“Yes, sir,” replied the man, “it’s an odd tooth, and a rare beauty. It’s years since I saw the like of it. It’s a grand tusk, as you say: I ran the measure over it, and it went 9 feet 2 inches, and it weighs just on 170 lb. It’s as nigh perfect as can be, but there’s just one little bit of a flaw down there by the base—an old wound, or something of the kind. There’s a sight of good ivory in that tooth, and it must be as old as the hills a’most.”
Kensley had seen, in the fourteen years of his experience, thousands of fine teeth; yet, connoisseur though he was, he thought, as his eye ran lovingly over that magnificent nine feet of ivory, splendid in colour, curve and solidity, that he had never seen such another. He stooped to look at the flaw the man spoke of. Within a foot of the darker portion at the base, just beyond where the ivory had manifestly emerged from the flesh of the gum, there appeared a curious fault in the graining of the tooth, elsewhere perfect. The growth had been disturbed by some foreign substance, and the graining, instead of being as regular and even as a pattern woven by machinery, swept in irregular curves round the centre of the flaw.
Kensley rose to his feet again. “It’s not much of a fault,” he said, “and the tooth’s a real beauty. I’ve been meaning this long time past to have such a tusk at my rooms, to decorate a corner or hang upon the wall. I think I’ll take that fellow, Thomas, and pay for it; it will be a long time before I come across a better. See that it goes up to my flat to-morrow, will you, and take care how it’s carried. I don’t want it spoiled.”
“All right, sir,” replied the man, “I’ll see to it myself. I’ll give it a bit of a clean up and take it up for you to-morrow morning.”
Two evenings after this conversation, Cecil Kensley left the office and walked, as was often his custom, steadily westward. He made his way by the Embankment and Pall Mall, then up Saint James’s Street, and so to Mount Street, where his dwelling was situated. Arrived at Mount Street, he let himself into his flat. It was a pleasant set of rooms on the first floor, furnished in very excellent taste with most luxuries that the cultivated male mind can suggest. In one corner, leaning against the wall, stood the ivory tusk, which, now cleaned and polished, formed, if an unwonted, a very noble ornament to the chamber. Kensley’s eye rested on it with pleasure; he went to the corner and carefully examined his new possession. It was now six o’clock; the cold spring evening was closing in and the light fading. At eight o’clock three friends were dining with Kensley, preliminary to a night of cards. Having drunk some tea, which his man brought in for him, and lighted a cigarette, Kensley drew his comfortable armchair towards the pleasant firelight and smoked contentedly. He had been late for several nights past—he was never a very early man—and now, having cast away the end of his cigarette, he lay back in his chair and blinked drowsily at the red glow of the firelight. In ten minutes he was fast asleep and dreaming. Now, although Cecil Kensley sometimes dozed for half an hour or an hour before dinner in this way, it was seldom that he dreamed. His dreams this evening were fantastic and most strange—so strange that they are worth recording. Here is what he saw:—
In an open clearing among pleasant African hills, covered for the most part with bush and low forest, lies a collection of huts, circular and thatched, as are all native huts. Just above them, on rising ground, and surrounded by a strong stockade, stands a larger and more important dwelling, oblong in shape, its interior screened from the fierce sun by a low veranda, and thatched, as to its roof, with grass in the native fashion. It is a hot morning in the glowing tropical summer—the season of rains—vegetation and flowers are everywhere in their freshest verdure and beauty. Fleecy clouds lie at this early hour of morning upon the face of the eastern sky, and hang in a long line midway upon the sides of a high mountain some miles distant. Seated just outside the stockaded inclosure is a European, clad in the broad-brimmed hat, doublet, loose breeches, and buff riding boots of a bygone time. Somehow the face of this European, with its sallow cast, peaked beard, and fierce moustaches, is strangely familiar to the eye and brain of the dreamer, though he cannot in his sleep exactly recall how. Round about the Portuguese, for he is of that race, are half a dozen soldiers of his country, in buff coats and steel caps, bearing in their hands antique pieces—snaphaunces. Squatting in front are thirteen or fourteen naked Africans, waiting the white man’s will.
“Well,” speaks the commander, for such he is, “is the gold all here? Stand forward, Kanyata.”
A native steps out from his fellows, and hands the commander a quill of gold—gold dust and tiny nuggets—the fruit of a week’s hard toil and labour of himself and his family. Each native in turn stands forward with his precious store, and tremblingly hands it to the fierce, sour-looking white man. In his turn a young man sullenly comes out of the rank, and hands in his quill. There is a very dangerous look in the commander’s eye as he takes the quill, holds it out and surveys it. “So,” he interrogates, “that is your week’s work, Zingesi?”
The young man answers in a hopeless, yet half defiant way: “My lord, I have toiled for seven days in the river sands, and all that I have gained I bring to you. You took from me my wife; if it had been otherwise, the quill might have been full. I have no one to help me. I can do no more.”
“Thou dog!” snaps out the commander, with a look of black passion, “I told thee seven days agone that thou mightest take the wall-eyed maid to wife, to help thee. Why hast thou neglected my warning?”