ggested Will, and that seemed
such a good idea that we laughed ourselves back into good temper--even
Brown, who had no notion whether we knew the secret, being perfectly
sure we would not be such fools as to tell the true whereabouts of the
hoard in any case.

"I want to get even with all Africa!" he grumbled. "I want to make
trouble that'll last! I'd start a war this minute if I knew how! If
it weren't for those bloody Greeks laughing at me I'd get more drunk
to-night than any ten men in the world ever were before in history!
Yes, sir! And my name's Brown of Lumbwa to prove I mean what I say!"

After a while, seeing that no trouble was likely, the Nubian soldiers
came out of ambush and marched away. We ate supper. The Greeks and
the Goanese subsided into temporary quiet, and our own boys, squatting
by a fire they had placed so that they could watch the Greeks'
encampment, began humming a native song. Their song reminded Fred of
Will's earlier suggestion, and he unclasped the concertina.

Then for three-quarters of an hour he played, and we sang all the tunes
we knew least likely to make Germans happy, repeating The Marseillaise
and Rule Britannia again and again in pious hope that at least a few
bars might reach to the commandant's house on the hill.

Whether they did or not--whether the commandant writhed as we hoped in
the torture of supreme insult, or slept as was likely from the
after-effect of too much bottled beer with dinner--there were others
who certainly did hear, and made no secret of it.

To begin with, the part of the township nearest us was the quarter of
round grass roofs, where the aborigines lived; and the Bantu heart
responds to tuneful noise, as readily as powder to the match. All that
section of Muanza, man, woman and child, came and squatted outside the
cactus hedge. (It was streng politzeilich verboten for natives to
enter the European camping-ground, so that except when they wanted to
steal they absolutely never trespassed past the hedge.)

Enraptured by the unaccustomed strains they sat quite still until some
Swahili and Arabs came and beat them to make room. When the struggle
and hot argument that followed that had died down, Indians began
coming, and other Greeks, until most of the inhabitants of the eastern
side of town were either squatting or standing or pacing to and fro
outside the camping-ground.

At last rumor of what was happening reached the D.O.A.G.--the store at
th