CHAPTER EIGHTEEN.
L'ENVOI The dry death-rattle of the streets Asserts a joyless goal-- Re-echoed clang where traffic meets, And drab monotony repeats The hour-encumbered role.
Tinsel and glare, twin tawdry shams Outshine the evening star Where puppet-show and printed lie, Victim and trapper and trap, deny Old truths that always are.
So fare ye, fare ye well, old roofs! The syren warns the shore, The flowing tide sings overside Of far-off beaches where abide The joys ye know no more! The salt sea spray shall kiss our lips-- Kiss clean from the fumes that were, And gulls shall herald waking days With news of far-seen water-ways All warm, and passing fair.
They've cast the shore-lines loose at last And coiled the wet hemp down-- Cut picket-ropes of Kedar's tents, Of time-clock task and square-foot rents! Good luck to you, old town! Oh, Africa is calling back Alluringly and low And few they be who hear the voice, But they obey--Lot's wife's the choice, And we must surely go! So fare ye, fare ye well, old roofs! The stars and clouds and trees In place of you! The heaped thorn fire-- Delight for the town's two-edged desire-- For thrice-breathed breath the breeze! For rumble of wheels the lion's roar, Glad green for trodden brown For potted plant and measured lawn The view of the velvet veld at dawn! Good-by to you, old town! If all is well that ends well, and only that is well, then this story fails at the finish, for we never caught the cannibals, so never taught them the lesson in housekeeping and economics that they needed.

But there is no other shortcoming to record.
It is no business of any one's what terms we made in the end with the Protectorate Government; but thanks to Monty's tact and influence, and to their sense of fair play, we were treated generously.

And if, when the world war at last broke out and the Germans undertook to put in practise the treachery they had so long planned, there was a secret fund of hugely welcome money at the disposal of the out-numbered defenders of British East, its source will no doubt be accounted for, as well as its expenditures, to the proper people, by the proper people, at the proper time and place.
But those who are curious, and are adept at unraveling statistics might learn more than a little by studying the export figures relating to ivory during the years that preceded the war.

They say statistics never lie; but those who write them now and then do, and it may be that camouflage was understood and went by another name before the great war made the art notorious and popular.
Some of the ivory in that huge hole was ruined by the heat that still lives in Elgon's womb.

Some of it was splintered by the fall when yoked slaves tossed it in.