Thereafter followed long day-rides of inspection, an occasional week's absence from home studying possibilities in remote parts of the Concession, holding conferences with the Stotts, laying cases and possibilities of special difficulty before the German officer commanding at Kondoa. His talks with the Stotts were directed to several ends: urging the Stotts to get into the confidence of all the native tribes—Bantu, Hamitic, Nilotic—of the Concession's area and find out how far their interests might be subserved by the full exploitation of the animal, vegetable and mineral wealth of this patch of East Africa. "Unless we carry the natives with us," he would say, "this enterprise must eventually fail, wither up; because, boast of the climate as we may, the hard manual labour cannot be performed by white men: we must fall back on the native. Now half the men-natives in these parts are picturesque to look at, graceful figure and all that; but they shirk hard work. They prefer to loll about in the sun or to run after women. Can't you put some ambition into 'em? Teach them something besides these rotten hymns and prayers that are meaningless to them?""But we do," said Mrs. Stott. "You haven't looked over our school for two years, I believe. You seem to have got hymn-singing on the brain. Our hymns translated by us are not rubbish and the natives enjoy singing them....""I don't doubt they do, though I don't see what use it is. Neither they nor the prayers prevent the Almighty from sending the flights of locusts.... Or rather these appeals and this excessive praise do not stimulate the Divine power to dosomethingto abate Africa's myriad plagues. It is always poor Man—and most of all, poorWhiteman—who has to work his brain and body to exhaustion to set right what Nature perversely sets wrong. Here am I, trying to abate the grasshopper plague in our tobacco plantations by encouraging the domestication of the Crowned crane. Yet the natives won't take any interest in this idea, though the Crowned cranes feed themselves and have charming manners. Can't you push this matter in your schools? Couldn't you preach a sermon on the uses of the Crowned crane?"On another occasion he put a further difficulty before the Ewart Stotts. "Look here! I'm going to take you again into my confidence. I want you to find me an assistant, some one of your own kin in Australia who would come out here at short notice on an agreement for three years—I even want two men, one of them versed in shorthand and typewriting who could be my secretary. I don't know any one in England who isn't either a rotter or a potential rotter, or hasn't got a job already. There's my brother Geoffrey, but he's a Commander now in the Navy, getting on fine, and simply wouldn't think of chucking the service to come here. My other brother is well suited as a land-agent. I want something Australian, some one as like you two as possible. I don't mind a moderate amount of religion, as long as it doesn't waste their time on week-days, and they can't be too teetotal for my liking. No Whisky-drinker need apply.""Why, I believe we know of the very two, at any rate of the principal one," said Mrs. Stott: "My nephew Phil Ewart. I haven't seen him since he was a baby, but my brother's wife writes to me now and again and says he's doing very well on a big sheep run in Queensland....""Well then, look here: let's draft a cablegram that I can send off from the coast. I'll guarantee him a year's salary and, if he turns out satisfactory, a three years' agreement—£500 a year. He can choose any likely young fellow ... good character ... abstainer ... serve as clerk ... £200 a year commence ... take steamer Australia-Durban, and German steamer Durban-Saadani, and so on, up-country. If I get 'em here by November I can give em three months' trial before I set out for home....Musttake a holiday next year and bring my wife out afterwards. Don't like to leave this business without a Britisher in it to watch my interests, don't you know, and advise me how things are going while I am away."So they arranged the matter between them. Then Mrs. Stott said: "I've a funny proposition to make. A week ago I received a letter from Ann Jamblin that was ... at Hangodi.... Ann Anderson she is now. She saw Lucy there five weeks ago and was much touched at her calling on them. Says she took a special fancy to your dear, sweet, pretty children. Her own little girl is very ailing. Well, now she goes on to say old Mrs. Doland, who was a great supporter of their Mission, has died and only left the East African Mission £5,000. For this and other reasons the Mission thinks of giving up Hangodi, as it is quite an isolated station now, and all their others are in the British Sphere.... Well, to put it quite plain, as you're impatient to be gone—oh,Iknow by the way you're tapping your gaiters—how would it be if your Concession or you or some one advanced our Mission £150 for out-of-pocket expenses—so as to move quickly, don't you know? And we sent word to Ann and her husband to join us as soon as they had definite authority to evacuate Hangodi. The German Government, I believe, are going to buy the station. If we got Ann and her husband up here the couple of them would strengthen our hands mightily and then we could give some of that worldly instruction you're so anxious about. Or make it up in some way of help. Strengthen the British element here. For although I don't hold with your views about Providence one little bit, and believe the World was made in six days and am surprised every now and again that you aren't struck down for your audacity, not to say blasphemy, yet something tells me you and we are really working for the same Divine ends...."Roger said the matter should certainly have his attention. (Before he left for England the following Spring Ann and Eb were members of the Stott Mission, and the Stotts were able to open another station and school in the Iraku country.)The months flew by through autumn, winter and spring. Roger established a stud farm in the Happy Valley where he could locate a captured dozen of zebra and interbreed with Maska donkeys ... perhaps a manageable, large-bodied zebra-mule might solve some of their transport difficulties in the regions of the tse-tse fly. He introduced shorthorn cattle from South Africa to mingle with the native oxen and improve the milk supply. He imported from Natal six Basuto ponies, two stallions and four mares. He ordered three safety bicycles—the great new invention or combination of inventions. He and his German engineers, reinforced by a clever Swiss sent out by the German directorate, gave special consideration to the waterfalls of Iraku, to harness them to turbines and produce electric light. This power would feed electric dynamos when the progress of the railway construction enabled such heavy things to reach the Happy Valley. They laid out great coffee plantations and experimented in tea and quinine. It was hoped the natives might take up all these cultures in time, on their own account, as they had done that of cacao on the Gold Coast and in the German Cameroons.The day for his departure in the early spring came ever nearer and nearer. The two Australians arrived, went down with fever, recovered and eventually proved the right stuff, especially young Philip Ewart. Mrs. Stott said she would see he did not get into mischief while the Director was absent in England. She would also give an eye to the Brenthams' house and the doings of Andrade and Halima as caretakers.There was therefore little cause for anxiety on Roger's part as he made his preparations for a six-months' absence, save the rumoured doings of a certain Stolzenberg, a mysterious German hunter who, coming from the British Sphere, had established himself near the north-west escarpment of Lake Manyara, apparently on the border of the Happy Valley Concession (Glücklichesthals Konzession).CHAPTER XIXTROUBLE WITH STOLZENBERGIn those days—to parody a line of Holy Writ—it might be said, "To every man, a crater or two"; if you were referring to the wilderness which lay between Kilimanjaro and the southern Rift Valleys, and to the strange adventurers who in the 'nineties ranged up and down the East African interior between Baringo on the north and the Happy Valley on the south, over a region of elevated steppe land, isolated mountains of immense height, and extinct volcanoes. Some of these lawless men were accumulating considerable wealth in ivory, sheep and cattle. They wanted fortresses in which to live and store their plunder, or the spoil of their chase, the elephant tusks, the rhino horns, the lion and leopard skins, the black and white mantles of the long-haired colobus monkeys, the ostrich plumes; even the roughly-cured skins of the rosy flamingoes which were becoming an article of great demand in the plumage trade. For this purpose the large and small craters of presumably extinct volcanoes were ready to hand; as though Nature had anticipated their wants. Most of these were surrounded on the inside by the nearly continuous, circular wall of the crater, only broken down at one point where the lava or nowadays a stream of water (the overflow of a little crater lake) issued from the crater floor. Here with piled stones it was easy to restrict the gap and hold the entrance against any savage enemy without artillery. These defences were, of course, prepared against the Masai and not with any idea of defying a White Government, whose advent at that time seemed very problematical: at any rate a White Government that would interfere to protect the natives, to obstruct elephant killing, or regulate the movements of cattle between a disease-infected area and one that still possessed uninfected flocks and herds.It was to one of these craters—very red in colour—that Roger Brentham rode up at the end of March, 1897, after three days' difficult journey from the south. He halted his littlesafariof armed porters and his four Somali gun-men on a level tableland in front of the gap in the crater walls; a gap cleverly closed by a huge door of yew planks and a bridge of yew trunks thrown over the issuing brook, with stones piled on top to a height of twenty feet. There were obvious indications that the walls and woodwork were loopholed for gun-fire. He called several times loudly in Swahili and German to arouse an answer and rapped on the cumbrous door.Presently a smaller door within the great one opened and there emerged a sullen-looking negro giant, probably a Makua from the south. [Such offer themselves for service in Unguja.] "Unatakáje?" he asked in Swahili. "I want to see your Bwana—I do not know his 'native' name," said Brentham, "but just take this 'karata' to him and he will read my name; and say I wish to see him. Meantime I will make a camp here."The Makua doorkeeper or watchman returned within, and possibly an hour passed before anything further happened, during which Brentham had his tent erected, and arranged for his men—they were travelling very light—to make their sleeping-places around it.The small door was again reopened and there stepped out a remarkable-looking man of over six feet, with enormous recurved moustaches, a sombrero hat, jackboots and a general swashbuckling air and a visible revolver in the broad belt that held up his breeches. He walked slowly towards Roger who advanced to meet him."Did you come to see me?" he asked in English."I did," said Roger; "that is, if your name is Stolzenberg?""It is ... for to-day—at any rate. Well: here I am. You come to tell me 'it is Easter Sunday, and Christ Is Risen,' like the Russians do?""Why, is it Easter Sunday? Dear me! I had no idea. If so, I might have chosen another time. Still, as Iamhere and as youarehere—and I fancy you are often absent?—I should be obliged if we could have a talk, come to an understanding, don't you know?" (There was no answering friendliness in the fierce face that looked into his, the face of a perfectly ruthless man, eyes with bloodshot whites, wide mouth with pale flaccid lips, showing strong tobacco-stained teeth, prominent cheek bones, lowering brows, a massive jaw, and here and there an old duelling scar.)"An unnerstanding?" he said sneeringly. "What about?Iunnerstand you. I know who you are, now I see your card. You are Captain Brentham. Once you were Consul ... at ... Unguja. Then you run away with missionary's wife—and—you are ... no more Consul. You do somesing shocking,nicht wahr? It is so easy to shock your Gover'ment—and now von Wissmann—that Morphinsäufer—he gif you a Concession. An' I suppose you come now to say I trespass on your Concession? Very well then, Ido, an' I don' care a damn for you or for any Gover'ment you like to name. I make this my home six, seven years ago and no one come to turn me out now, unless they fight me first."I haven't come to turn you out," said Roger. Stolzenberg laughs noisily and contemptuously.... "It's not my business to do so. I have come with a very small following to make your acquaintance, to find out for myself what you were like and to see whether it was possible to deal with you..." (As he is talking he sees that through the open doorway of the stronghold there are issuing a large number of armed black men, dressed like the coast people—perhaps a hundred), "to deal with you as one white man might deal with another. But before I can even put our case—our Concession's case—before you, you commence by insulting me and making a lying statement about my wife—and you probably now intend threatening me by an attack with your Askari[#]—who I see are gathering up behind you."[#] Soldiers."These men," said Stolzenberg, glancing round at them and shouting an order to them to be seated, "are only there to make sure. You Britishers are always up to some trick. I thought just to show you I stand no nonsense. As to what I say ... a-bout Meeses ... Brentham, I ... only ... say ... what your ... own country-men say on coast. But let that pass. What is this unnerstanding you propose to me—a Partnership? Well, I am open to a bargain. What is it to be? What terms do you offer?""I haven't come here to discuss any such thing. I came to say this. As you ask the question, this extraordinary place—I suppose it is the crater of a volcano?—does not lie within our limits. You are not trespassing on our property. But for the past nine months or so we have had many complaints about you or about your men. You raid the natives, you take the Masai cattle and apparently drive them into this stronghold. You even kidnap the Iraku women....""I donotkidnap.... They come here of their own pleasure ... they are free to go if they like. But they like my men much better than their own husbands who cannot gif them closs or beads....""And finally," continued Roger, almost choking with the effort to speak in a level voice and not send a fist smashing into the large face that bends over his so threateningly, "finally, you drove away by force two of our prospecting parties at the north end of the Lake and...""Those men," shouted Stolzenberg ... "they ... they come just to spy out my defences ... but look here. You and I are big fools—p'raps I am bigger fool than you.... I lose my temper first, I say things a-bout a la-dy which perhaps are not true.... I apologize.... Nutting they say on the coast is true! Look at the lies they tell about me!" (a boisterous laugh). "They say at Mombasa I am biggest blaggard unhung. That is—what you say? ex-agger-a-ted? And look at the lies Bri-tish missionaries tell about my friend, Doctor Peters. It is that make me so angry just now. German Gover'ment belief these lies and send my good friend away. And then there is a fine Englishman I know, a nobleman in your country, a Sir—Sir Wil-low-by Pat-terne. You would hardly belief the things they say a-bout him—always be-hind his back....""So you know Willowby Patterne," said Roger (greatly interested)."I haf seen him once or twice," replied Stolzenberg, becoming suspicious. "But you do not come here, I sup-pose, to talk about him? You come to make my acquaintance. Well: you haf made it. Now you leaf me alone and I will leaf you alone. I ... what you say? I 'will not return your call'? My quarrel with the Masai is notyourbusiness. I haf—what do we say? I haf 'vendetta' against the Masai. When I first come out to East Africa on my own business I fit out asafariand travel to Kenya to buy ivory. I do no harm to Masai, but they attack my camp, they kill a young German man with me, myvery greatfriend; they kill most of my men—and see! They try to kill me" (pulls up shirt and shows long scar over ribs on left side), "and they kill my dogs. Only when they see Kikuyu coming down in large war party do they leaf off stabbing and go away with most of my trade goods. The Kikuyu carry me up to their village and save my life—I haf always been good friend to Kikuyu since.—You ask them! Well now, I get my own back. Whenever I see Masai now, I shoot. I put fear of death into them....""This is an interesting bit of biography," said Brentham, "but I thought those lawless days were gone by. I haven't heard the Masai version of your story. Perhaps they had some excuse. At any rate, they were not the same clan as the Masai round here, friends of mine for years; and you've no right to make war on them. Outside our concession, that's notmyaffair. Your Government——""Do not saymyGover'ment," roared Stolzenberg. "It is not mine. I do not ask for it! I am my own gover'ment. I was in these countries before ever came any German or any British Gover'ment.""Well then, the Government of this region, the Government that has got the most right to govern ... I say—No! youmusthear me out before I go—what you may do outside our concession is between you and them. But if after this warning you interfere with our people, the people inside this Concession I am managing, and in which I'm a magistrate, you'll run up againstme, and I shall shoot you at sight like you do the Masai....""All right! Haf a drink before you go?""No, I won't," said Roger. And wheeling round on his listening men, he shouted: "Pigeni kambi. Maneno yamekwisha. Twende zetu." Then, so that his leave-taking might lose none of its abruptness, he strode to where his Maskat donkey was tethered, released it, jumped into the saddle, and rode slowly away till he was out of sight, below the space of level ground. There he waited till his men had rejoined him with their light loads. The first to arrive were the four Somali gun-men. They had long since learnt to speak Swahili and they said, laughing, in relief that the palaver had ended without recourse to firearms: "Ulimshinda na maneno, Bwana mkubwa, ulimshinda, yule Mdachi. Walakini, ukiondoka, akasema watu wake. 'Simchuki, yule Mwingrezi. Mwanaume.'"[#][#] "You conquered him with words, Great Master, you defeated him, that German. But when you left he said to his people: 'I don't hate him, that Englishman. He is a man.'"Roger rode away musing from this encounter, or rather rode and walked over an exceedingly rough country with scarcely a native path or sign of habitation, a country depopulated doubtless by former wars and raids of tribe on tribe: for it was well watered.The tall clumps of Euphorbias gave the red landscape a sinister look, for their articulated branches looked like a conjunction of gigantic scorpions, bodies meeting together and stinging tails erected in the air; the fleshy-leaved aloes of deep bottle-green sent up blood-red stalks of blood-red tubular flowers; on the higher ground there were many rust-red or red-lead-coloured "red-hot pokers"—what the initiated call Kniphofias. The country somehow suggested blood and iron; for the old and faded Euphorbias might have been cut out of rusty metal, and iron ore was so obviously permeating the rocks.He mused on the violence to which Africa always seemed a prey. The reign of law in East Africa in both the British and German spheres seemed to be preceded by the reign of the outlaws. He knew enough as a traveller and an ex-official, and as a resident in the lands bordering on the British sphere, to be aware that just then the British hinterland was a prey to German and British, Austrian, American, South African and even Goanese-Indian buccaneers, who obeyed no laws or injunctions of the feeble Chartered Company or of the weak young Protectorate Government which followed.Some of these outlaws had come to East Africa with a voluble Austrian crank and two Russian anarchists who tried to found an impossible Utopia in South Galaland, the Colony of Freiheit—the main principle of which was that the oppressed white people of Central and Eastern Europe were to be free to do as they liked here and take all they wanted, while the natives of East Africa were to be their serfs. The natives of that part of East Africa—the proud Galas—who did not even know agoodwhite man when they saw him, or allow him to live—soon settled the hash of the Freiheiters, many of whom (there were three hundred in all) died of malarial fever. The remnant that escaped across the Tana became a scourge of inner East Africa; and a faint flavour of their unscrupulousness still remains. At the time of Roger's musing ride back from Stolzenberg's red Crater-fortress to his home at Magara on the Iraku escarpment there were about a dozen of these pioneers of civilization still remaining in activity. A few had made moderate competencies and had returned to Central Europe to abandon Communism in favour of State and Church, and to make respectable marriages with high-born damsels. The greater devils, the altogether branded-with-the-brand-of-Cain that remained would one by one either enter some company's service, not too scrupulous as to antecedents, or die bloody and terrible deaths. Meantime, they shot enormous numbers of elephants, made themselves chiefs of nomad tribes, started harems of twenty or thirty bought or snatched damsels (who thought the whole episode rather a lark), accumulated great herds of cattle, sheep, goats and Masai donkeys. Later, as things became more defined, frontiers more precise, laws more clearly formulated and regulations—my own for example—more vexatious, they turned themselves into smugglers and professional lawbreakers. They conveyed out of British into German territory forbidden ivory of female elephants; they brought from the German sphere cattle that might be affected with some germ disease and were therefore forbidden to enter British territory; they disposed of rhinoceros horns that were in excess of the miserly allowance granted to big-game slaughterers; they carried on a brisk slave trade by enrolling hundreds of labourers in German East Africa and conveying them hundred of miles into British East Africa and disposing of them at a premium to the many associations and enterprises requiring the black man's strong arm and patient labour; and they redressed the balance by raiding unnoticed districts under the British flag and transporting the inhabitants to German East Africa to be enrolled as labourers under military discipline.A few of them were unmitigated scoundrels, two or three had a maniac's blood-lust for killing beautiful creatures of little use when killed; or delighted in inflicting cruelties on the natives "to show their power." Many a blameless Government or Company's official proceeding up-country has been surprised at the hatred which flamed out at his approach, he guiltless of any unkindness or injustice. One or other of these masterless men were the cause of the treacherous attack on his caravan, or the loss of his life in an ambush which had to be expensively avenged by a military expedition.Yet if there was the left wing of his Legion of the Damned which drew up at the foot of the gallows, there was the right wing, headed by Sir Willowby Patterne, which remained in touch with good society and even dined, coming and going, at the Administrator's table or with Sir Bennet Molyneux at home. Nothing to their actual discredit was proved against them. And East Africa was five thousand miles from Mayfair.Patterne, whose first shooting expedition of 1890-91 had resulted in quite a nice little profit from the ivory it obtained, took up definitely an East African career. He had at first tried to get himself commissioned for the interior of the Chartered Company's territory. But its directors were well-intentioned, shrewd men and his home reputation barred the way. Yet he could not very well—being a Baronet of far-reaching connexions—be denied access to this loosely governed region, whither he came every two or three years. After his first journey and the court cases it aroused at Unguja, he was not such a fool as to continue his savage treatment of his carriers and servants or he would soon have been unable to recruit a caravan. On the contrary he paid well and gave a liberal food allowance, and within limits his enforcement of a rather Prussian discipline exacted the respect of the Negro, who appreciates arbitrary power if it is not accompanied by meanness in money matters. His reckless slaughter of game made him even popular with his expeditions because it gave the men a surfeit of meat, and trophies to turn into amulets.Patterne at last became tolerated as an inevitable concomitant of the march of civilization, and acquired citizenship in British East Africa by staking out a vague "concession" near the north-west corner of the Kilimanjaro slopes on the edge of the German frontier. It was in this way and in this neighbourhood that he got to know Adolf Stolzenberg, whom he helped in his raids against the Masai; less by direct participation than by furnishing him with arms and ammunition and by disposing of his captured cattle."What do you know about this curious personage, Stolzenberg?" asked Roger of his two friends, Hildebrandt and Wiese, when he had returned to Magara from his visit to the Red Crater."Only what we hear people say," replied Hildebrandt. "Some say he is just a Sous African German who do some bad sing in Sous Africa and com up here ten, twelf year ago to join the Denhardts. Ozzers say he com from Germany long before, wiz Dr. Fischer, and zat he was natural son of our old Emperor Wilhelm One. First, Emperor put him in army, and several times pay his debts, and zen when he kill anozzer officer in duel he pack him off to Africa and say, 'Never let me see your face again.' But p'raps zat is only story invented by ze man himself. Somtimes I sink our Government use him in som way. I dare say your Government do ze same by zis ozzer man you hate so, Vill-o-bee Patterne. What a fonny name! Your English names are somtimes more fonny zan ours!"The German Commandant, consulted by Roger (who in April, 1897, was on his way to the coast after having made everything safe behind him), was rather noncommittal about Stolzenberg. The conversation was in German, punctuated with phrases of Swahili on the part of the Commandant, who was proud of having acquired a smattering of this African tongue. He was rather non-committal about the denizen of the Red Crater. He was a "derben Kerl" ... "Simba yule, kabisa," the terror of the Masai. He kept the Masai occupied in that quarter while the Germans tackled the Wa-hehe on the south. He must be given some latitude ... the Commandant would see he did not impinge on the Concession ... perhaps he might be persuaded to take command of a large irregular force against the Wa-hehe...."'Divide et impera,' sehen Sie? Em glas Rheinwein, nicht so? Und Soda? Ein lang-trinken in der Englische phrase...."It seemed incongruous that this scene—the rather stiff German major, in strict, white, military uniform and an encumbering sword, a black sentry, not far away, walking with a plap, plap, plap of his bare feet up and down the prescribed number of paces; a plainly furnished, white-washed room in a square fort with pretentious crenellations along its high white walls; the oleograph portrait of Kaiser Wilhelm II; the camp table, the Rhine wine in long-necked bottles, the enamelled iron tumblers and the soda siphons; and the click of a typewriter in the next apartment—should come up before his mental vision as he sat with Lucy and Maud and the Schräder partners on a balcony in the Strand, waiting for Queen Victoria to pass to her Jubilee thanksgiving at St. Paul's! Why should he think of Adolf Stolzenberg then?He was but part of the African nightmare which he would fain roll up and forget. A few weeks of England had put Africa's nose out of joint. To work for the redemption of a tiny portion of German Africa when such gigantic developments of British Africa were dawning in the imagination of far-seeing men, or when an evolution still more important was taking place in his own land, in the Far East, in America....What was it that brought back the Red Crater to his mind, the sinister face and powerful figure of Stolzenberg; or the German Commandant in the fort at Kondoa? Whose was the thin, aquiline, insolent face with its riotous smile that held his gaze across the narrow Strand, the face of a tall man in ultra-fashionable cut of clothes, standing up amid a bower of Gaiety girls with four or five extra-smart young City men—stock-brokers, no doubt, Company promoters, or the solicitors of Company promoters—? It was Willowby Patterne he had been staring at for several minutes; and Sir Willowby was flicking a greeting to him with the manicured hand which had drawn the trigger on so many lovely beasts, or had lifted the Kiboko with such a cunning twist to lay its lash on the naked skin of some defaulting native porter....He had to concentrate his thoughts before he replied to the greeting with a grave bow—had to remember that he had once played semi-host to this man at a Scotch shooting lodge; hated him mostly on hearsay unproved evidence, and chiefly on apprehension as to future maleficence, rather than on positive wrongs to himself.Then he gave his consideration once more to the passing pageant.Thrum ... thrum ... thrum ... thrum ... in between the bursts of military music went the steady marching of the Imperial troops. There was the pick of the regiments of the British line; there were samples of Indian infantry—bearded Sikhs, grinning Gurkhas, handsome Panjabis—Surely that was young Pearsall-Smith at the head of one of these detachments? He had heard of his distinguishing himself in the Nyasaland wars against the Arabs—and he winced to think he had no part in this ceremonial, he could point of late to no service to the Crown and Empire—was it his fault? If he had gone to Norway or to South America, could he have achieved anything that might have brought him into the procession of to-day? What splendid Indian cavalry. That Indian prince leading them had once given him some tiger shooting when he was a young A.D.C. to Sir Griffith Gaunt. Ah! Here was Africa in the procession—Hausas from Nigeria, Sudanese from Egypt; these bronzed, well-seated, rather insolent-looking white men were mounted police from the Cape, from Bechuanaland, from Natal.These gaudy zouave uniforms and Christy minstrels' faces were a contingent from the West Indian regiments that had figured in so many West African wars. And now came well-set-up Turkish police from Cyprus, well-drilled Chinese police from Hong Kong; even solemn-looking Dyaks from Borneo, who were believed to have given up head-hunting in favour of constabulary work at the Bornean ports.And carriages containing permanent officials—he thought he recognized Sir Bennet Molyneux in one, possibly attached to the person of some foreign prince, some German or Russian Grand Duke. And Ministers of State saluted by the happy crowd with good-humoured cheers and a few serio-comic groans. That one who aroused such an outburst of cheering was the great Choselwhit, Josiah Choselwhit, Secretary of State for the Colonies, in Windsor uniform with the customary eyeglass. His hosts, the Schräders, joined lustily in the hurrahs, as did the City men opposite; Choselwhit was supposed to have brought grist to the City mills and to be the mainstay of the British Empire in which Germans as well as British made such millions of money....And ... and ... and ... At last, after many preliminary princes and princesses, Queen Victoria herself; a little figure swathed in much black clothing but with filmy white around the rosy face and yellow-white hair.... She progressed very slowly—so it seemed to Roger—past their windows. The Schräder brothers positively brayed their international loyalty, so that their voices were even heard by her above the deafening clamour. She turned her somewhat haughty profile and clear blue eyes towards their balcony with its flamboyant draperies and symbols, as if she searched for some face she knew to whom she might address a smile of acknowledgment; but finding none, turned her gaze to the Gaiety girls and the shouting young men who had invited Patterne as their guest. To these pretty actresses, showing real emotion, she did address a royal smile, which caused one of them to give way to real tears. Then Roger found himself gazing at the back of her bonnet with its white ostrich plume, illogically disappointed that there had been no smile for him, he who would have served her so gladly had her ministers let him.The Queen-ant of an unusually large ant-hill on this little ball of rock and water having gone on her way to thank the Master Spirit of the Universe for a few additional years of life and power to do good—-the while no doubt that Master Spirit, despite Its Unlimited Intelligence, was vexed and preoccupied at the way things were going in the constellation of Orion—a million times larger than the whole solar system; or at the accelerated currents of star-dust in the Milky Way, or the slow progress towards forming a cluster of sixty giant worlds made by the Nebula of Andromeda: the Schräder partners were dispensing very elegant hospitality in the room behind the two windows they had taken at an Illustrated Newspaper Office in the Strand. They were essentially practical men, being German, with a Jewish quarter-strain and a French education. They could have entertained Roger and his wife and sister; a great Singer—who could not "place" Roger and therefore was cold to him; a great Actress rather past her prime; a great Essayist whose mental scope was limited by Oxford and the Athenæum; and various other guests of intellectuality and distinction: they could have entertained their friends and acquaintance in the Piccadilly house of one of them and the Grosvenor Gardens house of another; or they could have thrown open their splendid City offices for the same purpose; but the view of the whole procession and especially of the Queen would not have been so near, so concentrated, as from windows on the first floor of the Strand at its narrowest. So in fixing up their plans two months beforehand it was here they were playing the lavish host.The collation was of the most exquisite; the wines of the finest quality imparting the most insidious intoxication, so that you thought you were only being your natural self, though you put your elbows on the table and wondered that you had never hitherto been ranked as a great wit. The celebrated singer began to forget her secret grievance that she was not being entertained by Royalty and had not ridden in one of those carriages. She consoled herself by the assurance she would be at the Naval Review and the Garden Party and probably most of her fellow-guests would not. And then after all, if you did stoop to City entertainers, you could not do much better than the Schräders, unless it were the Rothschilds. Baron Schräder was the head of the family, and he had been made a Baron by Napoleon III, which was much more chic than a German title given by a petty German court. The Schräders for several generations had been dilettanti, outside business; musicians of a certain talent; shrewd judges of cinque-cento art; abstruse ornithologists; members of the Zoological Society's Council; of a Jockey Club here and of a Cercle d'Escrime there. But to sustain this life of many facets they required unlimited money; and Roger Brentham just now was promising to become one of their most remarkable money-spinners. Mr. Eugene Schräder was therefore, after one or two elegant fillings and sippings over Royal names, proposing ever so informally his good health, and that of his charming and devoted wife, and ... and ... he stammered a little over the characterization of Maud, who was the least genial member of the party and had shown herself a little blunt with the actress past her prime, who was now descending to whispered confidences of marital ill-treatment. "But our friend, Captain Brentham ... may I without indiscretion say he should, if he had all that was due to him, have been in the procession to-day as an actor rather than a spectator? Though our party would have lost one of its most interesting guests...." (The Essayist, whose nose has gone very red with the champagne and the Château Yquem, here looks at Roger for the first time with focussed eyes: is it possible that he could have done anything worth notice, outside Oxford and the Athenæum?) "Our friend, Captain Brentham, first led the way of Imperial expansion in East Africa; he is now endeavouring to show us Germans how the wealth of our East African possessions should be developed and brought into the world's markets. Germany was not too proud to enlist the services of any man—or woman" (he bowed to the Actress and Singer) of ability. To be a German was in some ways to be a world-citizen. If they searched the glorious records of the British Empire they would find them studded with German names.... The British Empire of to-day stood grandly open to German enterprise; they would find in return that the German Empire overseas was ready to afford every opportunity to British colonizing and administrative genius. So there would be in German circles no grudging to Captain Brentham of a full meed of praise—from his firm, at any rate—for the truly remarkable discoveries he had made...."You mustn't forget the credit due to Hildebrandt and Wiese and several other fellows," interpolated Brentham, desirous of doing the right thing—"Just so—of your German colleagues: that is as it should be. But that brings me to the climax I was leading up to, rather wordily I fear. Dear friends (his voice a little tremulous with honest emotion) let us drink a final toast:To Anglo-German Co-operation; to the great Alliance of our two Nations founded on affinity of race and language, a common love of truth, a common devotion to Science, and I might add almost—a common dynasty" ... (rest lost in clapping).The toast, however, was drunk somewhat sparingly and absent-mindedly. The Singer, Madame Violante (her married name was Violet Mackintosh), felt dangerously near hiccups (it was the plovers' eggs, she told herself) and she might have to sing to-night! How could she have been so mad? The Actress felt she had said rather too much about her husband to a total stranger, a middle-aged woman who now looked a mere parson's wife.The Essayist had grown rather sulky because his hosts in this wholly unnecessary speechifying had made no reference to his own contribution to Anglo-German friendship, hisPlace of Heine among Modern Poetsand hisSynthesis of Lessing's Dramas.Then the party broke up, and the kindly Schräders suggested, as any form of conveyance was totally unprocurable, they should have the hardihood (the gentlemen protecting the ladies) to walk back through the common People—whom the Police had described as uncommon good-natured and just a bit merry—to the Green Park and witness the dear Queen's return to Buckingham Palace.But when the Jubilee fiss-fass-fuss had abated and before they went to Homburg and Aix, the partners sent for Roger and spoke to him with business-like generosity. He and his staff had made discoveries of value that might be almost called astounding. The capital of the Company would possibly be increased ten-fold—large subscriptions in Germany—exciting immense interest among the best people on this side. His original syndicate shares had become equivalent to 50,000 shares in the enlarged Company, and as they stood at a pound, why he would be worth, if he realized, £50,000. But, of course, he would not do such a thing till promises had been turned into performances—Meantime, they were prepared to raise his salary to £3,000 a year—he would probably have to entertain German officials considerably—and conclude an agreement for ten years.... "But if I have to entertain largely?" he queried, not above making as good a bargain as possible.... "My dear Captain Brentham! Don't letthatstand between us.... There shall be an entertainment allowance of five hundred a year. And we hope that that will induce you to take your charming lady back with you, and your sister, Miss Brentham. I assure you the encomiums passed on those ladies by our German friends out there have contributed not a little to....""All this is very kind of you. But I don't want to think I alone am being rewarded for discoveries which in some cases were entirely due to....""You will find when you go back your German colleagues have not been forgotten in the all-round increase of salaries.... And now; go and take agoodholiday and get well braced up before your return in the autumn...."Roger took them at their word. He and Lucy, after revelling in the joys of parenthood in Berkshire, went off to spend a month with Sibyl at Glen Sporran. Lucy had long since grown used to Sibyl, so the prospect of the visit caused her no perturbation. She followed Maud's advice as to suitability of outfit and the number of evening frocks and tea-gowns. She was the only member of the party who did not bicycle or play bridge. Sibyl boasted of doing sixty miles a day without turning a hair; but the Rev. Stacy Bream nearly killed himself trying to emulate her feats of coasting downhill and pedalling uphill.The Honble. Vicky Masham was there as of yore—a little longer in the tooth (she had got used to Sibyl's nickname by this time, and had forgiven it as Sibyl had helped her to pay her bridge debts)—. She hurt her ankle badly in a bicycle accident and had to lie up. Lucy, the only one at home, sat with her, did fancy work and burbled gently about her African experiences. The Honble. Victoria grew quite interested, regretted that Mrs. Brentham, born as she had been born, without the purple, and her husband not having pursued a British career, could not be brought to the dear Queen's notice.... The Queen took thegreatest interestin Africa....Lucy, of course, after a few lessons abandoned any attempt to play bridge (people in 1897 debated whether bicycling, bridge, the Bible, or herbaceous borders had brought the greatest happiness to Britain: we, in after life, see it was the bicycle). She was scared by the subterranean forces it aroused and lit up in the angry eyes around her, the fortunes that were involved in the plunge of No Trumps, the awful penalties attendant on a revoke, the fate that hung on a finesse. So she wisely declined to play and talked—or rather listened—to the one who cut out; or if several tables were made up, she dispensed drinks and sweets and a sandwich supper. The Rev. Stacy Bream, vaguely nettled by her rival Christianity, glanced at her once, remembered years ago she had been Sibyl's butt, and inquired of Sibyl "who her people were, what her father was?""One of the best farmers in Berkshire," said Sibyl. "Mine is—or was—for I had to buy him up—one of the worst.... What wasyourfather, by the bye? It never occurred to me to ask you before...."The Rev. Stacy's father had really been a very pushing Agent for a firm of Decorators and Wall-paper designers: so he replied with a sigh: "A great,greattraveller, dear lady; a man who loved Colour and Design better than his immortal soul, I fear.... It's to you to cut...."But Sibyl had not confined her Highland house-party to these worn-out fribbles. Bream had his uses. He would be there to assoil a guest who might get shot in the shooting, and so perhaps save the unpleasantness of an inquest; and his stories of people on the fringe of Society were the equivalent and the accompaniment in midnight chat—just before you took your bedroom candle—of pâté-de-foie sandwiches and cherry brandy. Vicky Masham kept you right with Queen Victoria; Lucy was a reminder to her not to make a fool of herself with Roger ... perhaps also there was a little gratitude in her hard nature for the good a year of Lucy's society had wrought in her little son's health and disposition. But she wanted—more than ever at thirty-six—to be a political woman, to make a difference in the world, hand her name down in history, change or shape history in fact. It had occurred to her, as it did to fifty other mature, handsome, well-placed women of ambition, to marry Cecil Rhodes; but the Jacobzoon Raid and still more the eager rivalry of other ladies, perfectly shameless in their frontal attacks on the Colossus, soon thwarted any such idea ... reduced it indeed, to such a ridiculous impossibility that it was only confided to her locked diary. She had fortunately withdrawn her half-promise from Sir Elijah Tooley at the very first hint that there was a crack in his reservoir of wealth. Otherwise—with a couple of millions of his money ... and he could have had his own suite of apartments, and she would have stopped him waxing his moustaches ... she might have over-turned her world.... Then there was Count Balanoff, the Russian Ambassador, a widower...."You know," she said to Roger in one of her many smoking-room tête-à-tête confidences—"he is 'richissime,' and really rather decent, though he does dye his hair.... Gold mines in Siberia, turquoise mines in the Caucasus.... He seemed quite towantto marry me, at one time.... Vicky Masham thinks it was the Queen who interposed. If he'd asked me and I'd accepted I should have made myself in no time the most talked-about woman in Europe. I'd have negotiated an alliance with Russia—always an idea of mine—and have paid the Kaiser out for his Kruger telegram—Why is it, Roger, there isn't arushto marry me? I've ten thousand a year for life; I'm only thirty-six, which nowadays is equivalent to twenty-six; I've a splendid constitution, my hair's my own and so are my teeth, my figure is perfect.... I might be an artist's model for the 'tout ensemble.' ... And yet ... (a pause for smoking)."And it isn't as though the re-marriage of titled women was 'mal vu' at Court any longer.... There's Lady Landolphia Birchall. She's going to be married again in the autumn; this time to a 'booky'—for he really is nothing more, though he takes bets with the Prince. And she's turned fifty. But the Queen doesn't seem to mind...."
Thereafter followed long day-rides of inspection, an occasional week's absence from home studying possibilities in remote parts of the Concession, holding conferences with the Stotts, laying cases and possibilities of special difficulty before the German officer commanding at Kondoa. His talks with the Stotts were directed to several ends: urging the Stotts to get into the confidence of all the native tribes—Bantu, Hamitic, Nilotic—of the Concession's area and find out how far their interests might be subserved by the full exploitation of the animal, vegetable and mineral wealth of this patch of East Africa. "Unless we carry the natives with us," he would say, "this enterprise must eventually fail, wither up; because, boast of the climate as we may, the hard manual labour cannot be performed by white men: we must fall back on the native. Now half the men-natives in these parts are picturesque to look at, graceful figure and all that; but they shirk hard work. They prefer to loll about in the sun or to run after women. Can't you put some ambition into 'em? Teach them something besides these rotten hymns and prayers that are meaningless to them?"
"But we do," said Mrs. Stott. "You haven't looked over our school for two years, I believe. You seem to have got hymn-singing on the brain. Our hymns translated by us are not rubbish and the natives enjoy singing them...."
"I don't doubt they do, though I don't see what use it is. Neither they nor the prayers prevent the Almighty from sending the flights of locusts.... Or rather these appeals and this excessive praise do not stimulate the Divine power to dosomethingto abate Africa's myriad plagues. It is always poor Man—and most of all, poorWhiteman—who has to work his brain and body to exhaustion to set right what Nature perversely sets wrong. Here am I, trying to abate the grasshopper plague in our tobacco plantations by encouraging the domestication of the Crowned crane. Yet the natives won't take any interest in this idea, though the Crowned cranes feed themselves and have charming manners. Can't you push this matter in your schools? Couldn't you preach a sermon on the uses of the Crowned crane?"
On another occasion he put a further difficulty before the Ewart Stotts. "Look here! I'm going to take you again into my confidence. I want you to find me an assistant, some one of your own kin in Australia who would come out here at short notice on an agreement for three years—I even want two men, one of them versed in shorthand and typewriting who could be my secretary. I don't know any one in England who isn't either a rotter or a potential rotter, or hasn't got a job already. There's my brother Geoffrey, but he's a Commander now in the Navy, getting on fine, and simply wouldn't think of chucking the service to come here. My other brother is well suited as a land-agent. I want something Australian, some one as like you two as possible. I don't mind a moderate amount of religion, as long as it doesn't waste their time on week-days, and they can't be too teetotal for my liking. No Whisky-drinker need apply."
"Why, I believe we know of the very two, at any rate of the principal one," said Mrs. Stott: "My nephew Phil Ewart. I haven't seen him since he was a baby, but my brother's wife writes to me now and again and says he's doing very well on a big sheep run in Queensland...."
"Well then, look here: let's draft a cablegram that I can send off from the coast. I'll guarantee him a year's salary and, if he turns out satisfactory, a three years' agreement—£500 a year. He can choose any likely young fellow ... good character ... abstainer ... serve as clerk ... £200 a year commence ... take steamer Australia-Durban, and German steamer Durban-Saadani, and so on, up-country. If I get 'em here by November I can give em three months' trial before I set out for home....Musttake a holiday next year and bring my wife out afterwards. Don't like to leave this business without a Britisher in it to watch my interests, don't you know, and advise me how things are going while I am away."
So they arranged the matter between them. Then Mrs. Stott said: "I've a funny proposition to make. A week ago I received a letter from Ann Jamblin that was ... at Hangodi.... Ann Anderson she is now. She saw Lucy there five weeks ago and was much touched at her calling on them. Says she took a special fancy to your dear, sweet, pretty children. Her own little girl is very ailing. Well, now she goes on to say old Mrs. Doland, who was a great supporter of their Mission, has died and only left the East African Mission £5,000. For this and other reasons the Mission thinks of giving up Hangodi, as it is quite an isolated station now, and all their others are in the British Sphere.... Well, to put it quite plain, as you're impatient to be gone—oh,Iknow by the way you're tapping your gaiters—how would it be if your Concession or you or some one advanced our Mission £150 for out-of-pocket expenses—so as to move quickly, don't you know? And we sent word to Ann and her husband to join us as soon as they had definite authority to evacuate Hangodi. The German Government, I believe, are going to buy the station. If we got Ann and her husband up here the couple of them would strengthen our hands mightily and then we could give some of that worldly instruction you're so anxious about. Or make it up in some way of help. Strengthen the British element here. For although I don't hold with your views about Providence one little bit, and believe the World was made in six days and am surprised every now and again that you aren't struck down for your audacity, not to say blasphemy, yet something tells me you and we are really working for the same Divine ends...."
Roger said the matter should certainly have his attention. (Before he left for England the following Spring Ann and Eb were members of the Stott Mission, and the Stotts were able to open another station and school in the Iraku country.)
The months flew by through autumn, winter and spring. Roger established a stud farm in the Happy Valley where he could locate a captured dozen of zebra and interbreed with Maska donkeys ... perhaps a manageable, large-bodied zebra-mule might solve some of their transport difficulties in the regions of the tse-tse fly. He introduced shorthorn cattle from South Africa to mingle with the native oxen and improve the milk supply. He imported from Natal six Basuto ponies, two stallions and four mares. He ordered three safety bicycles—the great new invention or combination of inventions. He and his German engineers, reinforced by a clever Swiss sent out by the German directorate, gave special consideration to the waterfalls of Iraku, to harness them to turbines and produce electric light. This power would feed electric dynamos when the progress of the railway construction enabled such heavy things to reach the Happy Valley. They laid out great coffee plantations and experimented in tea and quinine. It was hoped the natives might take up all these cultures in time, on their own account, as they had done that of cacao on the Gold Coast and in the German Cameroons.
The day for his departure in the early spring came ever nearer and nearer. The two Australians arrived, went down with fever, recovered and eventually proved the right stuff, especially young Philip Ewart. Mrs. Stott said she would see he did not get into mischief while the Director was absent in England. She would also give an eye to the Brenthams' house and the doings of Andrade and Halima as caretakers.
There was therefore little cause for anxiety on Roger's part as he made his preparations for a six-months' absence, save the rumoured doings of a certain Stolzenberg, a mysterious German hunter who, coming from the British Sphere, had established himself near the north-west escarpment of Lake Manyara, apparently on the border of the Happy Valley Concession (Glücklichesthals Konzession).
CHAPTER XIX
TROUBLE WITH STOLZENBERG
In those days—to parody a line of Holy Writ—it might be said, "To every man, a crater or two"; if you were referring to the wilderness which lay between Kilimanjaro and the southern Rift Valleys, and to the strange adventurers who in the 'nineties ranged up and down the East African interior between Baringo on the north and the Happy Valley on the south, over a region of elevated steppe land, isolated mountains of immense height, and extinct volcanoes. Some of these lawless men were accumulating considerable wealth in ivory, sheep and cattle. They wanted fortresses in which to live and store their plunder, or the spoil of their chase, the elephant tusks, the rhino horns, the lion and leopard skins, the black and white mantles of the long-haired colobus monkeys, the ostrich plumes; even the roughly-cured skins of the rosy flamingoes which were becoming an article of great demand in the plumage trade. For this purpose the large and small craters of presumably extinct volcanoes were ready to hand; as though Nature had anticipated their wants. Most of these were surrounded on the inside by the nearly continuous, circular wall of the crater, only broken down at one point where the lava or nowadays a stream of water (the overflow of a little crater lake) issued from the crater floor. Here with piled stones it was easy to restrict the gap and hold the entrance against any savage enemy without artillery. These defences were, of course, prepared against the Masai and not with any idea of defying a White Government, whose advent at that time seemed very problematical: at any rate a White Government that would interfere to protect the natives, to obstruct elephant killing, or regulate the movements of cattle between a disease-infected area and one that still possessed uninfected flocks and herds.
It was to one of these craters—very red in colour—that Roger Brentham rode up at the end of March, 1897, after three days' difficult journey from the south. He halted his littlesafariof armed porters and his four Somali gun-men on a level tableland in front of the gap in the crater walls; a gap cleverly closed by a huge door of yew planks and a bridge of yew trunks thrown over the issuing brook, with stones piled on top to a height of twenty feet. There were obvious indications that the walls and woodwork were loopholed for gun-fire. He called several times loudly in Swahili and German to arouse an answer and rapped on the cumbrous door.
Presently a smaller door within the great one opened and there emerged a sullen-looking negro giant, probably a Makua from the south. [Such offer themselves for service in Unguja.] "Unatakáje?" he asked in Swahili. "I want to see your Bwana—I do not know his 'native' name," said Brentham, "but just take this 'karata' to him and he will read my name; and say I wish to see him. Meantime I will make a camp here."
The Makua doorkeeper or watchman returned within, and possibly an hour passed before anything further happened, during which Brentham had his tent erected, and arranged for his men—they were travelling very light—to make their sleeping-places around it.
The small door was again reopened and there stepped out a remarkable-looking man of over six feet, with enormous recurved moustaches, a sombrero hat, jackboots and a general swashbuckling air and a visible revolver in the broad belt that held up his breeches. He walked slowly towards Roger who advanced to meet him.
"Did you come to see me?" he asked in English.
"I did," said Roger; "that is, if your name is Stolzenberg?"
"It is ... for to-day—at any rate. Well: here I am. You come to tell me 'it is Easter Sunday, and Christ Is Risen,' like the Russians do?"
"Why, is it Easter Sunday? Dear me! I had no idea. If so, I might have chosen another time. Still, as Iamhere and as youarehere—and I fancy you are often absent?—I should be obliged if we could have a talk, come to an understanding, don't you know?" (There was no answering friendliness in the fierce face that looked into his, the face of a perfectly ruthless man, eyes with bloodshot whites, wide mouth with pale flaccid lips, showing strong tobacco-stained teeth, prominent cheek bones, lowering brows, a massive jaw, and here and there an old duelling scar.)
"An unnerstanding?" he said sneeringly. "What about?Iunnerstand you. I know who you are, now I see your card. You are Captain Brentham. Once you were Consul ... at ... Unguja. Then you run away with missionary's wife—and—you are ... no more Consul. You do somesing shocking,nicht wahr? It is so easy to shock your Gover'ment—and now von Wissmann—that Morphinsäufer—he gif you a Concession. An' I suppose you come now to say I trespass on your Concession? Very well then, Ido, an' I don' care a damn for you or for any Gover'ment you like to name. I make this my home six, seven years ago and no one come to turn me out now, unless they fight me first.
"I haven't come to turn you out," said Roger. Stolzenberg laughs noisily and contemptuously.... "It's not my business to do so. I have come with a very small following to make your acquaintance, to find out for myself what you were like and to see whether it was possible to deal with you..." (As he is talking he sees that through the open doorway of the stronghold there are issuing a large number of armed black men, dressed like the coast people—perhaps a hundred), "to deal with you as one white man might deal with another. But before I can even put our case—our Concession's case—before you, you commence by insulting me and making a lying statement about my wife—and you probably now intend threatening me by an attack with your Askari[#]—who I see are gathering up behind you."
[#] Soldiers.
"These men," said Stolzenberg, glancing round at them and shouting an order to them to be seated, "are only there to make sure. You Britishers are always up to some trick. I thought just to show you I stand no nonsense. As to what I say ... a-bout Meeses ... Brentham, I ... only ... say ... what your ... own country-men say on coast. But let that pass. What is this unnerstanding you propose to me—a Partnership? Well, I am open to a bargain. What is it to be? What terms do you offer?"
"I haven't come here to discuss any such thing. I came to say this. As you ask the question, this extraordinary place—I suppose it is the crater of a volcano?—does not lie within our limits. You are not trespassing on our property. But for the past nine months or so we have had many complaints about you or about your men. You raid the natives, you take the Masai cattle and apparently drive them into this stronghold. You even kidnap the Iraku women...."
"I donotkidnap.... They come here of their own pleasure ... they are free to go if they like. But they like my men much better than their own husbands who cannot gif them closs or beads...."
"And finally," continued Roger, almost choking with the effort to speak in a level voice and not send a fist smashing into the large face that bends over his so threateningly, "finally, you drove away by force two of our prospecting parties at the north end of the Lake and..."
"Those men," shouted Stolzenberg ... "they ... they come just to spy out my defences ... but look here. You and I are big fools—p'raps I am bigger fool than you.... I lose my temper first, I say things a-bout a la-dy which perhaps are not true.... I apologize.... Nutting they say on the coast is true! Look at the lies they tell about me!" (a boisterous laugh). "They say at Mombasa I am biggest blaggard unhung. That is—what you say? ex-agger-a-ted? And look at the lies Bri-tish missionaries tell about my friend, Doctor Peters. It is that make me so angry just now. German Gover'ment belief these lies and send my good friend away. And then there is a fine Englishman I know, a nobleman in your country, a Sir—Sir Wil-low-by Pat-terne. You would hardly belief the things they say a-bout him—always be-hind his back...."
"So you know Willowby Patterne," said Roger (greatly interested).
"I haf seen him once or twice," replied Stolzenberg, becoming suspicious. "But you do not come here, I sup-pose, to talk about him? You come to make my acquaintance. Well: you haf made it. Now you leaf me alone and I will leaf you alone. I ... what you say? I 'will not return your call'? My quarrel with the Masai is notyourbusiness. I haf—what do we say? I haf 'vendetta' against the Masai. When I first come out to East Africa on my own business I fit out asafariand travel to Kenya to buy ivory. I do no harm to Masai, but they attack my camp, they kill a young German man with me, myvery greatfriend; they kill most of my men—and see! They try to kill me" (pulls up shirt and shows long scar over ribs on left side), "and they kill my dogs. Only when they see Kikuyu coming down in large war party do they leaf off stabbing and go away with most of my trade goods. The Kikuyu carry me up to their village and save my life—I haf always been good friend to Kikuyu since.—You ask them! Well now, I get my own back. Whenever I see Masai now, I shoot. I put fear of death into them...."
"This is an interesting bit of biography," said Brentham, "but I thought those lawless days were gone by. I haven't heard the Masai version of your story. Perhaps they had some excuse. At any rate, they were not the same clan as the Masai round here, friends of mine for years; and you've no right to make war on them. Outside our concession, that's notmyaffair. Your Government——"
"Do not saymyGover'ment," roared Stolzenberg. "It is not mine. I do not ask for it! I am my own gover'ment. I was in these countries before ever came any German or any British Gover'ment."
"Well then, the Government of this region, the Government that has got the most right to govern ... I say—No! youmusthear me out before I go—what you may do outside our concession is between you and them. But if after this warning you interfere with our people, the people inside this Concession I am managing, and in which I'm a magistrate, you'll run up againstme, and I shall shoot you at sight like you do the Masai...."
"All right! Haf a drink before you go?"
"No, I won't," said Roger. And wheeling round on his listening men, he shouted: "Pigeni kambi. Maneno yamekwisha. Twende zetu." Then, so that his leave-taking might lose none of its abruptness, he strode to where his Maskat donkey was tethered, released it, jumped into the saddle, and rode slowly away till he was out of sight, below the space of level ground. There he waited till his men had rejoined him with their light loads. The first to arrive were the four Somali gun-men. They had long since learnt to speak Swahili and they said, laughing, in relief that the palaver had ended without recourse to firearms: "Ulimshinda na maneno, Bwana mkubwa, ulimshinda, yule Mdachi. Walakini, ukiondoka, akasema watu wake. 'Simchuki, yule Mwingrezi. Mwanaume.'"[#]
[#] "You conquered him with words, Great Master, you defeated him, that German. But when you left he said to his people: 'I don't hate him, that Englishman. He is a man.'"
Roger rode away musing from this encounter, or rather rode and walked over an exceedingly rough country with scarcely a native path or sign of habitation, a country depopulated doubtless by former wars and raids of tribe on tribe: for it was well watered.
The tall clumps of Euphorbias gave the red landscape a sinister look, for their articulated branches looked like a conjunction of gigantic scorpions, bodies meeting together and stinging tails erected in the air; the fleshy-leaved aloes of deep bottle-green sent up blood-red stalks of blood-red tubular flowers; on the higher ground there were many rust-red or red-lead-coloured "red-hot pokers"—what the initiated call Kniphofias. The country somehow suggested blood and iron; for the old and faded Euphorbias might have been cut out of rusty metal, and iron ore was so obviously permeating the rocks.
He mused on the violence to which Africa always seemed a prey. The reign of law in East Africa in both the British and German spheres seemed to be preceded by the reign of the outlaws. He knew enough as a traveller and an ex-official, and as a resident in the lands bordering on the British sphere, to be aware that just then the British hinterland was a prey to German and British, Austrian, American, South African and even Goanese-Indian buccaneers, who obeyed no laws or injunctions of the feeble Chartered Company or of the weak young Protectorate Government which followed.
Some of these outlaws had come to East Africa with a voluble Austrian crank and two Russian anarchists who tried to found an impossible Utopia in South Galaland, the Colony of Freiheit—the main principle of which was that the oppressed white people of Central and Eastern Europe were to be free to do as they liked here and take all they wanted, while the natives of East Africa were to be their serfs. The natives of that part of East Africa—the proud Galas—who did not even know agoodwhite man when they saw him, or allow him to live—soon settled the hash of the Freiheiters, many of whom (there were three hundred in all) died of malarial fever. The remnant that escaped across the Tana became a scourge of inner East Africa; and a faint flavour of their unscrupulousness still remains. At the time of Roger's musing ride back from Stolzenberg's red Crater-fortress to his home at Magara on the Iraku escarpment there were about a dozen of these pioneers of civilization still remaining in activity. A few had made moderate competencies and had returned to Central Europe to abandon Communism in favour of State and Church, and to make respectable marriages with high-born damsels. The greater devils, the altogether branded-with-the-brand-of-Cain that remained would one by one either enter some company's service, not too scrupulous as to antecedents, or die bloody and terrible deaths. Meantime, they shot enormous numbers of elephants, made themselves chiefs of nomad tribes, started harems of twenty or thirty bought or snatched damsels (who thought the whole episode rather a lark), accumulated great herds of cattle, sheep, goats and Masai donkeys. Later, as things became more defined, frontiers more precise, laws more clearly formulated and regulations—my own for example—more vexatious, they turned themselves into smugglers and professional lawbreakers. They conveyed out of British into German territory forbidden ivory of female elephants; they brought from the German sphere cattle that might be affected with some germ disease and were therefore forbidden to enter British territory; they disposed of rhinoceros horns that were in excess of the miserly allowance granted to big-game slaughterers; they carried on a brisk slave trade by enrolling hundreds of labourers in German East Africa and conveying them hundred of miles into British East Africa and disposing of them at a premium to the many associations and enterprises requiring the black man's strong arm and patient labour; and they redressed the balance by raiding unnoticed districts under the British flag and transporting the inhabitants to German East Africa to be enrolled as labourers under military discipline.
A few of them were unmitigated scoundrels, two or three had a maniac's blood-lust for killing beautiful creatures of little use when killed; or delighted in inflicting cruelties on the natives "to show their power." Many a blameless Government or Company's official proceeding up-country has been surprised at the hatred which flamed out at his approach, he guiltless of any unkindness or injustice. One or other of these masterless men were the cause of the treacherous attack on his caravan, or the loss of his life in an ambush which had to be expensively avenged by a military expedition.
Yet if there was the left wing of his Legion of the Damned which drew up at the foot of the gallows, there was the right wing, headed by Sir Willowby Patterne, which remained in touch with good society and even dined, coming and going, at the Administrator's table or with Sir Bennet Molyneux at home. Nothing to their actual discredit was proved against them. And East Africa was five thousand miles from Mayfair.
Patterne, whose first shooting expedition of 1890-91 had resulted in quite a nice little profit from the ivory it obtained, took up definitely an East African career. He had at first tried to get himself commissioned for the interior of the Chartered Company's territory. But its directors were well-intentioned, shrewd men and his home reputation barred the way. Yet he could not very well—being a Baronet of far-reaching connexions—be denied access to this loosely governed region, whither he came every two or three years. After his first journey and the court cases it aroused at Unguja, he was not such a fool as to continue his savage treatment of his carriers and servants or he would soon have been unable to recruit a caravan. On the contrary he paid well and gave a liberal food allowance, and within limits his enforcement of a rather Prussian discipline exacted the respect of the Negro, who appreciates arbitrary power if it is not accompanied by meanness in money matters. His reckless slaughter of game made him even popular with his expeditions because it gave the men a surfeit of meat, and trophies to turn into amulets.
Patterne at last became tolerated as an inevitable concomitant of the march of civilization, and acquired citizenship in British East Africa by staking out a vague "concession" near the north-west corner of the Kilimanjaro slopes on the edge of the German frontier. It was in this way and in this neighbourhood that he got to know Adolf Stolzenberg, whom he helped in his raids against the Masai; less by direct participation than by furnishing him with arms and ammunition and by disposing of his captured cattle.
"What do you know about this curious personage, Stolzenberg?" asked Roger of his two friends, Hildebrandt and Wiese, when he had returned to Magara from his visit to the Red Crater.
"Only what we hear people say," replied Hildebrandt. "Some say he is just a Sous African German who do some bad sing in Sous Africa and com up here ten, twelf year ago to join the Denhardts. Ozzers say he com from Germany long before, wiz Dr. Fischer, and zat he was natural son of our old Emperor Wilhelm One. First, Emperor put him in army, and several times pay his debts, and zen when he kill anozzer officer in duel he pack him off to Africa and say, 'Never let me see your face again.' But p'raps zat is only story invented by ze man himself. Somtimes I sink our Government use him in som way. I dare say your Government do ze same by zis ozzer man you hate so, Vill-o-bee Patterne. What a fonny name! Your English names are somtimes more fonny zan ours!"
The German Commandant, consulted by Roger (who in April, 1897, was on his way to the coast after having made everything safe behind him), was rather noncommittal about Stolzenberg. The conversation was in German, punctuated with phrases of Swahili on the part of the Commandant, who was proud of having acquired a smattering of this African tongue. He was rather non-committal about the denizen of the Red Crater. He was a "derben Kerl" ... "Simba yule, kabisa," the terror of the Masai. He kept the Masai occupied in that quarter while the Germans tackled the Wa-hehe on the south. He must be given some latitude ... the Commandant would see he did not impinge on the Concession ... perhaps he might be persuaded to take command of a large irregular force against the Wa-hehe....
"'Divide et impera,' sehen Sie? Em glas Rheinwein, nicht so? Und Soda? Ein lang-trinken in der Englische phrase...."
It seemed incongruous that this scene—the rather stiff German major, in strict, white, military uniform and an encumbering sword, a black sentry, not far away, walking with a plap, plap, plap of his bare feet up and down the prescribed number of paces; a plainly furnished, white-washed room in a square fort with pretentious crenellations along its high white walls; the oleograph portrait of Kaiser Wilhelm II; the camp table, the Rhine wine in long-necked bottles, the enamelled iron tumblers and the soda siphons; and the click of a typewriter in the next apartment—should come up before his mental vision as he sat with Lucy and Maud and the Schräder partners on a balcony in the Strand, waiting for Queen Victoria to pass to her Jubilee thanksgiving at St. Paul's! Why should he think of Adolf Stolzenberg then?
He was but part of the African nightmare which he would fain roll up and forget. A few weeks of England had put Africa's nose out of joint. To work for the redemption of a tiny portion of German Africa when such gigantic developments of British Africa were dawning in the imagination of far-seeing men, or when an evolution still more important was taking place in his own land, in the Far East, in America....
What was it that brought back the Red Crater to his mind, the sinister face and powerful figure of Stolzenberg; or the German Commandant in the fort at Kondoa? Whose was the thin, aquiline, insolent face with its riotous smile that held his gaze across the narrow Strand, the face of a tall man in ultra-fashionable cut of clothes, standing up amid a bower of Gaiety girls with four or five extra-smart young City men—stock-brokers, no doubt, Company promoters, or the solicitors of Company promoters—? It was Willowby Patterne he had been staring at for several minutes; and Sir Willowby was flicking a greeting to him with the manicured hand which had drawn the trigger on so many lovely beasts, or had lifted the Kiboko with such a cunning twist to lay its lash on the naked skin of some defaulting native porter....
He had to concentrate his thoughts before he replied to the greeting with a grave bow—had to remember that he had once played semi-host to this man at a Scotch shooting lodge; hated him mostly on hearsay unproved evidence, and chiefly on apprehension as to future maleficence, rather than on positive wrongs to himself.
Then he gave his consideration once more to the passing pageant.
Thrum ... thrum ... thrum ... thrum ... in between the bursts of military music went the steady marching of the Imperial troops. There was the pick of the regiments of the British line; there were samples of Indian infantry—bearded Sikhs, grinning Gurkhas, handsome Panjabis—Surely that was young Pearsall-Smith at the head of one of these detachments? He had heard of his distinguishing himself in the Nyasaland wars against the Arabs—and he winced to think he had no part in this ceremonial, he could point of late to no service to the Crown and Empire—was it his fault? If he had gone to Norway or to South America, could he have achieved anything that might have brought him into the procession of to-day? What splendid Indian cavalry. That Indian prince leading them had once given him some tiger shooting when he was a young A.D.C. to Sir Griffith Gaunt. Ah! Here was Africa in the procession—Hausas from Nigeria, Sudanese from Egypt; these bronzed, well-seated, rather insolent-looking white men were mounted police from the Cape, from Bechuanaland, from Natal.
These gaudy zouave uniforms and Christy minstrels' faces were a contingent from the West Indian regiments that had figured in so many West African wars. And now came well-set-up Turkish police from Cyprus, well-drilled Chinese police from Hong Kong; even solemn-looking Dyaks from Borneo, who were believed to have given up head-hunting in favour of constabulary work at the Bornean ports.
And carriages containing permanent officials—he thought he recognized Sir Bennet Molyneux in one, possibly attached to the person of some foreign prince, some German or Russian Grand Duke. And Ministers of State saluted by the happy crowd with good-humoured cheers and a few serio-comic groans. That one who aroused such an outburst of cheering was the great Choselwhit, Josiah Choselwhit, Secretary of State for the Colonies, in Windsor uniform with the customary eyeglass. His hosts, the Schräders, joined lustily in the hurrahs, as did the City men opposite; Choselwhit was supposed to have brought grist to the City mills and to be the mainstay of the British Empire in which Germans as well as British made such millions of money....
And ... and ... and ... At last, after many preliminary princes and princesses, Queen Victoria herself; a little figure swathed in much black clothing but with filmy white around the rosy face and yellow-white hair.... She progressed very slowly—so it seemed to Roger—past their windows. The Schräder brothers positively brayed their international loyalty, so that their voices were even heard by her above the deafening clamour. She turned her somewhat haughty profile and clear blue eyes towards their balcony with its flamboyant draperies and symbols, as if she searched for some face she knew to whom she might address a smile of acknowledgment; but finding none, turned her gaze to the Gaiety girls and the shouting young men who had invited Patterne as their guest. To these pretty actresses, showing real emotion, she did address a royal smile, which caused one of them to give way to real tears. Then Roger found himself gazing at the back of her bonnet with its white ostrich plume, illogically disappointed that there had been no smile for him, he who would have served her so gladly had her ministers let him.
The Queen-ant of an unusually large ant-hill on this little ball of rock and water having gone on her way to thank the Master Spirit of the Universe for a few additional years of life and power to do good—-the while no doubt that Master Spirit, despite Its Unlimited Intelligence, was vexed and preoccupied at the way things were going in the constellation of Orion—a million times larger than the whole solar system; or at the accelerated currents of star-dust in the Milky Way, or the slow progress towards forming a cluster of sixty giant worlds made by the Nebula of Andromeda: the Schräder partners were dispensing very elegant hospitality in the room behind the two windows they had taken at an Illustrated Newspaper Office in the Strand. They were essentially practical men, being German, with a Jewish quarter-strain and a French education. They could have entertained Roger and his wife and sister; a great Singer—who could not "place" Roger and therefore was cold to him; a great Actress rather past her prime; a great Essayist whose mental scope was limited by Oxford and the Athenæum; and various other guests of intellectuality and distinction: they could have entertained their friends and acquaintance in the Piccadilly house of one of them and the Grosvenor Gardens house of another; or they could have thrown open their splendid City offices for the same purpose; but the view of the whole procession and especially of the Queen would not have been so near, so concentrated, as from windows on the first floor of the Strand at its narrowest. So in fixing up their plans two months beforehand it was here they were playing the lavish host.
The collation was of the most exquisite; the wines of the finest quality imparting the most insidious intoxication, so that you thought you were only being your natural self, though you put your elbows on the table and wondered that you had never hitherto been ranked as a great wit. The celebrated singer began to forget her secret grievance that she was not being entertained by Royalty and had not ridden in one of those carriages. She consoled herself by the assurance she would be at the Naval Review and the Garden Party and probably most of her fellow-guests would not. And then after all, if you did stoop to City entertainers, you could not do much better than the Schräders, unless it were the Rothschilds. Baron Schräder was the head of the family, and he had been made a Baron by Napoleon III, which was much more chic than a German title given by a petty German court. The Schräders for several generations had been dilettanti, outside business; musicians of a certain talent; shrewd judges of cinque-cento art; abstruse ornithologists; members of the Zoological Society's Council; of a Jockey Club here and of a Cercle d'Escrime there. But to sustain this life of many facets they required unlimited money; and Roger Brentham just now was promising to become one of their most remarkable money-spinners. Mr. Eugene Schräder was therefore, after one or two elegant fillings and sippings over Royal names, proposing ever so informally his good health, and that of his charming and devoted wife, and ... and ... he stammered a little over the characterization of Maud, who was the least genial member of the party and had shown herself a little blunt with the actress past her prime, who was now descending to whispered confidences of marital ill-treatment. "But our friend, Captain Brentham ... may I without indiscretion say he should, if he had all that was due to him, have been in the procession to-day as an actor rather than a spectator? Though our party would have lost one of its most interesting guests...." (The Essayist, whose nose has gone very red with the champagne and the Château Yquem, here looks at Roger for the first time with focussed eyes: is it possible that he could have done anything worth notice, outside Oxford and the Athenæum?) "Our friend, Captain Brentham, first led the way of Imperial expansion in East Africa; he is now endeavouring to show us Germans how the wealth of our East African possessions should be developed and brought into the world's markets. Germany was not too proud to enlist the services of any man—or woman" (he bowed to the Actress and Singer) of ability. To be a German was in some ways to be a world-citizen. If they searched the glorious records of the British Empire they would find them studded with German names.... The British Empire of to-day stood grandly open to German enterprise; they would find in return that the German Empire overseas was ready to afford every opportunity to British colonizing and administrative genius. So there would be in German circles no grudging to Captain Brentham of a full meed of praise—from his firm, at any rate—for the truly remarkable discoveries he had made....
"You mustn't forget the credit due to Hildebrandt and Wiese and several other fellows," interpolated Brentham, desirous of doing the right thing—
"Just so—of your German colleagues: that is as it should be. But that brings me to the climax I was leading up to, rather wordily I fear. Dear friends (his voice a little tremulous with honest emotion) let us drink a final toast:To Anglo-German Co-operation; to the great Alliance of our two Nations founded on affinity of race and language, a common love of truth, a common devotion to Science, and I might add almost—a common dynasty" ... (rest lost in clapping).
The toast, however, was drunk somewhat sparingly and absent-mindedly. The Singer, Madame Violante (her married name was Violet Mackintosh), felt dangerously near hiccups (it was the plovers' eggs, she told herself) and she might have to sing to-night! How could she have been so mad? The Actress felt she had said rather too much about her husband to a total stranger, a middle-aged woman who now looked a mere parson's wife.
The Essayist had grown rather sulky because his hosts in this wholly unnecessary speechifying had made no reference to his own contribution to Anglo-German friendship, hisPlace of Heine among Modern Poetsand hisSynthesis of Lessing's Dramas.
Then the party broke up, and the kindly Schräders suggested, as any form of conveyance was totally unprocurable, they should have the hardihood (the gentlemen protecting the ladies) to walk back through the common People—whom the Police had described as uncommon good-natured and just a bit merry—to the Green Park and witness the dear Queen's return to Buckingham Palace.
But when the Jubilee fiss-fass-fuss had abated and before they went to Homburg and Aix, the partners sent for Roger and spoke to him with business-like generosity. He and his staff had made discoveries of value that might be almost called astounding. The capital of the Company would possibly be increased ten-fold—large subscriptions in Germany—exciting immense interest among the best people on this side. His original syndicate shares had become equivalent to 50,000 shares in the enlarged Company, and as they stood at a pound, why he would be worth, if he realized, £50,000. But, of course, he would not do such a thing till promises had been turned into performances—Meantime, they were prepared to raise his salary to £3,000 a year—he would probably have to entertain German officials considerably—and conclude an agreement for ten years.... "But if I have to entertain largely?" he queried, not above making as good a bargain as possible.... "My dear Captain Brentham! Don't letthatstand between us.... There shall be an entertainment allowance of five hundred a year. And we hope that that will induce you to take your charming lady back with you, and your sister, Miss Brentham. I assure you the encomiums passed on those ladies by our German friends out there have contributed not a little to...."
"All this is very kind of you. But I don't want to think I alone am being rewarded for discoveries which in some cases were entirely due to...."
"You will find when you go back your German colleagues have not been forgotten in the all-round increase of salaries.... And now; go and take agoodholiday and get well braced up before your return in the autumn...."
Roger took them at their word. He and Lucy, after revelling in the joys of parenthood in Berkshire, went off to spend a month with Sibyl at Glen Sporran. Lucy had long since grown used to Sibyl, so the prospect of the visit caused her no perturbation. She followed Maud's advice as to suitability of outfit and the number of evening frocks and tea-gowns. She was the only member of the party who did not bicycle or play bridge. Sibyl boasted of doing sixty miles a day without turning a hair; but the Rev. Stacy Bream nearly killed himself trying to emulate her feats of coasting downhill and pedalling uphill.
The Honble. Vicky Masham was there as of yore—a little longer in the tooth (she had got used to Sibyl's nickname by this time, and had forgiven it as Sibyl had helped her to pay her bridge debts)—. She hurt her ankle badly in a bicycle accident and had to lie up. Lucy, the only one at home, sat with her, did fancy work and burbled gently about her African experiences. The Honble. Victoria grew quite interested, regretted that Mrs. Brentham, born as she had been born, without the purple, and her husband not having pursued a British career, could not be brought to the dear Queen's notice.... The Queen took thegreatest interestin Africa....
Lucy, of course, after a few lessons abandoned any attempt to play bridge (people in 1897 debated whether bicycling, bridge, the Bible, or herbaceous borders had brought the greatest happiness to Britain: we, in after life, see it was the bicycle). She was scared by the subterranean forces it aroused and lit up in the angry eyes around her, the fortunes that were involved in the plunge of No Trumps, the awful penalties attendant on a revoke, the fate that hung on a finesse. So she wisely declined to play and talked—or rather listened—to the one who cut out; or if several tables were made up, she dispensed drinks and sweets and a sandwich supper. The Rev. Stacy Bream, vaguely nettled by her rival Christianity, glanced at her once, remembered years ago she had been Sibyl's butt, and inquired of Sibyl "who her people were, what her father was?"
"One of the best farmers in Berkshire," said Sibyl. "Mine is—or was—for I had to buy him up—one of the worst.... What wasyourfather, by the bye? It never occurred to me to ask you before...."
The Rev. Stacy's father had really been a very pushing Agent for a firm of Decorators and Wall-paper designers: so he replied with a sigh: "A great,greattraveller, dear lady; a man who loved Colour and Design better than his immortal soul, I fear.... It's to you to cut...."
But Sibyl had not confined her Highland house-party to these worn-out fribbles. Bream had his uses. He would be there to assoil a guest who might get shot in the shooting, and so perhaps save the unpleasantness of an inquest; and his stories of people on the fringe of Society were the equivalent and the accompaniment in midnight chat—just before you took your bedroom candle—of pâté-de-foie sandwiches and cherry brandy. Vicky Masham kept you right with Queen Victoria; Lucy was a reminder to her not to make a fool of herself with Roger ... perhaps also there was a little gratitude in her hard nature for the good a year of Lucy's society had wrought in her little son's health and disposition. But she wanted—more than ever at thirty-six—to be a political woman, to make a difference in the world, hand her name down in history, change or shape history in fact. It had occurred to her, as it did to fifty other mature, handsome, well-placed women of ambition, to marry Cecil Rhodes; but the Jacobzoon Raid and still more the eager rivalry of other ladies, perfectly shameless in their frontal attacks on the Colossus, soon thwarted any such idea ... reduced it indeed, to such a ridiculous impossibility that it was only confided to her locked diary. She had fortunately withdrawn her half-promise from Sir Elijah Tooley at the very first hint that there was a crack in his reservoir of wealth. Otherwise—with a couple of millions of his money ... and he could have had his own suite of apartments, and she would have stopped him waxing his moustaches ... she might have over-turned her world.... Then there was Count Balanoff, the Russian Ambassador, a widower....
"You know," she said to Roger in one of her many smoking-room tête-à-tête confidences—"he is 'richissime,' and really rather decent, though he does dye his hair.... Gold mines in Siberia, turquoise mines in the Caucasus.... He seemed quite towantto marry me, at one time.... Vicky Masham thinks it was the Queen who interposed. If he'd asked me and I'd accepted I should have made myself in no time the most talked-about woman in Europe. I'd have negotiated an alliance with Russia—always an idea of mine—and have paid the Kaiser out for his Kruger telegram—Why is it, Roger, there isn't arushto marry me? I've ten thousand a year for life; I'm only thirty-six, which nowadays is equivalent to twenty-six; I've a splendid constitution, my hair's my own and so are my teeth, my figure is perfect.... I might be an artist's model for the 'tout ensemble.' ... And yet ... (a pause for smoking).
"And it isn't as though the re-marriage of titled women was 'mal vu' at Court any longer.... There's Lady Landolphia Birchall. She's going to be married again in the autumn; this time to a 'booky'—for he really is nothing more, though he takes bets with the Prince. And she's turned fifty. But the Queen doesn't seem to mind...."