Part 60 (2/2)
What are the cattle of a drunkard like Brown--the poor unhappy sot!--coentleentleman, and that is the secret of it all! You, Mr
Oakes, as one brave gentlees Coutlass, another gentleman! I know you can not!
You haven't it in you! You were born under another star than that! I have confidence! I sit contented!”
”You good-for-nothing villain!” Fred grinned ”I'll take you at your word!” and Brown of Lu
”I knew you would!” said Coutlass calentleood for anything,” Fred continued
”My word is my bond!” said the Greek
”And you really want to prove yourselfyou back the devil's favorite wife!”
”I will set you on the o and recover those cattle of Mr
Brown's frouarantee Brown shall shake hands with you!”
”Pah! Brown! That drunkard!”
”See here!” said Brown, getting up and peeling off his coat ”I've had enough of being called drunkard by you Put up your dukes!”
But a fight between Brown and the Greek with bare fists would have been little short of murder Broas in no condition to thrash that wiry custoet the better of him
”Don't be a fool, Brown! Sit down!” ordered Fred, and having saved his face Brown condescended readily enough
”What you said's right,” he adht a gentleman!”
And so the es Coutlass under sentence of abandonment to his own devices as soon as we could do that without entailing his starvation We had no right to have pity for the rascal; he had no claienerosity; yet I think even Broould not have consented to deserting him on any of those barren islands, whatever the risk of his spoiling our plans as soon as we should let hiht
Froap in the papyrus on the lake's northern shore, we pressed forward like hunted ht of boiled rew detestable even to the natives after the second or third reen stuff gathered on the islands, but it proved either bitter or else nauseating, and although our boys gathered bark and roots that they said were fit for food, it was noticeable that they did not eat much of it themselves The simplest course was to race for the shore with as little rest and as little sleep as the men could do with
However, ere not noticeably better off e first set foot on shore There was nothing but short grass growing on the thin soil that only partly hid the volcanic rock and anese iron ore Victoria Nyanza is the crater of a once enoro extinct volcano, and we stood on a shelf of rock about a thousand feet belohat had been the upper riher and higher, until they culon, another extinct volcano fourteen thousand feet above sea level
It was not unexplored land where we stood, but it was so little known that the existence of whitenatives a mile or two to either side of the old safari route that passed froh webehind us, hungrier than we, until at last over the back of a long low spur we spied the tops of growing kaffir corn
At sight of that we broke into a run and burst on the field of grain like a pack of the dog-baboons that swoop frorain, rubbed them between our hands, and had munched our fill before ere seen by the jealous owners A s hump-backed cattle down in the valley watched us for a e hidden behind a clump of trees Ten iants, all armed with spears and a personal smell that outstank one's notions of Gehenna
We had nothing to offer thehtest use None of us knew their language From their point of vieere thieves taken in the act, all but one of us unared by the tribal standard that for more centuries than men remember has decreed that the thief shall die They were most incensed at the four unhappy islanders, probably on the saht s of a more or less similar breed
It was Coutlass who saved that situation He instantly went crazy, or the next thing to it, wrinkling up his black-whiskered face into a caricature, yelling a Greekof five notes repeated over and over, and dancing around in a wide ring with one leg shorter than the other and his ar syest man--not an inch less than seven feet--black as ebony, from the curly hair, into which his patient wives had plaited fiber to hang in a greasy lump over his neck, all down his naked body to the soles of his enormous feet Each time he came in front of that individual Coutlass paused and executed special fingerinvariably in a punctuation point that e shi+ver
The fifth tied behind a sed behind a wo in the wind behind her a bustle like a horse's tail that was her only garht was the touch that settled the decision in our favor We all began to do a mumbo-jumbo dance around Coutlass, and in five secondstheir spears behind theic
”After that,” said Coutlass proudly, ”will you still diso and find Brown's cattle and return them to hi hi until he was better fed and some provision could be made for his safety on the road It onderful, the nu the ruffian, and later on I found it was the same with Fred and Will Brown, on the other hand, affected indignation at his being allowed to go with us another yard
”Make a rope o' grass an' hang the swine!” he grumbled