to tote a mule er a camel." Far be it from Mohammed to taunt Hamuda or Achmet, who leaned against a post exchanging guttural anathemas. Said never looked their way because there were two of them, and only one of him; Said was a peaceful man.
At length Zack grew weary; he rose, yawned, and jingled the coins in his pockets. Mohammed ben Idris fawned upon the noble Black Effendi, who would now settle their rich score.
"Huh! I sho' is had a nice rest. In de name er Gawd, what is dat nigger doin'?" His back had been turned, or Zack would have noticed it before—a skinny brown man with a shallow skull cap and a brass soup-plate with a semi-circular chunk bit out of the edge. The skinny man had walked up to a chunky fellow in the next shop, stuck that soup-plate under his chin, so that the bit-out place fitted his neck. Then he began to spread white paste over the chunky man's face. The victim sat quietly, with a small mirror in his hand, while the other shaved him. Zack broke into a laugh. "Ain't dat de beatenes' barber shop! Huh!"
So he stood and watched the operation, and kept rubbing his own beard. "I got no bizness goin' 'mongst white folks wid no sech stubby beard as dis. Here, Side, tell dat feller I needs a shave."
But the shave would bring no profit to Said, and Said pretended not to hear. The whistle kept shrieking; Mohammed's bundle of cloth had not been paid for. They had agreed upon no price; there might be argument, for the cloth came to more than a donkey, nay, even more than a camel.
"Here, Side!" Zack ordered. "Git dat barber right quick. I wants a shave, I tole you."
The obedient Said hastened to do as he was bid. Ben Idris kept guard upon his guest, fending away the devil-minded Achmet and Hamuda.
Old Reliable had already been lathered when a meddlesome Nubian boy from the hotel wormed his way through the crowd, and out of it again. He it was who guided the big Irish sergeant and pointed to Zack.
Sergeant O'Flynn had a reputation for being thorough. He shook Zack by the shoulders and hoisted him, "Right about! Git a double quick on ye. The boat's been a-waitin' an' blowin' fer ye these two good hours."
"Lemme git my hat an' wash my face" Zack was feeling around desperately for his helmet, which had rolled upon the sands.
"Grab the helmet—never moind the lather; that'll wipe off. Way there! Git out o' my way!" The rabble parted and left O'Flynn a clear passage.
"Hol' on, mister, hol' on" Zack begged.
"Come along, ye bloomin' naygur. Sirdar's got his back up. He says, 'Fetch him, O'Flynn,' an' begad I will."
"Yas, suh, white folks, yas, suh."
Ben Idris stood dazed at the suddenness with which his customer was dragged away. A servant still held the bundle which was to bring so much gold. Then the keeper of bazaars fell into a wailing. Achmet and Hamuda combined to throttle Said, but the nimble Dongalawi had departed thence, his fluttering jibba being half way to the boat. A trail of the disappointed ones began to follow—Mohammed, the unpaid lemonade man, the barber, Achmet, Hamuda, and the rabble, all followed, yet at a discreet space behind, for dread of the wrathful sergeant.
It was a long half mile beneath the scorching sun, but the distance to the river shrank mightily while Zack was trying to conjure up something that might convince the Colonel.
O'Flynn loosed his collar to give him leg-room: "Step lively there."
"I'm a hurryin', white folks, I'm a hurryin'."
Smoke was pouring upward from the gunboat; soldiers, donkey-boys, camel-drivers, all kinds of folks, went running every-which-way, but Zack didn't pay 'em no mind. What he saw was Colonel Spottiswoode pacing back and forth on the outskirts of the crowd, and Zack didn't like the emphatic flap-flap-flap of the Colonel's linen suit, nor the aggressive angle of the Colonel's khaki helmet.
"Dar now!" he mumbled. "Done got my business in a jam. I hadn't oughter did de Cunnel dat way. Ain't I jes' like a fool nigger? Gimme a inch an' I'll ketch hell."
At sight of the approaching procession, Colonel strode forward. Zack had never seen him so outraged.
"Zack, where have you been?" The planter stopped, and, "What the devil is that stuff you've got on your face?"
"Lather, suh—ain't quite got through shavin'."
"You—you—get aboard that boat—quick!"
Mere words were so inadequate that the Colonel didn't swear.
"Please, suh, Colonel, please, suh, lemme git my grip-sack."
"It's on board; I brought the baggage myself. Hustle across that stage plank."
"Yas, suh." Like a mule shying at a newspaper, Zack gave the Colonel a wide berth and dodged aboard the nearest barge, while the tricky traders of Khartum gazed mournfully at one another. Their Black Effendi had gone. They saw him go. That was known for a certainty. Why did he play upon them this strange deception? He had outwitted them, and they knew not how—they who boasted openly in the market places that the Ingleezi mind is like unto the clearness of a shallow brook. This man was no Ingleezi. Ben Idris shrugged his shoulders and went his way; Achmet and Hamuda contended together. Before night their odd affairs were marveled over in every bazaar of Khartum.
The prudent Said dared not show himself. He piloted his black master across the upper decks of two barges, climbing from rail to rail, then discreetly disappeared.
Amongst a tangle of baggage on the upper deck, Zack selected the softest bundle of towels, and sat down. He saw the Colonel's baggage piled upon the deck, helter-skelter, pell-mell, with suit cases half open and shirts, neckties, socks sticking out.
"Lawd Gawd! Hommit jes' throwed Cunnel's clo'es in dem grip-sacks, same as mixin' up chicken feed."
When Colonel Spottiswoode reached the upper deck, he found that Old Reliable had repacked two of the satchels, and was opening a third. "Cunnel," Zack glanced up, "I reckin' us better 'scharge dat Hommit nigger. He ain't got sense ernuff to stuff socks in a basket."
The Colonel made a gulping noise in his throat and moved away, while Zack eased himself back on the pile of towels. "Huh!" he said to himself. "'Tain't doin' a nigger no good to have plenty money; don't git no chance to buy nuthin'."
CHAPTER XXIII
THE HAREM LADY
THE gunboat Zafir went chug-chugging up the White Nile, pushing five barges against the muddy current. Her tow was set up like ten-pins, one at the peak, then two and two behind. Between the last two barges the Zafir buried her prow and shoved blindly.
Zack Foster, Effendi, was sitting on a box at the gun-boat's rail. Lyttleton Bey and McDonald Bimbashi lounged in canvas chairs; Colonel Spottiswoode gazed upon the monotonous stretches of river.
From Zack's seat he could look down upon the rear of the servant's barge, where their cooking was being done. Forward, below deck, the same barge was loaded with camels and donkeys. Upstairs the servants slept and did the washing. Mahomet, Fudl, Said and the others had stretched their clothes lines, from which many a linen suit was flapping. But Zack kept his fascinated eyes upon the donkeys. "Cunnel," he asked, "what you reckin' dem little gray mules costs—fer a nigger?"
"You needn't buy a donkey," the Colonel snapped; "we have plenty of them. Major Lyttleton will furnish you one."
Zack looked down upon the donkey pen and shook his head, "Cunnel, ef it's jes' de same wid you, I'd heap ruther buy me one fer my own self. You knows how 'tis when white folks furnishes a nigger wid a mule. Dey keeps a blim-blammin' at him to plow dat mule, and not be ridin' dat mule all night."
"If you want a donkey, just pick him out and Major Lyttleton will"
Again Zack shook his head. "I don't crave none o' dem. I kinder took a likin' to one little feller what's all trimmed up—over yonder on dat yother barge."
Colonel Spottiswoode glared straight at Zack, glared straight through Zack; then the Colonel smiled, and Old Reliable began to get fidgety. "Zack, you better keep away from those women on that other barge. I know you're not going over there forty times a day to visit a donkey."
Zack grinned sheepishly, like he always did when Colonel Spottiswoode read his mind. As their conversation was getting too personal, Zack reached around for his helmet, and vanished down the companionway.
Said, who waited at the foot of the steps, fell in behind without a word, while Zack crossed to the left-hand barge and ostentatiously displayed himself amongst the huddle of donkeys. He wanted the Colonel to see him; his white helmet bobbed about here and there, in plain sight, until the Colonel forgot about it. Then Zack disappeared. In the dimness of the gunboat's boiler-deck, he wheeled and confronted Said: "Git back, nigger. I'm plum wore out wid you taggin' 'atter me. Git back, an' listen when I makes my holler."
Said salaamed to the ground, and effaced himself. Old Reliable strutted off, intent upon philandering affairs of such a nature that they could best be conducted without an interpreter.
Above stairs Lyttleton turned languidly in his chair; then his eyes twinkled with that concentrated pucker about their corners which comes of long staring into the desert. "Colonel, your black man has gone back to those women; he'll get himself into trouble." As he spoke, Lyttleton drew the American to the right-hand rail from which they could see the rear end of the next barge. There sat Old Reliable, in khaki suit and gorgeous helmet, seated radiantly amongst a group of kneeling women, who seemed to be making batter-cakes.
"Those women belong to the Sultan of Bong," Lyttleton explained. "He's got his harem upstairs—see that space enclosed with matting. Better pull up your black man, and warn him to keep away."
Colonel Spottiswoode laughed. "That's a kitchen, isn't it? Those are cook women? You might as well order a fly to keep away from the molasses."
Lyttleton shrugged his shoulders. "He'll get into the deuce of a muss." The white men moved back to their chairs, and fell silent as they watched the river slipping by, which left Old Reliable in peace amongst the ladies of the Sultan's harem.
Zack could not talk to the woman—the youngest woman with the smile. He could only drape his legs over a sack of onions and grin. Neither could the women talk to him, but it just fell in Zack's mind that she wanted to. "Dar now!" he chuckled; "ef I can't talk an' she can't talk back, us sho' ain't gwine to fuss an' fall out."
Although laboring under these dumb disadvantages, Old Reliable had a winning way with cook ladies, and a rabbit-foot for making himself welcome in anybody's kitchen. The youngest woman nodded her head, parted her lips, and showed very white teeth, swaying back and forth as she ground the dhurra corn, her muscles slip ping beneath the glistening skin of her back. Zack viewed the entire operation; there were few mysteries about this cook-lady, who wore nothing whatever above her waist, except a dazzle of teeth—and a necklace. She knelt before a slab of stone, much hollowed by use, grinding dhurra with another stone. "Jes' like scrubbin' clo'es on a washboard," Zack remarked to himself. Time and again she moistened the mushy mess, pushed it back to the top of the slab, then rubbed it slowly down again. While thus engaged she always rested back upon her heels, and smiled at Zack. Old Reliable made shift to take off his helmet and fumble at the ribbons; he disliked to embarrass a lady by staring at her—a lady who had never eaten of the apple. A piece of frazzled cloth around her hips momentarily threatened to slip off, which kept Zack's nerves on the ragged edge. But the woman always tightened it in the nick of time, and smiled. At these crucial moments Zack turned away and regarded the landscape. "Seliny's sho' gwine to snort at dis—ef I tells her."
Presently the woman rose, leaned over the stern of the barge, and drew a bucket of water. Zack sprang gallantly to her side—"Lemme do dat, lemme do dat."
Immediately four other women, old and withered, glanced up from their tasks. Then all of an instant they ceased smiling; their lips shut and their teeth vanished—simultaneously as a string of electric lights that are switched off. They stared at Zack for one instant, looked over their shoulders for another instant, then doggedly pursued their work. Being so engrossed with the damsel of the smile, Old Reliable failed to observe a colossal Golo negro who sneaked down the narrow passageway between the gunboat and the barge, and halted at the comer of the woodpile. There he stood, glowering at Zack, and touched his knife significantly—which shut up the women and switched off their smiles.
If Zack had seen that Golo, he might not have rested so nonchalantly upon his sack of onions; he would have gone straight to the Colonel. The Golo's head was shaven smooth, except for a space the size of a biscuit, where frizzles grew in a bunch. Zack already knew him as the donkey-keeper, and called him "Top-Knot," it being perfectly safe to call him anything in English.
Top-Knot did not utter a syllable with his lips, but his fierce eyes said a plenty. He eyed Zack, then grudgingly put back his knife into its sheath. Old Reliable held his head debonnairely to one side, listening to the twang of a courbee and the chatter of women's voices that came down through the cubby hole above his head.
"Huh!" he sneered; "dat's a mighty po' banjo picker. Wonder who dat is a playin'?" Zack wondered and wondered until his curiosity could stand it no longer; then he sauntered carelessly to the foot of the ladder. The moment he took hold of the rail all five women bounded up and shook their heads excitedly.
They pointed upward through the black cubby hole, and shook their heads more violently than ever. The Black Effendi must not go upstairs.
"How come I mustn't go up dar? Ain't dis a free steamboat? Ain't I fust class? Can't I go wharever I 'zires to go?"
All of which whetted Zack's eagerness to see what lay beyond the cubby hole. He kept looking upward, and kept making a bluff that he was going anyhow. Perhaps he meant to go, perhaps he only enjoyed the abject terror upon those women's faces. Then Zack changed his mind. Through the cubby hole a black face scowled down upon him and vanished. Then the hole darkened; a pair of stout black legs appeared and began descending the ladder. These legs were so knotty and muscular that they evidently belonged to a man. So Zack prepared to leave.
CHAPTER XXIV
THE MOST IMPORTANT DONKEY
WHEN that pair of massive legs began to descend backwards, out of the Sultan's harem, Zack concluded to arrive away from there. He stretched himself and clapped his hands "Whar he? Side!" Said knew better than to be out of hearing; Said also knew better than to venture upon that sanctified section of the barge. So the Dongalawi came running across the next gunboat and halted at the rail—"Effendi."
"Side," his master called, "meet me round de corner, whar dat donkey's at."
And Old Reliable promenaded away, jingling the coins in his pocket, and glancing negligently over his shoulder to note the white-eyed admiration of those ladies. He marched off grandly, but he fetched up against a wood pile which could not be passed without climbing on hands and knees. This would be undignified, and he hated to go back amongst the women, thereby spoiling the majesty of his exit. So Zack began worming his way around the outer gunwale of the barge, where a false step would drop him into the Nile. By clinging to the ends of the sticks, he contrived to hang on. "Lordee," he gasped to himself, "ef one o' dese sticks wuz to pull out it would be 'So long, Mary,' wid Zack." After testing each stick before he risked his precious weight, Old Reliable drew a long breath when Said met him at the open space where that Donkey of Great Importance had his quarters. Anybody could see that it was a Most Important Donkey. Top-Knot kept him shiny, shaven like a gentleman, with delicate designs clipped along his legs and back. Effusively Top-Knot welcomed the Black Effendi, with a smirk upon his face—and a knife up his sleeve. Zack sized up the smirk as being in recognition of various cigar stumps, a certain piaster, and future hopes. If he had sized up the knife, Zack wouldn't have remained. The Donkey of Great Importance was doing his exercise across deck, between top-heavy stacks of wood, where Old Reliable followed, patting the sleek hide, stroking the slender legs, and listening to the click-clack, click-clack of his trim little hoofs.
"Side," he whispered, "ax dat feller how much do he charge fer dis here donkey."
As a matter of fact, Said and the Golo could not understand a syllable of each other's jabber, but Said never let his master suspect, for Said would cast no aspersions upon his own usefulness. "You no can buy," he protested; "this donkey is of the Sultan."
"Sulky nothin! All donkeys is mo' or less quiet. Dey loves to study."
"No-no, la, la; he is of the Sultan—you no can buy la, la!"
"He ain't sulky; he's gentle an' kind. I'm gwine to buy dis donkey ef I wants to. I got plenty money."
Suddenly Top-Knot rose and towered above them; he gripped Said by the arm, spoke guttural words and pointed. Said wheeled, gazed, snatched Zack's sleeve, and began pulling his master away—'Come, Excellency, come!"
"What fer?"
"The Sultan, he come—he not glad if you be here."
Self-respect demanded a certain show of resistance. "Look here, nigger! I ain't got my mind sot on no runnin'—not yit." And yet, despite all protests, Said and Top-Knot hustled the Black Effendi out of sight, behind the wood-pile. Then Top-Knot ran back to his post, while Zack peeped around the wood, and saw Top-Knot on his knees butting his head against the planks before the Sultan.
"Huh! He ain't nothin' 'cept a kinky-headed nigger, an' bare-footed at dat! Side, what make you ack so skeery? Dat ain't no constable." Zack made a feint at returning, but Said, by main strength, dragged him to the gunboat.
From a safer position Zack measured the Sultan of Bong—a nappy-headed black man, bare-foot, bare-headed, in shirt and drawers—who nevertheless owned the Most Important Donkey, who owned Top-Knot, and all those women on the barge.
Grumbling and mouthing, Old Reliable found Colonel Spottiswoode on the upper deck observing the preparations for their landing at a wood-yard. With much puffing, much rattling of old machinery and belching of smoke, the gunboat shoved her starboard barge against the shore. Out of the din Old Zack leaned over the rail and shouted, "Dar now! Rouster done fell overbode." Shrieking black people ran from among the corded piles of wood and crowded to the shore.
"Look yonder, Cunnel! Look yonder!"
They saw a solitary Arab sailorman, who yelled and struggled in the water, kicking about him frantically. Then four other splashes came in quick succession, as four other Arabs sprang from the boat, and five men battled with the current. All of them seemed to flounder and scream instead of swimming. Two of them carried sticks with which they belabored the water. Flurrying, splashing, in a compact group, all five scrambled out of the river together. Their erratic behavior puzzled the Colonel, who turned to Lyttleton.
"That's to frighten the crocks," Lyttleton explained; "if the first sailorman had tried to swim quietly, a crocodile might have got him. But the crock's an arrant coward. He won't attack two men; and he always runs from a noise. So if one man falls overboard, others jump in and make a deuce of a row."
"Pretty good scheme," commented the Colonel.
"Yes," said Lyttleton; "but no man would have dared jump in at Timshi Khor, where crocodiles are thicker than minnows. Natives believe that the demon crock lives at Timshi. If a man falls overboard they let the demon get him. We'll reach Timshi Khor after a bit."
Some little distance above, after the Zafir chugged on from the wood-yard, the Nile divided, flowing along both sides of a low island. On the left bank a slough emptied into the river. Lyttleton caught the Colonel's arm, and pointed with his pipe to a currentless depression full of water. "There is Timshi Khor," he said, and Colonel Spottiswoode leveled his glass to get a better view.
"This looks like shallow water," the Colonel remarked, with an eye experienced in judging the Mississippi River. And a bare hundred yards farther his words proved true.
Their forward barge had come nearly opposite the mouth of Timshi Khor when they felt a shock, an upheaval below.
"Aground again!" Lyttleton exclaimed.
All five barges rubbed violently against one another, creaked, groaned and threatened to break apart. The engines stopped; a powerful current swung the flotilla around. The paddles reversed, and started again. Something snapped, then everything stopped. It was all over, and they were aground—solid as a church.
Lyttleton bounded down the companionway, saying things in Arabic, vitriolic, vicious, untranslatable things; his words sizzled and burned blue, like a pot of sulphur. He reappeared on deck, still swearing in that copious tongue, with an occasional English invective, sincere but vapid.
"Don't mind me," suggested the Colonel; "spit it out of your system."
"Dammit, sir," the Britisher roared; "I was trying to swear in English for your benefit—out of respect to you, sir. But after using Arabic, English is like dummy-swearing, in a sign language." Then Lyttleton broke down and laughed, "Oh, well, we can pepper away at the hippos and crocks. Plenty of 'em here."
Long after the hubbub had quieted Old Reliable poked his wooly head above the companionway, having first taken the precaution to remove his helmet. He could see that the white folks were busy talking, and not studying about him. So he sneaked downstairs, took a private short cut to the Sultan's barge, and resumed his nonchalant seat upon the sack of onions, with a pleasant "Good evenin', ladies."
Not a woman looked up. Even the youngest girl kept steadfastly to her grinding; there was no gleam of teeth, no smile; nothing but silence. Zack squirmed around, and grinned at each in rotation. Not a woman noticed him. Something must have happened since his last visit.
The oldest hag kept glancing over her shoulder. Zack had no eyes for hags; therefore, he neglected to follow the woman's apprehension to where Top-Knot crouched behind the wood-pile. One sight of Top-Knot would have changed the whole map of Europe—and more instantly have changed Zack's present location. As he didn't see Top-Knot he only chuckled to himself. Many a cook woman had refused to notice him when he first bowed himself into her kitchen; but Zack could out-talk the best of them, and he always left the kitchen with a smacky taste in his mouth. Huffiness of cook women didn't pester Zack. He grinned his most propitiatory grin, flirted out a white silk handkerchief with red border, and rearranged it to a nicety in his top pocket. Nobody encored him. The youngest woman kept on grinding. Her fringy hair shook warningly. Zack didn't say a word to anybody, except what he said to himself. He quietly produced a small round mirror. The production was not spectacular. It was devoid of tableaux and red lights—modestly produced, as if for private purposes with which the general public had no concern. Drawing himself back upon the onion sack, he made a detailed inspection of his features. When Zack quit noticing the women, the women began noticing him, especially that shriveled baker-woman who was nearest to his knee. Her wrinkled countenance was no bigger than a midget's, flabby, like a punctured football; and a virtuous antiquity protected her from suspicion.
Zack negligently dropped his hand, and held the mirror where she could view herself. Presently she stopped work; Zack allowed her to take the mirror. Two other crones pounded their dhurra by fits and starts, while the trinket began to pass secretly from hand to hand. The young est woman kept rubbing, grinding, and toiling. Only once she glanced over her shoulder—and was lost. A snake-like arm reached out to her with Zack's shining temptation. In the marvel of her first mirror the eternal savage feminine forgot Top-Knot's warning, forgot everything, and sat back upon her heels. In an ecstasy she brought the glass closer and closer, kissed her own reflection, and laughed aloud.
The psychological moment had arrived for Old Reliable to speak: "You done smeared dat lookin' glass till you can't see nothin'. Lemme wipe it." Jerking out his hankerchief, he wiped the mirror and handed it back again. The woman grimaced at herself, then gave a merry little smile to Zack.
Again the Sultan's black legs began descending the ladder. Nobody saw him. Top-Knot, with glittering eyes, and the knife in his hand, came crawling like a serpent across the stack of wood. Top-Knot didn't see the Sultan; he saw nothing but Zack and that youngest woman nodding happily at each other. If Top-Knot had looked where he was going, he might not have pulled down a cord or so of wood. But he did pull down the wood, like an earthquake. Everybody jumped up. The youngest woman saw Top-Knot staggering to regain his footing; she screamed, dropped her mirror into the river and started to run. But when she saw the Sultan stepping down from his ladder, she fell to her knees and furiously attacked the dhurra. Things whirled round so swift that Old Reliable got a swimming in the head. He wasn't conscious of having popped up, like a Jack-in-the-Box, and didn't know what to do until he saw Top-Knot coming with the Golo who looked bigger than a skinned mule. Then Zack knew precisely what he wanted to do. But he couldn't go where he wanted because Top-Knot stood between him and the place where the Colonel was. Being already on his feet, Zack began to move, not rapidly, but with discretion—and not towards the man with the knife. Zack moved definitely and gathered speed. He made a perfectly quiet getaway, rounded the rear end of the barge, climbed outside the gunwale, and groped his way along, clinging tooth and toe-nail to the protruding ends of the wood. The Nile flowed beneath him and the flash of a Golo knife made him seasick. Luckily the boats were aground and still. Zack scrambled on, with eyes to the rear, where the black face of the Sultan scowled after him. Because of his looking backward, he failed to see the donkey. The Most Important Donkey had taken advantage of Top-Knot's absence and came squeezing along the same ledge, nibbling at a bunch of papyrus grass that had lodged against the barge, and drifted an inch or so every time the donkey touched it. Any other beast would have given way to a colored gentleman in such a hurry; but this particular donkey was accustomed to having people give way to him. They collided; Zack yelled, but had no time to stop and argue with a donkey. Being a ground-hog case, he grabbed the first thing he could catch hold on to swing himself around. The first thing happened to be a stick which proved to be no stick at all, nothing but a chunk that pulled out in his hand. The wood-pile toppled on the donkey. That's how the Most Important Donkey went overboard, immediately prior to Zack. For one nerve-racking instant Old Reliable balanced himself on the gunwale after the fashion of a man who is about to dive. Then he dived because he couldn't help it, and yelled for the same reason.
CHAPTER XXV
THE SULTAN'S GIFT
THREE white men heard Zack's yell as he went overboard at the dreaded Timshi Khor. Three white men rushed to that side of the gunboat and saw the Sultan of Bong capering in bare feet, pointing to his Most Important Donkey, and shouting for every one of his people to jump in. Never a man jumped. The Sultan raged and threatened; his terrified servants dodged back to hide in the barges.
"What's the matter?" Colonel Spottiswoode asked.
"All peoples 'fraid crocodiles. Black Effendi he jump in for donkey," Mahomet Mansour rushed up and explained.
"Yonder's Zack's helmet." The first thing that Colonel Spottiswoode recognized was Zack's cupola with blue polka dots which had fallen into a swift eddy. Like a fishing bob, with draggled streamers, it went circling around. "There's Zack! there's Zack!" the Colonel shouted. "Throw him a rope, throw him a rope."
Zack sputtered the water from his mouth. "Dat's all right, Cunnel; I kin swim out."
Two hundred pairs of eyes were watching Zack as he grabbed the donkey's halter and let the current drift them past the gunboat, whose wheels were still. Everybody yelled, everybody threw sticks into the water. But no Arab dared to venture. The donkey exhibited characteristic composure, marking time until he drifted below the wheels, then Zack personally conducted him towards the shore.
"Look!" Lyttleton exclaimed, and gripped the Colonel's arm. A black shape—a crocodile—rose from the water; the terrific jaws snapped, and Zack's helmet disappeared in a flurry. Lyttleton snatched his rifle and fired shot after shot—all around Zack, covering the swimmer's retreat by a picket line of bullets. Zack glanced up prayerfully, with white eyes, "Hol' on, white folks! Quit shootin', fer Gawd's sake." He swam like a grass-hopper, and never let go the donkey's halter until each had dragged out the other. Thereupon the Most Important Donkey stopped to nibble at a tuft of grass. Zack jerked him roughly. "Come 'long, fool! You ain't got sense 'nuff to git out o' nobody's way."
The excited McDonald ran downstairs, through the intervening barge, and dashed across the narrow plank to shore, congratulating Zack with outstretched hands. "That took nerve, old chap; took nerve, I'm sure, to jump in at Timshi. Not a black, nor an Arab, dared follow you."
"Yas suh, yas suh. Didn't none of 'em come in, but I warn't gwine to let dis donkey git drownded."
After McDonald a string of Arabs, sailormen, and Golo people swarmed out of the flotilla like ants. They surrounded Zack, they hugged one another, chattering and jubilating over the recovered donkey. Top-Knot was already wiping the water from his neglected beast, when the Sultan approached, and the reverent crowd made way. The Sultan patted his favorite, scowled, and muttered one single word to Top-Knot—a word which made the big negro shudder from head to foot. All other Golos sneaked behind the crowd.
The Despot of Bong praised Zack and exulted himself into a generous humor. Although Zack tilted his head to one side and listened he couldn't understand a word, but he knew the Sultan was orating mighty soft and nice. Said hopped in and out amongst the people, like a rabbit in a cane-brake, until he squatted beside an Araba sailorman who understood the Golo tongue. Then he hopped back and whispered glad tidings to his master: "Sultan say he give you one very good present bimeby, bimeby."
"Who's got my hat? Go git my hat, Side." Said glanced at the river, and shivered.
"The crock got your hat," laughed McDonald, pointing to the fragments of a once happy helmet which circled slowly round in the eddy. Old Reliable stared, then went and stood mournfully at the water's edge: "Dar now! Ain't dat a shame?"
"Plenty of crocks in there. Lucky they didn't get you," McDonald answered cheerfully.
"Sumpin' 'nother done bust my hat."
Everybody stood aside while the dripping savior of the Sultan's donkey marched back to the gunboat.
"Zack!" the Colonel greeted him; "didn't you know any better than to jump in that water? It's full of crocodiles."
"What is crocodiles, Cunnel?"
"They're like alligators—great big alligators."
"Lawd Gawd, Cunnel, dat donkey jumped in fust, an'" Old Reliable shut up when Major Lyttleton thrust his burly shoulders through the companion-way and warned him.
"Fix yourself, old man; they're coming after you. Hear that drum?"
The rapid beating of an African drum uprose from the Sultan's barge; Zack's knees knocked to gether. He edged closer to the Colonel, and began dripping in a new puddle.
"Mister Lyttleton, what make you say dey's comin' atter me? I ain't did nothin' to nobody." Zack's mind flashed back to the gleam of a knife, and a red-eyed negro with frizzles on top of his head. Lyttleton kept smiling, a smile more serious than tears. When the Colonel smiled, Zack knew that everything was all right, but this British smile took the stiffening out of his legs. Then the Major laughed, which was worse: "Colonel Spottiswoode, change your kit—frock coat—top hat, something impressive. McDonald, regulation togs for you. Dress parade on deck to receive envoys from the Sultan of Bong."
McDonald saluted rigidly; orders were orders and nothing more.
Then Lyttleton turned upon Zack—Lyttleton was not a humorous person. "Mr. Honorable Black Effendi, it pleases the Sultan of Bong to show his gratitude. He will dispatch his royal messengers to make you a gift."
"Yas suh, dat's all right, suh." Zack glanced at the Colonel for help, and the Colonel inquired, "What do you mean, Lyttleton?"
"Your man has been mentioned for distinguished gallantry—Victoria Cross affair. He rescued the Highly Serene Donkey, which the Sirdar presented to the Sultan—in exchange for a tract of land about the size of Wales. His Majesty now desires to send a 'gift."
"Zack, do you understand that?" Spottiswoode turned and asked.
"Yas suh, Cunnel, yas suh. Side specify a lot o' stuff like dat; but Lordee, Cunnel, I never pays no 'tention to nigger news."
"The Sultan is going to give you a present."
"Who? You mean dat kinky-headed nigger over yonder, wid dem short panties on? Huh!"
"Yes. He's a Big Ike."
"I don't care how big he is, he ain't got nothin' what fits me." But Old Reliable began to take notice, "What you reckin he gwine to gimme?"
"Can't tell yet. Your present hasn't come off the Christmas tree. Maybe it'll be a red-faced monkey, or a giraffe."
Zack turned away in disgust. "Cunnel, you-all oughter be 'shamed, makin' pleasure wid me."
The stolid McDonald had already gone to his cabin for the official raiment. Lyttleton paused a moment, laughed at Zack's blank face, and added, "Maybe, he'll send you a nice fat slave."
"Mister, what you reckin' I could do wid a lazy nigger hangin' on to me, eatin' his head off?"
Lyttleton raised his hand, "Sh-sh! Hear the music? Ambassadors are mustering on the Sultan's barge! Hurry up, Zack! Put on your dry clothes—quick."
They were none too quick. Lyttleton Bey of the Anglo-Egyptian service wheeled into a commanding position at the head of the companionway—hand on hilt, helmet strap under chin, and the medals of seven wars glittering across his breast. McDonald Bimbashi, none the less erect and solemn, flanked his left, while Colonel Spottiswoode laughed: "I will abide at thy right side—in the whitest of white linens."
"Try to make a show before these people," Lyttleton whispered. "They love it."
Zack likewise had on linens, inherited from the Colonel, but he persisted in skirmishing to the rear. The way those white folks kept nudging each other was enough to make any negro skittish. "Here, Zack," Lyttleton ordered, "step forward and stand fast."
Zack inched forward and stood tolerably fast. He heard the thump, thump of that Golo drum, and the plunk, plunk, plunk of the courbee; but it didn't sound good to him. Zack felt dubious about the whole performance. In fact he had a hunch that something was about to happen, and his questioning face shifted like a full black moon from one gentleman to another.
The Golos were coming, and Zack felt himself slipping. First of all, the youngest woman came up the companionway, head and naked shoulders, and gleaming teeth. She wore a kirtle of loose cords that dangled nearly to her knees, and greasy hair that dangled to her shoulders. Besides that she wore a necklace—and a smile. When Zack glimpsed Top-Knot, he felt reasonably sure that all blood had been wiped off the moon. Top-Knot had been forgiven; his face radiated peace and good will. That's what encouraged Zack. But he saw nothing in their hands which resembled a present. None of those negroes could have concealed a present in his pocket—for nakedly obvious reasons. "Huh! Dey ain't got nary present; I knowed dem niggers wuz foolin' de white folks."
The drum beat and the courbee twanged. The Golo envoys salaamed. The interpreter stepped forward, pointed proudly to the woman, and began his Arabic harangue. Lyttleton listened with grave attention, but Zack wasn't paying 'em no mind. That youngest woman kept smiling at him, black, statuesque, and happy. Top-Knot smiled, the Golos smiled; it was certainly up to Zack to smile back. He did so. The interpreter ended with a great flourish; Lyttleton turned and looked at Zack. "Whar's my present?" Zack asked. Lyttleton shook his head, and led the Colonel apart to whisper,
"The sultan says that one of his women has found favor in the Black Effendi's eyes, so he sends her to him as a royal gift."
"The hell he does."
Lyttleton shrugged his shoulders—"What are we going to do with her?"
"Do with her? We're going to do without her! Look here, Major Lyttleton, Zack's more trouble to me now than a teething baby. Fire that woman back to the Sultan, with my compliments."
"That is awkward, very awkward, my dear Spottiswoode—deucedly awkward. His Majesty's Government has strong reasons for being friends with this particular Sultan."
"Sorry, Major. You square it with the Sultan, and I'll attend to Zack's case. Come here, Zack!"
"Yas suh."
Colonel Spottiswoode led Zack to the rail where the negro stood shuffling his feet and looking down upon the muddy waters. Then the Colonel spoke vigorously with arm uplifted in emphatic gestures; then he stopped short; his arm fell. Zack's face had turned ashen; his white eyes bulged; he clutched at the post to keep from falling. Not forty feet away in the very track along which he had swum with the donkey, the gigantic head of a hippopotamus arose. The mouth of the great beast yawned wide open—inconceivably wide open. Sweat burst from Zack's forehead as he stared down that long red gullet, with a fence of stone teeth in front. Then the negro gasped and slipped to the floor, like a wilted dish-rag.
The Colonel knelt quickly and caught his head. "What's the matter? Sunstroke?"
With long, trembling finger Old Reliable pointed to a whirlpool where that black Thing had disappeared. "Naw suh, Cunnel—yonder's one o' dem crocks. Please suh, gimme a drink o' whiskey. I feels mighty sick."
While Zack moaned in the cabin, Lyttleton searched his kit for a return present to give the Sultan; then followed the Golo delegation to square His Majesty's Government with the Despot of Bong.
CHAPTER XXVI
LABOR PSYCHOLOGY
FOR weeks there had been a steadily rising Nile at Wadi Okar, where the British cotton planting experiment was located. For weeks the British spirits had been just as steadily going down, and their wrath mounting to flood tide. After months of effort they had nothing to show for their toil and energy, except a makeshift cotton patch, where the ground had been scratched a bit, and the seed stuck in.
During the first two weeks that Colonel Spottiswoode spent on Wadi Okar plantation, a swarm of Shilluks, Dinkas and Nyam-Nyams fought with each other for a chance to work. The Colonel was amazed; he wiped his dangling eyeglasses and stared at them some more. But as each negro acquired the article he particularly craved—a string of beads or a fathom of cloth—nothing could tempt him to work any more, because he didn't want anything else.
"That's just like they do at home," the Colonel explained to Bimbashi McDonald. "When they come up from Vicksburg in cotton-picking time, each negro sets his mark at five dollars, or ten or twenty."
"Sets his mark?" queried McDonald the inquisitive; "what's that?"
"The negro wants something, and works until he gets money enough to buy it—then he quits. For instance, a picker may set his mark at ten dollars. If I'm paying fifty cents a hundred for picking, he'll pick two thousand pounds and get his ten dollars. But if I should pay ten dollars a hundred, he would only pick one hundred."
"Remarkable! Remarkable!" McDonald squirmed under a situation that he could not understand—nor combat.
"No, it is not remarkable"; the Colonel leaned back in his deep chair, while McDonald leaned forward and listened. "For it's just the same the world over. There isn't a smithereen of difference between this naked negro of the Nile and you—or me. None of us labor beyond our needs. The distinction lies in the extent of those needs. Your necessities are not confined to food and a warm place to sleep. You have ambitions, which he has not; you thirst for reputation, which he does not; you have a thousand necessities of which the black man has never dreamed. Two shillings a day would feed you, and cover your head at night. Then, why are you out here in the Sudan? You work to provide for your family's comfort after you are gone. You want to act a part in your country's history; you want to be a man who does things. Many of us need to do things for the mere joy of accomplishment. We Americans are proud to be an active enterprising people, feverishly restless, unpleasantly so at times. But suppose we could lie down flat on our backs, under the shade of a palm, with the wind blowing between our toes, while everything that we wanted would drop into our open mouths—without exertion—do you suppose we'd have any frenzied financiers? Any malefactors of great wealth? Any bank presidents in stripes, and a lot more that ought to be? Not much. No man labors beyond his needs."
All of this gave Bimbashi McDonald something to think about—and he always did a lot of thinking before he said anything. The Colonel watched him snatch up his rifle and hurry out upon the river in a launch.
At the very edge of the Nile Old Reliable had preempted a shady seat from which he could attend to his job of pondering the sudd grass as it went drifting down Khartum way. This job suited Zack; he had toiled at it for a solid month, ever since his niggers had deserted the cotton patch. He, too, eyed McDonald until the puffy little launch came back, and McDonald sprang out to go rushing towards the quarters.
"Huh!" Zack remarked; "Mister Bim didn't aim to go huntin'; he's jes' bound to keep busy doing' sump'n'."
Which was the truth concerning Bimbashi McDonald. Some thirty odd years ago a Highland family consultation had christened this wee braw laddie "Charles Malcolm Dermid Arthur," his sire being John McDonald, Laird of Lenoir. British officers knew him as "The Captain McDonald," a name once shouted by London crowds who had gone wild with rejoicing over the relief of Mafeking. On the Anglo-Egyptian rolls he figured as "El Bimbashi McDonald"—which the native soldiers reduced to "El Bimb." So Old Reliable persistently called him "Mister Bim," and McDonald stood for it.
As Mister Bim strode rapidly towards the quarters, Colonel Spottiswoode appeared, and called from the porch, "What luck, McDonald?"
"Shot two hippos. Both sunk. But they'll rise and float in a couple of days." Thereupon Mr. Bim opened the screen door and disappeared within to dress for dinner.
All of which activities old Zack viewed with more or less disgust, and reverted promptly to a subject upon which he had never ceased his grumbling. "Dar he go! Dar he go! Warn't dat jes like him, to put de whole 'sponsibility on me, and den come meddlin' wid my niggers hisse'f. Ef he'd jes kep his mouf shet I'd had dem niggers plowin' in de cotton patch till yit."
Old Reliable continued to mumble and grumble, and glancing over his shoulder to the squatty brick quarters which an early explorer had erected, now repaired for the white men who were directing cotton-planting experiments. Colonel Spottiswoode had strolled leisurely into the house when Mr. Bim bolted out again and slammed the wire screen. Zack knew that the Bimbashi would be attired in his dinner jacket. Zack also knew that the impatient young Scotchman would stride up and down the porch, or take a restless turn to the river and back. For the last idle month McDonald had taken many a restless turn, done much striding, and much swearing at their worthless labor.
Zack eyed Mr. Bim striding back and forth, like some powerful locomotive without a track. "Huh! Mister Bim ain't feelin' good; he sho is pestered in his mind."
Bimbashi McDonald was more than pestered; he was almost ready to own himself beaten in the fight to raise cotton on Wadi Okar. White mechanics had built their seed-houses with military promptitude; commissary and administration quarters went up as swiftly as the tents of a well-disciplined army. They set their gins to running like clock-work, but there would be no cotton to feed these gins unless some miracle set the negroes to running. The negroes baffled McDonald; he couldn't understand them. Half-plowed fields lay utterly deserted, while droves of naked blacks lounged in the shade, or squatted before his commissary. Cajolery could not lure them into the fields, and wages possessed no charms. McDonald wrathfully considered a resort to certain methods, which the settled policy of his Government forbade.
In the beginning McDonald had been almost hilarious—for a Scotchman. At the free distribution of seed he had a bargain-counter rush, with prices reduced to nothing. Every negro toted away his half-bushel of cotton seed, with explicit instructions how to plant. Not a seed was planted wrong—or right. On the first plowing day Shilluks, Dinkas and Nyam-Nyams had swarmed about, watching Zack Foster open up his long, straight rows; Shilluks wrangled with Dinkas for turns at holding the plow handles. McDonald's face beamed. He became optimistic and romantic as he slapped Colonel Spottiswoode on the back, and exclaimed, "That furrow, sir, marks a new era in the history of empire. The plow point of civilization is overturning the sloth of ages. Mark the light upon those happy negro faces. It is the hope of better things, an awakening."
The Colonel did not interrupt, while McDonald finished a long peroration in the same carefully chosen words with which he had just finished a report to his board of directors at home.
Spottiswoode had been quietly observing the negroes upon whom they must depend for labor, and he more than half agreed with Zack, who said, "Cunnel, d'aint nary dime's wuth o' diff'unce twixt dese niggers an' dem what us got on Sherwood—'cept dese niggers ain't got to hustle fer pervisions an' Christmas money."
Mr. Bim predicted an awakening, and got it—for himself and Lyttleton. Zack never waked, for he had never been to sleep. He wasn't disappointed; he could sit all day digging his heels into the soft earth, sending little clods tumbling into the Nile, and shouting for Said when he wanted a drink of water.
After his negroes had unanimously and simultaneously abandoned their unnecessary labors, Mr. Bim raged on the porch; Zack grinned; "Now, ef dat was de Cunnel trompin' up an' down dat gallery, I wouldn't go nigh him fer nuthin'. But, Mister Bim, I reckin' he'd be glad fer most anybody to throw him a rope." Which correctly diagnosed McDonald's spiritual condition.
When Zack observed Mr. Bim come out, wearing his dinner jacket, and drop limply into a chair, he rose and rambled thitherward: "Good evenin', Mister Bim."
"Good afternoon, Zack."
"Mister Bim," he announced, "I'm fixin' to open up a Hot Cat Eatin' House. Dat sho' will start niggers to work."
McDonald considered this seriously as if Zack had advanced the theory that red pepper would start negroes to sneezing. Although anxious, McDonald was not hasty, so he inquired, "What is a Hot Cat Eating House?"
Zack smiled tolerantly as he settled himself on the top step. "You see, Mister Bim, it's jes' dis way: Dese niggers won't work 'cause dey don't need nothin'. Ef dey wanted sumpin' reel bad, dey'd hustle fer it. I kin set 'em to hoppin' in dat fiel' thicker'n fleas on a fat pup. I don't promise nothin' what I can't do. You ax de Cunnel."
McDonald sprang up. "Yes, yes—you've hit it—they have no needs. That's what Colonel Spottiswoode says—exactly in line with the Von Gaben theory. I'll get Von Gaben's book."
Twice the screen door slammed, and McDonald reappeared with his fingers between the leaves of a book. "I had that place marked. Listen"
While old Zack hearkened to and assimilated the wisdom of that German scientist, he looked mighty solemn. Then McDonald closed the book and asked, "By what process of reasoning did you reach the same conclusion? That's what you've been pondering about?"
"Naw suh, Mister Bim, I ain't been ponderin' none. I been studyin' an' thinkin' so hard I ain't had no time fer to ponder."
Impulsively McDonald sprang from his chair, rushed to the Colonel's door, and called, "Oh, Colonel! Be so kind as to come here. Zack has a jolly good idea, exactly in line with what I was reading you last night from Von Gaben."
"Let's have it, Zack." The Colonel came out smiling and sat down. McDonald remained standing. Zack laced his fingers, and clasped them around his knees. "Cunnel, I wants to start a catfish stan'. Jes' soon as dese niggers gits a taste o' hot cat, dey sho will work fer money to buy mo'." Colonel Spottiswoode glanced at McDonald and would have laughed, but the Scotchman looked so desperately in earnest that he couldn't pass it off as a joke.
"What makes you think so, Zack?"
"I don't think it, Cunnel—I knows dat. You 'member dat greasy-faced yaller nigger named Jube? Shoes laced up wid white strings? Jube sho' was one triflin' nigger. Never done nothin' 'cept set down an' wait till time come to quit work. Gardenin' time er cotton pickin' time, ev'y day was Sunday wid Jube. Jube say twarn't no sense fer him to be strainin' his back, like dem rouster niggers—he didn't need nothin'. Dat 'ooman what cooked at Jedge Freeman's house, she fed him, but Lordee, Cunnel, Jube was so lazy his vittles didn't taste good.
"One day in de winter time Jube come loafin' past de Hot Cat Eatin' House, whar we-all wuz settin' roun' de stove talkin' lodge bizness. Aunt Fanny was floppin' catfish in de skillet, an' de smoke riz up. Dat's how come Jube poked his nose in de do' an' say, 'What dat I smell so good?' Bud Lowe flung a chunk o' coal at him an' hollered, 'Git out o' here, Jube—you knows I don't 'low you to hang roun' my eatin' house.' Dat sho' was de troof, Cunnel. I'd been settin' in dat same cheer nigh on to five years, an' I knowed dat Bud never had no use fer loafin' niggers. Shucks, Cunnel, a chunk o' coal couldn't hurt Jube's feelin's. Bud had de onlies' stove whar Jube could git warm, so Jube kep' on a comin' in. Atter while Aunt Fanny got riled an' say, 'Jube, whyn't you buy some catfish?' Jube he 'ply back, 'I ain't got no change to-day.' Dar Jube sot, an' dar Jube sot, wid his mouf hankerin' fer catfish. I 'spicioned dat he was gwine to keep a settin' till he got some catfish—ef de seat of Jube's breeches helt out"
"His what?" queried McDonald.
"Ef he sot dar long ernuff."
"Ah! I see—a tenacious person?"
"No suh, jes hongry. One day a strange nigger come in, an' claim he jes lousy wid money—wouldn't some gen'l'man step up an' have a snack? Jube tumbled off'n his cheer, an' wropped his legs underneath de table, an' call out, 'Aunt Fanny, gimme a piece o' catfish.' Well, suh, Cunnel, dat was jes de startin' of it.
"Dat same evenin' when I gits back to de Hot Cat dar was Jube settin' beside de stove, smellin' an' a sniffin', but he can't get no fish 'cause Bud Lowe runs a spot cash eatin' house. 'Mus' be purty nigh train time,' say ole man Eli Mundy, 'an' us kin see de hacks gwine down hill to de deepo. Jes den de train blowed. Jube hunched himself, den up an' runs out de front do' widout sayin' nothin' to nobody. I looked out de back do' 'cause I 'lowed maybe de constable mought be comin'. Ole Man Eli ketch his breath—'Huh! You see dat? Sumpin' sho' did itch Jube right sudden.'
"D'reckly Jube come puffin' up dat steepes' hill, totin' a white man's grip sack to de hotel. Den he stomps into de eatin' house, and say, 'Aunt Fanny, gimme two slices o' catfish. Here's yo' dime.' Atter dat Jube commence totin' grip sacks reg'lar. Some days he didn't ketch no grips, an' dat put him in de notion of a steddy job. Cunnel, you's boun' to 'member Jube—he's porter for de fines' near-beer saloon in Vicksburg, right dis day. Jube works all de time."
"Yes, I know Jube," the Colonel answered, and his face showed that he thought there might be a grain of sense in Zack's suggestion. Anyway it was a straw, and McDonald caught at it, drawing his chair closer and asking, "Now, Zack, please explain your proposition. What can be done?"
"Easy 'nuff, Mister Bim. I ain't promisin' nothin' what I can't do. Lemme fry up a lot o' catfish, an' start dese niggers to eatin' it. D'ain't no way fer 'em to git money 'cept by workin in de fiel'. An' d'ain't no way to git catfish widout money. Here's yo' hongry nigger, dar's yo' cat fish an' yonder's de plow-handles—ain't dat reasonable?"
"Suppose they don't like cooked fish?" objected the Bimbashi.
"Lordee, Mister Bim, ev'y nigger's 'bleeged to love catfish, jes' soon's he gits a taste. At de fust off-startin' I'll give ev'y one of 'em a little piece." Old Reliable chuckled to himself, "One time I went on a 'scussion to Memphis. De butcher-boy what peddles apples an' oranges, he come 'long wid peanuts an' never sold nary sack. Dat boy knowed niggers from de groun' up. Atter while he walks throo, whistlin', wid a pocket full o' peanuts, an' draps two on ev'y seat. Den he foller wid de basket, an' ev'y nigger what tasted one peanut, he bought a sack full."
"By the same token, McDonald," exclaimed the Colonel; "there might be something in this."
"Wouldn't hurt to try. We've got plenty of nets and seines."
"Yas suh, Mister Bim, but I likes a trot-line; it's bes' for catfish."
"But you can wade in with a long seine," suggested the Scotchman; "and"
"Not me" Zack shook his head. "Side's gwine to ketch dem fish." Zack had looked down the throat of one hippopotamus—which was enough for Zack.
The Colonel's eyes twinkled: "But, Zack, you'd be certain to get fish if you went after them yourself."
"Naw suh, Cunnel, I bin studyin' an' studyin' 'bout dis here catfish stan'. Me an' Side kin ten' to dat bizness a heap mo' better, ef Side ketches de fish?"
"All right," the Colonel suggested, "let Said cast the net, while Zack takes a canoe and runs the trot-line. No fisherman on the Mississippi can hold a candle to Zack, when it comes to running trot-lines."
"Yas suh, Cunnel, dat sho is de troof. But I'm de main boss o' dat catfish stan', an' I got to be dar ev'y minute. Twon't take Side no time to learn."
McDonald took out his pencil. "Very well. Let's get on. What buildings do you require?"
"Shucks, Mister Bim, a catfish stan' ain't no buildin'—it's jes a shack."
"Where do you want it built?"
"Ef twuz in Vicksburg, I'd set it down side de river whar all de roustabouts loafs."
"At the landing place?"
"Yas suh—wid a bench in de shade."
"How about putting it under that clump of dom palms?"
"Dat's de ve'y place."
"Your building will be finished by noon to-morrow." McDonald clapped his hands, shouted "Wahid!" and sent Fudl running with orders for the chief carpenter to report immediately.
The celerity of McDonald's action took Zack's breath. "Dat's right, Mister Bim. De Lord knows how dese niggers gits 'long, doin' nothin' all day."
Colonel Spottiswoode leaned back in his chair and laughed, "Zack, you're going to spoil your loafing place, where you sit all day and do nothing."
"Yas, suh, Cunnel, dat's all right fer me to do nothin', 'cause I got a job—but dese niggers ain't."
CHAPTER XXVII
FISH EATERS
BISM'ILLAH," muttered Said as he cast his net. The Dongalawi waded thigh-deep in the muddy Nile, muttering his prayer, and casting his net, and bringing up nothing, while Old Reliable superintended operations from a safe position at the top of the bank.
"Bism'illah," and Said cast again.
"Side, what dat you keeps on mumblin' ev'y time you throws?"
"In the—name of—God," Said translated unsteadily, as he hauled in the empty net. Old Reliable rose and pointed—"Den, in de name o' Gawd, throw yo' net in dis eddy close up 'side dat stump. Ef you wants to ketch perches, you got to fish whar perches stays."
Said was one of the spiritless fellaheen; he cast as the master bade him, with the habitual "bism'illah," then tugged hard on the line, for his net came up heavy. "Haul 'em out!" Zack yelled. "Haul 'em out!" Said struggled up the slippery slope and turned out a dozen or more flapping perch of three to five pounds weight. In triumph Zack bent over his catch. "Dat's de way to make a nigger ketch fish. Mister Bim, say fer me to wade in. He oughter quit meddlin' wid my bizness. Side, fetch dem fish to de shack, an' git 'em cleaned. I'm gwine to begin sellin' right off."
With some forty pounds of fish Said followed his black master to their brand-new eating house under the palms. Shed, table and bench, kitchen, cook-stove and dinner bell, everything was complete, and erected before Zack could bat an eye. Already it was surrounded by Dinkas squatting on the ground, and Shilluks—after the peculiar fashion of their tribe—standing stork-like on one foot, languidly interested in whatever might happen. Zack smiled at his own foresight—"Dis sho' is a fine stan' fer a eatin' house; plenty niggers hangin' 'roun' po' ez Job's turkey." Then he nodded his satisfaction; possession of the magic nickel would transform each savage into a customer. Their eyes followed him as he passed amongst them; they watched him intently as he bent over the cook-stove and began to kindle a fire. Some of the Shilluks sidled nearer to the stove, some edged toward Said, who set about cleaning the fish, and Zack played to his gallery. The Effendi of the Eating House took a white cap and a long white apron from a nail, stepped outside where the multitude could admire, and arrayed himself. After donning his robe of honor, not a Shilluk eye would have strayed towards Said if it hadn't been for the tantalization of those fish. Naturally a Dongalawi paid no attention to the Shilluks, except to keep his fish well guarded, and to watch the dogs—starven, incredibly thin and creeping near as they dared. With a flourish Zack put on his skillet, and had the grease sizzling. But when he glanced up for applause his prospective customers were drifting away—every one of them, except the dogs.
"What make 'em run off? Sumpin' skeered dem niggers." Then he saw Lyttleton, McDonald and Colonel Spottiswoode strolling towards him from the quarters. None of the white men had a thing to do, and the Colonel carried a long flat board under his arm. "Huh! Dat's it," Zack snorted. "White folks comin'. Mister Bim done pestered dem niggers so regular 'bout goin' to work, dat dey nacherly gits up an' gits." McDonald hurried on with his head down—"Like a goat what's fixin' to butt somebody"—which illustrated Mr. Bim's present attitude of mind and body.
"Well, old man," he questioned, "get any fish?"
"Yas suh, plenty. I tole you Side could ketch 'em."
"What are you going to charge for a lunch?"
Zack lifted the sputtering skillet and considered: "Dunno, suh. I reckin' I'll make it jes 'zackly what dese niggers gits a day. Dey can't spen' money nowhars else; an' dey aint got no pockets to tote none."
"That's right, McDonald," the Colonel assented. "Zack's caught the idea. Lyttleton, that hammer and nails, please." The Colonel unwrapped his board and tacked up the official sign:
When Zack had modified his smiles, he led Colonel Spottiswoode mysteriously behind a palm trunk: "Cunnel, please suh, don't let Mister Bim think no harm, but he ain't got onderstandin' 'bout niggers same as me an' you. It'd be a heap better ef y'all white gen'lemen stays away f'um dis catfish stan'—stay away entire. You knows how niggers is: dey don't love to hang aroun' whar de white folks kin watch 'em—'specially dese niggers. Mister Bim is been huntin' 'em an' huntin' 'em till dey scatters like partridges ev'y time he shows up." A hundred naked backs, headed for somewhere else, proved the truth of Zack's assertion.
"Sure, Zack, sure; we'll keep away." And the Colonel eased his British friends from that locality. At which Zack smiled: "Ev'y one o' dem niggers is comin' back. I'll fix 'em, ef Mister Bim quits meddlin'"
There had been small need to advertise the Black Effendi's enterprise. Fifty Shilluks stood around and saw the shack being built; and fifty more recruits had arrived before Said finished cleaning the fish. They came drifting back, with reinforcements, when the worrisome white men left. The place swarmed with sniffing Dinkas, lip-licking Shilluks, and slinking dogs, when a greasy smoke uprose from that first crisp and smelly pan. Zack spread his table, and rang the bell: "Hot fish! Hot fish! Git 'em while dey're hot!"
Nobody got. Zack, in cap and apron, leaned over the rail and rang the bell again: "Hot cat! Hot cat! Five cents to-day; charge mo' to-morrow. Tell 'em dat, Side." Zack laboriously explained, and Said passed the glorified tidings in garbled Arabic to another interpreter, who turned and spoke a few words in the Shilluk tongue.
Mr. Bim from the window of his quarters, observed the maneuver through a field glass, with an excitement almost as tense as if he waited a Dervish rush. The hot-cat proposition got a frost. Not a Shilluk put down his other leg, not a Dinka rose from his haunches. Nobody wanted fish. So Mr. Bim laid aside his glass and hurried towards the river, but the Colonel stopped him, "Come back here, McDonald; let Zack run that show."
"I'm not going there; thought I'd look out and see if my hippos were floating down."
"You come back." McDonald squirmed into a chair and sat still. He saw Zack put down his bell and glare at a crowd which was incapable of being thrilled by hot cat. Then, with unerring intuition Zack picked out their leader, the bell-wether of the bunch. To him he spoke scornfully: "Jes look at you! Aint you a beaut? Standin' on one foot, wid a rag hangin' to yo' neck, an' don't even know what hot cat means. I'm gwine to open yo' mouf an' poke a chunk o' sense into yo' head." Zack slapped a chunk of fish on a plate with a knife and fork, and headed for the leader. Odok, the Shilluk, stood steady on one leg, his hair done into a Punch-cap, plastered with white ashes. Zack met him face to face. "Here, Side," he commanded, "tell dis nigger I'm gwine to give him one piece; twon't cost nary cent." Said filed this message in the circumlocution office, and the answer meandered back: "Shilluk no eat by dem tings; Shilluk eat so." To illustrate the process, Said went through the motions of rending meat with teeth and fingers.
"All right, nigger," said Zack, "if you can't un'erstan' catfish talk, I'll try you on catfish taste. Eat dis!" Zack held out a piece of fish to the savage, who took it suspiciously and crumbled tiny bits to the ground. Then he smelled of it, but did not eat.
"Eat it!" Zack ordered. "Tain't pizen. Here, gimme dat fish!"
After Zack had bit out a section to prove it wasn't poison, Odok nibbled the edges, chewed an experimental bite, bolted the balance, and extended his hand for more.
"Jeemunny, nigger," the Black Effendi exclaimed, giving him another chunk, another and another—hopeless as feeding nickels into a slot machine, but Zack persevered, nearly to the bottom of his pan.
"Side, how much kin one o' dese niggers eat?" Odok answered for himself by pressing closer to the dishpan, and shoving the others away, until Zack choked him off.
"Look here, nigger, you got to fire an' fall back. Let dese other niggers eat some. Tell him dat, Side." His master's flights of rhetoric kept Said guessing, but the wily Dongalawi always translated something to the addressee. Yet, with the aid of two interpreters and much noise, Said failed to convey this "fall-back" idea to Odok. The Shilluk maintained his position with open palm and mouth ready to fly open. Old Reliable and the interpreters flung Odok bodily into the crowd. "Git back, an' 'low somebody else a chance."
Feeding these Shilluks on fish was no case of preparing dainty tid-bits. It took man's size eating for these fellows. Zack massed his reserve fish in two dishpans, "Now, den, one mo' gen'leman step forward. Tell 'em dat, Side."
That was easy. Said only beckoned, and the hungry horde did the rest, rushing against the shack with mouths wide open, and Odok fighting for a front position.
"Quit yo' shovin'!" Zack hollered. "Ev'ybody gwine to git a taste." So the Black Effendi sallied out with a heaped-up plate, and his customers met him. They jostled his arm; the fish spilled, and a tangle of black nakedness fell upon it in the dirt.
Old Reliable retreated within his eating house while the blacks came crowding forward. The pressure of their bodies bent the rail. "Stand back, you niggers, stan' back!" The rail snapped like a pipe-stem, the Shilluks tumbled in, over turning his bench and knocking his table crank-sided; plates and pans clattered to the ground; the shack titled dangerously, and that got Zack agitated.
"Here, niggers, take it all! Take it all!" Old Reliable grabbed both dishpans and hurled their contents over the heads of the crowd. By sacrificing his samples he saved the shack; the scramblers whirled around backwards and scuffled for the fish.
When the riot first broke out, McDonald came bounding across the open space, but failed to cover the fifty yards before the Shilluks had gobbled the grub. Mr. Bim was not a man to get excited, and he did not mean to be abrupt, but he strode amongst them, and they melted away.
"What's the trouble, Zack? How did those fellows happen to rush you?"
"Twarn't no trouble, Mister Bim. Ev'ything nice an' pleasant."
"Didn't they like your fish?"
"Yes suh, dey takes to fish mightily—sho do."
McDonald glanced at the empty pans. "What became of it?"
"Niggers et it."
"All of it? So quick?"
"Dese niggers eats fish mighty swif'."
"Hadn't you better catch some more?"
Zack had shucked his white cap and was now folding up the apron. "Naw suh! I reckin' dis eatin' house is jes about to shet up."
"Why? Won't your plan work?"
"Yas suh, yas suh. It's gwine to work all right, but one man can't do no mo' dan jes so much work in one day. I'm plum wore out."
"Then you'll open up to-morrow?"
"Yas suh." Zack assented without enthusiasm.
"When do I get my plow hands?"
"Mister Bim," he answered, "I reckin' you better rock along kind o' gentle wid dese niggers—dey 'pears to git flustrated ef you stampedes 'em."
McDonald kept thrashing his puttees with a whip, watching Old Reliable move the displaced table and benches into position. "What happened to your railing?"
"Dem niggers busted it." For a moment Old Reliable looked serious, and then let out a wide-mouthed laugh. "Mister Bim, ef dey keeps on bein' dat crazy 'bout fried fish, you'll make plenty cotton befo' I gits 'em fat."
"We'll try." McDonald wheeled, strode back to quarters, and summoned his foremen, while Zack gazed thoughtfully after him, then cut his eye around at the scatteration of Shilluks, Dinkas and Nyam-Nyams. "Mister Bim sho' do cornduck hisself mighty brief. I got a hunch he's gwine to bust up dis catfish stan'."
CHAPTER XXVIII
THE MEDDLING OF MR. BIM
DURING the long afternoon McDonald's interpreters circulated industriously amongst the blacks, demonstrating all the ins and outs of the catfish system. Fried fish would be sold at one piaster per man—men must plow to get the money, and the news thereof percolated to distant villages. Odok stalked from one group to another, adding his practical endorsement—Odok now being the established authority on fried fish. Zack saw it all and did not approve. "Dat ain't no way to do," he protested to himself; "tellin' dem niggers he needs 'em so bad. He oughter treat 'em like a drove o' mules—not try to drive 'em in a gate, jes' leave de gate onlatched, an' let 'em bust in." Thoroughly disgusted, he straggled over to quarters and sat on the front step, where Mr. Bim casually remarked that, by private arrangement, Odok must have as much fish as he could eat, in consideration of Odok's influence in leading men to the fields. This ominous provision made Old Reliable sit up and take notice, "Mister Bim, ef you undertakes to fill up dat Odok nigger, you got to git somebody to he'p Side ketch fish. An' 'low me a extry cook. One man can't 'tend to no catfish stan' de way dese niggers does deir tradin'."
"Very good. I'll give you competent help." Mr. Bim promptly settled the matter, and Zack composed himself for a long rest. But the Bimbashi was not a man who rested. Excess of steam kept him shoving ahead. He set everybody to ransacking the quarters and commissary for more fishing tackle—hooks and leads, corks and sinkers. "Everything must be ready by daylight." And everything was ready—likewise Mr. Bim.
Long before daylight McDonald, with a lantern, bent over Zack's cot and shook him, not roughly, but effectually. "Who dat? You? Mister Bim?"
"Yes. Get up. It's time to go after the fish."
"Lordee, Mister Bim, I jes' dis minute dozed off." Nevertheless Old Reliable got up yawningly, and fared forth with the fishers.
At sunrise McDonald went to the fields, his face glowing like the dawn, for Odok brought forty-seven men who were eager to grab the plow handles, a somewhat disappointing number, but forty-seven more than McDonald had mustered for many a week. When evening came, this weary vanguard of honor lined up at the catfish counter, with double as many for an audience. McDonald pushed through and whispered to Zack: "Give 'em plenty; you have four times as much fish as you need."
"Yas suh, Mister Bim, ef you say so; but tain't no way to treat niggers. You'll sho spile 'em."
"Oh, McDonald! McDonald!" Colonel Spottiswoode shouted from quarters. "Come over here, quick!"
At this very palpable calling away of Mr. Bim, Old Reliable grinned. "Cunnel's de onlies' white man on dis place what's got sense like a nigger."
Left to his own devices, the Black Effendi proceeded to swap fish for piasters, serving the exact number that had followed the plows. "No work, no fish," was his motto, and receipts from the catfish stand tallied accurately with the amount which Mr. Bim had paid for labor. Dozens of paisterless negroes, sunk-flanked and hungry, looked on with ravenous eyes and a twitching at the mouth. Many times Zack glanced toward them and his heart softened; but finally he shook his head and muttered: "I kin count ev'y rib you got. But—ef I wuz to begin givin' away fish, I'd spile some mighty good plow-hands. Here," he whistled, taking a piece in each hand and feeding a couple of dogs, "Y'allall ain't had no chance to plow."
McDonald sat jubilant over their diplomatic work, as he watched the strutting of the fed, the envy of the unfed.
Next morning Mr. Bim counted one hundred and fifteen recruits actually at work. "Ain't I tole you so, Mister Bim?" Zack reminded him. "In two mo' days I'll have niggers in dat fiel' thicker'n boll-weevils." And the laborers might have gone on multiplying like boll-weevils, if Mr. Bim hadn't over-played his hand.
It happened this way: Towards afternoon, two good hours before quitting time, one hundred and fifteen men were plowing, planting, and looking forward to a feast. A ring of others squatted near the eating house, watching to see if the unbelievable could really be true. By testimony of their own eyes they knew that the Black Effendi, who wore the robe of honor, had fried up four noble dishpans of fish. Thereat they licked their chops and squatted around waiting for the distribution.
All of which came under the momentary observation of El Bimbashi McDonald as he hurried from the fields, and whispered to Zack:
"That was a jolly fine idea of yours. Two hundred niggers will soon be here. Keep 'em fed."
"Sho will. But de main thing is to git dat money from 'em, so dey'll hafter work some mo'.'
Flashing an enthusiastic approval at Zack, Mr. Bim sped on to his quarters, and Zack laughed.
"Huh! Mister Bim sho' is steppin' high. He feels powerful good."
The fact is that El Bimbashi McDonald did feel good, and wanted to reward everybody—which led to his fatal meddling. He had barely passed out of view before Said the Dongalawi—meek-eyed man of experience—reported to Zack that the two hippos previously slain by El Bimbashi had risen and were floating down the river. At first Zack didn't rightly grasp the importance of this calamity. But he soon found out.
Even as Zack stood ready to dish up one hundred and fifteen portions of fried fish—even as Said was drying out his net for another successful day—even at that moment of triumph, some evil Jinn sent Fudl running to the Bimbashi with tidings that his hippos were in sight. McDonald hurried towards the river; it was true. Two huge black bodies, puffed up like balloons, were drifting close inshore. An inspiration seized Mr. Bim. He would prove the white man's generosity—he would feed the multitude.
"Hey, there," his voice rang out, and Zack heard it clearly. "Hey there!" McDonald waved his hands to the idle negroes, "Catch those hippos," he pointed; "they're yours." The simplicity of this suggestion needed no interpreter; one long, shrill cry uprose from a lanky Shilluk at the water's edge—"Renk! Renk! Rau!" Splash! went the Shilluk's ambatch canoe, and the lone man paddled like mad.
At the cry of "Renk! Renk!"—flesh, flesh—and "Rau"—hippo—every Shilluk and every Dinka sprang shouting to his feet. There was a cloud of dust, a scurry of bare legs, and a dozen canoes went paddling swiftly toward the hippos. Naked men rushed along the water's edge to catch up ropes and drag their prizes ashore.
Back through the quarters spread the cry of "Renk! Renk!" Afar off in the fields red throats opened and reëchoed the call of flesh. Exactly one hundred and fifteen men dropped the plow handles, abandoned the mules, flung down their seed sacks, and dashed to the river, heedless of Mr. Bim, who raved and swore.
They beached their hippos fifty yards below the eating house, and every black creature within a mile answered roll call—and abided. Fifty knives slashed the carcasses into a thousand bits. Glistening black bodies capered about, and yellow dogs dodged between their legs. Every human being had deserted the Hot Cat Eating House.
Old Reliable stood dazed, while Said began folding his useless net, just as it came from the box, and resigned himself to the afflictions of Allah. "No peoples buy," he moaned. "No peoples work in field; all eat hippo, much full, same like great snake. All peoples go 'way—two week—one month—no come back maybe—Allah he know."
Zack dropped upon the eating house bench, regarding his piled up dishpans. "Dar now," the Black Effendi muttered. "'Tain't even a dog to eat dis fish. Mister Bim done got dis bizness in a jam."
CHAPTER XXIX
THE TINKLING TREASURE
THE Hot Cat Eating House had lapsed into the universal indolence, and Zack had to wait until his customers got hungry again.
The stars hung low above Wadi Okar, nearer than lightning bugs caught under Zack's mosquito curtain. The Nile murmured in its sleep, a shimmering, upturned duplicate of the dazzling heavens. Between the river and the squatty brick house where the white folks slept stood clumps of dom palms casting their dense black shadows, like ink blots upon a sheet of silver paper. From the village of Hillet Debaa—Hyena Town—across half a mile of trembling grasses, came the thump, thump, thump of a Shilluk drum. The barbaric monotone pulsed into the windows of the white man's quarters, eddied around to the rear, and dinned upon the ears of Said with insistent invitation. The scrawny brown man sat upon the ground with his back against a straw hut, listening to the voice of the drum. Said knew where naked black figures crouched around the drum, beneath the great mimosa tree! His own savage blood responded to the throb, throb, throb of that savage heart of Africa beating afar off in the night. Thereupon Said arose, as the languid leopard rises, his striped robe swished against his legs. For a while he stood motionless, with dilated nostrils, then sank cautiously to the ground again. The back door had opened, not the door which Said was watching, out of which his master usually shouted, "Whar he?" but another door, a dark door. It opened warily without a sound; the room showed black behind it, without a glimmer. Out of this blackness stole the Black Effendi, with the soft foot of a cat, closed the door noiselessly behind him, then stopped to listen in the gloom beneath the eaves. The subtle instinct of Said felt much more than he really saw; he scented concealment, intrigue, something wrong. That's why Said vanished within the tukul, and peered out with glittering eyes. From the silence of the eaves he heard a thrilling sound, the jingle of metal; for Zack had stumbled as he stepped into the star light. Old Reliable traveled in his shirt sleeves; bareheaded, and carried a package under his arm. It was this package which riveted the very soul of Said, a square box nearly the size of a shirt-box and quite heavy. So the Dongalawi stiffened like a pointer dog when Zack sneaked from Colonel Spottiswoode's bedroom with a box which clinked, and whispered of the metal that must be in it. Four black apparitions stalked past—natives, naked and silent—shadows coming out of the shadows, and merging into the shadows again. Zack took no chances; he lay low until the Shilluks were gone, then ventured forth again. A door creaked behind him, and Zack dived back into his hiding place. This time it was Colonel Spottiswoode's door that opened; a glare of light hurled the White Effendi's figure across the level spaces. Colonel Spottiswoode stood in the door way and shouted, "Zack! Oh, Zack!"
Then Said felt sure of the Black Effendi's concealments, for old Zack held his breath and did not answer. Never before had Said known the Black Effendi to act in such wise. Verily, it was a momentous intrigue. The Colonel, having failed to get an answer, turned back into his room and Old Reliable moved stealthily away. Said dropped flat to the ground, and began wriggling like a snake which was shedding its skin—wriggling out of his telltale robe and turban. Twenty paces beyond Zack rounded a corner of the house, then started at a quicker gait toward the river. He chose the way of the darkness, and avoided the path of the shine. To follow him Said must pass that blaze of light which streamed through the door. Naked and brown, Said leaped across it, like the flitting of a bat, and darkness swallowed him. Old Reliable hurried on, intent upon his affair, while Said slunk behind, close enough to hear him mumble, as a man of stricken conscience mutters in his sleep. Once the Black Effendi jostled against a palm, and again Said caught the pleasant jingle of metal, a clink that put his teeth on edge and set every nerve to quivering.
"He goeth to secrete his treasure" Said almost spoke the words aloud, then looked over his shoulder, lest some eavesdropper might hear. Had not the Black Effendi amassed great treasure in this traffic of the fishes, for which he, Said, cast nets amongst the crocodiles? Said had almost gone mad coveting that flow of money which poured into the Black Effendi's hands, until his pockets bulged with piasters. True, the money flowed not so prodigally whilst the negroes had hippo flesh to feed upon. Shilluks and Dinkas lay beside those carcasses, like gorged dogs, and went not to the fields at all. Even after the hippo meat had long been devoured, the catfish customers came back slowly, not more than ten a day. Said knew these things for a certainty, having eyes to see and wit to remember. As he trailed the Black Effendi and the clink of the treasure, Said considered; his head went whirling, yet his nimble feet made no sound upon the sands.
Old Reliable passed into darkness beneath the palms, took a long breath and a long backward look at the quarters. He had circled around from the rear, and could now see the front windows where lights came out, where Mr. Bim and the big-faced Mr. Lyttleton were snickering behind the Colonel's back. For of late the Colonel had been in a most unpleasant temper at the way things were going, a thought which Zack dismissed and smiled.
The loafers' bench at the Hot Cat offered an undeclinable invitation to sit down, and Zack accepted it—a solitary black figure in that banquet hall deserted.
"Huh!" he complained. "Dis sho is one lonesome place, wid all dem niggers gone over yonder whar dat drum's a beatin' at." Carefully Zack set down his precious box upon the bench beside him, and began fumbling with the lid. Said crawled closer, until he could hear his master say:
"I ain't gwine to do it—ain't gwine to do it."
When Zack lifted the lid of the box, and thrust in his hand, Said leaned forward and gasped, his fingers working like a strangler's. It was too dark to see, but Said could hear, and feel, and tremble, while the Black Effendi kept digging into his treasure, letting it drip through his fingers like sparkling drops that patter into a pool. Suddenly Zack jumped up and let fall a handful, as the Colonel came out on the porch and shouted, "Zack! Where are you? Come here." Zack looked straight towards him but never opened his mouth. Yet, when Colonel Spottiswoode shouted again, the Black Effendi hesitated, bent over his box and nervously jammed down the lid. In his excitement he made a miscue, and spilled part of the contents.
"Dar now!" Down he went, groping on his knees. Said groveled in a gully while Zack pawed around and recovered the treasure. "I speck dat's about all," he muttered, then rose and proceeded down the sloping bank, almost to the water's edge.
"Fool!" hissed the Dongalawi. "He seeks to hide his treasure in water." Said moved nearer, while the beat, beat, beat of that jungle drum almost nerved the frenzied Dongalawi to spring upon his master's back. Then Old Reliable stopped; he had no notion of venturing too close to that river, but only maneuvered to get under cover of the bank, so that nobody could see him from the big house. Said slunk along behind, like a panther that flattens herself against the ground, as the Black Effendi picked his steps, half-way between the bottom and top, until he gained the shadow of some other palms. There he climbed to the crest of the bank, and peered over. Although having the whole world to himself, Zack remained discreet, and went shuffling off beneath the acacias. After him dodged Said from tree to tree, yet puzzled because the Black Effendi must have changed his mind, and was now headed for his own tukul immediately behind the brick quarters. This tukul was a small, round affair, flimsily built of straw, and thatched with elephant grass, like a cone. The opening stood only shoulder high, so Zack ducked in. Said halted and listened from without; he might as well have been at his master's elbow, the walls being so thin that he heard all—the rasping of a key, the slamming of a trunk lid, and the click of a lock—after which Zack hurried out, empty-handed, made a wide detour of the quarters and sauntered up to the front porch. He had scarcely gone before Said was already squatting in the tukul, beating his fist against the trunk which held the Black Effendi's treasure. He clawed at the lid, then sat back upon his haunches and meditated—being a circumspect person. Then Said suddenly thought of something, and darted out of the hut in an instant, winging his flight to the same bench whereat the Black Effendi had spilled a portion of the treasure. Naked to the waist, he fell upon the ground and searched. Then he cried aloud, a sharp point—like a needle—had pierced his breast. Said leaped to his feet; something fell upon the bench with a tingle. Greedily the Dongalawi snatched it up; it was no coin, not gold, nor yet a piaster. He could not guess what manner of treasure he had found. Clutching his riches, the brown man sped away, far from incrimination, and stopped in a starlit place to examine. Verily Said had found a jewel, a talisman bearing the face of a king, and cabalistic words in an unknown tongue. The Dongalawi's eyes blazed with avarice and delight. Here was wealth far beyond piasters, wealth of jewels and of gems. Said turned it over in his trembling palm. Upon the back there was a pin to fasten it to a robe of honor, such as great ones wear.
When Zack dumped the Spottiswoode campaign badges into his trunk he felt secure as a suck-egg dog which has buried the shells. No matter if the Colonel had ordered him to throw them away, Zack wasn't going to chuck a box full of brand new shiny badges into the river—no sir, he'd rather risk another cussing. The Colonel might just as well have ordered Zack to drown somebody's baby, or to kick a widow woman's dog into the creek.
Having negotiated a compromise, Zack approached the quarters with keen eye and careless saunter. The flurry had blown over; there would be no storm. Colonel Spottiswoode sat facing the door, with a book in his lap, while McDonald and Lyttleton leaned over the table, preparing their monthly report.
As Zack eased himself through the doorway without pomp or parade, the Colonel looked up, "Zack, did you chuck those infernal buttons into the river?"
"Yas suh, yas suh." Lyttleton and McDonald glanced at Zack, smiling silently; each of them wore a Spottiswoode badge pinned to his dinner jacket. That's what made Zack grin. Both the Britishers snickered, and Colonel Spottiswoode flushed. "Haven't you fellows got tired of laughing?"
Lyttleton looked very serious. "That's McDonald laughing. He's not clever, you know—just a wild ass of a bachelor."
The Colonel laid down his book. "Gentlemen," he said. "I might as well get done with it and explain. Some misguided friends of mine were going to elect me Governor, in a whirl—and, they didn't. Had to call it off. I couldn't go around begging people for votes, and couldn't have been elected anyhow. My friends ordered about four tons of those fool buttons. I made Zack throw bushels of them into the Mississippi River. He says he mistook that last box for a box of number ten shells, and packed it in my chest Are you satisfied with the story? All gone, are they, Zack?"
"Yas suh, Cunnel, you ain't never gwine to see 'em no mo'."
"Except these two, worn by your most admiring constituents." McDonald and Lyttleton bowed low.
Then the Colonel got into a good humor and chuckled. "Zack, did I cuss very strong?"
"Yas suh, Cunnel; when you fust opened up dat box o' buttons, an' I heard what you say, I 'lowed to myself, "Dar now! Cunnel's done gone Democratic agin'."
At a jovial suggestion from McDonald that it was night-cap time Zack vanished into the pantry, and the stirring of ingredients commenced. When Zack returned with brandy and sodas, the white folks were amicably discussing a labor contract to be consummated on the following morning with the King of the Shilluks. McDonald's voice sounded as if he were defending himself. "I hated to do it, 'pon my word. It's sure to raise a deuce of a row amongst our stay-at-home directors."
"Why so?" The Colonel looked inquiringly at Lyttleton, who lighted another cigarette, and half-apologized.
"My dear Colonel, our directors are keen on employing voluntary labor, paying good wages, teaching the natives—all that sort of stuff. They can't see how it works out—or won't work out. When we go back home they'll put us through the shorter catechism."
"What's wrong about our scheme?" demanded the Colonel.
"Well, it's this contract. We agree to pay the king for two hundred laborers, and his head-man makes them work. If the head-man straps a fellow, it's by the king's orders, not ours. But we pay each man for his own labor. The point is, however, that each man doesn't want to work—it's not voluntary labor, but"
"But me no buts" McDonald whacked his fist upon the table. "We've worried along four months and haven't done two days' work. Tried everything, paid 'em, jollied 'em, fed 'em, begged 'em, pleaded with 'em—no use. Think of the waste; think of the mill-workers back in England who may become dependent on the cotton which we ought to raise. Look at Feilden, just appointed Governor of Wau to succeed Sinclair who died three weeks ago. Harley pegged out six months ahead of Sinclair; eight governors of Wau died in one-two-three order. 'Feilden, old chap,' says I, 'don't go up and try to run that show at Wau.' He knew exactly what I meant, but he only said, 'The Empire must be built.' With such men as Feilden in the Sudan I want to get results, like the rest of them. Anyhow, the Shilluk King is coming to-morrow to sign the contract."
Lyttleton Bey smoked on in silence and Colonel Spottiswoode made no remarks.
"Huh!" Zack chuckled to himself. "Now dey is gwine to have 'em a time wid de labor agent. Dat labor agent's got to be mighty spry to make dese niggers work."
CHAPTER XXX
THE CRAFT OF SAID WAD DARHO
ZACK slept in the open air outside his tukul. Said pinned the mosquito curtains around his master's cot, ostensibly to keep out bugs, bats, scorpions—myriads of night creatures with wings and stings and fangs and things. But the Dongalawi's private anxiety was to keep the Black Effendi in. Said lay restlessly upon the ground beside him, for Said did not sleep. Not he. Even Zack's resounding snore failed to assure Said that his master might not arise, and make off with the treasure. When day had fairly come, all went well, even as upon many other mornings. Yet the day must be a day of great import; of this the Dongalawi felt certain when the Black Effendi nonchalantly took a jewel from his pocket, pinned it upon his coat, and ambled towards the quarters.
"Come 'long, Side," he ordered. "Us got to git busy; gwine to be two hundred mo' niggers to feed."
The Colonel was sitting upon the porch, and Said observed that Zack halted behind the corner with a sheepish grin, muttering to himself, "I liketer fergot dis badge. Cunnel sho would raise sand." Covertly Said watched him pull off that precious talisman and hide it in his pocket.
It was a shanky, spindling king who came, naked, to Wadi Okar, with knees knocking together for all men to see, and an ashen-plastered countenance. That's what made Zack say what he did about kings in general, and about this king in particular. Disgustedly he eyed them from the Eating House where the Colonel's orders had stationed him. "Jes' look at Mister Bim! Pullin' a long blue night shirt over dat nigger's kinky head. Ain' dat king a sight?"
The king was a sight, for, in addition to a blue robe of honor, Mr. Bim added a red scarf about his waist, and stuck a red tarbush upon his head, which greased the labor transaction to a satisfactory conclusion.
When Lyttleton Bey arose to signify that the palaver was done, he commanded that Mahomet Mansour should escort his guests to the Hot Cat Eating House where Old Reliable waited to spread the banquet.
Zack stood up very grandly to receive the royal retinue which advanced upon his catfish stand.
"Huh!" he remarked. "Dat king sho' is a labor agent! Fotched a whole passel o' niggers."
As the Colonel wasn't scheduled for appearance, Zack couldn't resist the temptation to produce a badge and pin it on the middle of his apron. Thenceforward the gorging of King Quat Kare dwindled into secondary importance, for His Majesty craved the Black Effendi's jewel. Every time Zack approached with additional installments of fried fish, the King stuck out a skinny finger and touched the button. Once he tried to snatch it off, but Zack drew back.
"Hole your hosses, old feller; I'll give dis to you when you goes home. Tell him dat, Side." Said proudly translated, and Tombi, the crippled Shilluk, interpreted to his King.
When Tombi made the King comprehend, His Majesty rose promptly and reached for the jewel, but Zack jerked it away. "No, you don't. Not till you gits in dat boat. I don't aim fer Cunnel to see dis button an' cuss me, jes' fer pastime."
Thereupon Quat Kare led his retinue to the water side and entered his canoe. The royal stomach was full of catfish, and now the royal soul was full of peace, for the Black Effendi leaned over and attached the coveted jewel to his shirt. Shilluks crowded waist deep into the Nile, and went into a powerful 'miration. Quat Kare was paddled away in state, the royal fingers playing with the decoration upon his breast.
At all of this Said opened his eyes very wide, but kept his mouth shut—he knew the secret place of many jewels fit for kings.
The affair might have passed off as an incident had it not set a Grand Idea buzzing in the Dongalawi's head. These Shilluks would give much riches to wear such a royal bauble. He, Said, could supply them with the decoration of kings, reaping profit thereby, and the blessings of Allah. Allah had made these unbelievers deaf and blind, so that true Moslems might flourish upon their folly. Said would be crafty and find a way. First he dispatched Tombi among the Shilluks, extolling the present given to their king—a jewel worth herds of milch cows and goats without number. Meditating upon the fruits of his thrift, Said walked apart, planning a palace in his native village. Verily he would choose more wives than a pasha, and people should salaam before him as to a Great One.
So planning and dreaming, Said was summoned back to earth by the Black Effendi who leaned out of the catfish stand, and shouted, "Whar he? Side! What you doin', peeradin' 'round wid yo' shirt tail flyin'? Crazy folks talk to deyselves dat way. Come here an' wash dese pans. An' tell dese new niggers dat us is fixin' to have plenty hot cat fer 'em to-morrow."
Against this contingency Said had already spoken copiously with Tombi, that he must caution his people to spend no money upon their bellies. They must have piasters—and hold the silence of Allah upon their tongues—for he, Said, could procure for each a jewel like unto the king's. When the people heard that, they chattered mightily, questioning Tombi, and Tombi spread the news. Old Reliable cocked his head to one side and listened to the hullabaloo, wondering why no Shilluk came to buy his fish.
"Look here, Side," he questioned, "dem niggers ain't studyin' 'bout hot cat. What is dat Tombi nigger tellin em?"
"He say much people not work to-day; work to-morrow. Buy great plenty fishes."
"All right den; you be sho to ketch plenty in de mornin'."
Having made a successful function of his free lunch to the king, Zack now strolled towards the white folks' quarters for approbation, with Said dogging his heels.
Deadly fear clutched at the Dongalawi's throat, and he planned with cunning. Discretion forbade him to steal and sell the jewels one by one, for the Shilluks would wear them, and the Black Effendi must discover. No, Said would gather the people, sell all at once, and vanish. The desert would shelter him. So that this happy fate might come to pass, Said admitted Tombi and Odok—grudgingly and partially—into his confidence, on the promise of a jewel to each. They circulated a whisper amongst the villages: "Be cautious, be silent. Meet under the great mimosa tree, where the drum beats at Hillet Debaa, on the first night of the Moon of Muharrem. Jewels such as the Great White Prince gives only to kings, will be sold at the price of a milch cow, at the price of four goats, at the price of twenty piasters."
The progressive Said offered a cut rate if they paid in moneys so as to catch the cash from the laborers.
Business began to pick up in Wadi Okar. Zack loved to follow the white folks into the field, just for the fun of seeing the headman make two hundred negroes hustle. "Lordee, Mister Bim, ain't I been tellin' you dat's de onlies' way to git work out of a nigger? You hafter bat 'em over de head."
According to Zack the Colonel had an easy job. All the work that the Colonel had to do was to stretch his garden line in straight rows of five feet apart, then tell Mahomet Mansour to tell Tombi to tell the head man to tell the negroes to build the dirt up to those lines, which caused plenty of argufying, and Zack loved to listen. The dirt got built, the seed got planted, and the growing cotton got hoed out. Every morning when McDonald found the negroes at work again, he went tiptoeing about with a "did-you-see-it-too" expression.
Two hundred laborers were paid every night, but the Hot Cat failed to gather in their shekels. A hitch had developed somewhere, the sparker wouldn't spark, the starter wouldn't start. Some days the catfish enterprise barely earned its grease, while hungry negroes clung, tight-fistedly, to their piasters. Vainly did Zack put on his white cap and ring the bell. "Hot cat's fine to-day. Step up, niggers. Tell 'em dat, Side."
No such invitation reached the Shilluks through Said or Tombi. To the contrary Tombi pleaded with his people, only six days more until each should possess a jewel. They shuffled their irresolute feet, and with ravenous eyes devoured his crisp brown fish. But nobody bought.
"What ails you niggers?" Zack burst out. "Ef you don't aim to buy dis catfish, I'm gwine to shet up shop. Tell 'em dat, Side."
This message went and returned in brilliant flashes. Thus answered Said: "The Effendi is wise. No people buy fish. Shut up the bazaar. It is well."
"All right, Side, I sho' ain't gwine to beg no nigger what walks de earth." With that he took a dishpan of succulent fish and tossed it into the Nile. The Shilluks gasped, and the smile that warmed Said's vitals showed not upon his lips.
Said worked feverishly through the days, and watched sleeplessly through the nights; whetting his knife so that in due time he might cut open the trunk. Brooding in the starlight, his ideas expanded. He commissioned Odok to spy upon the Black Effendi, while Said himself journeyed by night to nearby villages, creeping back at dawn. Impatient Shilluks were already beginning to assemble, leading many milch cows and goats, and camped beneath the mimosa tree. Stress of anticipation caused the Dongalawi to grow thinner. His eyes glittered. His long, claw-like fingers twitched more nervously. Within four nights the Moon of Muharrem would arise; Said must set out at once for the main village of the Shilluks, where he would cajole many a customer, as all had seen the jewel of their king.
When Zack arose next morning, Said's cadaverous face attracted his attention:
"Side, you got a fever. Come 'long wid me, an' git some medicine." Said begged off from the white man's physic, and implored three days' leave of absence instead, to visit his uncle.
"Huh!" said Zack. "I never knowed you had kinfolks way up here."
To carry out his apparent purpose, and in view of all men, Said ostentatiously crossed the river, although he had to double back and recross far below. He went with much misgivings, for no man's affair can prosper in his absence.
CHAPTER XXXI
JEWELS OF KINGS
ZACK was getting sore on the catfish proposition. That day he only served fourteen customers and for two pans full of tempting fish he couldn't get a nibble.
"Hommit," he complained to the substitute interpreter, "dis sho beats my time. Dese niggers done got in some kind of a humbug, an' I can't ketch on. What you reckin' tis?"
Mahomet Mansour shook his turbaned head. Although suspecting a scheme whereof Said was stirring the pot, Mahomet couldn't get to the bottom of it. That's what chafed Mahomet, and set him to prying.
Trade being slack, Old Reliable had plenty of time to lean against the post and talk. "I got to start dese new niggers to eatin' catfish. Got to give 'way premiums, or sumpin' like dat. Dat's it! Dat's it! Same as dey gives away at de movin' picture show on Saddy night. Tell 'em dat, Hommit."
The bewildered Mahomet didn't tell 'em anything; he didn't try; for he hadn't the slightest comprehension of what Zack was telling him. Zack glared into his vacant eyes, then backed him up against the post. "Now, Hommit, you listen to me reel good" Mahomet did listen, with stolid face, while Zack expounded the intricacies of "Give-away Night" at the moving picture shows.
"'Splain dat to 'em. Ev'y nigger gits a button—free, gratis fer nothin'. Be sho an' say dat. Dat's what de man always specify, in front o' de movin' picture show."
A less shifty gentleman than Mahomet Mansour might have been in a predicament. Or if Tombi had stayed on his job where Said had planted him, even then Mahomet must have failed to convey a straight message to the natives, for tricky Tombi would have twisted it to suit the purposes of Said. But the wrath of Allah fell upon Said when McDonald transferred Tombi to headquarters and sent that stupid lump Agha to interpret for the Hot Cat. Agha knew no English, but could blunder through a few simple sentences in Shilluk. Mahomet could not understand Shilluk, and Zack talked only United States talk. So there they stood, Agha being the middle man.
Fluent as he was, Mahomet hesitated to tackle a demonstration of "Give-away Night," until Zack shoved him out and commanded: "Tell 'em dat. Put plenty ginger in it."
"Very good, Effendi."
When Mahomet turned to Agha he needed a forty-acre lot for the gestures, shouts and vilifications to make the other Arab comprehend. Agha lacked ginger, and a cynical audience treated his premium proposition to a fizzle. Not a single customer broke cover. Zack was disgusted. He wheeled abruptly, and went behind the counter.
"Somebody's gwine to eat dis catfish. Here, pup! here, pup!" Two perfectly spontaneous dogs gulped down the pieces that Zack tossed. Other dogs volunteered—barking, snapping, snarling, excited dogs, and the crisp chunks vanished steadily. The first pan was empty, and the second dwindled low as Zack doled it out with exasperating deliberation. The Shilluks began to stir restlessly, until hungry black Kudit could endure it no longer. He kicked the dogs aside and planked down his piaster.
"Now dat's de way to eat a man-size bait o' catfish. You gits de fust prize." Zack fumbled in his pocket, drew out a Spottiswoode campaign button, and pinned it in Kudit's mop of hair. Instantly the herd stampeded, and piasters rattled on the bench; the tag end of the dishpan disappeared, at one piaster per. But it required much palavering to pacify their uproar when a jewel per was not also forthcoming.
"Shet up, you niggers! Hommit, tell' em I'll give ev'y one o' my reg'lar customers a button on Saddy night. Tell 'em dat—quick."
Mahomet lifted his voice to Agha, and Agha secured a hearing. The Shilluks listened sullenly, as Said the Deceitful had spoken naught of this. They crowded around Kudit, and felt his prize. Of a verity it was genuine.
"Ev'y one o' my reg'lar customers gits a badge like dat on Saddy night. Reg'lar customers, mind you—got to buy catfish ev'y day 'twixt now an' den. Tell 'em dat, Hommit."
By this time Zack had got yard-broke to Arab shrills and trebles, so he did not mind what Mahomet was saying to Agha. Agha balked and shook his head; and Mahomet appealed to Zack. "Agha say he no tell 'em dat. Agha feared. Maybe if Black Effendi no give peoples jewels, peoples kill Agha for big lie."
"Shucks! dat's all right, I'm 'sponsible. It's a cinch—a lead pipe cinch. Tell 'em dat, Hommit."
Via Mahomet and Agha, the Black Effendi dispatched his assurances of a lead-pipe cinch, which touched off another disputation. The natives listened eagerly. Agha found himself the storm center of a mob. Agha explained; Agha grew excited. Agha tore his way through the crowd and spoke to Mahomet. Mahomet turned blandly to Zack: "Agha say very good, Effendi. Peoples much try be quiet."
During the next four days every black creature on Wadi Okar remained intensely quiet. Colonel Spottiswoode observed it in the fields, McDonald commented on it at the table. And the king's head men knew why in the tukuls. The catfish stand was choked with customers. Zack summoned Fudl and Mahomet to help him as extra salesmen, but every customer insisted upon paying his piaster into the hands of the Black Effendi himself, none other. Each purchaser called his own name many, many times, impressing it upon the Black Effendi, until Zack got tired. "Git away from here; I ain't gwine to fergit you. Nobody 'members a nigger's name, but I knows yo' favor."
On the last crucial afternoon, Saturday, the white men noticed a suppressed excitement which ran like a tremor amongst the Shilluks in the fields. Every man kept at his plow and hoe and planting; every eye kept upon the descending sun. Lyttleton—seasoned in Sudan warfare—felt a vague uneasiness. "Something's up," he said. McDonald saw it, the Colonel felt it; the head man knew why.
"Quitting time," McDonald called to the head man. Tools were instantly stacked, and every negro bolted for the catfish stand. They moved definitely, for each man knew where he was going, and what he meant to do. Nobody loafed, nobody straggled, not a black loitered, and the whites watched them anxiously.
"Hadn't we better go and see what's happening?" suggested McDonald.
"No," Lyttleton shook his head. "Better wait, and keep both eyes open."
From their accustomed seats on the porch, they watched developments at the Hot Cat. There seemed a far larger crowd than usual, more dense, but not disorderly; no cause for alarm, and the gentlemen fell to talking of other things.
Everybody swarmed around the Hot Cat Eating House, which left headquarters quite deserted. This presented Said's opportunity as he came slinking back from his three days of journeying to sell jewels amongst the Shilluks. First peering cautiously about him, he dodged into the Black Effendi's tukul, and lost not a moment in slashing out the bottom of the treasure trunk. A glitter burned his fever-frenzied eyes, as he thrust his hand within the trunk, and felt around for the box of jewels. It was not there. He withdrew his hand, and began tearing out the contents of the trunk, until nothing whatever remained. The box was gone. He bounded erect, and called down the maledictions of Allah upon that Black Effendi who had removed the treasure, upon the traitors Tombi and Odok who had permitted it.
For a moment Said stood dazed and stupefied, then raged distractedly about the tukul, searching everywhere, until Zack's belongings lay in a trampled pile. Then, with a volley of imprecations, he burst out, waving a long knife and shouting, "Odok! Odok! Odok!" Towards the river he dashed, and went racing past the quarters, in a patter of red shoes, a flutter of striped gown, gaunt, cadaverous and gone mad. McDonald saw him and bounded down the steps, in chase. "What's the matter?" called Lyttleton.
"That Dongalawi carries a knife. Going to be trouble."
Proceedings at the Hot Cat had been methodically conducted. In the beginning Zack made every regular customer stand outside a circle which he drew in the sand. Then he called, fed, decorated, and pushed them back with such impartial promptness that they obeyed. The grand distribution was almost ended; only one plate of fish and a handful of buttons remained when the frantic Said burst into the circle, with Mr. Bim three paces behind.
The first thing Said saw was not their greasy lips, nor grinning black faces, but their jewels, one, two, three—hundreds—thousands—millions upon millions of jewels, dancing before his eyes to madden him. On the sand beside Old Reliable lay the overturned and empty treasure box. The stricken Dongalawi stood mute, confronting a nightmare of triumphant black faces sneering into his; a hideous vision of jewels, jewels, jewels which mocked him with their sparkle. Tremblingly he put out his finger and touched a badge, then dropped, beat his head against the earth, groveled face downward, rolled on his back and screamed. Zack promptly dashed a pail of water into his face.
"What's the matter with Said?" Major Lyttleton ran up and demanded. For the first time Zack noticed the three white men, who now stood over the writhing Dongalawi.
"He got a fever. Side's been sick fer de longes'"
"But this knife?" Lyttleton stooped to pick up the evil weapon.
"Huh!" Zack answered; "tain't no harm in Side."
"Mahomet, Fudl, take this man to the hospital." But Lyttleton was not satisfied as to Said's intentions with the knife.
It was an ignominious exit for the Dongalawi who had schemed such greatness, legs first, and struggling against six stout men. "No, Colonel, nothing serious," McDonald explained, "merely a touch of sun. They'll bring him round in a couple of days."
Even the dramatic episode of Said did not dull Zack's mind to the fact that something else had caught the Colonel's eye, a campaign badge, an other, another, dozens of them. One on every negro. The crowd looked like a Spottiswoode ratification meeting. The Colonel stared, and his face grew very red.
"Zack! You, Zack!" he shouted. "Where's that nigger?"
But Zack had darted away, and the tail of his apron was even now disappearing behind a tukul. McDonald sat down on the bench to laugh. Lyttleton leaned against the catfish stand and waved his hand at the grinning Shilluks. "Your constituents, my dear Colonel; you're elected, by an overwhelming majority."
"Make it unanimous," added McDonald, pinning a badge on Lyttleton and one upon himself.
While the Colonel stood staring at the tukul behind which Old Reliable had vanished, McDonald called a Shilluk's attention to the face of the portrait, and pointed to Colonel Spottiswoode himself. A great light burst upon those negroes. Every negro examined his own badge, then scanned the White Effendi's face. It was HE, verily it was HE. They stood in The Presence.
Like a scared rabbit Zack peeped out from his hiding place, to watch the bunch of negroes crowding round the Colonel, in every attitude of supplication. The Colonel wheeled from one to another, while his face grew purpler.
"Dar now!" said Zack to himself; "Cunnel sho is gwine Democratic agin'. Lemme 'rive away from dis neighborhood."
But the Colonel didn't go Democratic. He broke into a laugh, and dropped on the bench. "Oh, let up, Mac! This joke's on me. Get word to these niggers that I'll send down soda-water for the crowd. I'm going to treat my enthusiastic constituents; this is my first and only chance."
CHAPTER XXXII
HOMESICKNESS
SEVERAL weeks dragged by, as weeks must drag when one lies in jail listening for the key of liberation. Old Reliable got powerful sick of Afriky Landin', and paid attention to nothing, except when the Colonel talked of finishing his work and going home. That's when Zack heartened up and took notice. Said rarely sat up at all, and never took heed. Heed was for the Great Ones, Said himself being chastened and dispirited. Business at the catfish stand proceeded listlessly—as things go on in Africa—yesterday, to-day, and to-morrow merging in its tepid monotone.
A level sun at morning sent the shadow of the Hot Cat Eating House wriggling across the Nile; Said squatted on the ground, patiently mending his nets, while Old Reliable, bent over him: "Side, us is startin' fer home to-morrer; an* you gits de eatin' house business—sho' nuff, no foolin' dis time."
"May Allah grant thee good reward." Said uttered the words perfunctorily, squinted upwards, and a momentary triumph lighted his avaricious eyes. Then they darkened distrustfully and hardened into their now habitual scowl. Hope deferred had soured on the Dongalawi's soul. Every day his Black Effendi had promised, "I'm gwine to quit dis business an' give it to you. Tain't no sense in pilin' up money continual, an' pilin' it up." Every day Said had dreamed his elusive dream of riches, until he no longer believed. Then Said made a plan of his own, simple and effective, to be carried out with a certain broad-bladed Shilluk spear which he had secreted in the grass. Said would plunge that spear into the Black Effendi's back while he strolled by night, as was his custom, among the Shilluk huts. Oh, the hate that Said could put behind a spear thrust! Said would take from the Effendi's pockets that treasure in gold which jingled there, and taunted him to madness. These despised Ingleezi, with brains of sheep, would say that the Black Effendi was killed about a woman. So they had said when they found the Egyptian surgeon, slain at Hillet Debaa. Had not Said heard these same Ingleezi laugh as they warned the Black Effendi of trouble which would surely come, if he ceased not wandering where Shilluk women were? Other strangers had perished thus, and no man ever knew. Then Said, the true believer, would tread the paths of ease, and become a Great One in his village. "Bism'illah!" muttered the pious Dongalawi, and spat upon the ground.
Meanwhile Zack felt so jubilant over the prospect of getting back to Vicksburg, that he didn't bother his head about the grumbling of a skinny-legged brown man in a chop-tailed nightshirt. "Huh! Side, you got a grouch," so Zack betook himself to lighter-hearted company.
A hundred yards up the river bank Colonel Spottiswoode and the two British officers observed the loading of a barge which was to transport the Americans with their baggage as far as Khartum. Zack rambled in that direction to help the white folks stand around and do nothing.
Four shanky Shilluks wrestled awkwardly with a bale of cotton, which would not roll straight down the bank, nor across the stage plank of the barge. Zack eyed them with top-loftical disgust and proceeded to give orders, "Here, you sloo-foot nigger! Cut yo' end 'roun'. Grab holt! Dar now!" The bale flopped over, jerked a naked black into the river, and went splashing in behind him. Twenty Shilluks swarmed after it and brought out the cotton.
"We can't afford to lose that bale," laughed McDonald; "that is bale number one of the Wadi Okar crop."
"No, siree," added Colonel Spottiswoode; "that cotton is worth thirty-two cents in Alexandria, and I figure it cost us about thirty-two dollars a pound to produce."
"Doesn't matter, sir, doesn't matter—it can be produced. That's all we desire to know."
Lyttleton, the experienced Dervish fighter, had noticed something else and he smiled grimly, "Did you observe how briskly those Shilluks moved? They have just learned how their king punished the native who tried to burn our gin."
"What was that?"
"I thought McDonald had told you. Within ten minutes after our escort carried him before the king, he was a dead Shilluk. Old Quat Kare wants to keep the presents that he gets out of this job. Poor devil! We ought to have dealt with him ourselves."
"Well," remarked the Colonel; "if that gin had burned, I should have gone home on this boat."
Old Reliable poked his startled face around the Colonel's elbow: "What dat you say, Cunnel? Ain't us gwine home on dis boat?"
"No. We must stay until the next lot of cotton can be ginned up. I brought the seed from home, and I want to see how it turns out."
"How long is dat gwine to take, Cunnel?" Zack's tongue felt dry.
"Not more than a week; but it throws us over until the next boat."
"When do de next boat pull out?"
"Two or three weeks."
"Nearer two or three months, perhaps," Lyttleton suggested cheeringly.
Old Reliable's white eyes rolled beseechingly from one man to the other. "White folks, y'all ain't prankin' wid me, is you?" But he saw no banter about the Colonel's gloomy face.
"Den us won't gwine git home for Christmas?"
Colonel Spottiswoode gazed down the river, Khartum way; the homesickness that was in his heart softened his eyes and twitched at his lips. "No, Zack," he answered, "we can't get home for Christmas."
Zack withered, and collapsed like a circus tent when the center pole comes down. Then he burst out petulantly, "I wisht dat feller what seen de gin house ketch fire—I wisht he had a been at home sick in bed, 'stead o' ramblin' roun'. Dat's all I wishes."
Lyttleton and McDonald glanced at each other, but the Colonel whispered:
"Don't pay any attention to Zack; he's just like a disappointed child."
And the old negro did look like a disappointed child as he drifted away, all by himself, away from everybody, crossed the stage plank and climbed to the upper deck of the barge. There he leaned limply against a post, with eyes fixed upon the far southern stretches of the Nile, while his lips moved. "I got to git Cunnel away from here. Ef dis boat goes down dat river widout me, I'll jes' nacherly curl up an' die. Cunnel's a heap mo' lonesomer dan what I is, an' taint gwine to take much to git him started."
Along the river's edge Zack saw a spattered creature toiling up the bank. It was Said, bending beneath his heavy morning catch. Fish possessed an irresistible attraction for Zack. He left the white men to their argument about Egyptian staples, and trudged morosely towards the catfish stand. From a distance nobody would have recognized the humble Said, who had come cringing and wheedling to Wadi Okar, for the Dongalawi now moved with a springy step and air of jubilation. The Black Effendi was really going to-morrow, and the riches of the catfish stand would all be his. It was befitting an independent merchant like Said to hold his head erect, and look with eyes of scorn upon meaner beings. Only one more day, and the piasters which now poured into the Black Effendi's pocket would fall like ripe dates into Said's own hands. At thought of which Said's eyes sparkled when he laid out his fish, and began preparing them for the pan. Yet, even then, Said felt a twinge of dread as Old Reliable approached with hanging head and sluggish step. Zack scarcely ooked at the fish before he blurted out: "Side, us ain't gwine away."
Said dropped his knife, dropped his fish, and dropped his jaw—"Effendi goes not?"
"No, us gwine to stay"—in a tone of forever and forever, which shattered the dreams that Said had dreamed, and the castles that Said had builded. For one stupid staring instant the Dongalawi squatted perfectly still; then he sprang to his feet, uplifted his arms, beat his breast, and called down imprecations of Allah upon the calamity which had befallen. Then Said remembered, and went back to cleaning his fish, with the sodden submission of Egypt's fellaheen.
Zack dropped doggedly upon one end of the bench and expanded his wrath, "Side, ef I could jes cuss as scanalous as what you kin, it sho would do me a heap o' good. Cause ef dat gin house had burnt up you couldn't ha' seed me an' Cunnel fer de dus', a flyin' down dat river. But dar's de gin house, an' us got to stay here ontil some ma' cotton gits ginned."
The scales flew from Said's fish, like shavings in a planer mill, until his master rose and stalked towards the quarters. Then Said leered after him with the murderous eye of hate at one who barred his way to riches.
During the early afternoon Zack appeared on the porch and shouted, "Whar he? Side!" There upon the Dongalawi followed his master and the three white men to inspect their experimental cotton farm. As befitted the honor of his position, Zack rode a gray donkey, like the Ingleezi. It was only Said who pattered along on foot, for Said was a messenger. In the hopes of hearing better cheer, old Zack stuck mighty close to the Colonel, while the Dongalawi kept his eyes upon the ground; yet Said listened and saw.
The American planter had brought five varieties of cotton seed to Wadi Okar. At intervals of two weeks he planted one experimental acre of each, keeping a detailed record of the dates, method of cultivation, amount of rainfall, development of stalk and fiber, and its ultimate yield. By this means it was hoped to ascertain the most favorable season to plant both American and Egyptian varieties, and to determine which gave the better results.
"There, gentlemen!" With a sweep of his arm the Colonel indicated sixty scattered acres. "There, gentlemen, is a glorious sight, something that the eye of no Mississippi cotton planter has ever rested on. Here is one field already picked, its cotton ginned and baled; in that field is a squad of men still picking; here they are laying by the crop; yonder is a gang of hoe hands, chopping out weeds from the young plants. Over there, the plowmen are breaking ground for new seed. Nobody ever saw all that work going on at once. It's a wonderful country. I have more than half a notion to stay another year."
"Lawd Gawd, Cunnel!" Zack let out a yelp of protest and terror.
"What's the matter, Zack?" The Colonel laughed merrily as a boy, for the planting spirit was strong upon him.
Neither of the Britishers gave way to hilarities; cotton pioneering in the Sudan was not a joke. Mr. Bim looked especially solemn; and said, "Your cotton has grown marvelously, Colonel. But the labor? Zack, do you think these laborers are satisfied?"
"Naw suh, Mister Bim. Tain't nary nigger on dis place would show up to-morrer mornin' ef dat ole king feller didn't make 'em not—nary one."
"I'm afraid that's true," McDonald assented; "and the king knows it. Next year he'll demand more than it would cost us to hire skilled labor, say from America."
This was McDonald's favorite mirage, the colonization of American negroes in the Sudan. "Zack, could you get four hundred of your friends to come over here?"
"Dey ain't comin', Mister Bim; an' ef us fotch 'em, dey wouldn't stay. An' ef dey stayed, dey wouldn't be no count."
"But, with these trifling exceptions American negroes might prove a success, eh, Zack?" the Colonel laughed, then hushed, for McDonald seemed in deadly earnest.
"We would pay them very high wages," Mr. Bim suggested, but Zack persisted in shaking his head.
"Wage don't make no diffunce, Mister Bim, not ef de nigger can't spend his money."
"Think how much he would have to take home next year."
"Huh! Mister Bim, you ain't cotch on to nigger ways. Nigger don't aim to take none home. He ain't studyin' 'bout next week, let alone next year!"
"Why wouldn't they come? And why wouldn't they remain?" McDonald asked, for he embraced much of this data in his monthly report to the Honorable Directors.
Three white men on donkeys gathered around Zack's donkey, and everybody listened, including Said, as the expert on black psychology explained, "You see, Mister Bim, it's jes' like dis: yonder's a bunch o' niggers pickin' cotton; yonder is a bunch o' niggers plantin' cotton, and some mo' niggers choppin' cotton—all at de same time. Dis work comes too stiddy an' reg'lar. Back home"—he nodded indefinitely down the great river—"back home a nigger breaks up his lan' den he rests a while. He puts in de seed an' rests some mo'; when he chops out de young cotton, he kin set down in de shade an' watch it fer de longes'. Den he lays by de crop, an' rests a whole lot; dat ends it until pickin' time comes; an' at pickin' time de boss hires a passel o' town niggers to he'p him. Dem niggers back home wouldn't like dis—I been here gwine on six months, an' ain't never seed nary Saddy, nor yit nary Sunday. What time is a nigger got to go to town? And d'aint no town fer him to go to."
McDonald paid strict attention to every word. "Then you are of the opinion that the employment of labor imported from America would not be feasible?"
"I dunno what you signify by all dat, Mister Bim, but dem niggers ain't comin'. Dey couldn't act like dey does at home; an' 'twouldn't be long befo' dey'd be runnin' naked in de woods, same ez dese niggers does."
Both the eager Britishers turned to Colonel Spottiswoode, who got redder and redder in the face, until he broke out laughing.
"My dear Colonel Spottiswoode, what do you think?"
"I reckon Zack's got the situation sized up about right," which endorsement started Zack's tongue again.
"Mister Bim, I wouldn't stay here—not fer all of Africky Landin'. I been making plenty money, but money don't buy me nothin'." Zack blundered on in his desperate donkey-back argument. "An' Cunnel wouldn't stay here neither; he's settin' on dat donkey right now studyin' 'bout his reg'lar Christmas bear hunt, when all de gen'lemen has a good time, an' all de niggers has a good time. I don't wish nobody no harm, but I wouldn't cry none ef dat gin house had 'a' burnt up."
The smile vanished from the Colonel's face, for Zack had flicked him on the raw by suggesting the Christmas bear hunt, which he would miss. But the white man felt his responsibility. "Well, Zack," he said, "the gin is here, and so are we. Go along now and fry your fish; it's nearly time for the men to knock off."
Beckoning for Said to follow, old Zack batted his donkey over the head, and trotted towards the Hot Cat Eating House.
"Your negro seems to be in a grubby bad humor," commented Lyttleton.
"Yes," responded the Colonel, "he's a child, and wants to go home."
In silence they reached the catfish shack, and in silence the Dongalawi knelt down to blow his fire. Zack never spoke a word until after he had scorched the first pan of fish; then he tore off his apron, and exploded:
"Side, I ain't studyin' 'bout cookin' no fish. I'm studyin' 'bout gittin' back to Vicksburg."
The Black Effendi strode outside their shack to sit cross-legged on the bench in front. Presently he took out twenty sovereigns of unspent gold:
"Side, I would drap dese right down on de groun' an' walk off from 'em, ef dat ole gin house was to burn up, so I could go home. Here, nigger, you stay here an' sell dese fish. Yas suh, yas suh. I sho' would give a hundred dollars to anybody what burnt dat gin."
"Saadat! Excellency! You say" The Dongalawi dropped upon his knees in the sand and groveled towards the Black Effendi. "Excellency, you say"
But Zack paid him no mind; he merely dug both hands in his pockets and jingled the gold as he hurried away from the Hot Cat Eating House. And Said the Dongalawi remained upon his knees, staring after the Black Effendi.
CHAPTER XXXIII
CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCE
AFTER all excitement of the gin-house fire had quieted down, neither Lyttleton nor McDonald could remember anything unusual in Zack's movements during the early hours of the night. They agreed in recalling that after dinner Zack had put on his blue slouch hat, and sat upon the top step, while they were talking with Colonel Spottiswoode on the porch. Some evenings he sat there nodding until the white men went to bed; sometimes he got up and drifted aimlessly away. The British officers tried in vain to recollect what Zack had done on that particular night.
Thirty years of Sudan campaigning had made Lyttleton a light sleeper. It was he who, in the dead still hours, first heard the alarming cry of "Nar! Nar!"—Fire—from an Arab watchman on the barge. Lyttleton had raised on his cot, then broke through the mosquito bar, just as McDonald bounded out of bed. At that moment both of them heard Zack's voice in the next room, saying: "Git up, Cunnel! Git up! Ev'ything's afire!"
"The gin! The gin!" Lyttleton shouted back as he ran. Colonel Spottiswoode and McDonald immediately followed Lyttleton across the open space, toward the unpainted corrugated iron building. McDonald had gained Lyttleton' s side while Zack and the Colonel ran behind.
"Harak! Harak!" shrieked the Arab watchman to Mahomet Mansour. Not understanding Arabic, Colonel Spottiswoode did not know why both the Britishers turned and looked accusingly at Zack, for "Harak" in Arabic means "he burned," and that's what the watchman was saying. Zack darted ahead, puffing, excited and shouting, "Gin's done gone. Whole inside's in a light blaze."
Swarms of Shilluks came tumbling from their tukuls, jabbering and screaming. Some of them trembled at what their king might do, others exulted when the whites were not looking.
The gin being isolated, there was no danger to other buildings. "We can put it out," panted the Colonel, and men were sent running to the river. Zack grabbed the first bucket—"Here, Side, take dis bucket an' run—run!" Whilst returning with his water, Said fell and spilled it.
Yet they formed a bucket line and worked like mad, putting out the fire which had gained little headway before being discovered.
"Well," remarked the Colonel, wiping the sweat and ashes from his face, "that's the only gin-house I ever knew to be saved."
"But our machinery is ruined." And Lyttleton Bey swore in every language that he knew.
"Oh, no. She'll be running in a week," the Colonel insisted.
"Not a chance," said McDonald. "We'll have to order new parts from Alexandria. That'll take three months, or three years—Egypt is so damnably slow."
"Den us kin go home, can't us, Cunnel?" Zack's quivering voice put in.
Not trusting himself close enough to hear an answer from the American Effendi, Said noted the suspicious glances which passed between those two Ingleezi. Lyttleton Bey started to speak out at once, then changed his mind and inquired:
"How do you suppose it caught?"
He and McDonald asked their question together, and addressed it to the Colonel, yet both the Britishers looked at Zack for a reply.
"Can't imagine. There was no fire about the place. Zack, you were near the gin last night?"
"Yas suh, Cunnel," the negro admitted with surprising promptitude. "Yas suh. I come over to dis gin 'bout bed time, an' 'twarn't a spark nowhar. It's mighty curyous to git afire jes' whilst I was sayin' I wisht it would burn. Ain't dat like a nigger, to be shootin' off his mouf' 'bout sumpin' what warn't none o' his business?"
And yet Colonel Spottiswoode suspected nothing, even when Lyttleton and McDonald noddingly agreed that it was a sinister coincidence. With apparent innocence old Zack rambled on: "Dese Afriky niggers don't smoke cigarettes, an' tain't no matches in de seed cotton what'll ketch fire when it runs through de gin stan'. Dat's de onlies' way I ever heard of a gin house burnin' 'cept when somebody sot 'em afire like dat nigger—dat's it. Dat's it. He's de ve'y nigger what done it."
"No, he didn't, he's dead," McDonald spoke savagely.
"Well, maybe some o' his kinfolks sot it afire, to git even 'bout him bein' kilt."
The Colonel had heard of many such instances at home, so he asked quickly, "Major Lyttleton, what do you think of that?"
"It was not a Shilluk. They won't try it again."
"Why did they try it the first time?"
"Superstition. To them this gin represents a great devil of hunger, which their king compels them to feed. A Shilluk tries to kill this devil by fire. Fire can't harm him. Shilluk never try it again. That's the whole story."
The gin had been removed from Zack's path, and by next morning he had quit studying about it. In his home-going khaki suit he strode like a grenadier sentinel guarding the Hot Cat.
"We's gwine home, Side; we's gwine home," he exulted.
Having already loaded the Colonel's heavy luggage on the barge, Zack was now watching for the gunboat Nasir, and expounding vivacious wisdom to Said. "Tain't no use talking Side, luck can't run agin' you all de time. It's boun' to turn." Zack haw-hawed aggressively, waved his farewell to the buildings and fields of Wadi Okar, then erupted in a tumult of song.
"By-by, my honey, I'm stuck on yo' money.
By-by, my honey, I'm gone."
During this merriment Said mended his nets with nervous fingers, until Zack plumped himself down on the bench and began whistling in full-throated delight. For a moment Said's cunning eye searched the river bank, and scanned the quarters, then, creeping closer, he crouched at the Black Effendi's knee. "Excellency, Illustrious One," he whispered, scooping a hole in the sand which he covered with a sweep of his palm, then scooped out again as Zack's melodious soul went floating up to heaven in one long rag-time jubilate.
"My wife's high-minded,
She's double-jinted"
"Excellency! Saadat!" Said touched him ever so gently on the knee, and pointed to that hole in the sand, "Saadat may put money—down there—and walk off." Zack glanced down uncomprehendingly at the hole, while he kept patting his foot and singing:
"I can't control her;
"Scan'lize ma name."
"Excellency! Saadat! put money there—walk off."
"Huh?"
"Money—there," again the Dongalawi pointed.
"Side, you knows 'tain't no money comin' to you. Cunnel done paid yo' wages."
"Not wages." Said moved closer, confidentially; "for that—last night."
"Huh!"
"Saadat agree put twenty gold pieces on ground and walk off if Said up-burn gin factory. Said do."
"Side do which? Come clean wid me, nigger."
"Said up-burn gin factory. So excellency go home. Put money there—walk off."
"You done specify dat fo' er five times. What you talkin' 'bout? Who sot fire to dat gin?"
Said nodded virtuously and turned both index fingers to his own breast—"I, Said Wad Darho."
smiling the blandest of smiles, with sharp white teeth like the teeth of a hound.
"You? You? You sot fire to Cunnel's gin?"
"Aiwah! Illustrious Effendi agree pay twenty piece gold. Put there."
"Side, you's a stark naked plum fool; I never 'spected you to sot fire to dat gin, sho' nuff. Can't you tell when I'm talkin' jes' to hear my tongue rattle?"
CHAPTER XXXIV
ACCOMPLICES
OLD RELIABLE continued to stare upon the Dongalawi, who kept smiling at the success of his gin-burning. "Put money—there."
"I ain't gwine to put money nowhar. I'm gwine right straight and tell de white folks."
Zack rose up, shook himself free from the clinging Said, and started directly for headquarters. The bewildered Arab sat flat upon the earth, his Egyptian imagination failing to conceive of such treachery. Like a rubber man Said bounded to his feet; he could no nothing, his Shilluk spear was too far away; so was the jungle. Two long swift leaps and Said clutched Old Reliable's coat tails, dragging him back within the shanty. The Dongalawi's voice would have been a shrill scream, but it came so low and tense as to reach no farther than the ear of one man: "You tell? No, no. By the justice of Allah. Let not Shaitan move thee to this abomination! Said Wad Darho is no fool."
"You is a fool ef you 'specs me to give you a hundred dollars"—Zack stopped short when the Arab stood before him man to man, desperately upright, no longer a cringing slave, and there was a menace in the sheen of Said Wad Darho's eyes which compelled Zack to listen. Placing his lips close to the other's ear, Said whispered maliciously, "Effendi lose his hat which he wear by night."
"Dat's so. I dunno what is come o' dat little ole blue hat."
"One friend of Said Wad Darho find Effendi's hat beside gin factory. Friend of Said be kind to conceal Effendi's hat. If friend of Said be angry, he go tell El Bimb McDonald."
Zack gasped. Previously he might have been talking to hear his tongue rattle; now he could keep quiet and hear his teeth rattle. "What you mean, Side? I never lef no hat at no gin. I warn't nowhar's nigh dat gin when it cotch fire."
Craftily Said spread his palms apart and smiled, "Allah he knows." Then Said talked, talked rapidly with a low shrill-and-hiss of the excited, yet cautious, Arab. "El Bimb McDonald remember Effendi say gin factory must burn. El Bimb and Engleezi Lyttleton talk much angry each with other, say Black Effendi set fire to gin. They tell it not, because Excellency Spotwood he sorry. Excellency Spotwood much Great One."
It took very little of this talk to limber the stiffening out of Old Reliable's backbone until his dictatorial voice became conciliatory. "Side, you an' me is been good friends. You ain't gwine to rig up no sech tale on me as dat?"
Victory lay so deep in the Dongalawi's eyes that no ripple of its elation disturbed their surface. Gently he led the wilted Effendi back to his seat upon the bench. Again Said crouched at the other's feet, and again Said scooped a hole in the sand. "Excellency, put money—there—walk off."
"Side, you done out-talked me 'bout dis here money."
So Zack performed at the crack of the whip, dropped his sovereigns in the hole and walked.
"May Allah accept your doings. You have placed Said's heart at peace." Saying which the Dongalawi hid the gold within his girdle.
When Zack had shuffled as far as the last palm tree, he wheeled and fired back a retort, "You needn't ack so biggety. I wouldn't give you nary cent 'thout I wanted to. Money ain't nothin' to me. I spends a heap more'n dat, ev'y day o' de worl', on ginger snaps and sardines."
As Said made no answer Zack ventured to return a part of the way, yet still maintaining a prudent distance: "I ain't gwine to leave you here neither; you's entirely too handy wid fire. Fust thing I know you'll burn sumpin' fer somebody what's mean enough to tell."
For answer Said nodded amiably, as the mastiff wags his tail when the poodle barks.
"Now lissen to me, Side. You march yo'self right straight to dat friend o' your'n an' git my hat. De Cunnel gimme dat hat."
With fathomless gravity Said produced a tightly rolled wad from underneath his jibba, and passed it to the Illustrious Effendi, who received his creased and wrinkled hat. Zack took his seat, unfolded the hat, smoothed it out upon his knee, and pondered deeply before committing himself to the remark: "Side, you sho' is one big liar!"
Once more the Dongalawi outspread his palms and smiled inscrutably: "Allah hath given me understanding. It is not wise for the lame to travel without a crutch"—upon which pearl of wisdom the Illustrious Effendi meditated in extenso. Serenely Said regarded his master until Zack sprang up with sudden violence. Taken utterly by surprise, the Dongalawi bolted into the river, but stopped knee-deep, when Old Zack just as suddenly stopped and began to shout, "Cunnel, oh, Cunnel! Steamboat's a comin'. She's a comin'; she's a comin'."
CHAPTER XXXV
RESTITUTION
ALL that afternoon Zack plied happily back and forth between the quarters to the gun-boat, making things tidy in the Colonel's cabin, while Said never budged from the catfish stand, assuming an air of proprietorship which made Zack stop and snort. "I sho' is got to bus' one mo' egg in dat nigger. Ef I jes' takes de notion, I'll beat him up so his godmudder wouldn't know him. Wonder what's de wust I kin do to him."
Sunshine itself glowed no warmer than the Old Reliable smile as he approached the catfish stand. The Dongalawi was polishing his pans to a nicety when Zack's shadow fell across his work: "Side, why'nt you come on an' load dat baggage?" Said Wad Darho glanced up, without cessation of industry; "I must keep my bazaar."
This complacent reply came pretty near jolting Old Reliable out of his determination to be agreeable: "You ain't got no catfish stan', not yit."
Said smiled: "Effendi must go, who shall stay? It is I, Said Wad Darho, who will stay. The thrifty shop-keeper arose, gazed contentedly around him, and stood with folded arms.
"Dat kind o' talk don't tree no coon. Fudl, he gwine to stay too, but dat don't make it his'n. You can't go lopin' down de big road an' take up wid de fust catfish stan' you comes acrost. Dat ain't de law."
Now Said in his village had heard somewhat of this mysterious and malignant thing they called "the law." He had witnessed many wailings concerning it, corvee, conscription, and the cutting off of hands. The mere suggestion of law disquieted him.
"It is mine," Said spoke with wavering stubbornness.
Zack pulled out an impressive looking document, abstracted from Mr. Bim's waste basket, "How come it your'n? Whar's yo' paper for it? Maybe I got Fudl's name writ on dis paper."
The Dongalawi's legs crumpled up and tangled together like snapped fiddle strings. He sank to his knee and caught the hem of Zack's coat, "But the Illustrious Effendi promised—Excellency."
"I ain't gwine to give nothin' to Fudl. I'm gwine to put yo' name on dis paper—pervided you 'tends to yo' job."
The conquered Said reached out both his claws, but Zack deliberately stuck the paper into his pocket and ordered, "Come along wid me."
Once more as master and servant Old Reliable led his obedient Dongalawi to the squatty brick quarters where three bare-legged Arabs held three donkeys in front. Three white men conferred together within, and three sun-helmets rested upon their table, when Zack passed through the dining-room with Said slinking at his heels. Zack would have preferred to close the intervening door, but a lingering fear of Said constrained him to leave it ajar. Said glanced nervously at the shut-in room and the life oozed out of him, even before the Black Effendi showed his hand with a peremptory, "Nigger, you lied me out o' dat money, an' got to give it back. I'm gwine to holler fer Cunnel, an' say somebody is robbed me, an' I wants you searched. Dey knows you couldn't git all dat gole money, 'thout stealin' it, and dey won't never let you out o' jail."
Like a trapped hyena Said sprang to the outer door—it was locked, and the key gone. There he turned at bay and showed his white fangs, while Zack nodded wisely—"Dat's all I wants to know—you got dat money wid you. Give it here."
At the sound of Zack's lifted voice Colonel Spottiswoode called from the next room, "Zack, do you need more help?"
Before Zack could answer, Said thrust a dirty rag into his hand, and Zack maneuvered nearer the dining-room door—nearer the white folks—counting the recovered old pieces as he dropped them one by one into his pocket.
"Dat's de way to do business. Now git a move on you, Side, an' tote Cunnel's boxes to de steam boat. No, suh, Cunnel, us don't need no help."
The gunboat Nasir turned her prow to the North. Colonel Beverly Spottiswoode and Zack Foster Effendi, with radiant faces, stood on the forward deck, their helmets lifted in courteous farewell. Every voice on bank shouted a separate good-by—all save one, a lean and lone and silent Dongalawi who stood apart with folded arms in front of the Hot Cat Eating House.
"Why, Zack, yonder is Said. Isn't he going with us?"
"Naw suh, I done fired Said. Dat nigger kep' me so pestered I give him de catfish stan' to make him stay here."
"That's not your property; it belongs to the company."
"Yas suh, I jes' 'lowed I'd leave dat 'twixt Side an' Mister Bim."
The sun shone, the palms waved, the river bore them onward to Khartum. Pleasant were the days of sea and sky, and merry the rattle of rushing wheels, until Zack heard the A. V. Railroad porter call, "Vicksburg! All out for Vicksburg!"
Then pleasanter than all was their Christmas bear hunt, the roaring fire at night with the gentlemen sitting around it—gentlemen who laughed whenever Old Reliable told of Said Wad Darho, the shirt-tailed Dongalawi, whom he had left behind him at the Hot Cat Eating House in Africa.
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