The Achmed Abdullah Megapack

by Achmed Abdullah

  Witherspoon! Sir Charles Lane-Fox had that honest, homespun New England name on several secret files in his private safe—with dates and names and little, dramatic black crosses.

  And yet—

  Mahmoud Ali Daud read the Englishman’s heart like an open book.

  “Perhaps this time—” he said very gently, “if Witherspoon be indeed the man who—”

  “If? Heavens! There isn’t even the margin of doubt. I happen to remember that, through the Chartered Company, he asked me for a special trade permit for the French Congo shortly after you went to Brussels to talk business with Baron de Roubaix. The French Congo runs around the north and northwest of the Waranga country like an arm crooked at the elbow, and the Chartered people are as thick as thieves with all the chiefs up there. It would be a losing game, commercially, to tap the Waranga treasures via the French Congo. The road is too long, too roundabout.

  “There is a stretch of jungle three hundred miles across that is nearly impassable, and there are three great rivers to cross. But it’s a handy enough jumping-off place to start rotten propaganda among the blacks, to disseminate the ‘word that is everywhere, all at once.’ Well—don’t you see?—the whole trouble started the very moment you refused the offer of the baron. He cabled to the coast and—it dovetails, Mahmoud!”

  “Then—why—if we can prove it—”

  “Even so—” again Sir Charles sighed—“perhaps once more the interests of empire will—”

  He slurred, stopped, then went on with unexpected bitterness:

  “Compromise! Always compromise! There you have the slogan of Britain! Compromise! Bargain!”

  “But a profitable bargain,” smiled the Arab, “for the empire!”

  “Not to forget Double-Dee!” chimed in the governor with a return to his usual good humor.

  CHAPTER XI.

  WHAT THE DRUMS TOLD.

  For a long time the two walked, considering the situation from every possible angle.

  “Strike while the iron is hot,” finally said the Englishman.

  “Aye!” rejoined the other, in Oriental metaphor. “A good head has a thousand hands! And two good heads—yours and mine—wah!”

  And, when the morning sun rose, golden and scarlet, netting the jungle in delicate reddish mist, painting tiny shadows of somber, crushed rose-pink among the tufted grass in the clearing, and sweeping up to the feathery tree-tops with a wild purple saraband of high-lights, they opened the bundles they had carried on their shoulders, plied scissors and razors, handled collapsible mirrors and other toilet accessories that seemed strangely out of place here in the gangrened heart of the Dark Continent, stripped, buried the ragged dervish clothes they had been wearing, washed, then dressed themselves in the clothes they had taken from the bundles: Mahmoud All Daud in loose cotton shirt and trousers and a light, voluminous woolen burnoose, fitting the large, fringed kerchief, the kufiyah, close to his head with the help of the aakal, the twisted rope of camel hair, and projecting it well over the forehead, thus both body and face thoroughly protected against the rays of the sun; Sir Charles Lane-Fox in the creamy, snug uniform laced with gold braid which he wore by right of office—and which he cursed roundly.

  “Damn it!” he said, as he hooked the belt with perspiring fingers, “I s’pose it is all right to work for the empire—even to die for it on the field of battle. But why, in the name of all that’s holy, should I have to court apoplexy and a heat stroke and all the plagues of ancient Egypt simply because my forefathers have decreed that tight trousers and tunic are the correct thing regardless of the climate?”

  Mahmoud Ali Daud laughed, and the two trudged on, the Englishman still swearing and perspiring and nervously fingering his gold-braided collar, the Arab cool and comfortable in the swathing garb of Shem.

  * * *

  A few hours later, in the Waranga kraal on the outskirts of the sacred jungle temple enclosure, half a mile below Double-Dee’s chief up-country agency post, the African drums boomed an odd tale into the glaring west, from village to village, spanning river and forest and jungle, on to the coast—where the sounds were caught and interpreted by a native drum-code specialist in the employ of the Chartered Company, and having been communicated to Baron Adrien de Roubaix, who was at breakfast, caused him to rise suddenly and upset the cup of steaming coffee at his elbow over his immaculate white linen trousers.

  “Nom d’un nom d’un nom!”

  The baron used decidedly bad language in French and Flemish and English, severely cuffed an unoffending Galla houseboy, who happened to be near, and rushed, hatless, coatless, to the main office of the Chartered Company, where he called the department managers into immediate, confidential conclave:

  “Baker! Maillerand! OToole! Ali Othman! Lubersac! Van Raalte!”

  They came on a run, listened—and remained speechless with chagrin and astonishment, Van Raalte finally crystallizing the prevailing sentiment into one sound Anglo-Saxon syllable:

  “Damn!”

  For the gossiping drums had boomed forth the news that Sir Charles Lane-Fox had once more done the impossible. While local rumor, aided and abetted by the governor’s aide-de-camp acting under final instructions, had him hunting big game not far from the frontier, he had made a sudden and impressive appearance, in the steaming heart of Africa, at the kraal of the sacred juju head.

  Like a shooting star sizzling out of the upper ether, he had dropped among the astounded Warangas, not as a footsore traveler, but as a British diplomat, gorgeous in creamy linen and gold braid, embodying in himself all the pomp and glory and circumstance of the empire which he served; accompanied—throbbed the drums—by Mahmoud Ali Daud—and saying that he had come because the “word that was everywhere, all at once,” had commanded him, and—

  Here, although the drum-code specialist listened close to the sound waves that separated themselves, like the taps of a Morse code, from the accompanying African symphony, the barking of the dogs, the shrill cackling of the houseboys, and the querulous falsetto of the women bending over their cooking pots, the tale of the drum had shut off in mid air.

  “What the devil does it mean?” stormed the baron. “Here, Witherspoon!” as the white-bearded Gloucester skipper, who had recently returned from the interior with reports of splendid progress, came into the room. “What does it mean, you—”

  He turned to Lubersac, who had given up an honorable berth in the Paris Foreign Office to become the Chartered Company’s special adviser on international affairs.

  “What do you make of it?” he asked.

  Lubersac stroked his silken beard.

  “Sir Charles has no right up there—”

  “Why not?”

  “There’s the old treaty between England and—”

  “Sir Charles has not double-crossed that treaty yet—”

  “No—not yet!” chimed in Maillerand, the ironic Parisian expatriate.

  “But—enfin,” cried the baron; “there is no trouble between England and—we would have heard—”

  Bannng! the drums commenced again; mentioned with thump and thump and double thump that the tale was not yet ended; that even greater things were brewing up-country. For Sir Charles Lane-Fox, even now, was assembling the chiefs and medicine men in solemn audience. He was taking—said the drums—a small silken flag from his pocket—was holding it high—it was the Union Jack!

  Again the drums ceased throbbing, and the baron clenched his fists till the knuckles stretched white.

  “No, no!” he cried. “Sir Charles can’t get away with that!”

  “Crude, isn’t it?” smiled Van Raalte.

  “Yes. The old treaty holds—and holds tight. The Waranga country is within our sphere of interests—”

  “But,” suggested Lubersac, “it’s still an independent country, you know—”

  “Yes. But the old treaty says distinctly that, if ever it should be annexed—by any European power—it’s we who have the first right, the first refusal—” He
lowered his voice. “Here, Lubersac! A cable to Paris—send it in duplicate to Amsterdam and Brussels—I’ll show Sir Charles a thing or two!”

  And he dictated for several minutes while, at the same time, a thousand miles inland, Sir Charles Lane-Fox, standing below the grinning juju head of Mohammed Bello, Mahmoud Ali Daud by his side, was finishing his harangue to the Waranga chiefs and medicine men who surged about him like a plum-colored sea, in all the barbarous regalia of their caste and craft, their bodies smeared with ocher, their faces plastered thickly with white and striped with crimson, their hair carefully trained into fantastic shapes, their forearms clanking with broad brass bracelets, their legs covered from foot to ankle with coils upon coils of copper wire.

  “Thus,” he said, “O ye chiefs and umlinos of the Waranga nation, the word that is everywhere, all at once, has once more spoken the truth. For there is no doubt that Mahmoud Ali Daud has committed the many sins in his former lives—”

  “Let us not mention this life!” mumbled the irrepressible Arab.

  “Nor,” went on the Englishman, “is there a doubt that, tied to the inexorable wheel of things, he must atone for these sins in his present span of life. First came there punishment—harsh, destructive punishment—the killing and mutilating of Double-Dee’s agents, the ruining of Double-Dee’s business. Now the word that is everywhere, all at once, has spoken to one in the watches of the night, saying that there shall be yet another punishment, that Mahmoud Ali Daud must atone with the deed, too; that he must carry, in the future, that most crushing burden, that most galling of all the chains of slavery called Sovereignty.

  “Yes—thus sayeth the word that is everywhere—he must bow his proud neck to the yoke! He must become your Sultan, your Emir, your highest servant, O you men of the Waranga nation! All wrongs he will right. Justice and mercy and prosperity he will bring. Never ceasing shall be his toil. He will serve you well and faithfully as did, centuries ago, Mohammed Bello, the great Emir, whose sacred head is your powerful juju. Yes! The spirit of Mohammed Bello has left the soul of Double-Dee. It has entered the soul of Mahmoud Ali Daud. And—” again he waved the small, silken Union Jack—“as representative of the British Empire I give most solemn oath that my country will faithfully protect the rights of this new country, this new Sultanate, ruled by Mahmoud Ali Daud, Emir!”

  It was over six weeks later that Sir Charles Lane-Fox was closeted with the two partners of Double-Dee and Baron Adrien de Roubaix.

  “Baron,” he said, “I don’t care how you make your peace with your people at home, how you straighten out that mess you got yourself into with your Foreign Office and your Colonial Office and all the rest of them. I repeat—I shall not recede from my position—”

  “But—Sir Charles—the treaty!”

  “The treaty says that, in the final division of the African spoils, England gives up all claims to the Waranga country—”

  “Well?”

  “There is no division of any spoils! England has not annexed one square inch of Waranga territory. The Warangas, out of their own free will, have united their tribes into a Sultanate, have appointed an Arab, a civilized man, as their Emir. We simply were asked by the new Emir—” he bowed to Mahmoud Ali Daud, who bowed in return—“to protect the country against foreign aggression. Loyal to the traditions of empire, of justice, we could not say no!”

  “I—I—” blustered the baron.

  “Wait!” Sir Charles continued. “If, by any chance, you should feel inclined to pull wires right and left, to make trouble for the new Emir, for Britain, for me—why—I, personally, should be glad—”

  “Glad?” Baron de Roubaix was utterly astonished. “Why?”

  “Because, for once, I should then be able to disregard the interests of the empire—to follow the call of my own conscience—to—” his voice dropped to a very gentle whisper—“to bring to justice, which means the gallows, one ‘Gloucester’ Witherspoon, agent of the Chartered Company. And perhaps, Baron, perhaps it might also come out during the trial that you yourself—oh—murder of several of Double-Dee’s agents—accessory before the fact—all that sort of thing. Good morning, Baron! You leaving, too, Mahmoud—and you, Donachie? All right. Drop in again—any time.”

  Out on the street, the Arab touched the baron’s arm.

  “Baron,” he said, “I am a man of few words. I detest bargaining. My first offer still stands. My partner and I—we are still willing to sell all our African interests—”

  “Mahmoud—what—” interrupted Donachie.

  “For fifty-one per cent of the Chartered Company stock—for control—”

  “Control? Why, man—” said the baron, who at times had a certain sardonic sense of humor, even when directed against himself, “you have control now! Complete control! Control over all the trade of Africa! All right, though. Come along to the office and we’ll sign up.”

  “Bismillah!” said the Arab piously.

  A YARKAND SURVEY

  And Ibrahim said: Power is a dangerous weapon, my dear. The many use it only to their own advantage and to split the noses of their enemies. But the few who use it for the good of the many, their names shall be exalted and their memory kept ever green through lasting monuments of stone and brass, cunningly carved and ornamented, so that unborn generations may see and admire.

  You, Abdullah, you read my heart as an open book, and you know how I dislike to speak about myself. But still—let me tell you what happened when Yakoob Beg the Wise, the Fount of the Just Law, ruled the land beyond the snows of the north.

  I had come in the glittering retinue of the Beg who, quick to read talent and to appreciate devotion, looked at me with favor and appointed me Governor of the Province of Yarkand, and not only governor, but also assessor and collector of taxes, high judge, and commander of the local contingent.

  I had come up from the passes with seven annas in my waistband, and accompanied by a woman whom I had found in the harem of a Yuszufai mollah who had given me hospitality. But once Governor of Yarkand, I invested my scanty fortune most judiciously, and I prospered exceedingly, both in money and wives.

  Allah Kureem! How I prospered!

  Eh? through iniquity and oppression? No, no. Am I an Armenian that I should grip fangs of cruelty in the bowels of the land which the All-Merciful has given into my keeping? No, no.

  First of all I made a personal inspection of the district under my command. There was hardly a merchant, cultivator, or horse-dealer, rich or poor, powerful or weak, Orthodox or Soofi, whose lands and belongings I did not scrutinize with eyes of honest discernment, until finally, after comparing and studying and figuring, I had acquired exact knowledge of the personal affairs of every householder within my jurisdiction. And assisted by my faithful Hindu clerk, the pandit Rakhal Chandar Tawari, I used this knowledge with miraculous results.

  How? How?

  Are you a little lisping babe that you should ask me how?

  Heart of my heart, was I not the governor, the assessor, and collector of taxes, the commander of the local contingent, the power-clothed representative of Yakoob Beg the Wise, the Fount of the Just Law?

  And though I say it who should not, I was always willing to pour forth the broad stream of benevolence and to assist the struggling peasants with personal loans, so that they could pay their taxes and keep out of prison.

  And Fate had endowed me with such miraculous skill in the making out of accounts, that a man to whom I had loaned fifty rupees might go on making monthly payments of twenty rupees for three years without reducing his debt by a single anna!

  Great are the virtues of compound interest, and indeed, my books proved beyond the shadow of a doubt that the debt, instead of being reduced, had grown with each successive payment, until in the course of a few years the original loan of fifty rupees had become half a lakh—thanks be to Allah the Compassionate!

  In good years, when abundant rain watered the smiling fields, when the crops were green and bounteous, the fish swa
rming in the river, and the trees heavy with fruit, I would reap a goodish share of Allah’s gifts, and, loyal servant of the Beg, I would increase the taxes a little, just a little.

  And in bad years, when black famine stalked through the fields, when the sun burnt as do the eternal fires in the Seventh Hall of Perdition, when the smoky, yellow haze rose from the ground and suffocated the parching crops, when the fish perished of thirst in the drying streams, when Yarkand was dying of hunger, and the call to prayer gave way to the chant of despair—when my tortured heart bled with the pity of it all—even then I would prosper exceedingly.

  For look you: I am a follower of the True Prophet—whose name be praised—charitable to a fault, and quite unlike the Armenian pigs who suck the heart-blood of this unhappy land: again I would loosen the strings of my compassionate purse and advance thousands of rupees to the men of Yarkand.

  Never would I accept more than three hundred and twelve per cent a month, and I would be contented, as only security, with a mortgage on every bullock and goat, every cart-wheel and fishing-net, every tree and well in my blessed province.

  My eyes filled with tears of gratitude when I beheld the righteous growth of my treasures. I said that I prospered—and indeed, there was never cart-wheel tired, there was never net anchored, tree planted or grain sown, but I received a fair share of the profits.

  I was the Corporation of Yarkand.

  But the border mountains of my domain were inhabited by savage Kanjuti tribesmen who recognized no ruler and respected no law, who fought among themselves and believed that Allah had created their neighbor weaker than themselves, so that they could safely steal his cattle and carry off his female relatives. They looked down from their round tower houses and beheld the broad acres of Yarkand smiling at their feet, verily a heaven-sent invitation to loot and kill and be happy.