The gentlemen adventurers braved torture for its sake,
It beckoned out the galleons, and filled the hulls of Drake!
Oh, it sets the sails of commerce, and it whets the edge of war,
It's the sole excuse for churches, and the only cause of law!
CHORUS
It is tem-tem-pitation! etc., etc.
No note is there of failure (that's a tune the croakers sing!)
This song's of youth, and strength, and health, and time
that's on the wing!
Of wealth beyond the hazy blue of far horizons flung—
But never of the folk returning, disillusioned, stung!
It's a tale of gold and ivory, of plunder out of reach,
Of luck that fell to other men, of treasure on the beach—
A compound, cross-reciprocating two-way double spell,
The low, sweet lure to Heaven, and the tallyho to hell!
CHORUS
It is tem-tem-pitation!
The one sublime sensation!
You may doubt it, but without it
There would be no derring-do!
It's the siren of to-morrow
That knows naught of lack or sorrow,
So you'll sell your bonds and borrow,
When temptation beckons you!
Once Fred starts there is no stopping him, short of personal violence, and he ran through his ever lengthening list of songs, not all quite printable, until the very coral walls ached with the concertina's wailing, and our throats were hoarse from ridiculous choruses. As Yerkes put it:
"When pa says sing, the rest of us sing too or go crazy!"
I went to the window and tried to get a view of shipping through the mango branches. Masts and sails—lateen spars particularly—always get me by the throat and make me happy for a while. But all I could see was a low wall beyond the little compound, and over the top of it headgear of nearly all the kinds there are. (Zanzibar is a wonderful market for second-hand clothes. There was even a tall silk hat of not very ancient pattern.)
"Come and look, Monty!" said I, and he and Yerkes came and stood beside me. Seeing his troubadour charm was broken, Fred snapped the catch on the concertina and came too.
"Arabian Nights!" he exclaimed, thumping Monty on the back.
"Didums, you drunkard, we're dead and in another world! Juma is the one-eyed Calender! Look—fishermen—houris—how many houris?—seen 'em grin!—soldiers of fortune—merchants—sailors—by gad, there's Sindbad himself!—and say! If that isn't the Sultan Haroun-al-Raschid in disguise I'm willing to eat beans and pie for breakfast to oblige Yerkes! Look—look at the fat ruffian's stomach and swagger, will you?"
Yerkes sized up the situation quickest.
"Sing him another song, Fred. If we want to strike up acquaintance with half Zanzibar, here's our chance!"
"Oh, Richard, oh, my king!" hummed Monty. "It's Coeur de Lion and
Blondell over again with the harp reversed."
If Zanzibar may be said to possess main thoroughfares, that window of ours commanded as much of one as the tree and wall permitted; and music—even of a concertina—is the key to the heart of all people whose hair is crisp and kinky. Perhaps rather owing to the generosity of their slave law, and Koran teachings, more than to racial depravity, there are not very many Arabs left in that part of the world with true semitic features and straight hair, nor many woolly-headed folk who are quite all-Bantu. There is enough Arab blood in all of them to make them bold; Bantu enough for syncopated, rag-time music to take them by the toes and stir them. The crowd in the street grew, and gathered until a policeman in red fez and khaki knickerbockers came and started trouble. He had a three-cornered fight on his hands, and no sympathy from any one, within two minutes. Then the man with the stomach and swagger—he whom Fred called Haroun-al-Raschid—took a hand in masterly style. He seized the police-man from behind, flung him out of the crowd, and nobody was troubled any more by that official.
"That him Tippoo Tib's nephew!" said a voice, and we all jumped. We had not noticed Juma come and stand beside us.
"I suspect nephew is a vague relationship in these parts," said Monty.
"Do you mean Tippoo's brother was that man's father, Juma?"
"No, bwana.* Tippoo Tib bringing slave long ago f'm Bagamoyo. Him she-slave having chile. She becoming concubine Tippoo Tib his wife's brother. That chile Tippoo Tib's nephew. Tea ready, bwana."
————————- * Bwana, Swahili word meaning master. ————————-
"What does that man do for a living?"
"Do for a living?" Juma was bewildered.
"What does he work at?"
"Not working."
"Never?"
"No.
"Has he private means, then?"
"I not understand. Tea ready, bwana!"
"Has he got mali*?" Fred demanded.
"Mali? No. Him poor man."
——————— *Mali, Swahili word meaning possession, property. ———————
"Then how does he exist, if he has no mali and doesn't work?"
"Oh, one wife here, one there, one other place, an'
Tippoo Tib byumby him giving food."
"How many wives has he?"
"Tea ready, bwana!"
"How do they come to be spread all over the place?" (We were shooting questions at him one after the other, and Juma began to look as if he would have preferred a repetition of the toe-nail incident.)
"Oh, he travel much, an' byumby lose all money, then stay here. Tea, him growing cold."
There is no persuading the native servant who has lived under the Union Jack that an Englishman does not need hot tea at frequent intervals, even after three cocktails in an afternoon. So we trooped to the table to oblige him, and went through the form of being much refreshed.
"What is that man's name?" demanded Monty.
"Hassan."
"Do you know him?"
"Everybody know him!"
"Can you get a message to him?"
"Yes, bwana."
"Tell him to come and talk with us at the hotel as soon as he hears we are out of this."
We did not know it at the time (for I don't think that Monty guessed it either) that we had taken the surest way of setting all Zanzibar by the ears. In that last lingering stronghold of legal slavery,* where the only stories judged worth listening to are the very sources of the Thousand Nights and a Night, intrigue is not perhaps the breath of life, but it is the salt and savory. There is a woolly-headed sultan who draws a guaranteed, fixed income and has nothing better to do than regale himself and a harem with western alleged amusement. There are police, and lights, and municipal regulations. In fact, Zanzibar has come on miserable times from certain points of view. But there remains the fun of listening to all the rumors borne by sea. "Play on the flute in Zanzibar and Africa as far as the lakes will dance!" the Arabs say, and the gentry who once drove slaves or traded ivory refuse to believe that the day of lawlessness is gone forever. One rumor then is worth ten facts. Four white men singing behind the bars