“And believe me,” argued Will, sprawling on the plundered bed, blowing the smoke of a Melachrino through his nose, “your local British judges would take the word of Professor Schillingschen against all of ours, backed up by simply overwhelming native evidence!  They’re so in awe of Schillingschen’s professorial degree, and of his passports, and his letters of introduction from this and that mogul that they wouldn’t believe him guilty of arson if they caught him in the act!”

“Something’s got to be done with him pretty soon, though,” answered Fred from the floor, lying at ease on a pillow and a folded Jaeger blanket, smoking a fat cigar.

Coutlass and Brown were singing songs outside the tent and I sat in a genuine armchair with my feet on a box full of canned plum pudding.  (Nobody knows, who has not hungered on the high or low veld—­who has not eaten meat without vegetables for days on end, and then porridge without salt or sugar—­how good that common, export, canned plum Pudding is!  To sit with my feet on the case that contained it was the arrogance of affluence!)

“We have his stores and his papers,” said I.  “We have his Baganda; and as time goes on, and his other spies begin to come in, we shall have them, too, if we’re half careful.  Why don’t we let him go, to tell his own tale wherever he likes?”

“Maybe he’ll die yet!” said the optimist on the camp-bed, blowing more cigarette smoke.

“Suppose he doesn’t.  We’ve done our best to keep him alive.  He’s quit bleeding.  Suppose we let him go, and he lays a charge against us.  Suppose they send after us and bring us in.  We’ve his diary and his men—­evidence enough,” said I.

“You bally ass!” Fred murmured.

“Cuckoo!” laughed Will.

“I don’t believe he’d dare approach a British official with his story,” said I.

“Incredible imbecile!” Fred answered.  “He has the gall of a brass monkey.”

“And magnetism—­loads of it,” Will added.  “He’d make the Pope play three-card monte.”

“To say nothing,” continued Fred, “of the necessity of not letting the government know we’re here!  Rather than turn him loose, I’d march him into Kisumu and hand him over.  But, as Will says wisely, our proconsuls would believe him, and put us under bonds for outraging a distinguished foreigner.”

“Well, then,” said I, “what the devil shall we do with him?  Offer something constructive, you two solons!”

“Have the four men we borrowed from the island bolted home yet?” wondered Will.

“They hadn’t this evening,” I answered.  “I don’t believe they’ll venture home until we stop feeding them.  They were hungry on their island.  Our shortest commons then seemed affluence.  Now they’re in heaven!”

“Their canoes must be where they left them in the papyrus.”

“Sure.  Who’d steal a canoe?”

“Whoever could find them,” Fred answered.  “But they’re skilfully hidden.  Why don’t we put Schillingschen and his ten pet blacks into those canoes, with a little food and no rifles—­and show them the way to German East?”