CHAPTER XV

TIN HILL: THE MINE

Tin Hill, when they got to it, carried riches that lay in full view of the sky. The mountain of country rock which held the veins reared up out of the dark green bush, red-streaked and barren, and the last day's march towards it lay through a heavy growth of rubber vines. Even the Krooboy could not help noticing these.

"O Carter," he said, "rubber lib for here. Dem Missy Kate she say rubber-palaver beat oil-palaver, an' kernels, an' gum, all-e-same cocked hat."

"She didn't. Those are my words of wisdom you've got hold of. Still I admit the sentiments are Miss O'Neill's. But the main thing is, Trouble, that rubber takes capital and labor to handle, and this firm's short of both at the moment. We'll leave rubber to Miss O'Neill for the present."

"O Carter, dem Missy Kate, she no fit for love you now?"

"She no fit," said Carter, with a sigh, "because you savvy I fit for do wife-palaver with dem Miss Laura."

The last marches of Ali ben Hoosein's road had been little travelled during these latter months of political upheaval, and this meant that the ever-growing bush had encroached, and passage was difficult. Moreover, food was painfully scarce. Swizzle-Stick Smith, out of his scanty store, had given them what he could, but this was soon eaten, and once more they had been forced to fall back on that marvellous thing, the kola nut. But though nibbling kola puts off the desire for a meal, and makes one able to endure prolonged strains, it does not fill gaps in the inside.

Both Carter and the Krooboy were very gaunt, and tattered, and savage-looking when at last they arrived at the rock and the river; but the omens seemed to change from that moment.

To begin with, Carter had a snap-shot at a gazelle and brought it down. They lit a fire where they were, ate, and felt the blessedness of being full for the first time for a fortnight. Then, whilst hunting for a site for a hut, they came across a clump of plantains, wild certainly, and coarse, but filling enough to men who had long outgrown any niceties of palate. And at the farther side of the plantains, what appeared to be a mere cubical mound of greenery disclosed itself upon inspection to be a house.

"Ghosts," whimpered White-Man's-Trouble, and shrank back.

"I hope so," said Carter. "They'd give us local news, anyway, and might be amusing to talk to. But I never met ghosts outside a story-book, and I'm afraid there'll be none here. I wonder who lived on this spot? Stone house, with limed walls three feet six thick, and a flat cement roof. Inside area--phew! it smells musty--twenty feet by twelve. No, by Christopher! there's another room on beyond. Storeroom that--oh, beg pardon, Mr. Snake. My mistake. Good-afternoon!"

He shot out into the open again by the doorway, and several snakes who resided in the farther room made exit by the window.

"When in doubt as to the authorship of any West African monument, one always puts it down to the early Portuguese," Carter mused, "and we'll leave it at that for the present. Original occupants have been gone any time these last two hundred years. Well, if we strip off these vines and creepers from the outside, and light fires inside to sweeten the air a bit, we shall have the most palatial quarters. The question now is whether there is a mine and whether it is worth working."

But that last point very quickly answered itself. Three great veins of tin-stone sliced vertically into the mother rock. Two of them were forty feet wide, the third was sixty. The face ran up at a steep angle, and a great beer-colored river swilled away at its foot, and undermined it, and with the help of the sun, kept chattering screes always cascading down the slope.

"This isn't a mine," Carter shouted exultantly, "it's a quarry! Bring a steamer up alongside here, and every man that works could shovel two hundred sovereigns' worth of ore into her from these dumps each hour without so much as putting a pick in. Why, the outcrops are scarcely leached at all. When we've worked twenty yards or so into the veins I'll rig a temperley transporter and guy it to these rocks above, and run the stuff straight from where it grew into a steamer's holds. Great Christopher! Kate had better look out: I'm not going to let her be the only millionaire on earth."

"Dem stones with yellow glass on him worth money?" asked White-Man's-Trouble.

"Heaps."

"In Liverpool?"

"Well, say Swansea or Cardiff; practically the same thing."

"No worth money here?"

"I'd sell you a ton for a fill of tobacco."

"How you get it to coast? You no fit to pay carriers."

"By water, my pagan friend. We make steamah lib for here."

"Steamah no fit," said the Krooboy, and spat contemptuously into the yellow stream. "Dem cappies no savvy way here. Dem ribber no savvy way to Coast."

"That's a bit beyond my linguistic powers. You must translate some more."

"Dem ribber," the Krooboy explained patiently, "no fit for run to dem sea."

"Then where the deuce does it run to? Does a Ju-ju drink it?"

"Ju-ju no fit for touch dem ribber," said White-Man's-Trouble, taking the question literally. "But dem ribber run into dem squidge-squidge, an' lib for die!"

"Runs into a swamp and gets lost! My great Christopher, the odds are you're right. But why in the name of thunder didn't you tell me that before?"

"I no savvy," said the Krooboy simply, "where you come. O Carter, I come after you from Mokki because I think you no fit for carry dem bag."

Carter swung round and picked up White-Man's-Trouble's hand and shook it heartily. "You've got a very white inside to you," he said.

But the African was not flattered. He pulled away his limp hand as soon as it was set free, and rubbed his abdomen nervously. "O Carter, I no fit for white inside. I no ju-ju boy. I dam common Krooboy."

Thence onwards there was impressed on Carter's mind these three great facts--One: He had found a mine of immense potential value. Two: He could never turn his minerals into cash unless he could find a water channel down to the Coast. And three: If he couldn't discover that channel himself no one else would, at any rate for his benefit.

He thought these matters over during one torrid night, and resolved to devote the next day to exploration. He had had predecessors on the place, house building predecessors who had left a series of rust-streaks which he translated into mining tools. Presumably they were Europeans. How did they propose to deal with this ore? Smelt it on the spot, or bag it and get it to the Coast?

If they were West African Portuguese of the olden time, he was fully aware that they would be using slave labor for everything, and he tried to figure out if it was possible, even with slave porters, to carry concentrates down to the Coast and leave a sufficient margin for profit. Even with the most liberal estimates he could not make it so, taking into account the slow-sailing ships, the crude smelting methods, and the lower prices of the old days. Remained then the passage of the creek and river channels, and if these old Portuguese had found a waterway, why, then, so could he.

So next day he set out to hunt for a quay, or any other traces of shipping ore, or perhaps some evidences of boat-building, and he pressed his way through vine and bush, and over crag and scree, till the scorching heat had drained his lean body of moisture, and his knees zigzagged beneath him through sheer weakness and weariness.

Then he made a discovery, and sat down, and for the moment felt faint and discouraged.

He had nearly walked in onto the top of a native village.

He had been going down-wind, or the smoke of their fires would have warned him earlier. As it was, the bark of a scavenger dog gave him the first hint of the village's nearness, or he would have descended onto its roofs. It lay beneath a small bluff, and its houses so assimilated with the rest of the forest that even close at hand it was hard to pick out the human dwellings.

It was the hour of heat, when only Englishmen and dogs (according to the old libel) are wont to be abroad, and the village slept. Even the dogs found the heat too great for wakefulness, so that only the Englishman carried an open eye. But the smell of the place advertised it as a village of fishers, and a closer scrutiny showed the harvest of the river, gutted, and strung up upon the stripped boughs of trees to dry in the outrageous sun-heat. There are always markets for these dried river fish throughout all West Africa.

Carter backed into thicker cover, and waited till the sun began once more to cast a shadow, and the village woke. First the dogs opened their eyes and began their endless scavengers' prowl. Then the children came out to play in the dust. Next the women roused to do the village work. And last of all, the men emerged from the clumps of bush, which one had to accept as huts, spear-armed all of them, and sat in the patches of purple shade, and oversaw all, to approve and direct.

"You lazy hounds," said the Englishman to himself, "I should like to set you to shoveling ore all day, and signing checks all night for your women's bonnet bills. But then," he reminded himself with a sigh, "there are some women these days who insist on working themselves, however hard you may press your services."

He reported his find to White-Man's-Trouble on his return to the old Portuguese house that evening, and that worthy was seized with his usual tremors. "O Carter," said he, "dem bushmen that live by fish-palaver fit for be worst kind of bushmen. They come here one day soon, an' they throw spear till we lib for die, an' they chop us afterwards. You savvy?" said the Krooboy, with a whimper and a shudder--"chop us after?"

"Don't try and work up my feelings over the post-mortem, because you can't do it. Once dead, what happens to my vile corpse doesn't interest me. But I don't intend to peg out yet, especially at the hands of a pack of ignorant cannibals like these. Observe, Trouble. You have seen me practise ju-ju already?"

"I fit."

"And you have been my assistant in the black art?"

The Krooboy shuddered, but he said sturdily enough, "I fit."

"Well and good. Then to-morrow we will weave infernal charms over this pleasing spot, till no mere black man, be he cannibal or be he simple fisherman, will dare to press his sacrilegious toes upon it."

A stream of water poured over one part of the cliffs, that Carter designed hereafter for a power-plant to handle his ores. But in the meanwhile he turned it to a more immediate use. He cut wide bamboos, and fitting them into one another, formed a great pipe which would receive water and air together. With stones, and clay, and grasses he built a box to receive the air and water, and made a cunningly devised trap through which the water could escape, but not the air. Then with more bamboos he built him organ pipes and set the mouths of these in the box, so that the air should drive through them and blow a dismal note. And next, with further ingenuity he fashioned a commutating valve, also worked automatically by the water, which for a time would shut off the water, and then set it going again to thrill the air with the notes boo-paa-bumm, in ascending scale, and a minute later to reply bumm-paa-boo.

It was all extremely simple when one knew how it was done, and extremely startling to walk in upon from the depths of a primeval African forest, and the fishers of the village, when the sounds first broke in upon their nervous ears, threw themselves down upon the dust, and waited for the end of the world, which they felt sure was at hand.

To them then appeared a white man who was clothed from head to foot with garlands of dark green leaves of the rubber vine, and had on his head hair which was of the sacred color of red. He was followed by a Krooboy bearing the blue tribal mark between his brows, and having a sheaf of feathers stuck above his right ear, where the ordinary tooth-cleaning stick should have been carried. These explained in bold, clear tones that they were the chief ju-ju men of all Africa, and that the portent which was even then _boo-paa-bumm-ing_ behind them was sent by powers unseen to herald their coming. But they did not represent the evil, the harmful ju-ju. If only they were treated with the profound respect which was their due they would be a beneficent influence, with a special protective eye to that village of fishers. The catch should increase, the markets widen, and peace should hem in the roads through which the villagers travelled.

"But each morning we must have an offering of fresh-caught fish," White-Man's-Trouble proclaimed, "together with the wood necessary for their cooking. (O Carter, I no fit for gather cook-wood when I ju-ju man," he explained to his companion.)

The scheme took; there was no doubt about that. Never were villagers so pleased at securing the supernatural protection, which all Africans desire, at so meagre a cost. Men, women and children, they got up from the dust, and they slobbered over the Krooboy's toes, and over the remains of Carter's canvas shoes, and to show their willingness, the men went down to the marigold-smelling river then and there to procure the wherewithal to make their initial offering.

White-Man's-Trouble scratched himself thoughtfully and looked over those that were left. "O Carter," he said, "I no fit for cook dem food when I ju-ju man. We take with us two-three, all-e-same slaves, to be house-boy an' do dem work."

"No," said Carter shortly, "we shall do nothing of the kind."

The Krooboy stared. "Why you no fit?"

"I know what you're after, and I've got my reasons, though you wouldn't appreciate them. However, I suppose I must invent something that will appeal to you. If dem bushmen lib for house with us they soon see we no real ju-ju men, an' they tell their friends. Then their friends come up some dark night and chop us. Savvy?"

"O Carter," said White-Man's-Trouble, "you plenty-great man!"

Now there are two ways of working a mine. One is to sell it to a limited company which in return for certain concessions kindly puts up the necessary capital for development; the other way is to find the capital out of one's own private resources, and annex all the resultant profits.

But Carter had a poor opinion of the size of his own share if the first of these methods were carried out. To begin with, he knew nothing of company promoting. He would have to employ an expert, who would want the lion's share of the plunder; and indeed he quite realized that a tin mine up an unknown river in the territory of no man's land would take a powerful lot of selling even to that gullible body of mining-share purchasers of the British public. The more he thought over the limited company idea, the less chance of profits did he see in it for himself. And he wanted those profits badly. He had not risked life and health to study African scenery and customs.

On the other hand, he was at the moment absolutely penniless. If he did discover a waterway down to the coast--or rather when he had discovered that waterway, for he was fully determined to do it--how much forwarder would he be? What steamer could he charter? None. By no means could he get one without giving up a large slice of his precious mine to the man who ran the risk. He did not blame them. He put himself in the traders' places. If he were running a down-river factory, and had a launch, and some tattered red-headed fellow came down out of the back of beyond with a wild tale about a tin mine, and asked for the loan of the launch, and promised to pay when a cargo was brought down, and sent to a smelter in England and realized upon, what would he say to such a preposterous offer? Why, he would laugh at it. The proposition was not one that any business man would entertain.

No, he must get some capital, and buy that launch. And then came the question of where was the capital to come from.

His father? Well, he was engaged to Laura, and he did not feel like going near his father.

Slade?--Smith? Neither of them had a penny.

O'Neill and Craven? That meant Kate. He started as if he had been stung at the idea of going to Kate and asking her for money. Kate was successful, and she could loan it easily. Granted, and if she had been successful so would he be, and without her help. He shook an angry fist at Africa. "Curse you, if you've given her a fortune you've got to give me one too, or I'll take it in spite of you!"

He had a touch of fever that night, and White-Man's-Trouble plied him with decoctions of herbs of such appalling nastiness that (in his own phrase) he decided to get well quickly, merely to avoid the drugs. But it was a fancy built of that fever which put him on the path of success.

He imagined that the shades of the old Portuguese, who had built the strong stone house in those far-off days, came in that night to visit him. They were miners, too, or metal workers, he could not make out which, and they strutted about in long patched cotton stockings which reached to mid-thigh, and a combination garment of thick cloth that covered all the rest of them. Even in that stifling room, and in that baking climate, they wore metal helmets and metal body armor, and Carter wondered how they could go abroad into the sunshine and not be cooked alive in their shells.

But he did not content himself for long with this idle observation. There was a method even in his fevered dreaming. He put the question: Did they get their stuff down to the Coast on the heads of carriers? The ghosts laughed at the idea of such a thing. "Why should we go against our nature? We Portuguese--in the days when we lived, who speak to you now--we were seamen and rivermen always. So we built great flat boats and swam our goods down the rivers."

"Christopher!" said the Englishman, "there's just the tip I've been waiting for. A sort of raft. By Gee! I'm going to shake hands with you for bringing the news."

But in that hospitable attempt he was stopped by the burly White-Man's-Trouble, who sat on his chest, till he promised to lie still again.