water he did not see what I did, and Fred was too
busy guarding against counter-blows. The most public place and the
very last minute always suited those two best for playing horse.

"Thought you said Johnson was asleep," said I.

"Possuming," coughed Will. "Shamming sleep to fool the Greeks."

"Possuming, no doubt," I answered, "but the Greeks are on. He has just
come scurrying out of Lady Saffren Waldon's compartment. The Greeks
watched him and made no comment!"

We piled into our own appointed place and sat for a while in silence.

"All right," said Will at last, lighting his pipe. "I own I felt like
quitting once. I'll see it through now if there's no ivory and nothing
but trouble! That dame can't thimblerig me!"

"We're supposed to know where the ivory is," grinned Fred. "Keep it
up! They'll hunt us so carefully that they'll save us the trouble of
watching them!"

"I'm beginning to think we do know where the ivory is," said I. "I
believe it's on Mount Elgon and they mean to prevent our getting it."

"If that turns out true, we'll have to give them the slip, that's all,"
said Fred, and got out his concertina. Just as Monty always played chess
when his brain was busy, Fred likes to think to the strains of his
infernal instrument. One could not guess what he was thinking about,
but the wide world knew he was perplexed, and Lady Saffren Waldon in
the next compartment must have suffered.

After a while he commenced picking out the tunes of comic songs, and
before long chanced on one that somebody in the front part of the train
recognized and began to sing. In ten minutes after that he was playing
accompaniments for a full train chorus and the scared zebra and impala
bolted to right and left, pursued by Tarara-boom-de-ay,
Ting-a-ling-a-ling, and other non-Homeric dirges that in those days
were dying an all-too-lingering death.

It was to the tune of After the Ball that the engine dipped
head-foremost into a dry watercourse, and brought the train to a
jaw-jarring halt. The tune went on, and the song grew louder, for
nobody was killed and the English-speaking races have a code,
containing rules of conduct much more stringent than the Law of the
Medes and Persians. Somebody--probably natives from a long way off,
who needed fuel to cook a meal--had chopped out the hard-wood plate on
which the beams of a temporary culvert rested. Time, white ants,
gravity and luck had done the rest. It was a case