as the anchor chain came home. The sound traveled over water and across roofs like the knell of good luck—the clanking of the fetters of ill fate.
"Where's her next stop?" said I.
"Suez," Fred answered.
Simultaneously then to all three the thought came too that this interpretation of Monty's remaining on board was exactly what we wanted. The more people suspected us of acting independently of him the better.
"Confront us with our accusers!" Fred insisted.
"You are not accused—at least not legally," said the collector. "You are refused rifle and ammunition permits, that is all."
"On the ground of being ivory hunters?"
"Suspected persons—not known to the government—something rather stronger than rumor to your discredit, and nothing known in your favor."
"What recourse have we?" Fred demanded.
"Well—what proof can you offer that you are bona fide travelers or intending settlers? Are you ivory hunters or not?"
"I'll answer that," said Fred—dexterously I thought, "when I've seen a copy of the game laws. We're law-abiding men."
The collector handed us a well thumbed copy of the Red Book.
"They're all in that," he said. "I'll lend it to you, or you can buy one almost anywhere in town. If you decide after reading that to go farther up country I'm willing to issue provisional game licenses, subject to confirmation after I've looked into any evidence you care to submit on your own behalf. You can have your guns against a cash deposit—"
"How big?"
"Two hundred rupees for each gun!"
Fred laughed. The demand was intended to be away over our heads. The collector bridled.
"But no ammunition," he went on, "until your claim to respectability has been confirmed. By the way, the only claim you've made to me is for the guns. You've told me nothing about yourselves."
"Two hundred a gun?" said Fred. "Counting a pistol or revolver as one? Three guns apiece—nine guns—eighteen hundred rupees' deposit?"
The collector nodded with a sort of grim pleasure in his own unreasonableness. Fred drew out our new check book.
"You fellows agreeable?" he asked, and we nodded.
"Here's a check on the Mombasa Bank for ten thousand, and your government can have as much more again if it wants it," he said. "Make me out a receipt please, and write on it what it's for."
The collector wrote. He was confused, for he had to tear up more than one blank.
"I suppose we get interest on the money at the legal local rate?" asked
Fred maliciously.
"I'll inquire about that," said the collector.
"Excuse me," said Fred, "but I'm going to give you some advice. While you're inquiring, look into the antecedents of Lady Isobel Saffren Waldon! It's she who gave out the tip against us. Her tip's a bad one. So is she."
"She hasn't applied for guns or a license," the collector answered tartly. "It's people who want to carry firearms—people able and likely to make trouble whom we keep an eye on."
"She's more likely to make trouble for you than a burning house!" put in Will Yerkes. "If my partner hadn't paid you that check I'd be all for having this business out! I'm going to let them know in the States what sort of welcome people receive at this port!"
"You came of your own accord. You weren't invited," the collector answered.
"That's a straight-out lie!" snapped Will. "You know it's a lie! Why, there isn't a newspaper in South Africa that hasn't been carrying ads of this country for months past. Even papers I've had sent me from the States have carried press-agent dope about it. Why, you've been yelling for settlers like a kid squalling for milk—and you say we're not invited now we've come here! I'm going to write and tell the U. S. papers what that dope is worth!"
"Ivory hunters are not settlers," the collector interjected.
"Who said we're ivory hunters?" Will was in a fine rage, and Fred and I leaned back to enjoy the official's discomfort. "Besides, your ads bragged about the big game as one of the chief attractions! All the information you can possibly have against us must have come from a female crook in the pay of the German government! You're not behaving the way gentlemen do where I was raised!"
"There is no intention to offend," said the collector.
"Intention is good!" said Will, laughing in spite of himself. "There's another thing I want to know. What about ammunition? We're to have our guns. They're useless without cartridges. What about it?"
"The guns shall be sent to your hotel tonight. The provisional sporting licenses—if you want them—will be ready tomorrow morning—seven hundred and fifty rupees apiece—I'll charge them against your deposit. If the licenses should be confirmed after inquiry, I will send you permits through the post for fifty rounds of ammunition each."
Will snorted. Fred Oakes yelled with laughter, and I gaped with indignation.
"I'm going into this to the hilt!" spluttered Fred. "I wouldn't have missed it for a fortune! We three are going to constitute ourselves a committee of inspection. We're going to wander the country over and report home to the newspapers—South African—British—U. S. A.—and any other part of the world that's interested! We won't worry about ammunition. Send us permits for whatever quantity seems to you proper, and we'll note it all down in our diaries!"
We all stood up, the collector obviously uncomfortable and we, if not at ease, at least happier than we had been.
Fred nodded to the collector genially, and we all walked out.
Mombasa is a fairly large island, but the built-over part of it is small, so it was not surprising that we should emerge from the office face to face with Lady Saffren Waldon. She was the one surprised, not we. She probably thought she had spiked our guns in that part of the world forever, and the sight of us coming laughing from the very office where we should have been made glum must have been disconcerting.
She was riding on one of the little trolley-cars, pushed by two boys in white official uniform, dressed in her flimsiest best, a lace parasol across her knee, and beside her an obvious member of the government—young, and so recently from home as not to have lost his pink cheeks yet.
Had there not been an awning over the trolley-car she might have used the parasol to make believe she had not seen us. But the awning precluded that, and we were not more than two or three yards away.
"Laugh!" whispered Fred.
So we crossed the track laughing and the trolley had to pause to let us by. We laughed as we raised our helmets to her—laughed both at her and at the pink and white puppy she had taken in leash. And then the sort of thing happened that nearly always does when men with a reasonable faith in their own integrity make up their minds to see opprobrium through. Fate stepped hard on our arm of the balance.
If built-over Mombasa is a small place, so is Africa. So is the world. Striding down the hill from the other hotel, the rival one, the Royal, came a man so well known in so many lands that they talk of naming a tenth of a continent after him—the mightiest hunter since Nimrod, and very likely mightier than he; surely more looked-up to and respected—a little, wiry-looking, freckled, wizened man whose beard had once been red, who walked with a decided limp and blinked genially from under the brim of a very neat khaki helmet.
"Why, bless my soul if it isn't Fred Oakes!" he exclaimed, in a squeaky, worn-out voice that is as well known as his face, and quickened his pace down-hill.
"Courtney!" said Fred. "There's only one man I'd rather meet!"
The little man laughed. "Oh, you and your Montdidier are still inseparable, I suppose! How are you, Fred? I'm glad to see