Title:  The Ivory Trail

Author:  Talbot Mundy

Release Date:  February, 2004 [EBook #5194] [Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule] [This file was first posted on June 2, 2002]

Edition:  10

Language:  English

Character set encoding:  ASCII

*** Start of the project gutenberg EBOOK, the ivory trail ***

This eBook was produced by Jake Jaqua.

THE IVORY TRAIL By Talbot Mundy

Author of
King—­of the Khyber Rifles
The Winds of the World
Hira Singh
etc.

Chapter One

THE NJO HAPA* SONG

Green, ah greener than emeralds are, tree-tops beckon the
        dhows to land,
White, oh whiter than diamonds are, blue waves burst on the
        amber sand,
And nothing is fairer than Zanzibar from the Isles o’ the West
        to the Marquesand.

        I was old when the world was wild with youth
        (All love was lawless then!)
        Since ’Venture’s birth from ends of earth
        I ha’ called the sons of men,
        And their women have wept the ages out
        In travail sore to know
        What lure of opiate art can leach
        Along bare seas from reef to beach
        Until from port and river reach
        The fever’d captains go.

Red, oh redder than red lips are, my flowers nod in the blazing
        noon,
Blue, oh bluer than maidens’ eyes, are the breasts o’ my waves
        in the young monsoon,
And there are cloves to smell, and musk, and lemon trees, and
        cinnamon.

---------
The words “Njo hapa” in the Kiswahili tongue are the equivalent of
“come hither!”
---------

Estimates of ease and affluence vary with the point of view.  While his older brother lived, Monty had continued in his element, a cavalry officer, his combined income and pay ample for all that the Bombay side of India might require of an English gentleman.  They say that a finer polo player, a steadier shot on foot at a tiger, or a bolder squadron leader never lived.

But to Monty’s infinite disgust his brother died childless.  It is divulging no secret that the income that passed with the title varied between five and seven thousand pounds a year, according as coal was high, and tenants prosperous or not—­a mere miserable pittance, of course, for the Earl of Montdidier and Kirkudbrightshire; so that all his ventures, and therefore ours, had one avowed end—­shekels enough to lift the mortgages from his estates.

Five generations of soldiers had blazed the Montdidier fame on battle-grounds, to a nation’s (and why not the whole earth’s) benefit, without replenishing the family funds, and Monty (himself a confirmed and convinced bachelor) was minded when his own time should come to pass the title along to the next in line together with sufficient funds to support its dignity.