THE GOLDEN MOUSE. BY A. G. C. LAST April I travelled from Rome to Paris by the train de luxe. A plutocratic uncle had just died, and, as his nearest surviving relative, I hoped that I could afford to do myself well. We must have been somewhere near Genoa when I limped in to dinner, and found that my reserved seat was at a table for four, the other three places being already occupied by a man and two ladies. I was placed next to the younger of the ladies, and opposite to the man. It was soon apparent that my companions were Americans-husband, wife, and daughter. The wife it was who picked me up over a matter of the salt or some such triviality. When they learned that I was going to London, the man, who seemed a kindly but harassed individual, asked me whether I could recommend a good hotel, as they, too, were going on to London after the womenfolk, as he termed them, had augmented his cares by adding a new stock of dresses to their already overflowing wardrobes. I gave him the names of several hotels, and he asked me to write them down, producing as he spoke a silver pencil-case from his waistcoat pocket. I took the pencil and sat there dumfounded, for it was my own pencil, with my initials on it, which I had lost while watching the skiing at Montreux two years before. His daughter had picked it up a month ago, the man explained, and the young lady corroborated this, saying that she had been at school in Switzerland, and had just joined her parents in Rome. Now if any one doubts this story, I can refer him to Mr and Mrs Homer T. Wardwell of Grosse Pointe, Detroit, Michigan, and to Miss Lois Wardwell of the same address. This coincidence, at once so remarkable and so respectably vouched for, gives me courage to hope that my veracity will not be called in question if I set down the incidents leading up to the disappearance of Henry Judson and the finding of the Golden Mouse. I. THE SKELETON WITH THE GOLD TOOTH. Fifteen years ago the plain nearly so well known as it is which lies between the upper reaches of the Nile and the Abyssinian plateau was not to-day. The map supplied to me when I started from headquarters to establish a fortified post on the Bonga River left a good deal to the imagination, and my chief's description of the country as a swamp inhabited by one naked, ashsmeared, half-human unmentionable to the square mile, was not unwarranted. But the inhabitants, though primitive, seemed to have a certain value as slaves in the eyes of the more lawless of our Abyssinian neighbours, and it was with the object of preventing this traffic that my post was planted on the Bonga. I arrived with my company about six weeks before the rains broke, and for the next seven or eight months we were so busy building houses and digging ourselves in that we had no time for exploration. By the time the rains were over and the ground sufficiently dry for marching, we had everything snug, and I was able to devote a little of my leisure to shooting, the district being a notable one for game of all sorts. And then one morning, just before sunrise, my servant brought in my early tea and told me that a man from the village twenty miles to the west of us had arrived with intelligence that a slaving party had carried off ten women and children, burnt the huts, and killed several of the warriors who had put up a fight. I sent at once for the orderly officer, and, after telling him to have the alarm sounded, dressed as quickly as I could. I thought, of course, that the raiders would be coming upstream past the fort, and that we might expect them at any moment, but when I got out and interviewed the messenger myself, I found that the marauders were taking a southern route back to the mountains. The man said that they had come by this, and would, he was certain, return the same way. I got out my map and consulted it, for I had not hitherto been aware that there was any direct road to the mountains south of the stream commanded by my post. I say road, but, of course, there really were no roads, such routes as existed being merely tracks, conditioned by available supplies of water. And water was the main difficulty. In the rainy season there is too much, the whole country being little better than a swamp, with the streams, great muddy torrents, swirling along level with their banks. In the dry weather there is too little, and the land dries up to a hard cake of mud, cracked and fissured over its uneven surface. The shrunken rivers become mere trickles, or, yielding to the power of the sun, give up the struggle and lie in widely separated pools. Such a succession of pools I now found indicated on my map by a dotted line running roughly parallel to the Bonga, some thirty miles to the south. The line was marked as "Doubtful-Native Sources," indicating that the officer who had supplied the information for this sheet of the map had not stone halfway across. He visited the place himself. I had seen the place once, he questioned the messenger care- said, when he and a party fully as to the strength of the were following a wounded eleraiding party, and came to phant. He was sure he could the conclusion that I should find it if I would take him as be safe in taking them on with a guide. The water was bad, half my company. The only as many animals drank from problem was how to come up it and fouled it; but it was with them. If I started at fit to drink, for he had drunk once for the village and fol- from it himself and was none lowed on their tracks, I should the worse. That decided me. never do it, for they would The man looked honest, and, have a start of many hours; though I didn't put too much but if I could cut across country faith in his pool of water, from the fort and strike their knowing how such local supline of retreat along the prob- plies vary from year to year, lematical chain of pools, I still the possibility of refilling might still intercept them, for our water-bottles half-way gave their pace would necessarily just the needed additional be slow, hampered as they weight to tip the scales in were by the captured women favour of action. and children. We started in the early afternoon, fifty rifles, two native officers, and myself. We had four mules in the fort, and I took two of them, one to carry a small amount of reserve ammunition and rations, the other carrying water and a few odds and ends. I know now that I was wrong to carry anything but water, but it is easy to be wise after the event. The guide marched at the head of the column with me, and carried my sporting rifle. The pace was good at first, though the going was very rough, some of the cracks in the caked soil being nearly wide enough to catch the heels of our boots. As soon as we cleared the belt of thorny scrub which fringed the course of our stream we struck right out into the barren plain. Nothing broke the dead monotony except such clumps of long yellow grass as had escaped the succession of fires which sweep the land in early spring. Now and then a herd of hartebeeste, making for the river and their evening drink, would cross our path, apparently untroubled by our presence. Giraffe, ostriches, whiteeared kob, and roan, all these we saw and suffered to escape unmolested, so plentiful were they in this deserted land and so urgent our purpose. At six o'clock we halted to rest and eat, resuming our march at seven to take advantage of the waning moon. Steadily we tramped on, keeping a direction a little east of south by my compass. Towards ten o'clock the men began to stumble as they walked, and I was about to give, unwillingly, the order to halt, when the mule carrying the water put her foot in a crack and came down upon her nose. We lost a few quarts of priceless fluid before we could, in the darkness and confusion, find and replace the bung which had been jerked out of the tank. This would never do, and, though there was still an hour of moonlight, I decided to stop and make up the distance in the morning. We must, I thought, be very near the promised water-hole at which our supply might be replenished, but, for safety's sake, I ordered each man, as soon as he had had a drink, to store his water-bottle beside the place where I lay down, close to the sentry posted over the ammunition and supplies. I noticed with regret, though without surprise, that many of the bottles were empty. My own, I am glad to say, was nearly full, though I had suffered considerably from thirst during the early stages of the march. Self-restraint is a virtue of civilisation, and, though I had seen many of these same men endure without complaint the stern privations of the Fast of Ramadan, they were then, I knew, upheld by a religious fervour which now was lacking. My rest was troubled. I was too tired to sleep. My sense of responsibility was a torture. What about this guide? Did I know anything about him? Had he, perhaps, enticed me from the fort with half my troops, so that the raiders could pass up the river in safety? Perhaps, even, they might attack the post in our absence. Had he drawn us out on to the plain to die of thirst? In a fever of restlessness I sat up. "Where is the guide?" I called out softly to the sentry. sir," answered the soldier calmly, indicating a bundle near his feet. He spoke in the quiet voice of one who soothes a fretful child. I suppose he thought I had been dreaming. Perhaps I had. any rate, I felt ashamed of my fears, and, taking a firm hold of myself, I lay down again and was soon asleep. "He is here, At of the horizon. It might have been a thorn-tree or an anthill, but the guide was insistent. That's it," he repeated. "That's the rockhalf-way." 66 thanks be to There was no need to communicate the good news to the men. I heard a satisfied murmur passing down the line, "Half-way Allah!" The pace quickened sensibly, the stragglers closed up, the line began to crowd in on me from behind. "Gently, gently," I called back to them. There's no hurry; it is still some distance." Good-humoured laughter and jests passed from front to rear as they fell again into their places-reassuring sounds to a leader of native troops. Before dawn we breakfasted, dancing heat haze an object and as soon as it was light of some sort breaking the line enough to see resumed our march. By sunrise I calculated that we had come nearly twenty miles, and feared we must have missed the half-way pool of water during the hours of darkness. The guide insisted, however, that it was still in front, and urged us to press on. The conservative pace of marching troops was plainly irksome to him, and he cast anxious eyes behind as the coolness of the morning hours gave place to the blinding glare of the forenoon. My suspicions of the night returned as the morning wore on. Men began to straggle and to beg for water. Placing the guide in charge of one of my officers, I dropped back to the rear of the column. The question would soon have to For the next half-hour the be faced whether it was safe rock seemed to get no nearer, to go on or if it would be better and then all at once it was to turn back while we still had quite close. I suppose the thing enough water left for the return was in a slight depression in journey. Desperately I pushed the ground, and we had been the alternative from my mind. gradually rising to the edge. If I was beginning to think Country which looks flat is like that, what must be in the seldom absolutely level. The minds of the others? Thoughts rock proved to be a great chunk are contagious-I would have of sandstone, sticking up like to fix my own firmly on the a tooth about ten feet from the interception of the raiders and plain. plain. I don't know how it on nothing else. Quickening got there, for there were no my pace I pushed on again up other rocks within twenty miles, to the leading files. 'Well," but there it stood, and by its I called out to the guide, are side a solitary thorn-tree spread we near the rock yet? its forbidding branches level with the top. But there was no water! Only a little damp mud in the centre of a wide depression at the base of the 66 "Ahuh!" he answered, and pointed to his front. Following the direction of his finger with my eyes I saw through the |