Page:Harris Dickson--Old Reliable in Africa.djvu/234

 "Please, suh, Colonel, please, suh, lemme git my grip-sack."

"It's on board; I brought the baggage myself. Hustle across that stage plank."

"Yas, suh." Like a mule shying at a newspaper, Zack gave the Colonel a wide berth and dodged aboard the nearest barge, while the tricky traders of Khartum gazed mournfully at one another. Their Black Effendi had gone. They saw him go. That was known for a certainty. Why did he play upon them this strange deception? He had outwitted them, and they knew not how—they who boasted openly in the market places that the Ingleezi mind is like unto the clearness of a shallow brook. This man was no Ingleezi. Ben Idris shrugged his shoulders and went his way; Achmet and Hamuda contended together. Before night their odd affairs were marveled over in every bazaar of Khartum.

The prudent Said dared not show himself. He piloted his black master across the upper decks of two barges, climbing from rail to rail, then discreetly disappeared. Amongst a tangle of baggage on the upper deck, Zack selected the softest bundle of towels, and sat down. He saw the Colonel's baggage piled upon the deck, helter-skelter, pell-mell, with suit cases half open and shirts, neckties, socks sticking out.