“The heat was such, and the glare on all them leagues of yellowish grass, I give you my word I scarce knew when we got among the trees. I just looked up, saw it was dark, felt a warm splash on my face, and there we was in the forest. Nothing gradual about that country. One hour that blazin’ grass, the next, them everlastin’ trees. Grass couldn’t have been no grassier, forest couldn’t have been no treeier. It’s that way. . .”
He looked at a taxi throbbing beside the curb, watched it as it slid away on the smooth asphalt. “Over there we don’t overrun things—dead things, I mean, like earth and trees and rivers. . . Or are they so dead? Well, over here it’s us that count; over there it’s them. Our life’s nothin’. And it’s not the people either; they may be little better than beasts. But you could plant London, Paris, and Noo York among them trees, and it wouldn’t make no difference—at least, not to last. Them things are so strong. It’s that way.
“We was after ivory, and not green stuff that’s been buried for years, waiting for a good bargain, either. Brad he wanted it fresh. He wanted a good village on the edge of the forest where he could get more hunters and porters, and store his ivory, and send it back in lots. He didn’t think or pray or want for a thing but ivory.
“We found a village. . . Yes, Raynor’s village. There wasn’t no church then, nor no school, and the trees was thicker. Raynor thinned ’em a lot and quite wise. But I see he’s took down some of our stockade, which ain’t so wise. You see that picture of the reclaimed witch-doctor with the locket round his neck, a hoeing his pumpkin-patch? Well, that feller, he run things, and the young headman was under his thumb. He was too clever for a nigger—he favoured us for his reasons, and we favoured him for ours, and things was very pleasant and comfortable all around.
“Brad and me we’d go off in the grass country for days after the herds. Yes, and we had good luck. You wouldn’t get such luck now, not anywheres. A wonderful great country under the moon, and the elephants moving. . . Well, it’s that way. And then we’d go back to our clean grass huts huddling on the edge of the trees, and we’d see the little fires at night and hear the girls chatter, and it would seem ’most like home. Then the young chief he’d come in and talk. A bright young feller and we sort o’ fascinated him. He got terribly fond of Brad Timmins. Brad he was a big, open-faced, hearty-speakin’ sort, and it wasn’t till you know’d him well that you’d see how tight his mouth shut and how hard his eyes was. He was always most fair and friendly with the natives, and they thought no end of him. Only that old witch-doctor, squatting in his hut among the rags and chickens—only he saw through Brad. He’d say: ‘That white man would burn a whole village for the sake of one tusk,’ and it was quite true. But the young headman would say: ‘I’m black and he is white, but he is my friend.’ And the doctor, blinking his black eyelids with the gray lashes like a monkey’s, he’d laugh.
“We sent off three lots of ivory down country. We’d a pile growing, and I—I was getting a bit tired of it. I wanted to take my share and make for the coast, and enjoy myself awhile. Well, it’s that way with me. I ain’t hard like Brad was. But he was a shark over the ivory. He never got enough. He killed out that country—not for the lust to kill that sometimes takes a man, but because of the money in the ivory, which, I give you my word, is quite a different thing, mister. He was like a miser too. He’d a store of the very finest tusks wrapped up like babies and buried under the floor of his hut. He just couldn’t bear to part with ’em, though he knew they might sp’ile. He just loved ’em. No one knew they was there, but me, and he didn’t know I knew. They was his secret hoard, like in a book. I didn’t care. I give you my word that I was half-scared o’ Brad Timmins them days, he was that mad on the ivory, though always most fair and friendly to them that helped him to it.
“I’m nothing to boast of in the way of softness, mister, as you can guess; but there’s things. . . Well, it’s that way with me. You’ll find a feelin’ if you dig far enough, as the dentist said. There’s a few things that reach home to me, and that young headman he was one of them when he pulled Brad out from a charging bull. Yes, sir; right out from under. And boosted him up a tree, and nipped up himself, and Brad he shot the bull. It was a fine thing. ‘You’ll give him a gun for that,’ I says to Brad. And Brad, he says; ‘You mind your own business. I’ve no guns to spare.’ Then I knew he’d do it cheap, and I was ashamed, and I give the nigger my own third gun, and told him it came from Brad, and not because of the gun, but because he’d saved his life. Yes, it’s that way. Queer, ain’t it?
“Well, that country was just about used up; all our ivory was on its way south, and I wanted to follow it. But Brad he would go on. He was set on travelling round the edge of the tree belt till we found fresh elephant country, using the village as a base camp. He had his way, as a man who don’t care nothin’ for nobody else most generally does. The village howled with grief, all but the old witch-doctor, who made our arrangements for us. At the end of the talk he said something that sounded like ‘Mabendy.’
“What’s that?” said I.
“He waved his hands toward the forest. ‘Very bad people,’ he said, ‘come and fight, try and take the village. If they take it, they eat us.’