man had with him food enough for
at least a year's traveling, including all the canned delicacies that
hungry men dream about in the wilderness. Before we slept we ate so
enormously of so very many things that it was a wonder that we were
able to sleep at all.

We all hoped Schillingschen would die, for it was a hard problem what
to do with him. He had no papers in his possession, beyond a diary
written in German schrift that even Will could not make head or tail
of, for all his knowledge of the language; and a very vague map
bearing the imprint of the British government, filled in by himself
with the names of the villages he had passed on his way. There was no
proof that we could find that would have condemned him of nefarious
practises in a British court of law.

"And believe me," argued Will, sprawling on the plundered bed, blowing
the smoke of a Melachrino through his nose, "your local British judges
would take the word of Professor Schillingschen against all of ours,
backed up by simply overwhelming native evidence! They're so in awe of
Schillingschen's professorial degree, and of his passports, and his
letters of introduction from this and that mogul that they wouldn't
believe him guilty of arson if they caught him in the act!"

"Something's got to be done with him pretty soon, though," answered
Fred from the floor, lying at ease on a pillow and a folded Jaeger
blanket, smoking a fat cigar.

Coutlass and Brown were singing songs outside the tent and I sat in a
genuine armchair with my feet on a box full of canned plum pudding.
(Nobody knows, who has not hungered on the high or low veld--who has
not eaten meat without vegetables for days on end, and then porridge
without salt or sugar--how good that common, export, canned plum
Pudding is! To sit with my feet on the case that contained it was the
arrogance of affluence!)

"We have his stores and his papers," said I. "We have his Baganda;
and as time goes on, and his other spies begin to come in, we shall
have them, too, if we're half careful. Why don't we let him go, to
tell his own tale wherever he likes?"

"Maybe he'll die yet!" said the optimist on the camp-bed, blowing more
cigarette smoke.

"Suppose he doesn't. We've done our best to keep him alive. He's quit
bleeding. Suppose we let him go, and he lays a charge against us.
Suppose they send after us and bring us in. We've his diary and his
men--evidence enough," said I.

"You bally ass!"