Unmasked
Cross Questions--Crooked Answers--The Guide Tells his Story--Rumaliza’s
Plot--The Coming Fight
It was eight o’clock next morning when Tom opened his eyes and tried to
remember where he was. Stretching himself on the narrow camp-bed, the
twinge that shot from his calves to his shoulders reminded him of his
two days’ tramp, and he hoped very sincerely that the force was not to
move on at once. Luckily for him his uncle had decided to give the men
a rest for a few hours, at any rate until the return of the scouts, who
had started at six o’clock. The doctor, coming into the tent soon after
nine, insisted on his taking a hot bath, and then spent an hour in
massaging him. It was in vain that Tom protested against being coddled.
"Coddled indeed! You’ve a march and a fight in front of you, and ye’ll
want the free use of your limbs and all your staying-power, sure."
"A fight!" said Tom eagerly; "d’you think Uncle Jack will let me take
part in it, Doctor?"
The doctor smiled grimly.
"I don’t know about Uncle Jack, young man, but if you’re not in it there
will be no fight at all."
Pondering this enigmatical utterance, Tom left the tent by and by and
strolled round the camp. Captain Lister met him and greeted him warmly,
without a word as to what had brought him, and when he encountered his
uncle, who was, as usual, full of activity, yet without a vestige of
fussiness, that capital soldier had time to grip his hand and hope he
was getting "fit".
The four Europeans were sitting beneath the flap of the tent, eating a
late breakfast of roast goat and banana fritters, when Lieutenant
Mumford returned with his little body of Soudanese scouts and reported
himself. Tom had seen very little of him during the few days he had
spent at Kisumu, and then thought he was too dandified and lackadaisical
to be of much use on active service. He was therefore somewhat
surprised now to hear what a business-like and competent account the
lieutenant gave of his movements. He had penetrated, he said, to within
two miles of the hills beyond which lay the objective of the expedition.
He had met with no sign of the enemy, Arab or native, but had seen many
a proof of their depredations in the ruined huts and blackened fields
passed on the way. The native populations, sparse in these regions at
any time, seemed now to have been either exterminated or carried into
captivity. What the guide had said about the nature of the country, and
the difficulty of procuring food, was perfectly true; and the scouts had
only turned back when they reached the near end of the defile he had
mentioned, Mumford considering it useless to spend time in traversing a
perfectly open route.
"Very well," said the major. "You’d better get something to eat now,
Mumford."
"There’s one thing I ought to mention first. We’ve brought back a
native with us, sir--from Visegwe’s country, he said. He told us that
his village had been raided by Arabs, and himself carried off as a slave
and employed as a porter and general hack. His account of how he
escaped is rather tall, but I can only repeat what he said. He was
marching with the rest of his gang when a couple of rhinoceroses charged
the column, and threw things into such confusion that he found a chance
to slip away. He was making his way back home when he met us, so I
thought it just as well to bring him along in case he could give us some
useful information."
"Quite right, Mumford. Send the fellow here. Tom, I suppose that boy
of yours is a bit of a linguist, eh? He may as well do the
interpreting."
While Lieutenant Mumford was gone to fetch the native, the major took
out his map and spread it out on a space cleared on the folding table.
"Yes, I see," he said; "if this native comes from the Arab quarters
beyond the Rutchuru, his road homewards would lie across our line of
march. He may be useful to us. A strapping fellow, Corney; look at
him."
The negro, a finely proportioned young Ankoli, some twenty-five years of
age, came up under a guard of Soudanese, who left him standing before
the major. In answer to questions, he repeated the story given by
Lieutenant Mumford, with some variations which might have been due to
Mbutu’s capacity for translation. He added that while hiding in the
Wutaka hills, with the Kutchuru spread out before him, he had seen the
Arabs cross the river and disappear among the hills to the west,
retiring no doubt to the distant stronghold whence they made their
raids. The man told his story frankly and ingenuously, and answered the
major’s questions without hesitation. As he described the atrocities
committed by the Arabs, his language and gestures were expressive of
intense indignation, and indicated that no vengeance could be too
terrible for his oppressors.
"Do you know a place called Imubinga?" asked the major quietly, when the
man had finished.
At the word, Tom, who was watching him intently, saw his eyelids droop
for the fraction of a second. Imubinga! Yes, he knew it; a deserted
village a mile or so on the other side of the hills; a capital
camping-place, being sheltered by forests trees and well situated as
regards water. The major made a rough plan with bits of biscuit and
stalks of grass, and asked the native to show him as well as he could
the whereabouts of Imubinga, knowing that the African is very clever in
thus constructing picture plans. This done, he marked the place
tentatively on his map and dismissed the man.
"Gentlemen," he said, when the negro was out of earshot, "the man is a
liar--quite an accomplished one. His masters could hardly have chosen a
better man for the job."
The three officers and Tom looked at the major, waiting in silence for
the explanation of this discovery. At this moment Mbutu, who had for
some time been showing signs of great excitement, broke in impetuously:
"Black man talk bosh! All one lie. Him no slave not at all! Him big
awful liar!"
"Your young man has an emphatic way of expressing himself," said the
major; "you had better tell him, Tom, to hold his tongue until he is
asked to speak, and in fact to leave us. But he is right. A slave who
had been employed in carrying ivory for the Arabs would bear the marks
of a collar and fetters. Looking at that handsome Ankoli I failed to
find these marks, and suspected the man. You will see now that I framed
my questions in such a way as to give him rope, and the way he acted his
part and worked up the passion was amazingly clever. But he overdid it,
as they always will. What do you make of it all, Lister?"
Now in a scrimmage Captain Lister was a host in himself, but at the
council-board he was not fluent. Contentedly pulling at his short
brier, all he said was:
"Rummy, eh? What!"
Things had meanwhile been crystallizing in Tom’s mind. The ambush had
been foremost in his thoughts for many days past; possibly that was the
reason why the suggestion came from him. However that may be, it was he
who remarked quietly:
"D’you think the pretended slave is a confederate of the guide’s,
Uncle?"
The major looked dubious. He liked to see every step in the
process--all the working of the sum, so to speak.
"Fadl," he said, "just order the guide Munta to step this way."
The major’s orderly, a Soudanese more than six feet high, stalked into
the camp square.
"Now, Mbutu," called the major, "come here; I want you to stand out of
sight in the tent there till I beckon you. By the way, Tom, that dago
fellow had a name, I suppose. What is it?"
"I never heard it, Uncle. Mbutu has always called him ’old master’ or
’dago man’ to me. What was your master’s name, Mbutu?"
"Black man call him debbil, sah."
"Never mind what the black man calls him, what do the Arabs call him?
What did this guide of ours call him?"
"Call him señor, padrone; one time call him Castro, one time more call
him Carvalho; him lot names too many."
"Bedad now," exclaimed the doctor, "it all comes back to me.
Carvalho!--of course, ’tis the name of the Portuguese who gave us no end
of trouble in Quid Calabar ten years ago. I disremimbered’m entirely;
ten years makes a terrible difference in a man, to be sure; though when
I saw Tom knock him down there was something in the creature’s scowl
that seemed familiar. Sure an’ I ought to have remimbered his bumps. A
desp’rate ruff’n of a fellow, Major. He came to me wance to be stitched
up after getting mauled in a drunken brawl, an’ I got to know a thing or
two about’m. Ah! an’ there was wan curious affair he was mixed up in
that--
"I’m afraid the story must keep, Doctor; here’s the guide."
Captain Lister put down his pipe; Lieutenant Mumford lit a cigarette.
The Arab, or rather half-caste, approached confidently and saluted. The
major looked up.
"Have you any reason to give," he said quietly, "why you should not be
taken out and shot?"
The man stared open-mouthed at the speaker. His face appeared to turn a
bronze-green, and his lips twitched. The major was watching him
intently.
"I don’t--I don’t understand, master," he stammered at length.
"Ah! Let us begin at the beginning. Do you know one Castro, a
Portuguese, who was in Kisumu for some days before we started?"
The man, with a strong effort of will, had mastered the agitation into
which the major’s sudden question had thrown him.
"He is going to brazen it out," said that observant officer to himself;
and after the slightest perceptible pause, the Arab replied:
"I do not know him, sir."
"Very well."
He beckoned to Mbutu, who had been standing with his face concealed by
the flap of the tent. The Muhima came out into the sunlight.
"Do you know this boy?"
Tom saw the Arab’s eyelids quiver.
"No--I do not know him, master. I never saw him before."
Major Burnaby turned to the Muhima.
"Mbutu, is this the man?" he asked.
"Him sure nuff, sah; him gib me kiboko."
"The boy lies. I never saw him; I know nothing about him."
"Very well. I shall have to refresh your memory. Fadl, tell Sergeant
Abdullah to bring up a firing-party."
There was a strained silence. The Arab looked round apprehensively as
six men of the King’s African Rifles came up, ordered arms, and stood
rigidly at attention.
The major took his watch from his pocket and laid it on the table in
front of him.
"I give you five minutes," he said. "If you do not make up your mind to
tell the truth within five minutes by my watch--well, you know what’ll
happen."
The major glanced significantly at the line of Soudanese. He
deliberately cut and lit a cigar. Captain Lister had resumed his pipe
and was puffing vigorously; Lieutenant Mumford gripped the sides of his
seat, and stared; while the doctor was apparently examining the Arab’s
anatomy with a quite professional interest. To Tom his uncle was
appearing in a new light, commanding a new respect and admiration; and
as to Mbutu, he was patently overawed by the stern imperturbability of
"sah him uncle".
The minutes went by. The silence of the bright morning was broken only
by the varied sounds of movement in the camp: the laughter of the
Zanzibaris; the clash of a cook’s pan; the bleat of a goat led to the
slaughter.
"You have half a minute," said the major suddenly.
"I know nothing, master, nothing at all," replied the guide, his lips
quivering.
There was again silence. Then the major rapped his hand on the table.
"Now!" he said. "What have you to say?"
"I know nothing about it, nothing about it!" persisted the man.
"I’ve no time to waste," said the major curtly, replacing his watch.
"Sergeant, take him away."
Two of the tall Soudanese laid their hands on the guide’s arms. He
wriggled out of their grasp and flung himself on the ground. They
seized him again, assisted by their comrades; and, struggling
desperately, crying continually: "I know nothing about it, know nothing
about it!" he was carried away. Tom’s heart was in his mouth, and
Mumford had sprung up in his excitement. Captain Lister still smoked on
placidly; while the major’s lips were grimly set as he watched the man’s
contortions. He had been borne but a few yards when his writhing
suddenly ceased.
"Don’t take me away, don’t take me away!" he shrieked. "I will tell, I
will tell!"
At a sign from the major the Soudanese returned to the tent, and the
wretched man stood before him, thoroughly cowed, and trembling in every
limb.
"You will tell! Perhaps you are wise. You will tell me everything from
the beginning. Mind, I make no promises; but it is your only chance!"
The major dismissed the Soudanese, and the man began in a low faint
voice to tell his story. It was as follows:--
About two miles before reaching Imubinga, the path led across a mountain
stream some ten feet deep and thirty wide, spanned by a native bridge.
The river had cut a deep ravine between two high hills, and its steep
banks were covered with dense forest growth, huge trees crowning the
summit. The bank at which the expedition would first arrive had been
unequally worn away, and some two hundred and fifty feet above the
stream, almost overhanging the bridge, was a prominent bluff,
projecting, as the guide put it, like the nose from a man’s face. This
had been the scene of a memorable incident during the invasion of the
district by the Baganda some fifty years before. As a force of Baganda
were crossing the bridge, a number of tree trunks, previously felled,
had been rolled over the edge of the bluff, and crashing down upon them
had killed many outright, and thrown the whole force into such confusion
that it fell an easy prey to the enemy. The Baganda were massacred
almost to a man. This incident had passed into the traditions of the
country; warriors sang about it round their camp-fires, and mothers
crooned their babies to rest with the song of "The Ambush by the
Bridge".
The same plan was to be pursued now. In the fifty years which had
elapsed since the earlier ambuscade, trees had again grown to maturity
on the headland. Some of these had been felled, and the moment was to
be seized, when half the column had crossed the river, to roll the
trunks down upon the bridge. The Arabs, meanwhile, and their Manyema
warriors, divided into two bands, one up and the other down stream,
would be lying concealed in the forest sufficiently far from the bridge
to avoid the British scouts. When the logs had been hurled down, and
the troops were in confusion, a signal was to be given from the summit
of the bluff; the Arabs were to emerge from their hiding-places, and
make a simultaneous attack on the force hemmed in between them. They
reckoned that the rear part of the column, deprived of the support of
those who had already passed over the bridge, and encumbered with the
baggage, would be as sheep in their hands. These having been disposed
of, the first half, left without any reserve of ammunition and food,
could be dealt with at leisure.
"Jolly good scheme!" remarked Captain Lister admiringly, between two
puffs, when the man had finished his story.
"They must think we’re pretty green, sir," said Lieutenant Mumford,
unable to conceal his scorn of such tactics. Captain Lister eyed him
for a moment, but said nothing. The major was drumming on the table,
looking thoughtfully at the guide, while the doctor waved a handkerchief
to keep off the flies.
"That is the truth, is it?" said the major at last. "And you were sent
to help me to find the way! I have heard of worse schemes. But how did
you expect to escape?"
The Arab shifted his feet uneasily.
"Not that that matters. But I should like to know a little more. I am
not marching against the Arabs; why are your friends so concerned about
our operations against a native chief? What is the motive? Tell me
that."
Relieved that the major’s interrogation was no longer so uncomfortably
personal to himself, the guide went on with his narrative.
Far away in the west, he said, beyond Imubinga, beyond the Rutchuru and
the hills, in the heart of the Congo forest, his friends had a
stronghold, so well hidden that the forces of the Congo Free State had
never succeeded in finding it. Even if they had found it they would have
failed to take it, for the place was absolutely impregnable. To this
fortress a remnant of Arab dealers in ivory and slaves had retired when
the power of Hamed ben Juna, more commonly known by the natives’
nickname, Tippu Tib, and his lieutenants was broken by the Belgian
forces, and there they still pursued their vocation by stealth, their
spies marking every movement of the Free State officials, their allies
drawing the enemy off when he came dangerously near. In the course of
some years they had amassed a huge store of ivory, and collected some
thousands of slaves, some of these latter being employed in tilling the
soil and supplying their captors with the necessaries of life; while
others were traded away for ivory to the cannibal tribes of the middle
Congo. It was, however, becoming increasingly difficult to elude the
Free State authorities, and the circle of their traffic was gradually
narrowing. The old chief Rumaliza, whom the Belgians supposed to have
died in the forest after the capture of Kabambari, was still alive,
looking with alarm at the prospect of having to feed his horde of slaves
without any chance of a profitable deal. Hemmed in by the British,
German, and Free State territories, which were all being brought rapidly
under effective control by the respective European administrators, he
foresaw inevitable ruin, soon or late. He was anxious, therefore, to
realize his wealth and retire to the coast, and in pursuance of this aim
he had resolved on one final coup, a last expiring effort of the
slave-trade. His plan was to form a huge caravan, transport all his
slaves to the coast, and ship them to Arabia.
"Oh, come now!" exclaimed the major at this point, "that must be
nonsense. It’s close on a thousand miles to the nearest point of the
coast, and your friends are not fools enough to imagine that they could
make a slave run without having us upon their tracks."
Then the guide proceeded to unfold a plot at which his younger hearers
held their breath, and even the major himself, old and seasoned hand as
he was, could scarcely restrain an exclamation of astonishment. The
Arabs, said the man, had in their camp a number of deposed Banyoro and
Baganda chiefs, whose conduct had been such as to preclude any chance of
their regaining their position while the British occupation continued.
These men, having nothing to lose and everything to gain, had
established communications with every Mahomedan in Uganda and Unyoro who
was known to be disaffected. At a given signal the latter were to rise;
and the signal was to be the defeat of a British column. Where the
defeat was to take place had not been disclosed to the disaffected in
Uganda, lest the plot should be divulged. It had been perfected by the
Portuguese during his stay in Kisumu. It was known that only a weak
British force was available for operations in the southern part of the
Protectorate. A small native chief was to be persuaded to revolt, and
it was hoped that the affair would be regarded as of so little
consequence that only a handful of troops would be employed to crush
him. The revolt had taken place as arranged, but owing to Major
Burnaby’s energy the punitive column was stronger than the Arabs had
anticipated. Still, with a numerical advantage of two to one, without
counting their native allies and dependants, the Arabs were not so much
disheartened as to abandon their plans. They confidently expected that
the ambush would result in the annihilation of the British force. The
news was to be conveyed to the scattered conspirators with the rapidity
with which news always flies through native Africa; a picked force was
to seize rail-head, after overpowering, or at least harassing, the small
garrisons at Entebbe, Kisumu, and other military stations, and, if
possible, to foment a general rising among the populace. Taking
advantage of the confusion, the Arabs, with their satellites, were to
run the slaves by forced marches to the western shore of the Nyanza,
carry them over in canoes, and thence for a hundred and fifty miles
along the railway, and then make for a spot on the coast of Italian
Somaliland, whence they could ship them to Arabia.
"’Faith, I would like to examine the cranium of the man who devised that
crazy scheme!" cried the doctor. "He must be’s mad’s a hatter!"
The major was in no mood to indulge in quips with Dr. O’Brien. His mind
was wholly concentrated on the task which had opened before him. He sat
silent and abstracted, seeming even to have forgotten the presence of
the traitor. Recovering himself in a moment, he said quietly:
"Go away. You will be kept under arrest for the rest of the march; see
to that, Mr. Mumford. When we are through with this business I’ll
consider what’s to be done with you. Take him away. There’s the other
man now," continued the major, when the guide had been removed. "It is
just worth while to see if his story corroborates the one we have just
heard. Fadl, fetch the captured slave."
It was short work with him. A rumour had already run through the camp
that the guide was in trouble, and the Ankoli wore an anxious look when
he came up. The major told him in one sentence that his friend Munta
had confessed; and the man at once volunteered to unbosom himself. His
story differed from the other merely in ornaments. To the major’s
enquiries he replied that the Arabs were about nine hundred and fifty
strong, and their allies rather more than a thousand. Many of the
former were armed with Mausers, smuggled in through German East Africa.
The rest of them had Sniders and other obsolete rifles ("Good enough in
forest fighting" was the practical remark of Captain Lister), while the
Manyema for the most part had only very old muskets in addition to
spears.
"That rings true," said the major. "Has he anything more to tell?"
"Him say true, all berrah much," said Mbutu, who had interpreted.
"Eberyfing told; know no more."
"Very well Fadl, take him and tie him up. Gentlemen, it is now past
eleven o’clock. We will strike camp and be off in about an hour. We
have, it appears, between five and six miles to go. That will take us
full two hours. If the story we have heard is true--and for myself,
strange as it is, I have no doubt about it--we shall have no difficulty
in locating these Arabs. We shall fight at three; that will leave us
three hours of daylight. That will suffice, I think. Lister, I should
like a word with you."
"That means tactics, I suppose," said the doctor. "Well, while you’re
talking, I will tache Tom to help me pick up the pieces. Come along, my
bhoy."