rosper--at first gradually, but
after a while in the old swift way that had made all our ventures with
Monty such amazingly amusing work.

We saw the chain-gang--Kazimoto last, with a shovel over his
shoulder--march away at noon to dig me a grave in the sand close to
where they burned the township refuse. Fred and Will went and watched
them a while, contriving to slip a paper of snuff into Kazimoto's hand
while he rested and let the pick-men labor. (Snuff to a Nyamwezi is as
comforting as an old sweet pipe to nine white men out of ten.)

When Schubert came that evening at five with an old sack to put my body
in, and plenty of askaris to help decide disputes, I was standing up.
He could not very well make even himself believe that a man who could
speak and walk was dead, but he could be immensely enraged by what he
was pleased to call my schweinspiel.* He cursed me in every language he
knew, including several native ones, and ended by threatening to make
sure of me before going to so much trouble a second time. [*Literally,
pig-play.]

We enraged him still further by laughing at him, and Fred got out his
concertina that for many days past had lain idle. The first few notes
of it made me realize more than any other thing could have done what
depths of despondency we must have plumbed, for hitherto, for as long
as I had known Fred, he had always been able with that weird instrument
of his to rouse his own spirits and so stir the rest of us. He resumed
old habits now, and gloom departed.

That evening I went to bed like a new man, and for the first night for
long weeks slept until dawn, awaking hungry. My leg began to mend. We
all saw the absurdity, if nothing else, of the treatment meted out to
us, based on no better grounds than our supposed possession of a
secret. Laughter brought good hope. Hope gave us courage, and courage
set Fred and Will hunting for a means of escape. We decided there and
then that to wait for this Major Schunck to come from the coast and
pass judgment on us was a ridiculous waste of time as well as highly
dangerous.

The first discovery Fred and Will made was that there were footholds
cut in the great granite rock in which the Bismarck medallion was set.
They climbed it, and discovered that from the summit they could see all
Muanza harbor from the shore line to the island in the distance.
Sitting up there, they presently spotted a native dhow drawn up with
bow to the beach with the