"Thank the lord! That means you don't go to Brussels--stay with us!"

"Nothing of the sort, Fred. But you three keep together. They're
going to watch you. You watch them. Watch Schillingschen particularly
closely, if you find him. The closer they watch you, the more likely
they are to lose sight of me. I'll take care to have several red
herrings drawn across my trail after I reach London. Perhaps I'll
return down the west coast and travel up the Congo River. At any rate,
when I do come, and whichever way I come, I'll have everything legal,
in writing. Let your game be to seem mysterious. Seem to know more
than you do, but don't tell anybody anything. Above all, listen!"

Fred leaned back in his chair and laughed.

"Didums!" he said. "This is the idioticest wild goose chase we ever
started on! I admit I nosed it. I gave tongue first. But think of it
--here we are--four sensible men--hitherto sensible--off after ivory
that nobody can really prove exists, said to be buried somewhere in a
tract of half-explored country more than a thousand miles each way--and
the German government, and half the criminals in Africa already on our
idiotic heels!"

"Yet the German government and the crooks seem convinced, too, that
there's something worth looking for!" laughed Monty. And none of us
could answer that.

For that matter, none of us would have been willing to withdraw from
the search, however dim the prospect of sucess might seem in the
intervals when cold reason shed its comfortless rays on us. Intuition,