the track of the secret?"

"Get on it? I am on it! Didn't One-eye say Tippoo Tib is alive and in
Zanzibar? The old rascal! Many a slave he's done to death! Many a
man he's tortured! I propose we catch Tippoo Tib, hide him, and pull
out his toe-nails one by one until be blows the gaff!"

(To hear Fred talk when there is nothing to do but talk a stranger
might arrive at many false conclusions.)

"If there's any truth in the story at all," said Monty, "government
will have done everything within the bounds of decency to coax the
facts from Tippoo Tib. I suspect we'd have to take our chance and
simply hunt. But let's hear Juma's story."

So the old attendant left off sprinkling water from a yellow jar, and
came and stood before us. Fred's proposal of tweaking toe-nails would
not have been practical in his case, for he had none left. His black
legs, visible because he had tucked his one long garment up about his
waist, were a mass of scars. He was lean, angular, yet peculiarly
straight considering his years. As he stood before us he let his
shirt-like garment drop, and the change from scarecrow to deferential
servant was instantaneous. He was so wrinkled, and the wrinkles were
so deep, that one scarcely noticed his sightless eye, almost hidden
among a nest of creases; and in spite of the wrinkles, his polished,
shaven head made him look ridiculously youthful because one expected
gray hair and there was none.

"Ask him how he lost his toe-nails, Fred," said I.

But the old man knew enough English to answer for himself. He made a
wry grimace and showed his hands. The finger-nails were gone too.

"Tell us your story, Juma," said Monty.

"Tell 'em about the pembe--the ivory--the much ivory--the meengi
pembe," echoed Fred.

"Let's hear about those nails of his first," said I.

"One thing'll prob'ly lead to another," Yerkes agreed. "Start him on
the toe-nail story."

But it did not lead very far. Fred, who had picked up Kiswahili enough
to piece out the old man's broken English, drew him out and clarified
the tale. But it only went to prove that others besides ourselves had
heard of Tippoo Tib's hoard. Some white man--we could not make head or
tail of the name, but it sounded rather like Somebody belonging to a
man named Carpets--had trapped him a few years before and put him to
torture in the belief that he knew the secret.

"But me not knowing nothing!" he assured us solemnly, shaking his head
a