"Oh, that had got a hen sacrificed in front of it, too, that's all. I recognize the bird; he was a game old rooster that used to crow at me every time I passed him."
"Beastly pagans," Kettle growled. "There's no holding some of them yet. They suck up the glad tidings like mother's milk at first, and they're back at their old ways again before you've taught them the tune of a hymn. I just want to catch one or two of these backsliders. By James! I'll give them fits in a way they won't forget."
But if Captain Kettle was keen on the conversion of the heathen to the tenets of the Tyneside chapel, he was by no means forgetful of his commercial duties. He had always got Mrs. Kettle, the family, and the beauties of a home life in an agricultural district at the back of his mind, and to provide the funds necessary for a permanent enjoyment of all these items close at hand, he worked both Clay and himself remorselessly.
Ivory does not grow on hedgerows even in Africa, and the necessary store could by no means be picked up even in a day, or even in a matter of weeks. Ivory has been looked upon by the African savage, from time immemorial, not as an article of use, but as currency, and as such it is vaguely revered. He does not often of his own free will put it into circulation; in fact, his life may well pass without his once seeing it used as a purchasing medium; but custom sits strong on him, and he likes to have it by him. An African chief of any position always has his store of ivory, usually hidden, sometimes in the bush, sometimes buried--for choice, under the bed of a stream. It is foolish of him, this custom, because it is usually the one thing that attracts the white man to his neighborhood, and the white man's visits are frequently fraught with disaster; but it is a custom, and therefore he sticks to it. He is not a highly reasoning animal, this Central African savage.
The African, moreover, is used to oppression--that is, he either oppresses or is oppressed--and he is dully callous to death. So the villages were not much surprised at Kettle's descents upon them, and usually surrendered to him passively on the mere prestige of his name. They were pleasantly disappointed that he omitted the usual massacre, and in gratitude were eager to accept what they were pleased to term his ju-ju, but which he described as the creed of the Tyneside chapel.
They reduced him to frenzy about every second day by surreptitiously sacrificing poultry in his honor; but he did not dare to make any very violent stand against this overstepping of the rubric, lest (as was hinted to him) they should misinterpret his motive, and substitute a plump nigger baby for the more harmless spring chicken. It is by no means easy to follow the workings of the black man's brain in these matters.
But all the time he went on gathering ivory--precious ivory, worth as much as a thousand pounds a ton if he could but get it home. Some of it had been buried for centuries, and was black-brown with age and the earth; some was new, and still bloody-ended and odorous; but he figured it all out into silk dresses for Mrs. Kettle, and other luxuries for those he loved, and gloated even over the little escribellos which lay about on the village refuse heaps as not being worthy to hide with the larger tusks.
And, between-whiles, he preached to the newly conquered, ordered them to adopt the faith of the South Shields chapel, and finally sang them hymns, which he composed himself especially to suit their needs, to the tunes of "Hold the Fort," and "From Greenland's Icy Mountains," which he played very sweetly on the accordion. Captain Kettle might be very keen after business, but at the same time it could never be laid to his charge that he was ever forgetful of the duty he owed to the souls of these heathen who came under his masterful thumb.
Dr. Clay, however, watched all the proceedings now with a jubilant mind. As a political division, the much-talked-of New Republic might be said to lack cohesion, but as a conquered tract of country it was very pleasantly in awe of Captain Kettle. A very comfortable store of ivory was stored in the principal hut of each village they came to, which Clay, who commanded the rear guard, always took care to "put ju-ju on" after his senior officer at the head of the force had marched out of the village en route for the next, that being the most satisfactory fashion of warding off pilferers. And last but not least, they had agreed upon their route of exit to a sea-coast, and (in theory at any rate) considered it eminently practicable.
The Congo, of course, via Leopoldville, Matadi, and Banana was barred to them, on account of their trouble with the Free State authorities. Their original idea had been to cross the great continent eastward by way of the Great Lakes, and take shipping somewhere by Mozambique or Zanzibar. But the barbarous difficulties of that route daunted even Kettle, when they began to consider it in detail, and the advantages of the French Congo territory showed up brightly in comparison.