"Damn your soul!" Fred fairly yelled at me. "What the hell d'you mean by startling me in that way! Why aren't you dead? Look out! What's the matter with the man? The poor chap's hurt—I knew he was!"
But that inexplicable desire to empty all I had inside me out on to the trampled ground could no longer be resisted, that was all. The aftermath of deadly fear is fear's corollary. Each bears fruit after its kind.
To my one tusker Will and Fred had brought down five and six respectively. That made twenty-three tusks, for one was an enormous "singleton." We sent Kazimoto back alone to try to persuade some of our porters to come and chop out the ivory with axes, bidding him promise them all the hearts, and as many tail-hairs as they chose to pull out to keep witches away with. Then, since my sickness passed presently and left me steady on my legs, Fred made a proposal that we jumped at.
"Let's go and lay Schillingschen's ghost! If that was Schillingschen shooting in the forest, we've a little account with him! If it wasn't I want to know it! Come along!"
We advanced into the forest and toiled up-hill along the tracks the stampeding elephants had made, amid flies indescribable, and almost intolerable heat. The blood on my clothing made me a veritable feeding-place of flies, until I threw most of it off, and then began to suffer in addition from bites I could not feel before, and from the sharp points of beckoning undergrowth. My bare legs began to bleed from scratches, and the flies swooped anew on those, and clung as if they grew there.
Will climbed a huge tree, at imminent risk of pythons and rotten branches, and descried open country on our right front. We made for it, I walking last to take advantage of the others' wake, and after more than an hour of most prodigious effort we emerged on rolling rocky country under a ledge that overhung a thousand feet sheer above us on the side of Elgon. To our right was all green grass, sloping away from us.
There was a camp half a mile away pitched on the edge of the forest—a white man's tent—a mule—meat hanging to dry in the wind under a branch—two tents for natives—and a pile of bags and boxes orderly arranged. We could see a man sitting under a big tent awning. He was reading, or writing, or something of that kind. He was certainly not Schillingschen. We hurried. Fred presently broke into a run; then, half-ashamed, checked himself and waited for me, who was beyond running.
When we came quite close we saw that the man was playing chess all by himself with a folding board open on his knees. He did not look up, although by that time he surely should have heard us. Fred began to walk quietly, signaling to the camp hangers-on to say nothing. We followed him silently in Indian file. As he came near the awning Fred tip-toed, and I felt like giggling, or yelling—like doing anything ridiculous.
He who played chess yawned suddenly, and closed the chess-board with a snap. He got up lazily, smiled, stretched himself like a great good-looking cat, faced Fred, and laughed outright.
"Glad to see you all! Did you get many elephants?" he asked.