another gentleman! I know you can not!
You haven't it in you! You were born under another star than that! I
have confidence! I sit contented!"

"You good-for-nothing villain!" Fred grinned. "I'll take you at your
word!" and Brown of Lumbwa gasped, the very hairs of his red beard
bristling.

"I knew you would!" said Coutlass calmly. "These others are not
gentlemen. They do not understand."

"If your word is good for anything," Fred continued.

"My word is my bond!" said the Greek.

"And you really want to prove yourself my friend--"

"I would go to hell for you and bring you back the devil's favorite
wife!"

"I will set you on the mainland, to go and recover those cattle of Mr.
Brown's from the Masai who raided them! Return them to Lumbwa, and
I'll guarantee Brown shall shake hands with you!"

"Pah! Brown! That drunkard!"

"See here!" said Brown, getting up and peeling off his coat. "I've had
enough of being called drunkard by you. Put up your dukes!"

But a fight between Brown and the Greek with bare fists would have been
little short of murder. Brown was in no condition to thrash that wiry
customer, and we in no mood to see Coutlass get the better of him.

"Don't be a fool, Brown! Sit down!" ordered Fred, and having saved his
face Brown condescended readily enough.

"What you said's right," he admitted. "Let him get my cattle back
afore he's fit to fight a gentleman!"

And so the matter was left for the present, with Georges Coutlass under
sentence of abandonment to his own devices as soon as we could do that
without entailing his starvation. We had no right to have pity for the
rascal; he had no claim whatever on our generosity; yet I think even
Brown would not have consented to deserting him on any of those barren
islands, whatever the risk of his spoiling our plans as soon as we
should let him out of sight.

From then until we beached the canoes at last in a gap in the papyrus
on the lake's northern shore, we pressed forward like hunted men. For
one thing, the very thought of boiled meat without bread, salt, or
vegetables grew detestable even to the natives after the second or
third meal, although hippo tongue is good food. We tried green stuff
gathered on the islands, but it proved either bitter or else
nauseating, and although our boys gathered bark and roots that they
said were fit for food, it was noticeable that they did not eat much of
it themselves. The simplest course was t