“Ach!  I do not believe it!  Kommen Sie!  There is beer at the D.O.A.G.—­champagne—­brandy—­whisky—­rum—?”

“I’m going, then, for one!” announced Brown, getting up immediately.

“Cigars—­cigarettes—­tobacco,” the sergeant-major continued.  “There is no closing time.”  He saw that the line of argument was not tempting, and changed his tactics.  “Listen!  You gentlemen have not too many friends in Muanza!  I speak in friendship.  I invite you on behalf of myself and other Unteroffitzieren to spend gemuthlich evening with us.  That can do you no harm!  In the course of friendly conversation much can be learned that official lips would not tell!

“Kommen Sie nun!”

“Let’s go!” I said.  “My leg hurts like hell.  If I stay here I can’t sleep.  Anything to keep from thinking about it!  Besides, some one must go and look after Brown!”

“Who’ll watch those Greeks?” Fred demanded.  “They’d as soon steal as eat!”

“We’d better all stay here together,” said Will, “and take turns keeping watch till morning.”  He said it with a straight face, but I did not think he was in earnest.

“Ach!” exclaimed Schubert.  “That is all ganz einfach!  You shall have askaris!”

He turned and shouted an order.  A non-commissioned officer went running back up-street.

“You shall have three askaris to guard your camp.  So nothing whatever shall be stolen!  Then come along and make music—­seien Sie gemuthlich!  Yah?”

Brown had already gone, jingling money in his pocket.  We waited until the Nubian soldiers came—­saw them posted—­and then walked up-street behind the sergeants, Schubert leading us all, and I limping between Fred and Will.  They as good as carried me the last half of the way.

The sergeants marched with the air peculiar to military Germans, of men who are going to be amused.  They said nothing—­did not smile—­but strode straight forward, three abreast, swinging their kibokos with a sort of elephantine sporty air.  They were men of all heights and thicknesses, but each alike impressed me with the Prussian military mold that leaves a man no imagination of his own, and no virtue, but only an animal respect for whatever can make to suffer, or appease an appetite.

The D.O.A.G. proved a mournful enough lounging place in which to spend convivial evenings.  However, it seemed that when the sergeant-major had decreed amusement the non-commissioned officers’ mess overlooked all trifles in brave determination to obey.  They marched in, humming tunes (each a different one, and nearly all high tenor) and took seats in a room at the rear of the building with their backs against a mud-brick wall that was shiny from much rubbing by drill tunics.

Down the center was a narrow table, loaded with drinks of all sorts.  A case of bottled beer occupied the place of pride at one end; as Schubert had boasted, nothing was lacking that East Africa could show in the way of imported alcohol.  Under the table was an unopened case of sweet German champagne, and on a little table against one wall were such things as absinth, chartreuse, peppermint, and benedictine.  Soda-water was slung outside the window in a basket full of wet grass where the evening breeze would keep it cool.