Kazimoto ran back to bring our party, and we took a coil of iron wire from Schillingschen’s trade goods and fastened every prisoner’s hands firmly behind his back, including the unconscious German’s.  That done, we ate the meat, beans and vegetable supper that the ten had cooked.

Brown and Coutlass found Schillingschen’s whisky after that, and under its influence again swore ceaseless friendship beneath the non-committal stars.  While they feasted we took Coutlass’ rifle away as a plain precaution.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

PARCERE SUBJECTIS?

’When the devil’s at bay
Ye may kneel down and pray
For a year and a day
To be spared the distress of dispatching him,
But the longer ye kneel
The more squeamish ye’ll feel
’Cause the louder he’ll squeal,
And at brotherly talk there’s no matching him. 
Discussion’s his aim,
And as sure as you’re game
To give heed to the same,
You regarding extremes with compunction,
You may bet he’ll requite
Your compassion with spite,
Knifing you in the night
With much probonopublico unction.

For a while we looked like having trouble with Coutlass.  We gave Brown a rifle, and distributed the other Mausers among Kazimoto and our best boys, but we did not dare trust the Greek with a weapon he might use against us, and be resented that bitterly.  He had an answer to Fred’s subterfuge that as a white man he would need a license before daring to carry firearms.  “I dare do anything!  I care nothing for law!” he argued, and Fred nodded.

That night we reveled in luxury, for after the life we had led recently it took time to reaccustom any of us to the common comforts.  Schillingschen traveled with every provision for his carcass and his belly; and we plundered him.

We put the prisoners and our own porters in a hut in the nearest native village (less than half a mile away) under the watchful eye of Kazimoto and the shot-gun, dividing Schillingschen’s two large tents between ourselves.  The others offered me the camp-bed as a recent invalid, but I refused, and Will won it by matching coins.  We divided the blankets in the same way, and all the spare underwear.  Brown and Coutlass had to be satisfied with cotton blankets from a bale of trade goods; but when they had rifled enough to build up good thick mattresses as well as coverings, there were still two apiece for our boys and all the porters.

The chop-boxes were a revelation.  The man had with him food enough for at least a year’s traveling, including all the canned delicacies that hungry men dream about in the wilderness.  Before we slept we ate so enormously of so very many things that it was a wonder that we were able to sleep at all.

We all hoped Schillingschen would die, for it was a hard problem what to do with him.  He had no papers in his possession, beyond a diary written in German schrift that even Will could not make head or tail of, for all his knowledge of the language; and a very vague map bearing the imprint of the British government, filled in by himself with the names of the villages he had passed on his way.  There was no proof that we could find that would have condemned him of nefarious practises in a British court of law.