The question was, how to get the ivory. From all accounts Tswki was a strong, fierce chief, and it might be dangerous to go into his country with as small a force as the trader had. The Arab had not enough goods to pay for very much ivory, and he did not wish to pay for it if he could get it without paying. He might catch his slaves and go down to the coast, and come back with a larger party of armed men; but after slave raiding here once it would not be nearly so easy to travel through the country again. He thought of trying to get the people of the river villages to join him in raiding Tswki’s country, but they all seemed so afraid of that chief that he did not believe they would do it. He kept asking questions about the ivory, and by the time he had finished trading and was ready to go back down the river, he had heard so much about it that he dreamed of it every night. He felt that somehow or other he must have that ivory or he would be sorry to the end of his days.
CHAPTER XII
A VOICE IN THE FOREST
Things were very unsatisfactory to the trader on the last night of his stay as a guest in the village. He had intended it to be the last night that he or any of the people of the village should sleep in those huts. But if he carried out his first plan, and fell upon them in the dark hours just after midnight, killing, burning, and plundering, and then taking up his march to the next village to do the same thing, he would have to give up all hope of the ivory. While he was sitting by himself, trying to think of a way out of the difficulty, Mpoko stole up to him in the dark and pulled at his sleeve. “Come quickly,” he murmured, “there is a palaver going on behind the ruined huts, and it is about ivory.”
The Arab was naturally suspicious, and the life that he had led had made him more so. He had been almost sure in the last day or two that there was something he had not yet found out about that ivory. He knew a great deal about native tribes, and he was aware that they are very good at hiding anything they do not wish to have known. He remembered that Mpoko had been limping about the village as if suffering from a severe beating; indeed, the boy seemed hardly able to walk now. That was just what would have happened if he had heard something his elders were saying and they had found it out. And what could be more natural than that he should revenge himself by telling what he had heard? The trader would have done that himself in Mpoko’s place.
Mpoko slid along in the shadow and dropped on all fours, signing to the trader to do likewise. They wormed along through tall grass and thorn bushes and thickets for what seemed hours and hours, in the dark. Mpoko would have liked to lead the Arab round and round the village all night. As it was, they followed a very roundabout cattle track, and the trader’s clothes, which were not made for crawling, suffered a great deal from thorns and mire.
At last they reached a pile of ruined thatch and mud wall, and sure enough, there were men on the other side of the heap, talking together in low tones. Mpoko ducked into the shadow and vanished like a scared rabbit. The trader crouched motionless, his hand on his dagger, listening.
“Then everything is ready?” said the chief.
“Everything,” said the smith.