"I am considering ten tons of large bull tusks, well seasoned."
"For such tusks, I am paying eighty rupees per ngoma. For ten tons of seasoned tusks, I would ask ninety rupees per ngoma."
"If I should double my purchase, how much less would you ask?"
"Two rupees less—eighty-eight rupees."
"If I should triple it?"
"If you buy thirty tons of large dry tusks, to be assembled in my yard within five days, my price would be eighty-six rupees, eight annas."
"Because of the civil wars in Egypt, I'm afraid to ship ivory down the Nile and wish to take it to Suakin on the Red Sea. That means a dangerous journey overland. If I buy from you, what help can you give me in safeguarding my purchase?"
"I can stamp each tusk with a certain seal respected by all and feared by a great many."
"I've heard of that seal. From Suakin I expect to ship my ivory in dhows to Cape Town, whence it can be trans-shipped to England. Such dhows are often untrustworthy, and those seas are infested with Arab pirates. Is there anything you can do to lessen the danger?"
"For a price, yes. Every year I ship goods worth many lakhs of rupees with almost no loss by theft. The Emir of the Hadarib, who owns the mainland at Suakin, is an old friend and a distant kinsman. The greatest fleet of dhows operating on the Red Sea and along the western shores of the Indian Ocean belong to my associate Saad ibn Hassan; all bear a crescent moon in a square of stars painted in white on the bow. His charge for transporting ivory from Suakin to Cape Town will not exceed four hundred rupees per ton. This is at the shipper's risk. No one in Africa can insure you against shipwreck, which Allah forbid, but I, Kamel, have ways of protecting my own and associates' shipments from pirates and robbers. May I ask if you read Arabic as well as you speak it?"
"Not as well, but I can read it."
"If you will pay me ninety rupees per ngoma for thirty tons of heavy tusks, one and one-half ngomas and up, I'll give you my testament, sworn before a cadi, Allah bearing witness, to recompense you half the amount of your loss from robbers or pirates sustained from the border of the Emir of Hadarib's domains to the dock at Cape Town."
"I've already acquired some ivory by hunting. Although it won't be covered in the insurance, will you instruct your agents and representatives to see that it has the same care?"
"All the ivory that you ship would have the same care."
"Thirty tons would come to—"
I expected Kamel to reach for the paper and inkhorn on his desk— instead he answered instantly. "One hundred and twenty thousand rupees."
Smiling over his feat, he handed me pen and paper. Since a ngoma was seven and one-half kilabs of six pounds avoirdupois, my patient figuring arrived at the same sum. The amount was twelve thousand English pounds and close on to sixty thousand Yankee dollars.
"If I deliver the ivory to Saad ibn Hassan's docks in Suakin after ninety days, and before one hundred and twenty days, need I wait long for shipment?"
"Not more than two weeks."
"I would like to pay half the sum in three hundred silver bars of two hundred rupees each, and the other half in thirty ingots of gold of two thousand rupees each."
"That will be quite satisfactory, effendi." Kamel beckoned to a slave to fill our coffee cups.
Living up to Isabel's graphic tribute to him, he had not spat even once. But I, too, had dealt largely with speed and aplomb and, unless I missed my guess, without going far wrong. Considering my lack of practice, I had every right to pride as well as hope.
CHAPTER 21
Rendezvous
Our return journey was no fine six-day dash through the bush. Besides our riding beasts, we had nearly two hundred baggage camels, each to be watered, fed, loaded with upwards of three hundred pounds of ivory, marched a score or more miles daily, unloaded, picketed, and protected from lions—all by one hundred and fifty black Swahili tribesmen whose labor we had hired from Kamel Malik. The Swahili and the white-veiled Tuareg did most of the daytime tasks, while the black-veiled Tuareg and I stood the night watches. By taking turns at catnaps, we were able to keep our eyes open and our rifles primed beside the watch fires.
When I came off watch at midnight at our second day out from Khartoum fair, Isabel was awake to give me supper and to enjoy a cheroot with me beside our cooking fire. The small red blaze could be scorned or circumvented by a bold prowler, but a radiant moon, our old well-loved companion, illumined the barren ground for a comforting distance about our bivouac, and we listened to the night sounds with no sharp apprehension. Hyenas wailed or sobbed or broke into horrid laughter; elephants trumpeted far away; lions uttered rhythmic grunts as they paced the plain, and one, balked and hungry, silenced all other sound by his furious roars.
"His name among the Arab traders is Simba," Isabel said thoughtfully. "In Tamashek his name is Zaki. What is his name in the speech of Frankistan?"
"Lion," I answered.
"When my son is born, I'll name him Lion for your sake."
"That's a good name. But what if the babe be a girl?"
"I don't think it will be so. At the moment he was conceived a dog-jackal—his voice is deeper than a bitch's—barked on the desert. But if it is so, I'll name her Gazelle, for my sake."
"Either one would suit me well."
"Omar, what was your name in the speech of Frankistan? You told me, but I forget."
"Homer Whitman."
"Omar?"
"Breathe into Omar as you say it, and slur it a little."
"Will you return to that name when you go to Frankistan?"
"Not for a long time and perhaps never. I can do my work better under another name."
"There's no one there who would keep the secret? Some old woman who loved you, or a child who's grown up since you went away?"
"I have no one in my homeland any more—but I have everyone."
"What do you mean by that?"
"I couldn't tell you very well."
"What name are you going to take?"
"Holgar Blackburn."
"What does his name mean in your speech?"
"I don't know what Holgar means. In Scotland 'blackburn' can refer to a dark stream or it can mean something burned black."
"Is he dead?"
"Yes, with no one left to mourn him. Also, he's as long from home and forgotten as I am. But I promised to do well by him there, in payment for the use of his name."
"Did Holgar look like you?"
"Not especially, but that won't matter after all these years. I have some marks he didn't have—"
I stopped, remembering he had a mark that I had not, fixed on him before he left home. It looked like an X and had been burned into the back of his hand for stealing a meat pie from the kitchen of the workhouse master. I recalled his face as he told me.
"I know every one of your marks," Isabel said, looking away.
"Perhaps I should get one more." I told her about the burn.
"Do you think anyone would remember it after all these years?"
"No, and Holgar's bones have been picked eleven years, and I've been marked enough."
We lay down and began to drift into sleep. One of the last sounds I heard was the cough of a leopard not far off in the bush—a grating sound like that of a saw on a rough board. He had been attracted by the smell of meat, but he dared not come into camp to snatch and make way with it—the smell and sound of man, and occasionally his shadow, and the dying coals of the fire balked his desire. If driven to white-hot fury, he would have charged a whole body of spearmen, but he was only vicious-tempered now. Isabel, lying in the hollow of my arm, did not speak or rouse, only lay a little closer to my side.