“And say!” said Will.  “Look out of the window!  If we once got away into country like that, who could follow us!”

“But you can’t get away!” said a. weary voice from the upper berth.  “I’m Brown of Lumbwa.  That’s my name, gents, and I know, because I tried!  Thought I was sound asleep, didn’t you!  Well, I weren’t!  Listen to me, what happens.  You start off.  They get wind of it.  They send the police helter-skelter hot-foot after you—­native police—­no officer—­Masai they are, an’ I tell you those Masai can make their sixty miles a day when they’re minded an’ no bones about it either!  Maybe the Masai catches you and maybe not.  S’posing they do they can’t do much.  They’ve merely a letter with ’em commanding you to return at once and report at the gov’ment office.  And o’ course—­bein’ ignorant, same as me, an’ hot-headed, an’ eager—­you treat that contumelious an’ tip the Masai the office to go to hell.  Which they do forthwith.  They’re so used to bein’ told to go to hell by wishful wanderers that they scarcely trouble to wait for the words.  Presently they draw a long breath an’ go away again like smoke being blowed downwind.  An’ you proceed onward, dreamin’ dreams o’ gold an’ frankincense an’ freedom.”

“Well, what next?” said I, for he made a long pause, either for reminiscence or because of headache.

“Whisky next!” he answered.  “I left a little for the morning, didn’t I?  I almost always do.  Hold the bottle up to the light—­no, no, you’ll spill it!—­pass it here!  Ah-h-h—­gug-gug!”

He finished what was left and tried to hurl the empty bottle through the window, but missed and smashed it against the woodwork.

“‘Sapity!” he murmured.  “Means bad luck, that does!  Poor ole Brown o’ Lumbwa—­poor ole fella’.  Pick up the pieces, boys!  Pick ’em up quick—­might get some o’ poor ole Brown’s bad luck—­cut yourselves or what not.  Pick ’em up careful now!”

We did, and it took ten minutes, for the splinters were scattered everywhere.

“Next time you do a thing like that you shall get out an’ walk!” announced Fred.

“That ’ud be only my usual luck!” he answered mournfully.  “But I was tellin’ how you notify the Masai police to go to hell, an’ they oblige.  It’s the last obligin’ anybody does for you.  Every native’s a bush telegraph—­every sleepy-seemin’ one of ’em!  They know tracks in an’ out through the scrub that ain’t on maps, an’ they get past you day or night wi’out you knowin’ it, an’ word goes on ahead o’ you—­procedes you as the sayin’ is.  You come to a village.  You need milk, food, Porters maybe, an’ certainly inf’mation about the trail ahead.  You ask.  Nobody answers.  They let on not to sling your kind o’ lingo.  Milk—­never heard o’ such stuff—­cows in them parts don’t give milk!  Food?  They’re starving.  It isn’t overeating makes their bellies big, it’s wind.  Porters?  All the young men are lame, an’ old ’uns