LITMIR.BIZ

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than the usual passenger. Following them was another boat containing a motley assortment of Arabs and part-Arabs, who might, or might not be associated with them.

      On the beach still, surrounded yet by a swarm of longshoremen who yelled and fought, Lady Isobel Saffren Waldon and her Syrian maid stood at bay. Her two Swahili men-servants were overwhelmed and already being carried to a boat. Her luggage was being borne helter-skelter after them, and another boat waited for her just beyond the belt of surf, the rowers standing up to yell encouragement at the sweating pack that dared not close in on its victims. Lady Isobel Saffren Waldon appeared to have no other weapon than a parasol, but she had plainly the upper hand.

      "She has a way with her with natives," said the senior officer present.

      "It's a pity," said Monty. "I mean, one scarcely likes to use this wharf and watch that."

      "Quite so. Yet we daren't accord her official recognition. She'd be certain to make capital out of it. We're awfully glad she's going. The Residency atmosphere is one huge sigh of relief. We would like to speed the parting guest, but it mayn't be done. However, you'll know there are others not so particular. I imagine her friends are late for the appointment."

      "Where's she going?" asked Monty.

      "British East Africa."

      "Mombasa?"

      "And then on. She has drafts on a German merchant in Nairobi."

      From that moment until we were safely in our quarters on the steamer Monty's attitude became one of rigid indifference toward her or anything to do with her. The British officers went out to the steamer with us, but all the way Monty only talked of the climate, trade conditions, and the other subjects to which polite conversation of Africa's east coast is limited. Fred kept nudging him, but Monty took no notice. Yerkes whispered to Fred. Then I heard Fred whisper to Monty in one of those raucous asides that he perfectly well knows can be heard by everybody.

      "Why don't you ask 'em about her, you ass?"

      But Monty refused to rise. He talked of the bowed and ancient slaves of Zanzibar, who refused in those days to be set free and afforded prolific ground for attack on British public morals by people whose business it is to abuse England for her peccadillos and forget her virtues.*

      ———————- * In 1914 there were still thousands of slaves in German East, although the German press and public were ever loudest in their condemnation of British conditions. ———————-

      We reached the ship, and were watching our piles of luggage arrive up the accommodation ladder when the solution of Lady Isobel Saffren Waldon's problem appeared. She arrived alongside in the official boat of the German consulate, a German officer in white uniform on either hand, and the German ensign at the stern.

      "Pretty fair impudence, paying official honors to our undesirables, yet

       I don't see what we can do," said the senior from the Residency.

      Yerkes drew me aside.

      "Did you ever see anything more stupidly British?" he demanded.

      "It's as obvious as the nose on your face that she's up to some game.

       It's as plain as twice two that the Germans are backing her whether the

       British like it or not. Look at those two Heinies now!"

      We faced about and watched them. After bowing Lady Waldon to her cabin, they approached our party with brazen claim to recognition—and received it. They were met, and spoken to apparently as cordially as if their friendship had been indisputable.

      "Did you ever see anything to beat it? Why not kick 'em into the sea? Either that woman's a crook or she isn't. If she isn't, then the British have treated her shamefully, turning their backs on her. But we know she is a crook! And so do they. The Germans know it, too, and they're flaunting her under official British noses! They're using her to start something the British won't like, and the British know it! Yet she's going to be allowed to travel to British territory on a British ship, and the Heinies are shaken hands with! If you complained to Monty I bet he'd say, 'Don't talk fight unless you mean fight!'"

      "Monty might also add, 'Don't talk-fight!'" said I.

      "Oh, rot!" Will answered. "British individuals may bridle a bit, but their government'll shut its eyes until too late, whatever happens! You mark my words!"

      We strolled back toward our party in great discontent, I as much as he, never supposing there was another country in the world that could so deliberately shut its eyes to dog's work until absolutely forced to interfere, by a hair not quite too late.

      Coutlass and Hassan traveled second-class—the Arab and half-Arab contingent third—and none of them troubled us, at present, except that Will swore at sight of Coutlass swaggering as if the ship and her contents were all his.

      "To hear him brag you'd believe the British government afraid of him!" he grumbled.

      But an immediate problem drove Coutlass out of mind. Lady Isobel Saffren Waldon had been given a cabin in line with ours, at the end of our corridor. Her maid, and her two Swahili servants were obliged to pass our doors to get to her cabin at all. As nearly all ships' cabins on those hot routes do, ours intercommunicated by a metal grill for ventilating purposes, and a word spoken in one cabin above a whisper could be heard in the next.

      Fred was the first to realize conditions. He opened his door in his usual abrupt way to visit Monty's cabin and almost fell over the Syrian maid, her eye at Monty's key-hole—a little too early in the game to pass for sound judgment, as Fred was at pains to assure her.

      The alarm being given, we locked our cabin doors, repaired to the smoking-room, and ordered drinks at a center table where no eavesdropper could overhear.

      "It's one of two things," said Monty. He had his folding board out, and we did not doubt he would play chess from there to London. "Either they know exactly where that ivory is, or they haven't the slightest idea."

      "My, but you're wise!" said Will.

      Monty ignored him. "They suspect us of knowing. They mean to prevent our getting any of it. If they do know, they've some reason of their own for not getting it themselves at present. If they don't know, they suspect we know and intend to claim what we find."

      "How should they think we know?" objected Will. "The first we ever heard of the stuff was in the lazaretto in Zanzibar."

      "True. Juma told us. Juma probably told them that we told him. Natives often put the cart before the horse without the slightest intention of lying."

      "All the same, why should they believe him?"

      "Why not? Zanzibar's agog with the story—after all these years. The ivory must have been buried more than a quarter of a century ago. Some one's been stirring the mud. We arrive, unexpectedly from nowhere, ask questions about the ivory, make plans for British East Africa—and there you are! The people who were merely determined to get the stuff jump to the false conclusion that we really know where it is.''

      "Q. E. D.!" said Fred, finishing his drink.

      "Not at all," said Monty. "There are two things yet to be demonstrated. They're true, but not proven. The German government is after the stuff. And the German government has very special reasons for secrecy and tricks."

      "We four against the German government looks like longish odds," said

       I.

      "Remains to be seen," said Monty. "If the German government's very special reasons were legal or righteous they'd be announced with a fanfare of trumpets."

      "Where's all this leading us?" demanded Fred.

      "To a slight change of plan," said Monty.

      "Thank the lord! That means you don't go to Brussels—stay with us!"

      "Nothing of the sort, Fred. But you three keep together. They're going to watch you. You watch

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