In the end he decided not to read the letter at all.

“I have reached the conclusion you three men are gentlemen,” he said, “and would not take advantage of me.  I will take your letter to Ujiji, and send it to the south end of Lake Tanganika, to be put in the British mail bag for Mombasa by way of Durban.  It will take a long time to reach its destination—­perhaps two months; but I will have it registered, and it will undoubtedly get there.”

That he kept his word and better we had ample proof later on, but I did not bless him particularly fervidly at the time, for he went straight to the doctor and repeated my complaints.  He left for Ujiji the next day, and the net result of his friendly interference was that the doctor refused me any sort of attention at all—­even a change of bandages.

Fred and Will did their best for me, but it was little.  I read in their faces, and in their studied cheerfulness when speaking in my presence, that they had made up their minds I was going to lose the number of my mess.  They went to the commandant and the lieutenant besides the doctor in efforts to secure for me some sort of consideration, but without result; and they wrote at least six letters to the British East African Protectorate government that we ascertained afterward never reached their destination.  They tried to register one letter, but registration was refused.

“Why don’t they jail us simply, and have done with it?”—­Will kept wondering aloud.

“They will when it suits their books,” said I.  “For the present they scarcely dare.  Word might reach the British government.  They’re breaking no international law by holding us here and keeping tabs on us.”

Before many days I grew unable to leave the hard cork mattress on the camp-bed in Fred’s tent.  They went again to the commandant, this time determined to force the issue.

“I will send some one,” he told them, and they came away delighted that strong language should succeed where politeness formerly had failed.

But all the commandant did send was an askari twice a day, to lean on his rifle in the tent door, leer at me, and march away again.

“He comes to see if I’m dead,” said I.  “It would be inconvenient to have me die in jail; there might be inquiries afterward from British East.  After I’m dead and buried they’ll jail you two healthy ones, and keep you until you ’blab’!”

“Why don’t we straight out tell ’em we don’t know a thing about the ivory?” wondered Will.

“Because they wouldn’t believe us!” Fred answered.

Seven days after the sentry’s first call the doctor took to coming in person to look at me.  He never except once stepped inside the tent, but was satisfied to give me a glance of contempt and go away again, once or twice taking pains to inspect the Greeks’ camp before leaving.  He usually had Schubert trailing in his wake, and gave him stern orders about sanitation which nobody ever carried out.  The sanitary conditions of that rest-camp were simply non-existent until we came there, and we had gone to no pains on the Greeks’ account.