“Aren’t you men ever coming?” asked Will, striding out of the shadows.  “I’ve made the dicker—­found a man who’d been on the mainland and knows Swahili.  The chief’s agreeable to loan us two canoes in place of deeding you the woman.  I took your name in vain, Fred, and consented to that while your back was turned—­kick all you like—­the deed is done!  Four of his savages come with us as far as we want to go, we feeding ’em meat and paying ’em money.  It’s agreed they’re to eat just as often as we do.  They paddle the canoes back home when we’re through with them.  Are you all ready?  Then all aboard!  Let’s hurry!”

CHAPTER TWELVE

“Many that are first shall be last; and the last first’-’

When the last of the luck has deserted and the least of the chances has waned, When there’s nowhere to run to and even the pluck in the smile that you carry is feigned; When grimmer than yesterday’s horror to-morrow dawns hungry and cold, And your faith in the coming unknown is denied in regret for the known and the old, Then you’re facing, my son, what the Fathers from Abraham down to to-day Have looked on alone, and stood up to alone, and each in his several way O’ercame (or he shouldn’t be Father).  So ye shall o’ercome:  while ye live, Though ye’ve nothing but breath and good-will to your name ye must stand to it naked, and give!

Ye shall learn in that hour that the plunder ye won by profession is nought — And false was the aim ye aspired with—­and dross was the glamour ye sought — The codes and the creeds that ye cherished were shadows of clouds in the wind, (And ye can not recall for their counsel lost leaders ye dallied behind!) Ye shall stand in that hour and discover by agony’s guttering flame How the fruits of self-will, and the lees of ambition and bitterness all are the same, Until, stripped of desire, ye shall know that was death.  Then the proof that ye live Shall be knowledge new-born that the naked—­the fools and the felons, can give!

Then the suns and the stars in their courses shall speedily swing to your aid, And nothing shall hinder you further, and nothing shall make you afraid, For the veriest edges of evil shall challenge your joy, and no more, And room for the right shall shine clear in your vision where wrong was before.  Then the stones in the road shall be restful that used to be traps for your feet, Then the crowd shall be kind that was cruel before, and your solitude sweet That was want to be gloomy aforetime and gray—­when the proof that ye live Is no longer the pain of desire, but the will—­and the wit—­and the vision, to give!

The canoes were the usual crazy affairs, longer and rather wider than the average.  The bottom portion of each was made from a tree-trunk, hollowed out by burning, and chipped very roughly into shape.  The sides were laboriously hewn planks, stitched into place with thread made from papyrus.