On the previous evening, when the day's work on the plantation was over
and the workers had returned to their homes, a young negro left the
large dwelling which he shared with a number of other unmarried men, and
betook himself to the hut where Mirambo was supping with his family.
"Have you eaten already, Mwesa?" asked the old hunter.
"No. I am not hungry. He has not come back."
The lad's eyes were wide with anxiety. No one could have failed to
notice how strongly he resembled Mushota, the slightly older lad
squatting by his father's side.
"Has the Leopard come back?"
"He came back at midday. The Antelope will never come back."
"Why so, Mwesa?"
"There has been whipping to-day."
Mirambo's face clouded. There had been no whipping since the Antelope,
as Tom Willoughby was known among the negroes, had come to the
plantation. The Leopard was their name for Reinecke. The negro is very
shrewd, and it had not needed certain information brought by Mwesa to
make the people connect the cessation of corporal punishment with the
presence of the young stranger. That information, however, given first
to Mirambo, had spread through the whole community, and was talked of
freely among themselves. But it had never reached the ears of the Arab
overseers: oppression is always met by secrecy. Neither they nor
Reinecke knew that the young negro who had marched from Bismarckburg
among the porters, and had remained a willing worker on the plantation,
was not the chance recruit he had seemed to be. The stowaway of the
_Hedwig von Wissmann_ had come of set purpose; and when Reinecke
sarcastically asked Tom whether he supposed his attractions accounted
for the boy's staying on, he had unwittingly hit upon the truth. Mwesa
had stayed as a starved and beaten dog will stay with one who has been
kind to him.
Quite unaware of the interest he had excited among these simple negroes,
Tom had been watched, all his movements commented on, from day to day.
Whether by observation or by instinct the negroes knew that there was
some intimate connection, obscure to them, between him and their
taskmaster. They judged that the young Englishman was an object of
respect or fear to the German, for Mwesa had told them that he was
English and that the English did not whip their workers, except perhaps
in punishment for crime. The Leopard had some reason for drawing in his
claws.
Mwesa, like others, had seen the Englishman start, unattended, with his
gun. He had done so before: those who saw him go marked the fact as
they marked all that he did, but thought no more about it--except Mwesa,
who watched all day for his hero's return. He had noticed, moreover,
the going and the coming of Reinecke, also with his gun; and he had been
troubled when the German returned alone, and when at sunset the
Englishman was still absent.
"The Leopard has killed," said Mirambo after an interval of gloomy
silence.
Mwesa burst into tears.
When he left the hut later, after eating a bowl of manioc, he carried a
long sharp knife. Stealing along behind the huts, he made his way in
the darkness to a remote spot, climbed up into a tree, and disappeared.
Half an hour later he crept back to Mirambo's hut, restored the knife,
which the man would have to account for next day, and then returned to
his own lodging, and slipped in unperceived by his fellow inmates. His
exit was prepared, but no negro travels willingly by night.
Next day, at the time when the negroes had their midday meal, he was
about to make his escape from a place no longer endurable to him, when
he caught sight of Reinecke leaving by the gate, again unattended.
Mwesa looked around; no one else was in sight. He shinned up the tree
he had climbed the night before. A few minutes later he was running
like a wild animal through the scrub outside the fence. He posted
himself among the trees at a spot where he could not fail to see
Reinecke as he left the gate. When the German had passed, the negro
followed him with the stealth of one come of a long line of hunters,
tracking him over the course he had pursued on the previous day, without
revealing himself by so much as a rustle among the leaves or the crack
of a fallen twig.
As Reinecke approached the pit, no guardian spirit told him of the
watcher whose eager face was looking at him out of a frame of green
foliage, whose keen ears pricked up as he heard his master speaking to
some one below him. When the German, his eyes alight with malign
triumph, turned to retrace his steps there was nothing to show that he
had been found out; the face had disappeared. Nor could Reinecke
suspect that he was dogged back to the plantation, and that when the
gate had closed upon him, a negro lad, lithe as a young antelope,
bounded back to the pit, and peered anxiously into the depths.
Tom had relapsed into a state of half-consciousness. He was roused by a
voice, and looking up, saw a black shiny face gazing down upon him. Two
rows of white teeth parted, two big eyes danced with delight when they
saw the white man glance upward.
"Sah, sah!" called the voice.
"Who are you?" Tom murmured faintly.
"Me Mwesa, sah; me come back bimeby, you see."
The lad ran back into the forest. Tom lay as in a dream. Who was this
negro that spoke negro's English, and had called him "sah"? He had
never heard any of Reinecke's slaves use English, yet what negro in
these parts could be other than one of Reinecke's slaves? Where had the
boy gone? What was he going to do? Tom felt almost too weak and
listless even to hope.
After what seemed a very long time the negro came back, carrying a long
green rope which he had plaited from strands of creepers. His face
beamed with excitement and joy. Making one end of the rope fast to a
sapling that grew near the edge of the pit, he threw the other end down
and laughed when he saw that a long coil lay at the bottom. Then he
swarmed down until he stood over Tom, and exclaimed:
"Sah climb; all right now."
"Who are you?" Tom asked again.
"Me Mwesa. No talk now: talk bimeby. Dis bad place."
But climbing was easier said than done. Tom was amazed to find how weak
he was after only twenty-four hours' confinement in the pit. "Have I so
little staying power?" he thought. But twenty-four hours in heat and
squalor, without food or water, with a wounded leg and a sprained ankle,
and a mind racked with anxiety and foreboding, would have put a tax on
the strongest.
He found himself unable to climb. Whereupon Mwesa knotted the rope
about his waist, swarmed up the rope again, and hauled until sweat
poured from his body. As soon as Tom was safely over the brink, the lad
let himself down once more into the pit, and returned with Tom's rifle
and a couple of the sharpened stakes.
"Come 'long, sah," he said: "me find place."
Tom allowed himself to be helped along, asking no questions, content for
the present to have regained freedom after the horrors of the past
twenty-four hours. Mwesa led him along the old native track, in the
opposite direction from the plantation. Presently they came to a brook
tumbling over rocks. Here he bathed his aching limbs and drank deep
draughts.
"Where are you taking me?" he asked.
"No savvy, sah: all right bimeby," replied the boy.
They started again. Mwesa kept carefully to the track, tracing it
unerringly even where it was almost obliterated. The forest was thick
all round, and Tom, at another time, might have felt uneasy at this
apparently aimless wandering. Now, however, one way was as good as
another, so long as it did not lead back to the plantation.
Mwesa had no doubt guessed that the track would sooner or later lead to
a clearing. After more than an hour's painful walk, Tom found himself
at the edge of what had once been an open space, but was now an expanse
covered with scrub and forest trees of recent growth.
"Stay dis place, sah," said the negro.
Tom was ready to stay anywhere. He sank down on the ground, and lay,
resting and watching the further proceedings of his rescuer. The lad
cut down a number of young pliable branches, trimmed them to the same
length, and stuck them into the ground in a circle, at equal intervals
apart, bending them at the top until all met. Then he wound long grasses
and tendrils of creepers in and out around the whole circumference,
until in a surprisingly short space of time he had fashioned a rough and
ready circular hut at the corner of the clearing, which was almost
completely hidden by rank growths of vegetation. He smiled with pride
in his handiwork when he invited Tom to enter.
"Come back bimeby," he cried, and darted away into the forest. When he
returned he brought a wild gourd full of water and a handful of berries.
"No can get nuffin else," he said deprecatingly.
"They will do very well," said Tom, who indeed could have eaten sawdust
after his long fast. "Now tell me who you are, and how you found me,
and why you are helping me."
The smile that spread over the lad's face awoke in Tom a dormant memory.
Surely this was the boy who had rushed so eagerly to pick up his
match-box a day or two after he had reached the plantation.
"Sah sabe Mwesa, Mwesa sabe sah," said the negro, happily.
"Save! What do you mean?"
"On boat, sah: German man kick, say frow me in water: sah pay cash, all
right all same."
"Oh!" exclaimed Tom, feeling a touch of embarrassment. That little
unconsidered act of kindness had surely not won such devotion as to
bring the boy into slavery for his sake? "Tell me about yourself," he
said.
The negro's story, told in his strange English, took a long time in the
telling, so roundabout was the course of the narrative, so much broken
by explanations and cumbered by trifling details. But the gist of it, as
understood by Tom, was as follows--
Mwesa was the son of Miluma, once a notable chief of the Wahehe, and one
of those who had sustained for a long time the resistance of his people
to the Germans. At length he had fallen into the enemy's hands, and had
been among the first batch of labourers who had cleared the ground for
Reinecke's plantation. Miluma's wife and two of his children had died
under their hardships, and the chief, left with Mwesa alone, had fled
with the boy, and, more lucky than other negroes, had neither been
recaptured nor killed in the forest. He had fallen in with an English
trader, with whom he had taken service, accompanying him in his journeys
through the country of the Great Lakes, and living at other times among
his native household at Zanzibar. Mwesa, only a few years old at the
period of the escape, had at first remained in Zanzibar during his
father's absence, but at the age of twelve he, too, had travelled with
the Englishman's caravan, and had picked up a smattering of English as
well as of the dialects of the tribes through whose countries he had
passed.
Then his father died, the Englishman returned to Europe, and Mwesa, now
seventeen, was left alone in the world. Having a little money in his
possession, he bethought him of his uncle Mirambo, whose large family
had prevented him from escaping at the same time as Miluma, and of whom
his father had often spoken. He would return to the plantation, see if
his uncle were yet alive, and perhaps help him, or any of his family who
were still living, to escape with him to British territory. He took
passage in a dhow that was sailing down the lake, but the vessel had
been blown ashore, and the shipwrecked crew and passengers robbed of all
they possessed by predatory natives. Mwesa and one other had got away,
and after an adventurous journey had arrived at Ujiji. Learning there
that a steamer was expected at Kigoma, Mwesa had made his way to the
port and smuggled himself on board.
On arriving at Bismarckburg he had found that the young Englishman who
had befriended him on board the vessel was going to the plantation which
was his own goal, and had at once sought employment among the porters.
It seemed to him that the presence of an Englishman was a good augury
for the success of his mission. He had remained at the plantation,
always on the watch; and it was not long before he suspected that
Reinecke had a grudge against his benefactor. Slight signs that might
have escaped the notice of anybody who had not a personal interest in
the Englishman had betrayed to him and to Mirambo the real feelings of
the German; and Mwesa had now a double motive: the rescue of his uncle
and the care of the white man. For the sake of the latter uncle and
nephew had concealed their relationship, awaiting the day when, as they
expected, the Englishman would leave. On that day they, too, would go.
But the crisis had come in an unforeseen manner. The disappearance of
the Englishman and Reinecke's strange movements had intensified their
suspicions, and Mwesa had stolen out to discover what the German had
done with his guest.
Tom thanked the boy warmly for what he had done for him. He was a good
deal troubled in mind, and passed many hours of the night in that grass
hut in anxious meditation on his position. Mwesa had rescued him from a
lingering death, but to what end? If it was true, as Reinecke had said,
that Britain was at war with Germany, that already a German expedition
against Rhodesia was in preparation, the immediate future was very
black. He dared not go to Bismarckburg; the nearest British territory
was forty or fifty miles away; how was it possible to accomplish so long
a journey through difficult country and hostile people? At present,
indeed, his injuries precluded even a much shorter journey. Until he
should have fully recovered he must remain in hiding. How was he to
subsist? There was game in the forest, no doubt plenty of vegetable
food in the shape of berries and nuts, though only a native could
distinguish the edible from the poisonous. Mwesa would help him--but
Mwesa was himself a complication. Tom felt that, the boy having done so
much for him, he was bound to consider the boy, and Mirambo; his lot
seemed to be knit with theirs. It would not be just to appropriate
Mwesa, and leave his relatives in the slavery from which the boy had
come to deliver them. Yet how helpless he was to do anything either for
them or for himself!
He fell asleep with these problems all unsolved. When he awoke the boy
was gone. Tom supposed that he was seeking food, but as time slipped
away and Mwesa did not return he grew uneasy. Then, however, common
sense asserted itself. The boy who had already dared so much, who had
built him a hut and brought him food, would not desert him. There must
be some good reason for his absence.
A little after mid-day Mwesa came back, looking more pleased with
himself than ever. A rabbit dangled from his waist; slung over one
shoulder was a native grass bag stuffed with cassava; in one hand he
carried an axe, in the other a sporting rifle, which Tom recognised as
the property of Reinecke. Mwesa threw his load down, and emptying his
bag, revealed, under the cassava roots, a number of cartridges. He
chuckled with delight.
"You have been back to the plantation?" said Tom.
"Yes, sah: me go back; nobody see."
He went on to explain that there were strange doings at the plantation.
Reinecke had called the negroes about him, and told them that war had
broken out between England and Germany; that the Germans were going to
seize all the English lands in Africa; that he himself was a great
officer in the German army, and had been ordered to turn every
able-bodied man into a soldier. The gathering of the crops being
finished, such work as was necessary on the plantation must be done by
the women and the older men. He was going to Bismarckburg to arrange
for supplies of arms. During his absence the overseers would exercise
the men.
Taking advantage of the excitement that followed this announcement,
Mwesa had managed to possess himself of the articles with which he had
come laden.
"Me now sah him boy," he said gleefully.
Tom looked at him with a ruminating eye. It was well to have a companion
in this forest solitude, and he felt instinctively that Mwesa's fidelity
might be relied on. But was he entitled to involve the boy in his own
misfortunes, or to separate him from his new-found relatives? He
reflected that the boy would be useful to him in helping him to find his
way into British territory; and when Mwesa emphatically assured him that
he was determined not to go back to the plantation, or to be drilled to
fight against the English, he made up his mind to accept the service
thus volunteered.
"Very well, Mwesa," he said, "you are my boy. Whatever comes, we will
share it."
Mwesa was already skinning the rabbit, and Tom having a box of matches,
the boy kindled a fire and prepared to cook a meal for his new master.
Meanwhile Tom took earnest thought for their future. Until he had
recovered from his injuries it would be hopeless to attempt to reach
Abercorn; but it struck him that to remain in his present position, only
a few miles from the plantation, might be dangerous. Reinecke might
revisit the pit, and finding it no longer tenanted, would almost
certainly hunt for him in the neighbourhood. It was necessary to find a
secure refuge where he could rest until he was able to undertake the
journey. Almost as soon as the idea occurred to him, he remembered that
he had passed this way with Reinecke and Goltermann, on the day when he
had first made distant acquaintance with crocodiles. The nullah and the
lake in the hills lay a few miles to the east. The former, with its
windings, its overhanging rocks, its patches of dense scrub, would
furnish a safe hiding-place. Game was plentiful in the adjacent forest;
the lake would be an unfailing water supply; and though he would have to
guard against falling a prey to the reptiles that infested its shores,
Mwesa's knowledge of their ways would no doubt serve him well. The
neighbourhood was wholly uninhabited, and it was so far from the
plantation that Reinecke and his people were unlikely to visit it.
Could he find it? Having gone there only once, before he had had any
experience of forest travel, he knew that unassisted he would have been
completely at a loss. But he hoped that Mwesa would discover the track
leading to it, and when, as he ate his dinner of roast rabbit, he
mentioned the matter to the negro, the latter instantly started up and
ran off in the direction Tom pointed out. In twenty minutes he was
back, and declared with his invariable smile that he had found the
track. He proceeded to dismantle the hut and to obliterate the traces
of the fire; then, loading himself with their few possessions, he begged
Tom to lean on him and make for their new home at once.
Tom limped along, anxious to reach the nullah before night. On the way
Mwesa told him more about the morning's scene at the plantation.
Reinecke had boasted that the English were to be driven into the sea.
All their possessions would become the booty of the Germans, and the
Wahehe, if they served him faithfully, should share in it. They had
once been great warriors; now they would learn how to be askaris, and
under German leadership do great deeds and amass great riches. The
negroes had listened to him in silence; and only when he had left them
did their sullen discontent find expression. They remembered that they
had always fought against the Germans, not for them; and some of the
elder men said they would rather fight against them again. But there
was no open revolt; cowed by years of oppression, devoid of leadership,
they could only accept their destiny.
With great difficulty Tom managed to drag himself along for two or three
miles; then he declared that he could go no farther. It was already
late in the afternoon. Mwesa at once constructed a temporary hut, and
there they passed the night.
Next morning, after again covering their tracks as completely as
possible, they set off again. Even with Mwesa's support, Tom could only
crawl along at the rate of little more than a mile an hour. The almost
disused hunter's path was sometimes hard to find: here and there it was
overgrown with thorns through which Mwesa had to cleave a way; and in
the middle hours of the day the humid heat was so oppressive that Tom
had to take long rests. Towards evening, however, they came suddenly
upon a dip in the ground which Tom thought he recognised.
"Run ahead," he said to Mwesa, "and see if the nullah is in that
direction."
The boy sprinted away, returning in a few minutes.
"All right, sah!" he cried. "All right ober dah."
They went on. Emerging from the forest, they crossed an expanse of
scrub and came to the mouth of the nullah, which was like a deep cutting
in the hills. A thin stream trickled down the middle: Tom could not
doubt that the lake must be only a few hundred yards farther, and, in
spite of his fatigue, he struggled on to make sure that he had reached
his destination. There at last was the lake, still, not a breath of air
bending the rushes on its banks, or stirring the trees on the island in
the centre.
Mwesa had just time to rig up a slight shelter of branches near the
margin of the lake before darkness fell. He cooked some manioc for Tom
and himself; and when Tom sank into heavy sleep, the boy kept watch all
night by the fire.
In the grey light of dawn, when Mwesa also was asleep, Tom was awakened
by a rustling at the entrance of the rude hut, across which Mwesa had
thrown a rough barrier of thorns as a defence against a chance marauder.
Starting up on his elbow, he saw dimly some dark shape apparently edging
its way between the lower part of the barrier and the ground. For a
moment or two he was unable to distinguish what it was; then he gave a
sudden shout, seized the shot-gun which lay by his side, sprang to his
feet and fired.
Awakened by his shout, Mwesa had jumped up and come to his master's
side. There was a violent commotion in the thorny barrier. Next moment
the slight hut collapsed, and both occupants were half buried by the
boughs. Extricating themselves from the tangle, they peered out at the
interlaced branches of thorn. Nothing was to be seen.
"Wat dat noise, sah?" whispered Mwesa.
"I think I saw the snout of a crocodile," replied Tom.
Mwesa clicked in his throat, caught up his axe, and rushed out. But the
crocodile had disappeared.
"He berry much 'fraid, sah," said the boy, when he came back. "Gun make
him berry sick. He go tell no come dis way no more: oh no!"