“Depends,” said Monty.  “Let’s talk upstairs.  That Syrian has long ears.”

So we trooped to Monty’s room, where the very cobwebs reeked of Arab history and lawless plans.  He sat on the black iron bed, and we grouped ourselves about on chairs that had very likely covered the known world between them.  One was obviously jetsam from a steamship; one was a Chinese thing, carved with staggering dragons; the other was made of iron-hard wood that Yerkes swore came from South America.

“Shoot when you’re ready!” grinned Yerkes.

I was too excited to sit still.  So was Fred.

“Get a move on, Didums, for God’s sake!” he growled.

“Well,” said Monty, “there seems something in this ivory business.  Our chance ought to be as good as anybody’s.  But there are one or two stiff hurdles.  In the first place, the story is common property.  Every one knows it—­Arabs—­Swahili—­Greeks—­Germans—­English.  To be suspected of looking for it would spell failure, for the simple reason that every adventurer on the coast would trail us, and if we did find it we shouldn’t be able to keep the secret for five minutes.  If we found it anywhere except on British territory it ’ud be taken away from us before we’d time to turn round.  And it isn’t buried on British territory!  I’ve found out that much.”

“Good God, Didums!  D’you mean you know where the stuff is?”

Fred sat forward like a man at a play.

“I know where it isn’t,” said Monty.  “They told me at the Residency that in all human probability it’s buried part in German East, and by far the greater part in the Congo.”

“Then that ten per cent. offer by the British is a bluff?” asked Yerkes.

“Out of date,” said Monty.  “The other governments offer nothing.  The German government might make terms with a German or a Greek—­not with an Englishman.  The Congo government is an unknown quantity, but would probably see reason if approached the proper way.”

“The U. S. Consul tells me,” said Yerkes, “that the Congo government is the rottenest aggregate of cutthroats, horse-thieves, thugs, yeggs, common-or-ordinary hold-ups, and sleight-of-hand professors that the world ever saw in one God-forsaken country.  He says they’re of every nationality, but without squeam of any kind—­hang or shoot you as soon as look at you!  He says if there’s any ivory buried in those parts they’ve either got it and sold it, or else they buried it themselves and spread the story for a trap to fetch greenhorns over the border!”

“That man’s after the stuff himself!” said Fred.  “All he wanted to do was stall you off!”

“That man Schillingschen the doctor told us about,” said Monty, “is suspected of knowing where to look for some of the Congo hoard.  He’ll bear watching.  He’s in British East Africa at present—­said to be combing Nairobi and other places for a certain native.  He is known to stand high in the favor of the German government, but poses as a professor of ethnology.”