“He knows better!” Schubert laughed.  “He understands by this time our German hospitality!”

“All right,” answered Fred.  “We’ll go out without paying!”

“Not at all,” retorted Schubert.  “The mess shall pay bill in full!  You stay here until I have said what I have to say to you!  The rest of your party may go, but you stay!  You can explain to the others afterward.”

He leaned forward, reached a bottle of beer off the table, knocked off the neck, and emptied the contents down his throat at a draught.  Behind his back we exchanged glances.

“I’ll listen,” said Fred.

“You alone?”

“No, we all stay.  All or none!”

Schubert made a contemptuous gesture with his thumb toward Brown, who had fallen dead drunk on the floor.

“Will that one stay, too?”

“He is not of our party really,” Fred answered.  “He knows nothing of our affairs.”

“You men are in trouble—­worse trouble than you guess!”

Schubert looked with his cruel blue eyes into each of ours in turn, then stared straight in front of him and waited.

“I don’t believe it,” Fred answered.  “We have done nothing to merit trouble.”

“Merit in this world is another name for chance!” said Schubert.

“What are we supposed to have done?” demanded Fred.

Schubert at once assumed what was intended to be a sly look, of uncommunicable knowledge.

“None of my business to tell what my officers know,” he answered.  “As for that, time will no doubt disclose much.  The point is—­trouble can be forestalled.”

“Aw—­show your hand!” cut in Will, leaning in front of Fred.  “I’ve seen you Heinies fishing for graft too often in the States not to recognize symptoms!  Spill the bait can!  There’s no other way to tell if we’ll bite!  Tell us what you’re driving at!”

“Ivory!” said Schubert savagely and simply, shutting his jaws after the word like a snap with a steel spring.  It would have broken the teeth of an ordinary human.

“What ivory?”

We all did our best to look blank.

“You know!  Tippoo Tib’s ivory!  It belongs to the German government!  Emin Pasha, whom that adventurer Stanley rescued against his will, agreed to sell the secret to us, but we never agreed on a price and he died without telling.  Gott!  He would have told had I had the interviewing of him!  It was known in Zanzibar that you and a certain English lord shared the secret.  You have been watched.  You are known to be in search of the stuff.”

“The deuce you say!” Fred murmured, with a glance to left and right at us.

“If you were to go to the office to-morrow, and tell our commandant what you know,” said Schubert, “you might be suitably compensated.  You would certainly be given facilities for leaving the country in comfort at your leisure.”

“Who told you to promise us that?” Fred demanded, turning on him.