Talbot Mundy

“ Coutlass found a whisky bottle out of the confusion, and swallowed the stuff neat while the other Greek and the Goanese waited their turn greedily. There was nothing much in that compartment to make a man like Hassan feel at home.
“Those Greeks,” said our red-bearded traveling companion as we shut the door again, “are only one degree better than Indians—a shade less depraved perhaps—a sight more dangerous. I sure do hate a Punjabi, but I don’t love Greeks! The natives call ’em bwana masikini to their faces—that means Mister Mean White y’know. ”

“ When I returned to our car Brown of Lumbwa was out on the platform with his hair all tousled and a wild eye. The guard was wiping a bloody nose and everybody was inventing an account of what nobody had seen.
“Scrag him!” advised some expert on etiquette.
“What the hell right has anybody got,” demanded Brown with querulous ferocity, “to interfere between me and a lady? Eh? Whose compartment was she in? Me in hers or her in mine? Eh? Me. I’m sleeping. Hasn’t a gent a right to sleep? ”

“ Once on the platform he threw his rifle into the compartment and braced himself to catch the things his stampeding followers hurled after him—caught them deftly and tossed them in, yelling instructions in Greek, Kiswahili, Arabic, English, and two or three other languages. It may be that the engineer looked back and saw what was happening (or perhaps the guard signaled with the cord that passed through eyeholes the whole length of the train) for though we did not slow down we gained no speed until all his belongings had been hurled, and caught, and flung inside. ”

“ It takes Pioneer Jane to trespass where writs don’t run! Jane goes where her husband don’t dare follow. The officials don’t say a word. Y’see there’s no jail where they could stow a white woman and observe the decencies. So she goes over the borderline whenever she sees fit. The king’s writ runs maybe for thirty miles north o’ this railway. Once over that they can’t catch you. But unless you’re a black man, or Pioneer Jane, the natives tip the gov’ment off an’ gov’ment rounds you up afore you get two-thirds the way. ”

“ Man alive, but they say there’s a whale of a hoard of it! Hundreds o’ tons of ivory, all waiting to be found, and fossicked out, an’ took! Say—if I was some o’ those Greeks for instance, tell you what I’d do: I’d off to Zanzibar, an’ kidnap Tippoo Tib. The old card’s still living. I’d apply a red-hot poker to his silver-side an’ the under-parts o’ his tripe-casings. He’d tell me where the stuff is quicker’n winking! Supposin’ I was a Greek without morals or no compunctions or nothin’, that’s what I’d do! I don’t hold with allowin’ any man to play dog in the manger with all that plunder! ”

“ Hell-fire Brown of Elementaita, Joseph Henry Brown of Gilgil, and Brown of Lumbwa. Brown of Lumbwa’s me. Don’t believe a word either of the other two Browns tell you! Yes, we’re all settlers. Country good to settle in? Depends what you call good. If you like lots of room, an’ hunting, natives to wait an’ your own house on your own square mile—comfortable climate—no conventions—nor no ten commandments, why, it’s pretty hard to beat. But if you want to wear a white shirt, and be moral, and get rich, it’s rotten! You’ve a chance to make money if you’re not over law-abiding, for there’s elephants. ”

“ Where’s your luggage? These your porters? All right—put you on your honor. Go on through. Save time. Have your stuff weighed, and settle the bill at Nairobi. All of it, mind! Babu, let these people through!”
Followed by Courtney, who seemed to have right of way wherever it suited him to wander, we filed through the gate, crossed the blazing hot platform, and boarded a compartment labeled “Reserved.” The railway man nodded and left us, to hurry and help sell tickets. ”

“ Two officials’ wives, an’ Pioneer Jane French. Heard o’ her? Walked from South Africa, Jane did—hoofed it along o’ French, bossed his boys, drove the cattle, shot the meat, ran the whole shootin’ match, an’ runs him, too, when he’s sober an’ she’s drunk. When they’re both drunk everybody ducks. She’s scarcely a woman, she’s sort of three-men-rolled-into-one. Give her a horsewhip an’ she’ll manage the unruliest crowd o’ savages ever you or she set eyes on! Countin’ her as one, an’ the two officials wives, an’ her on this train, there’s four! ”

“ What’s she doin’ in East Africa?”
We made no shift to answer.
“The officials’ wives,” he went on, “are keen after Tippoo’s ivory, but, bein’ obliged to stay in the station except when their husbands go on safari, an’ then only go where their husbands go, they’ve no show to speak of. Pioneer Jane’s nuts on it, an’ she’s dangerous. Jane’s as likely to find the stuff as any one. She’s independent—go where she blooming well pleases—game as a lioness—looks like one, too, only a lioness is kind o’ softer an’ not so quick in the uptake. ”

“ When we stopped at wayside stations the heat increased insufferably, until we entered the great red desert that divides the coast-land from the hills, and after that all seemed death and dust, and haziness, and hell. ”

“ The woman apparently broke free. The guard yelled for help. Fred and one of the government officials were nearest and as they entered they passed the woman coming out. I recognized Lady Saffren Waldon’s Syrian maid, with the big railway key in her fist that the guard had left with her. By that time there was a considerable crowd about our car, unable to see much because it stood in the way of the station lamp-light. She slipped through—to the right—not toward Lady Isobel’s compartment, and I lost sight of her behind some men. ”

“ The sun beat down on the iron roof. The heat beat up from the tracks. Red dust polluted the drinking water in the little upright tank. Dust filled eyes, nostrils, hair. Dust caked and grew stiff in the sweat that streamed down us. ”

“ There began to be carousing in the second-class compartment next ahead of us. Our own Brown of Lumbwa produced a stone crock of Irish whisky from a basket, imbibed copiously, offered us in turn the glistening neck, looked relieved at our refusal, and grew voluble.
“Hear them Greeks an’ that Goa. You’d think they were gentlemen o’ breeding to hear ’em carryin’ on! Truth is we’ve no government worth a moment’s consid’ration, an’ everybody knows it, Greeks included! You men lookin’ for farms? ”

“ It’s easy to keep track of a white man; the natives all know him, an’ his name, an’ where he lives, an’ report everything he does to the nearest gov’ment officer. But Greeks an’ Goas an’ Indians an’ Arabs ain’t white, so the natives make no mention of ‘em. They do the lootin’; we settlers get the blame; an’ the whole perishing country’s going to blazes as fast as a lump of ice melting in hell—but not so fast as I’d like to see it go. ”

“ She was in the train in Mombasa two hours afore startin’ time, an’ the things she ordered me to do ’ud have made a ’alf-breed think ‘e was demeaning of ’imself! I ’aven’t seen the color of ’er money yet. If she wants dinner she gets out and walks or ’er maid fetches it—you watch!”
Coutlass, the other Greek and the Goanese staggered out beside us on to the platform, drunk enough not to know whether Hassan was with them or not. He came out and stood beside them in a sort of alert defensive attitude.
“Guard!” called the voice again. “Where is the man?” ”