Most of the white men I saw on the wharfs were bearded Dutch, soberly dressed, but not as quaintly as I. When the dhows had docked, Jim came and stood beside me, dressed in a flowing aba. We waited motionless and silent, remote and apart from the people passing by.
Two young Englishmen, one dressed in what must be the latest London fashion and the other in the undress uniform of the Royal Navy, stopped to gaze at the dhows and spoke in something near to my native tongue.
"What do you make of yon scarecrow in Don Quixote's clothes?" the more languid and elegant of the pair asked his fellow.
"1 don't like the cut of his jib."
"It's true it would frighten the little ones from their porridge, but he's no kind of Dutchman I've seen, and that black with him is from back of beyond. I think they must have come from Mozambique."
"There—or from the tomb."
The pair laughed and walked on. A few seconds later I saw them both gazing seaward, patently to avoid speaking to another young Englishman walking briskly in my direction. The newcomer did not let them know he felt or even noticed the slight, but he could not hide from me the bitter set of his lips or the stiffening of his stride. Fair-haired and blue-eyed, rather delicately made, he walked like a horseman. His clothes, once good, had worn almost to shabbiness. He stopped near me, ostensibly to look at the dhows, then turned suddenly, as by a feat of will.
"I say, can you speak English?" he asked.
"I can."
"I had a feeling you could. There's a hint of English stock about the eyes. Good God, but you've been through hell."
"I don't know that country." But I once saw its fires in the eyes of a leopard dying in my arms.
"Please don't resent my speaking to you. I'd like to ask you some questions. They might benefit us both."
"You can try."
"Is this your first visit to Cape Town?"
"Yes."
"You've been in the Bush a long time. Longer than any renegade I've ever seen. Most men couldn't have lived that long in the Bush."
I did not answer.
"The word's out that those dhows are loaded down with ivory-something like forty tons. By any chance could it belong to you?"
"There are thirty-six tons, and they belong to me."
"Jove, what a joke on Sidney! I mean the fine buck that just snubbed me, along with Ensign Wells. Sidney is a kind of office boy to tlie governor. If he'd known you had thirty thousand quid of tusks, he would have been the first to make you welcome to this latest jewel in King George's crown."
"I didn't know either I had thirty thousand quid of tusks."
"They'll bring forty pounds per hundredweight from the buyers here, but the pot can't call the kettle black. I came to that ivory like a cat to a pan of milk."
"Before you explain that, I'll ask you a question. When you speak of King George, do you mean George IV?"
"Sir, there isn't any George IV—yet. George III is still king in name, although he's mad, and the crown prince is regent."
"I can hardly believe it. George III was king twenty years before I was born "
"That's about right. You're not over forty. He came to the throne in 1760 and has worn the crown nearly sixty years."
I liked the young man's earnest way.
"Now I'll explain the questions—whether or not I justify them," he went on. "If you're a stranger here, I can serve you until you get acquainted with the town. I can help you order more suitable clothes —arrange good quarters for you—find you good servants—run your errands. I'll charge you for it, of course—I need the money very badly—but I won't rob you."
"What's your name?"
"Alan Ridgeley."
"What will you charge me per day?"
"I'd like to ask a pound—"
"That's not too much if I engage you. You seem an educated man of good family. Why do you need such work?"
"I got into trouble with the military, and my brother, who's a lord and controls the purse strings, booted me down here. Now he's written me I can come back or go to the devil, but he's through with me. I'm trying to live until I can work my way back on a ship."
"You're engaged. Your first duty will be to find the harbor master and see about the unloading of my ivory. I want it put in a warehouse that can be locked and guarded. Is there a bank in Cape Town?"
"The Bank of Amsterdam had a factor here for fifty years. Now the banking is done by Baring's, in London, hand in glove with the East India Company. You haven't told me your name, sir."
"Holgar Blackburn." It came easily to my lips and I had the sense, intangible and strange, of speaking truth.
"You've got to be from someplace, in filling out the forms."
"My last address was a workhouse in Tavistock. I ran away when I was fourteen."
"Well, I'll get the worthy."
The harbor master, Mr. Barneveld, was as Dutch as his name. He did not offer me his hand—as though he feared I might crush it in mine—but he welcomed me to the port in broken English and promised that a work crew of thirty Hottentots would unload my ivory at once. I asked that great care be taken that none of the tusks be dropped and broken.
"If one of dos Kaffir drop yus one, I give him hunnerd lashes on his black back," the master said.
"That won't mend the break," I answered, at which Alan looked at me in some surprise.
When the tusks had been stored, Alan took me to a kind of boarding house catering to officers and travelers. A pink-cheeked Dutch girl looked at me with dismay, but rented me one of the best rooms and set a small table for me, away from the long board, in the dining room. Of many pointed reminders of my frightening appearance, this was the most sharp so far; but it did not pierce my skin. It came to pass that Jim took the dishes from the waiters' hands and served me himself. He asked to do it through some law of his own, and I made no protest.
I slept that night in a deep, clean featherbed, Jim on a cot in the anteroom. In the morning I bade Alan request the presence of an East India Company official, an officer of the government, a merchant of standing, and a minister of the gospel at an important meeting in the warehouse. Alan's eyes asked if, after all, I was mad.
"I can't promise they'll come," he told me.
"I'll present each of them with a bottle of the best schnapps in town, and if any of them find the matter beneath his notice, I'll give him half a ton of ivory of my own choosing."
He looked at me and rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "I doubt if you'll have to pay up."
I felt sure that curiosity, if nothing else, would bring the four witnesses whereby my possession of the gold would become a public fact. Meanwhile I had Jim borrow a saw used by ivory workers for cutting billiard-ball pieces. When the four men arrived, worthies all, the minister was boyishly excited, the merchant and the company official were more impressed than they wished anyone to know, and only the government officer, Mr. Gerry, took a superior attitude. However, he bowed politely enough when Alan introduced me, and no one wanted to be caught listening to the witticisms he whispered behind his hand.
"Now, now, Mr. Blackburn," he said to me. "You've asked us to come here, and we've obliged you, so oblige us by making the business short. What's all this mystery about?"
"Will each of you gentlemen be kind enough to select one of the tusks from the stacks? My factor, James Porter, will lay them to one side."