Fred M. White

“ Provided the little force was not wiped out prematurely, then Stanning and Ridsdale began to see the outline of great possibilities. Probably, later on, they would reap their reward for all this; there were no newspaper correspondents present, so that they might carry out the campaign in the usual way. It is an axiom in the making of geography that dead men tell no tales.
And yet, somehow, things were not going quite so smoothly as they might, for here was a tribe that refused to come in. ”

“ Probably most of them had been in jail, and they all deserved to be, but they were just the sort of men that Ridsdale and Stanning wanted, for they knew no fear, and adventure was as the breath of their nostrils. It looked like being a big thing, too.
In the first place, no white man had ever been here before. The country was rich in produce; there was ivory to be had for the asking, and if the stories told by the natives were true, there was indiarubber back yonder behind the place where the chief of the tribes lived. ”

“ Stanning said. "We can't sit quietly here and starve. What do you say to prospecting around till we can find a village? We can't be so very far away from a human habitation."
"Come along," Ridsdale said. "Anything's better than this."
It was a difficult and a hazardous matter, but they managed it at length. They found a village presently, lying on a high plateau of land, and in the background an imposing group of buildings—quite a small palace in its way—which evidently was the residence of the chief of the tribe. ”

“ The men of it were not to be moved by blandishments or glass beads or biscuit-tins, and Winchester rifles appeared to have no terrors for them. More than one brush had ended in an undecided fashion, and progress was getting slow, until it began to dawn upon the leaders of the expedition that they were in a tight place. Their sentries were picked off at nights, and though they had every intention of moving in one direction, it gradually began to dawn upon Stanning and Ridsdale that they were being shepherded into quite another place. ”

“ If the thing is successful, then these adventurers are patriots and explorers; if the thing fails, then they are no better than pirates, and are treated accordingly. And nobody understood the rules of the game better than Stanning and Ridsdale. They had gone into it with their eyes wide open; they had tired of the ordinary amusements of an effete civilisation, and, besides, they were both getting on in life. ”

“ There are rifles and cartridges in the little room off the billiard-room, and some really good horses in the stable. Now, is it good enough to stay here on the off-chance of that blackguard changing his mind at any moment, or would you like to make a move in the direction of England, home, and beauty without delay? It's very nice to sit down to a good dinner and to enjoy a good bath—and though we are pirates, we know it—but it isn't quite good enough to sit down again with a cold-blooded murderer. ”

“ Ridsdale whispered,
It was an hour or so before the dawn that they crept cautiously through the house, after helping themselves liberally to the chief's weapons. Then presently they led two horses out of the stables, making a detour of the village, after which they rode on hour after hour, till the sun was high in the heavens and all chance of pursuit was at an end.
"I think we can stop now," Stanning suggested, "and perhaps we are safe, after all. There's one thing in Templemore's favour. When we get home and tell this story, nobody will believe us. ”

“ And after that the big chief had written something with a pen on a sheet of paper, and he had tossed it to the messenger, bidding him contemptuously to be gone and take it to the white men who had dared to send him there.
"Oh, the man's raving!" Ridsdale said. "He's either that or he's a born journalist without knowing it. I suppose you could find novelists in this part of the world even. If this chap were only educated, he would knock some of those writing chaps at home silly. Still, it's clever. He's a humorist. Just think of a nigger with a ring through his nose and an eyeglass! ”

“ It is only when you fail that you are called a thief and an adventurer. Still, I bear you no grudge, especially as you are going to make no geography out of this little affair. And it really was good of you to come all this way and give us a little variety in our monotonous lives. ”

“ Ridsdale asked gloomily.
"It will end," Stanning said grimly, "when that tiger and his mate have had enough of it. It will end on the knot of a rope or at the impact of a bullet. You don't suppose that chap's going to let us get back to civilisation, do you? Not a bit of it, my boy. Do you know who he is? Because if you don't, I can tell you. He's George Templemore. I found that out last night. Of course, I should never have guessed if we hadn't got that letter which our envoy brought us. ”

“ But they serve our purpose excellently well, and for obvious reasons they are quite content to stay here. Of course, I need not tell you that the tribe which I have the honour to reign over does not dream of the way in which its chief spends his evenings. No nigger of the lot of them has ever been in here. ”

“ Fancy a nigger chief right off the map here with a force behind him armed up to date in this way! No wonder he refused to come into treaty with us. And the beggar's clever, too. He's running this little scrap quite on European lines. He's a kind of Cronje in the bud. And instead of us being marching on to Maryland and all that sort of thing, we are in a devilish tight place. I only began to realise it yesterday, and that confounded nigger knows it, too. If something out of the common doesn't happen, your mother and mine will never see their blue-eyed boys again. ”

“ It may come off all right; on the other hand, it mayn't. If it does, then we shall get our little reward later on, and if it doesn't, then Portland prison may be our portion for some little time to come. We will send our friend an ultimatum. We will send something neat and not too gaudy in the way of a mission, asking the chief to come and see us. You write it—you are better at that sort of thing than I am—and make it flowery, old chap, whatever you do. Throw in a lot about the Empire on which the sun never sets."
Ridsdale dragged himself wearily in the direction of his tent. ”