ease your relations from jail on account of
this Baganda, this is a written book that will make them do it! In
this book are the names of men who have broken treaties and the law of
nations. When the Germans know the British Government in London has
this book under lock and key, they will think it a little thing to
release your relations for the sake of avoiding trouble!"

"Promise me, bwana! You promise me!"

"I promise I will do my best for you."

"Word of an Englishman--promise!"

"Word Of an Englishman--I promise to do my best!"

That was a proud enough moment on the shoulder of a mountain, with
wilderness in every direction farther than the highest eagle in the air
above could see, to have that helpless, hopeless ex-slave, part Arab,
part machenzie, put his whole stock-in-trade--his secret--all he had on
earth to bargain with for those he loved--in the balance on the promise
of an Englishman. It was a tribute to a race that has had its share,
no doubt, of bad men, but has won dominion over half the earth and
pretty much all the sea by keeping faith with men who could not by any
means compel good faith.

"Then I tell!" said Hassan. "Then I show!"

But now a new fear seized him, and he clung to Monty, trembling and
jabbering.

"The men who eat men! The men who eat men!"

"Pah! Cannibals!" sneered Fred. "They're always cowards!"

"Tippoo Tib, he afraid of nothing--nobody! He is hiding the ivory
where men who eat men can guard it and none dare come!"

"Lead on, McDuff!" Fred grinned, shouldering his rifle.

All of us except Monty had beards by that time that fluttered in the
wind, and looked desperate enough for any venture. Considering the
rifles and our uncouth appearance, Hassan took heart of grace. He
insisted on an armed guard to walk on either side of him, and nearly
drove Kazimoto frantic by ducking behind rocks at intervals, imagining
he saw an enemy; but he did not refuse any longer to show the way.

It seemed that in expectation of Schillingschen's early arrival he had
camped within a mile of the place where the stuff was hidden, taking
unreasoning courage from the bare fact of having the redoubtable
Schillingschen for friend. But the cannibals (who must have been a
hungry folk, for there were no plantations, and almost no animals on
all those upper slopes) had pounced on his three lean porters, missing
himself by a hair's breadth.

In hiding, he had watched his three men killed,