This was done. The four tusks were laid in an open space in the warehouse. When I nodded to Jim, he began to saw one of them about where the hollow ended in solid bone. Near the center the saw-blade met an obstruction. This he sawed around and broke off. Each part of the tooth now showed a small yellow core that glimmered in the shadowy room. Jim dug around each with his knife. He extracted two hunks of gold, one about four inches long and the shape of a goat horn, the other twice as long and more like a bullock's horn with a blunted end. The two pieces, a total weight of about twenty pounds, Jim laid in my hands.
"Sir, do you know what these are?" I asked Mr. Gerry, putting the objects in his hands.
"Good God, they're gold," he answered.
"This is no time to take the Lord's name in vain," the minister intoned with great solemnity; and in spite of my heavy heart—longing to be back on the Atbara—I could not help but grin.
The gold passed from hand to hand. An intent, almost anguished look was on every face, and the staring eyes looked glazed. No one spoke a word as Jim began sawing the second tusk. This time he bethought himself and cut nearer the base of the tusk than before, about at the top instead of the bottom of the deposit, an ivory-saving process that had not crossed my mind until now. By breaking the cement and chipping the pulp, he soon loosened the gold and brought it out in one nicely curved and tapered piece. He had begun on the third tusk when the banker, breathing hard, got himself in hand.
"Mr. Blackburn, are we to understand that all those tusks have gold in 'em?"
"Every one."
"Then there's tons of it."
"Between five and six tons, I think."
"Why, damn, that's half a million pounds!"
"I don't think it will disturb the even tenor of Alex Baring's bank in London," the merchant remarked.
"He's Mr. Alexander Baring, if you please. Sir, if I may ask, whose gold is it?"
"Mine."
"But can you prove it?" Mr. Gerry asked. "That's what I want to know." He looked to the others for approval on this well-taken stand.
"He doesn't have to prove it," the merchant, Mr. Walters, remarked with some acerbity. "Possession is nine points in the law—even government officials are supposed to know that. Unless someone can prove he lifted it off him—and it had better be a white man, not some naked heathen—he can keep it."
The banker meditated a moment and wiped his face with his handkerchief. Everyone waited for his pronouncement.
"What Mr. Walters said is perfectly true. Mr. Blackburn has brought his gold into an English port—beneath the English flag—and common sense tells me he brought it out of the Bush, where other men have made their fortunes. Mr. Blackburn, do you care to tell us the source of this gold?"
"A mine in a native state on the Upper Nile."
"Mr. Blackburn, I've not the slightest reason to dispute your ownership of it, and I won't. I'll accept it, and give you drafts on Baring's Bank in exchange. I'll have company workmen get it out of the tusks, working in guarded shifts, and will have it in our main vault before dark. Also, I wish to be the first to congratulate you. You—whom the Honorable Alan Ridgeley told me began life in a workhouse in Devonshire—are now one of the rich men of the Empire."
I wondered if Alan had gained face in these last few minutes along with me.
"I have a request to make, Mr. Blackburn," the minister broke in. "The first Christian symbol your eyes lighted upon as you returned from exile among the heathen was the bell tower of my church. The building needs new roofing. Will you contribute the contents of merely one of these tusks—what I estimate as twenty pounds of gold —to that cause?"
"No, sir, but I'll give a ton of ivory, worth nearly as much."
"A tablet will be set in the wall, acknowledging your gift for all time to come."
I mused on Holgar Blackburn's name being inscribed on that tablet, and what he would think if he knew. The scene changed, and again I was under the iron hook in the wall of the Sepulcher of Wet Bones, and Holgar was speaking to me in a voice hoarse with longing.
"Ask if they'll let you do it. Big Yank. . . . Those bully boys of Sidi's are edgy and will bitch it sure. . . . You're strong as a lion—and you ought to see one jump over a six-foot boma with a man in his jaws..."
That scene seemed the present reality and this the dream. But it slowly faded, and I was back with Jim and Alan and the four worthy burghers of Cape Town who were talking in low, awed tones.
By Alan's arrangements, the best tailor in Cape Town worked all night at making me a proper-looking broadcloth suit, but he would not have it ready in time for my call on the governor. Lord Charles Somerset.
The invitation brought by a uniformed Negro was, as Alan put it, virtually a command. Disturbed over the figure I would cut, Alan wanted me to borrow more suitable clothes from some of the burghers or buy some second hand; I told him not to worry, since I would feel perfectly comfortable in my old-fashioned rig. Actually, I wished I could care a little about royal governors' opinions of me except as it served Jim's and my future undertaking. It would be better for me if I winced within when a now familiar expression came into people's faces at sight of me: I could then believe I was one of the people, instead of a stranger from some other world on a fated mission. More ominous than indifference was a secret satisfaction I had begun to take in these responses. It could mean that a shadow that dogs every man's soul had caught up with mine—but I believed it meant something else.
After waiting in the splendid hall of the castle, I could not help but grin, for the secretary who came to escort me into the governor's presence was none other than the foppish young man who had remarked on my appearance on the dock. Of dim imagination, he had made the almost incredible mistake of failing to connect his scarecrow with the fabulous Mr. Blackburn. At sight of me, his jaw dropped.
"Are you ill?" I asked..
"I've seen you somewhere, sir."
"Is that any reason to lose your aplomb?"
"No, sir."
"Perhaps the governor has little children I may frighten from their porridge."
"If you tell him I said that, I'll get the sack."
"I doubt if you'll be brought into any conversation involving half a million guineas." For I thought of other outlanders whom his careless contempt could sting.
"I'm properly rebuked, so please let it go."
A gray-haired man of patent distinction, elegantly garbed in black plush, Lord Somerset received me civilly enough. Also an experienced diplomat, he did not at once ask me the question that was the purpose of my summoning; and as he spoke pleasantly of Devonshire, I thought to put one to him. Truly, I could hardly find the courage. There were two possible answers, one as likely as the other; and the difference to me would be immeasurable. The question had risen often to my mind in the early years of my slavehood, but I had learned to set it aside—rather, to distract myself from it. Ever since I had Isabel it had been only a haunting deep in my brain. Even if the answer was No, I still could not have Isabel again—I could not return to Africa, to joy and safety and complete freedom—but how changed would be the whole future pattern of my life; with what scope I could set my course!
Is Sir Godwine Tarlton alive?
I did not ask it in this form. I waited my chance...
"I dare say you've had enough of the country and will live in London," Lord Somerset was saying.
"Perhaps so. I've no one left in Tavistock."
"You'll enjoy the sporting life, I know. I could give you letters to several good fellows. Do you know anyone there?"