Dr. Clay turned away his face, and relieved his feelings with a grin. But he very carefully concealed his merriment. He liked Kettle, liked him vastly; but at the same time he was more than a little scared of him, and he had a very accurate notion that the man who failed to take him seriously about this new scheme, would come in contact with trouble. The scheme was a big one; it purposed setting up a new state in the heart of the État du Congo, on territory filched from that power; but the little sailor was in deadly earnest over the project, and already he had met with extraordinary luck in the initial stages. Central Africa is a country where determined coups de main can sometimes yield surprising results.
The recent history of these two vagabond white men cannot be given in this place with any web of detail. They had gone through their apprenticeship amongst these African inlands as officers of the Congo Free State; they had been divorced from that service with something of suddenness; and a purist might have held that the severance of their ties was complicated with something very near akin to piracy. I know that they had been abominably oppressed; I know that Kettle chose running away with his steamer to the alternative of handcuffs and disgrace, and a possible hanging to follow; but there was no getting over the fact that the stern-wheeler was Free State property, and that these two had alienated it to their own uses.
The black crew of the launch and the black soldiers on board, some seventy head all told, they had little trouble in dragooning into obedience. The Central African native never troubles himself much about niceties of loyalty, and as the sway of the Congo Free State (or "Buli Matdi," as it is named by the woolly aboriginal), had been brutally tyrannous, the change of allegiance had worried them little. Besides, they had been in contact with Captain Kettle before, and knew him to be that admirable thing, a Man, and worthy of being served; while Clay, whom they also knew, amused them with his banjo, and held powerful ju-ju in the shape of drugs; and so they went blithely enough where they were led or driven, and described themselves as soldiers or slaves, whichever word happened to come handiest. The African of the interior never worries his head about the terms of his service. So long as he has plenty of food, and a master to do all the thinking for him, he is quite content to work, or steal, or fight, or be killed, as that master sees fit to direct.
The progress of the little stern-wheel steamer on her return journey up the Haut Congo might also give rise to misapprehension here at home, if it were described exactly as it happened. There are no ship's chandlers in Central Africa, and it is the custom there, when you lack stores, to go to a village on the bank and requisition anything that is available. The Arab slave-traders who once held the country did this; the prehistoric people before them founded the custom; and the Free State authorities, their lineal descendants, have not seen fit to change the policy. At least, they may have done so in theory at Brussels, but out there, in practice, they have left this matter in statu quo.
There is a massive conservatism about the heart of Africa with which it is dangerous to tamper. If you rob a man in that region, he merely respects your superior power. If you offer him payments, he promptly suspects you of weakness, and sets his clumsy mind at work to find the method by which you may be robbed of whatever you have not voluntarily surrendered.
"Of course," said Kettle, taking up the thread of his tale again, "it's understood that we run this country for our own advantage first."
"What other object should white men have up-country in Africa?" said Clay. "We don't come here merely for our health."
"But I've got a great notion of treating the people well besides. When we have made a sufficient pile--and, mark you, it must be all in ivory, as there's nothing else of value that can be easy enough handled--we shall clear out for the Coast, one-time. And then we must realize on the ivory, and then we can go home and live as Christians again." He stared through the doorway of the hut at the aching sunshine beyond. "Oh, Lord! Think of it, Doc--Home! England! Decent clothes! Regular attendance in chapel on Sundays, and your soul well cared for and put into safe going order again!"
"Oh, my soul doesn't bother me. But England! that's fine to think about, old man, isn't it? England!" he repeated dreamily. "Yes, I suppose I should have to change my name if I did go back. I don't know, though. It'd have blown over by now, perhaps; things do blow over, and if I went to a new part of the country I expect I could still stick to the old name, and not be known from Adam. Yes, things do blow over with time, and if you don't make too much stir when you go back. I should have to keep pretty quiet; but I bet I'd have a good time for all that. Fancy the luxury of having good Glenlivet in a cask again, with a tap half-way up, after the beastly stuff one got on the coast, or, worse still, what one gets up here--and that's no whiskey at all!"
"Well, you needn't worry about choosing your home drinks just now," said Kettle. "'Palaver no set' here by a very long chalk yet, and till it is you'll have to go sober, my lad, and keep a very clear head."