We marched for about three days, and headed north toward the Sudan just to make sure that we didn't bother any game wardens or British officers who might have been in the area, which is how I lost my fortune before I had a chance to build my tabernacle. One night we were lying down by the campfire, totally exhausted—them from toting all that ivory, and me from converting it into dollars inside my head—when a bunch of shots rang out and pretty soon we were surrounded by a dozen Arabs in full desert regalia. Now, I know that on the surface it seems kind of hard to envision twelve men surrounding seventy-one, but it's a lot easier than you might think when the twelve men have rifles and the seventy-one don't. Anyway, they motioned me to step aside, and herded the porters into a tight little circle, making them kneel down and raise their hands above their heads, a gesture I was not unacquainted with, but had previously seen only on Sunday mornings and in games of chance involving little white cubes with spots painted on them.
