Part 61 (2/2)
”Too good to hope for!”
”If he thinks we're dead--?”
”And if he believes in that map--”
”He'll not need the map He'll have meon district All the old pencil marks have been rubbed out as he searched the other likely places and drew them all blank”
”He'll travel without military escort?”
”Sure! He won't itnesses! He'll make believe it's a scientific trip Rey That's how he puts it all over the British and goes where he pleases without as much as by-your-leave”
”Say, fellows! It's a moral cinch that e broke away from Muanza he made up his mind in a flash to return to British East and destroy us on the way He thinks he made a clean job of that I'll bet he loaded the launch doith stuff for a long safari, and thinks now he has a clear run and can take his tiame's ours!”
Coutlass saw the point at last and offered hiiveness and friendshi+p
”Make entlemen, and if he travels within a hundred schen's tent in the night and slit his throat! I would ry!”
”Your job has been assigned you!” answered Fred ”When Mr Brown's cattle are back in Lu else to do!”
Nevertheless, Coutlass had outlined in a flash the li even Schillingschen, but must help ourselves to his outfit as our only chance of re-outfitting without betraying our presence in British East But the plan was not without rat-holes in it that a fool could see
”Schillingschen's boys will escape and run to the nearest British official with the story!”
”And the British official will be so full of the i his beastly carcass--to say nothing of the everlasting disgrace of letting hihed on British territory--and the official reprimand from hoate!”
”We'll have to provide against that,” said Fred, and we all laughed, including Coutlass Talk of provisions is easy when you have no means out of which to provide It did not occur to include Coutlass in the calculations, or to dis any reh to all of us that no such plan could hope to succeed with the Greek at large, at liberty to spoil it We sae should have to keep hiet,” said Coutlass, ic points of desperate situations, ”that Schillingschen will have his own boys with him from German East”
”I didn't see any with him on the launch,” I objected
”He would never have come without them” Coutlass insisted ”He made them lie below the water-line out of reach of bullets at the only tiht have seen them! He wouldn't trust himself to British porters My word, no! That devil knows natives! He knows soovernment spies! He'll have his own boys,--if they can't carry all his loads he'll buy donkeys at Muht at that place, brought down from Turkana by the Arab ivory traders Do donkeys talk?”
At any rate, we talked, and es Coutlass in the conversation It was his suggestion that we should send natives to look out for Schillingschen, and Fred's aers to one, and that one Kaziht decide to desert, once out of sight, and we could scarcely have bla roses in our coainst going alone on that errand, as, for instance, that the chigger fleas would invade our toe-nails disastrously without his cunning fingers to hunt theain He also prophesied that without him to interpret there would swiftly be trouble between us and the chief; butthe other side of that medal and rather looked forward to an interval when the chief should not be able to talk to us at all
At last, on the second e, Kazi in a cloth and went his way, prophesying darkly ofbehind rocks and trees, as unwishful to be alone as a terrier without a master, but much too faithful to refuse duty
The chief saw a side of the uessed existed He ca shadow, satisfied that noe could not disestures Curiosity was the i motive, but he was not without suspicion Fred said he reers had not paid their board and roo the rifle, and one cartridge that Fred doled out grudgingly, and after a long day's stalking ae of the lake five miles away, at imminent risk of crocodiles and an even worse horror we had not yet suspected, shooting a hippopotae, chief included, went to cut up and carry off the ht, the chiefs wives brewing beer froed Coutlass and Brown got more drunk than any one
Will cas like horse-flies, that crossed their wings in repose, rese in all other respects the common tetse fly He said the reeds by the lake-side were full of the sickness, and suspicion of conveying it said to rest on a tetse fly that crossed its wings, I went out the following day and walked ers I could find They ca, I suppose, that I intended to follow Will's exah, as I did not take the rifle with )
At the bank of the fifth streao another yard Thinking they were e, I took a stick to drive theed in terror and ran back home as if the devil had been after them