During the next two or three days Tom went about the plantation,
watching the negroes at their work of picking and pulping the fruit.
Reinecke left him in perfect freedom to go where he pleased, and see
anything and everything. The natives worked industriously: there was no
lack of talk and laughter among them, no indication of discontent or
ill-treatment. Tom's misgiving was dissipated; he concluded that the
overseers' whips were wands of office rather than instruments of
correction. The negroes gazed at him with a certain curiosity and
interest. Some smiled, in unconscious response to the charm of his
expression, of which he was equally unconscious. One of them, he
noticed, a lad apparently about seventeen, looked at him with a peculiar
intentness. Once, when, in lighting his pipe, he dropped his box of
matches, the young negro sprang forward, picked it up, and handed it to
him with a sort of proud pleasure that so trifling a service hardly
accounted for.
"Thanks," said Tom, and the lad's face beamed as, admonished by a severe
look from the overseer with whom Tom had been talking, he went back to
the bush which he had left.
"I hope you will pardon my leaving you so much to yourself," said
Reinecke one day. "There is little to be learnt at this season, except
what you can see with your own eyes. In seedtime, if you still favour
me with your company, I shall have more opportunities of giving you
definite instruction. And now what do you say to a little relaxation?
Shall we go shooting to-morrow?"
"I shall be delighted."
"Very well. I will give orders that Mirambo and another man shall
accompany us to-morrow. We shall find wild geese and snipe at the stream
a few miles south; possibly a hippo, if, like most youngsters, you've a
fancy for big game."
When they started next morning, Tom looked at the German's gunbearer
with a good deal more attention than he had shown previously. It was
strange that this humble negro had once been a chief. Mirambo was a
well-built man past middle life, quick in his movements, and with large
eyes of piercing brilliance. With him was a youth whom even a white
man, not easily able to distinguish one negro from another, could hardly
fail to recognise as his son. Reinecke gave them their instructions in
their own tongue, and with a bullying manner that Tom secretly resented.
They received them silently, with an utter lack of expression,
displaying none of the interest or alacrity which an English gamekeeper
would have shown in similar circumstances.
The party of four set off, the negroes leading. Their destination was
one of the rare streams that traverse this part of the Plateau, and make
their way in devious course and with many cascades to the great lake
below. The morning was still young. By starting early, Reinecke had
explained, they would make as large a bag as the men could carry before
the midday heat became oppressive, and after a brief rest could stroll
leisurely back to a late lunch. Tom reflected that this attitude
evinced no great enthusiasm for sport, and concluded that Reinecke was
really rather a good fellow in taking so much trouble for the sake of a
guest.
It was not until they were well in the forest that Mirambo showed any
animation. The instincts of the old hunter awoke. His keen eyes moved
restlessly, alert to mark the spoor of beasts in the woods and on the
open park-like spaces dotted with acacias, euphorbias, and the wild
thick bushes known as scrub. At one spot he became excited, pointing to
fresh marks in the soft soil.
"The tracks of a wart-hog," Reinecke explained. "The beast evidently
went to his hole not long ago."
"I've never seen one," said Tom. "Couldn't we track him and have a
shot?"
"We couldn't carry him home. We're out for birds. Still, I daresay the
niggers could dispose of him. You can try your hand if you like."
To Tom's surprise, the negroes, instead of following the tracks in the
direction in which the animal had apparently gone, went in the opposite
direction.
"They're going away from him," he said.
"No, no," said Reinecke with a smile. "Speak low--or better not at all:
he's close at hand."
He halted, bidding Tom stand by with his rifle ready cocked. The two
negroes stole forward, and within about fifty yards posted themselves
one on each side of a hole in the ground. Then together they began to
stamp heavily with their feet, uttering no sound, and keeping their eyes
fixed on the hole. Wondering at this strange performance, Tom looked
inquiringly at Reinecke, who shook his head and signed to him to be on
the alert. Presently there appeared in the hole the ugly tusked snout
of a wart-hog. He grunted with annoyance at his slumbers having been
disturbed by a shower of falling earth, heaved his ungainly body out,
and began to trot away on his short legs directly across the white man's
line of fire.
"Now!" murmured Reinecke. "Behind the ear."
Tom shouldered his rifle, took careful aim, and fired. But whether
owing to excitement, or to the fact that the animal, through his
protective colouring, was almost indistinguishable from the background
of brownish bush, his shot missed the vital spot and inflicted only a
gash in the shoulder. The infuriated animal wheeled round and charged
across the open space. But he had covered only a few yards when a
well-planted shot from Reinecke's rifle stretched him on the ground.
[Illustration: TOM TOOK CAREFUL AIM AND FIRED.]
"Don't take it to heart," said the German, noticing Tom's crestfallen
expression. "Everyone misses his first shot at a wart-hog. I remember
a famous sportsman once having to dodge round a tree for a quarter of an
hour to escape the tusks of a beast he had only wounded. Better luck
next time."
"But why didn't he charge the negroes? He passed within a few inches of
them."
"They stood a little way back from the hole, you noticed; and besides,
the beast is very short-sighted. You were surprised that all the tracks
apparently lead away from the hole instead of towards it. That's not
cunning, as it was in the case of that cattle-stealer, wasn't it? in
classical story who pulled oxen into a cave by the tails. It's sheer
necessity. That hole was once the dwelling of an ant-bear; the wart-hog
had appropriated it. But his head and shoulders are so much bigger than
the rest of him that he has to go in tail first."
The negroes had rushed to the animal as soon as it fell, lifted the head
slightly, and tied it to one of the hind legs with thongs of creeper.
Then Mirambo tore a strip from his white loincloth and attached it to
the wart-hog's horns.
"That's to scare vultures away until our return," said Reinecke. "In
the rainy season myriads of flies would be at the carcase already, but
in this dry weather it will probably not suffer much before the niggers
get back to cut it up. Hyenas and other scavengers don't prowl till
night. Now let us get on."
The negroes, whose pleasure is always rather in the quarry than in the
chase, were delighted at having secured, without trouble to themselves,
a quantity of fresh pork to carry home, and went on with alacrity to the
stream a few miles away. Here, in the course of a couple of hours, the
two white men had shot as many geese, quail, and guinea-fowl as the
negroes could conveniently carry slung about their bodies, with the
prospect of the addition of a good many pounds of hog's flesh later.
Tom was disappointed of his half-cherished hope of bagging a hippo; but
his morning's sport had been sufficiently exciting to form an
interesting part of his next budget of news for his brother.
A negro carried the mail to Bismarckburg once a week, and Tom had
already dispatched his first letter, giving a description of the
plantation and a running account of his experiences so far. He had
confined himself to statements of fact, saying nothing about the
problems he found himself faced with--the character of Reinecke and the
conditions of the negro labour. Until he should have arrived at
definite conclusions on these matters he felt that it would be unwise to
trouble his brother with them.
In his second letter he related further sporting expeditions, in some of
which he had been accompanied by Reinecke, in others only by Mirambo and
other natives. He had shot several hartebeeste and waterbuck, which
Mirambo was accustomed to skin and cut up on the spot. On these
occasions Tom was tempted sometimes to question the negro directly about
the conditions of his employment; but he was held back by a sense of
loyalty to Reinecke. Pending further light on the man himself, he would
rely solely on his own observations.
It was at the end of the third week of his stay that the first really
disquieting incident occurred. Reinecke had gone to Bismarckburg, and
Tom, having time on his hands, had made up his mind to write a long
letter home. Going to the desk to get some paper, he discovered that
the drawer in which he had usually found it was empty, and he tried the
drawer below. This, however, would not open fully: it stuck half way.
He put his hand in, thinking that something had probably become wedged
between the upper part of the drawer and the one above. It was as he
had supposed. By pushing in the drawer a little, he was able to work
out the obstruction, which turned out to be a paper, half folded and
much creased. On the portion that was not folded down he saw a series
of figures like the numbers on the vouchers which were kept on a file.
"An old voucher," he thought; and unfolded it to see if it were worth
keeping. To his surprise it was dated Nov. 17, 1913, and evidently
belonged to the series which he had examined in connection with the
accounts of the past year. But that series had corresponded exactly with
the entries in the stock book--or had he made a mistake? To reassure
himself he got out the file, turned to the vouchers for November, and
once more compared them with the book. There was no discrepancy. The
book showed that on Nov. 17, 1913, a consignment of 1000 kilos was
shipped on board the _Hedwig von Wissmann_, and there was a voucher
corresponding. The voucher he had just found was for a consignment of
1000 kilos.
This was odd. The numbers on the two vouchers were consecutive: clearly
they did not refer to the same consignment. Yet there was only one
entry of that date in the book. If one had been a duplicate or a carbon
copy of the other, the matter would have been easily explicable; but
both were originals, and written in the same clerkly hand.
Troubled, for it was impossible to crush down a suspicion, Tom put the
voucher into his pocket, and went out into the plantation.
"I'll write to Bob to-morrow," he said to himself. At the back of his
mind there was the feeling that he might have more to say than he had
expected.
Reinecke was in good spirits when he returned about sunset.
"I've just made an excellent contract with a dealer representing a new
house," he said. "He'll take all next season's crop, at a good price.
I hoped your visit would bring us good luck, and this is the best."
"Capital news," said Tom. The German's manner was so frank and cordial
that he was almost ashamed of his suspicion. "By the way, I found this
to-day: it was stuck between two drawers. Is it any good?"
He handed Reinecke the voucher, folded. The German opened it, and said
instantly, with a smile--
"At last! I wondered what had become of it. It is a voucher I lost,
and I got the shipping clerk to give me another. You found that on the
file all right?"
"Yes."
"You don't know how I worried about that lost voucher. And you found it
wedged between the drawers? Extraordinary way things have of
disappearing! Well, we don't want it now. But I'm glad you found it."
He tore it across and threw the pieces into the waste-paper basket.
"Now for dinner," Reinecke went on. "I hope your appetite is as good as
mine. And how have you put in your time to-day?"
The German's explanation was so natural and reasonable, so ready, his
manner so free from embarrassment, that Tom was for the moment quite
reassured, and chatted unconstrainedly until bedtime--and Reinecke
appeared to take great pleasure in making him talk. But later, in the
privacy of his room, some rather troublesome questions suggested
themselves. Was it not unlike a shipping clerk to issue a duplicate
without writing "duplicate" upon it? How was it that duplicate and
original bore consecutive numbers, when at least two or three days must
have elapsed between them? It was very odd that no consignment from
another firm should have been shipped in the interim. And then suddenly
Tom flushed. "By George!" he thought. "I'm hanged if the duplicate
hasn't got the earlier number!"
Then he wondered whether he was not mistaken. Saying to himself, "I must
find out for certain," he went back to the living-room to examine the
fragments in the waste-paper basket. He passed the door of Reinecke's
room, and heard his host splashing within.
The basket had been emptied.
The discoveries he had made kept Tom awake during a good part of the
night. They were very disturbing. Reinecke's explanation had been
plausible enough, and it was possible Tom was mistaken in his
recollection of the numbers on the vouchers. But the German's haste in
disposing of the contents of the basket bred an ugly suspicion. Were
there other such "duplicates" in existence? Did the books account for
only a part of the consignments? Had Reinecke, in fact, been
systematically robbing his partners? Tom felt worried and perplexed.
Here, thousands of miles from home, young and inexperienced, he was
hardly in a position to deal with a clever rogue, if Reinecke was in
truth a rogue; and he wished that he had some older person at hand, some
one like blunt, rugged old Mr. Barkworth, to whom he could turn for
advice. He was not likely to find any help among the Germans in
Bismarckburg, and inquiries of the shipping clerk would probably be
fruitless. Of course, he might question Reinecke's own clerk, but that
course had very obvious disadvantages.
He concluded that he could do nothing at present except mention the
matter in his next letter to his brother, and be more than ever alert in
studying his host. To play the part of detective was abhorrent, but
there seemed to be no help for it, and he writhed inwardly at the idea
of living under the same roof with a man whom he distrusted but with
whom he must try to keep up an appearance of friendship.
When the next mail day came, his feeling of mistrust prompted him to
give his letter into the hand of the negro postman just as the latter
was starting. Reinecke's correspondence was as usual placed in a
padlocked bag. The man had gone about a mile on his way from the
plantation when Reinecke overtook him, carrying two letters.
"I forgot these," he said. "Put down your bag."
He unlocked the bag, dropped his letters into it, and took up the
voucher slip bearing the number of letters enclosed; this would be
signed at the post office and brought back with the incoming mail.
"That letter of Mr. Willoughby's had better go in too," he said. "Give
it to me."
The man took it from the folds of his loincloth, and Reinecke appeared
to drop it into the bag. In reality he put it into his pocket. Having
altered the figures on the slip, he relocked the bag and dismissed the
man. Twelve hours later the postman returned and delivered his bag as
usual into his master's hand.
Next day, in going about the plantation, Tom, as was natural enough,
sought the negro, to ask him whether he had duly posted the letter
entrusted to him in so unusual a manner. But he could not find the man,
and on asking where he was, learnt that he had been sent on an errand to
Bismarckburg. It was nearly a fortnight before he returned to the
plantation, and by that time Tom was no longer in a position to make any
inquiry of him.