The Message. Tracy Louis
the engraved lettering.
For an instant his eyes met those of the Under Secretary; thenceforth a better understanding reigned.
“I beg your pardon,” he said. “Since you gave attention to the position of Oku so recently, I am half inclined to believe that not only my information but my opinions are forestalled.”
“We have been at cross purposes,” murmured the tired voice. “You are Captain Arthur Warden, who commanded the Oku punitive expedition thirteen months ago. Since early yesterday morning the Colonial Office, at my request, has been trying to discover your whereabouts – trying in vain, I gather – or you would have mentioned the fact. I really wished to consult you with reference to this very topic. It is all the more gratifying that chance should have led you to be a witness of events which were surmises on our part, and that your sense of duty should bring you here at the earliest possible moment.”
Warden positively blushed. It was a relief that the Under Secretary was obviously inclined to visit his manicurist that afternoon rather than wait till the morrow. Such preoccupation gave him time to recover. But he devoted no more time to silent theories anent the disgraceful apathy of the home authorities with reference to West African affairs.
“I cannot insist too strongly on the efforts that are being made by our neighbors to undermine British influence in that quarter,” he said. “Their traders pander to native excesses and humor their prejudices. Their pioneers are constantly pushing northward toward the shores of Lake Tchad. Arms and ammunition are being smuggled across the boundary at many points. Preparations are quietly in progress for a transfer of power if ever British authority shows signs of weakening. Therefore, I draw the worst auguries from the presence in Cowes of a clever and unscrupulous filibuster like Figuero, especially when he acts as bear–leader to three disaffected chiefs. Oku, as you know, is an insignificant place, but it has one supreme attribute that gives it among the negroes the importance of Mecca in the Mohammedan world. It is the center of African witchcraft. Its ju–ju men are the most noted in the whole continent. Their fetish is deadly and irresistible. They can compass the ruin of tribal leaders who are immeasurably more wealthy and powerful than any of their own men. I do not pretend to explain the reason – I can only state the fact – but there can be no gainsaying the simple truth that if men of Oku place their ban on any tribe or individual, that tribe or that man is doomed.”
“Can you give instances?”
“Yes. As far away as the river Akini, in the Yoruba District” – and this time Warden did not point to the map, though his words bridged six hundred miles miles – “there was a quarrel between the up–country traders and the shippers at Lagos. The merchants in the interior tried to close the trade routes, but the local chiefs refused to help them. By some means the traders secured the Oku ban on their side. The Yoruba natives resisted it.
“By Jove! both they and the factors at Lagos were glad enough to come to heel when every ounce of stuff was diverted into French Dahomey. There was no overt act or threat. Oku methods are too clever for that. The authorities were powerless. Hunger coerced the natives, and financial loss brought the people on the coast to terms. And this took place where we were paramount! Heaven only knows what excesses the Oku fetish has caused in inter–tribal wars. Why, when I attacked them, I had to break with my own hands every ju–ju token on the road. Not even our Hausa troops would pass them otherwise.”
“They had no ill effect on you, then?” said the other, smiling a little.
“None – at present.”
Warden himself was surprised when his lips framed the qualification. For no assignable cause his mind traveled to the lowering face on the gourd, then reposing in his portmanteau at Waterloo Station, and he remembered the curled scrap of tattooed skin in his pocket. He had not mentioned the calabash to the official. Though it bore curiously on the visit of the men of Oku to the Isle of Wight, he believed that such a far–fetched incident would weaken his statements. Since he was inclined at first to err so greatly in his estimate of the Under Secretary’s knowledge of West African politics, he was now more resolved than ever not to bring an extravagant toy into a serious discussion. Any reference to it would be ludicrously out of place. He was beginning to entertain a deep and abiding respect for the Foreign Office and its denizens.
The Under Secretary asked a few additional questions before he rose to fold up the map. Warden took the hint, and was about to depart when he received an unlooked–for piece of news.
“By the way, it is almost a certainty that Count von Rippenbach accompanied the Emperor in the visit paid to the Sans Souci?” said the official.
“I assume his identity solely from paragraphs in the newspapers.”
“It will interest you to learn that the Count has just returned from an exploring and hunting trip in the Tuburi region.”
Now, Tuburi lies in the no–man’s land that separates Lake Tchad from German West Africa, and Warden met the Under Secretary’s bored glance a second time with quick comprehension.
“I think,” went on the quiet voice, “I think it would be well if you kept the Colonial Office posted as to your movements during the remainder of your furlough. Personally, I expect no immediate developments. The Emperor is a busy man. He can only devote half an hour each year to affairs that affect the Niger. But, keep in touch. You may be wanted. I am exceedingly obliged to you. One learns so much from the men who have passed their active lives in lands which one has never seen except in dreams. I dream here sometimes, in front of that map – and its companions. Oh, I had almost forgotten. Do you know Mr. Baumgartner?”
“Only by sight.”
“That is useful. It might help if you were to meet him in some unexpected locality. And his yacht, the Sans Souci, you have noted her main features, such as the exact number of windows in her deck houses, or the cabin ports fore and aft of the bridge?”
“I watched her closely many hours last night, but I fear I missed those precise details,” laughed Warden. “I shall correct the lapse at the earliest opportunity.”
“That sort of definite fact assists one’s judgment. Paint and rig can be altered, but structural features remain. I recall the case of the Sylph, a foreign cargo–steamer loaded to the funnel with dynamite, and about to pass Port Said at a time when it was peculiarly important to the British fleet that the canal should remain open. She resembled a hundred other disreputable–looking craft of her class, but a lieutenant on the Cossack had seen her a year earlier at Bombay, and noticed a dent in the plates on the port bow. His haphazard memory settled a delicate and complicated discussion in Pekin. Good morning! Don’t forget to send your address.”
Standing in Downing Street to light a cigar, Warden glanced up at the stately building he had just quitted. His views on “red–tape” officialdom had undergone a rapid change during the past hour. It was borne in on him that generations of men like himself had come from the ends of the earth to that storehouse of secrets, and each was convinced that he alone could reveal the solemn tidings which might be the forerunner of modern Europe’s Battle of Armageddon. And the Under Secretary was called on to hear every prophet! From such a standpoint the presence in England of a half–caste Portuguese and three full–blooded negroes dwindled to insignificance. True, the Under Secretary had listened, and Warden almost shivered when he realized how narrow was his escape from committing the grave error of discounting his hearer’s sympathy and measure of comprehension.
It was not his business to ask questions, but he gathered that others than himself were alive to the dangers that might spring from a conference between semi–rebellious subjects of Britain in West Africa and the ruler of a mighty nation pent within cramped confines for want of colonies. Oddly enough, the bent plates of the dynamite–laden Sylph suggested a strange connection between the carved gourd and the strained position of affairs in the Cameroons. He had no manner of doubt that when the royal yacht crashed into a sunken wreck the previous day it liberated the calabash, which forthwith drifted into the Solent, and escaped notice until discovered by Evelyn Dane. Suppose she had not seen it? All their subsequent actions would have been affected. He might never have known of the strange gathering on board the yacht.
“Queer