Tom had many occasions during the next ten days to rejoice in the
possession of an excellent servant. Mwesa was everything in
turn--hunter, cook, valet, hospital orderly; and in every capacity he
was efficient. His snares and traps stocked the larder; the grain, he
had brought from the plantation was eked out with wild fruits gathered
in the forest; and out of the one simple cooking-pot he produced as
great a variety of good things as a conjurer out of a hat. Always with
the same gravity and the same muttering of spells, he anointed and
massaged Tom's ankle daily, and never failed to sing the praises of his
uncle Mirambo. His constant cheerfulness acted as a tonic on his
master's spirits, and with reviving health Tom felt braced to endure
whatever hardship the future might bring.
At last the day came when he declared that he was ready to start for
Abercorn. He had talked over his plans with Mwesa, handicapped,
however, by the fact that neither he nor the negro knew the route or the
character of the country to be travelled. The extent of his information
was that Abercorn lay somewhere to the south-west, and from a hazy
recollection of a map glanced at during his voyage from England he
guessed that the town was forty or fifty miles away. Under the most
favourable conditions he could hardly hope to cover that distance in
less than three days: if the country was specially difficult the journey
might last even weeks.
It was unfortunate that Reinecke's plantation lay across the direct
route. In order to avoid it, he must make a considerable detour, which
would add he knew not how many miles to the journey. And then he would
have to cross the main German road connecting Bismarckburg on Lake
Tanganyika with Neu Langenburg about twenty miles north-west of Lake
Nyassa. This, the only practicable highway, might be crowded with
transports and would certainly be patrolled; but he hoped by careful
scouting to discover some part of its great length where, either by day
or by night, he could safely make the crossing.
Deciding to attempt a start at dawn on the following day, the two made
their simple preparations. Mwesa stuffed into his wallet all the edible
fruits he could gather, and after cooking the last meal, took his pot to
the lake, and washed it thoroughly. He filled with water a couple of
gourds, one of which he fitted with a grass thong for slinging over
Tom's shoulder. Tom cleaned his rifle, bathed in the lake, keeping a
wary eye open for crocodiles, and washed out his only shirt, with a sigh
for the contents of his travelling case, now, he supposed, appropriated
by Reinecke.
They were about to turn in early that evening when Mwesa jumped up
suddenly and darted out of the low entrance to the hut. Tom, surprised,
followed him, and found him standing in an attitude of expectancy just
outside. A few moments later he heard a human cry, faint and muffled,
as if coming from a great distance. Mwesa was greatly excited.
"Two time," he cried, turning his head in the direction from which the
sound had come.
"You heard it before?" Tom asked.
Mwesa held up his hand enjoining silence. They waited. A minute or two
passed; the cry was repeated, and Mwesa, still more excited, said:
"Mhehe call; man belong me."
"One of your own people! It must be some one from the plantation.
Answer him ... No, wait. Reinecke may be setting a trap for us. Perhaps
he has visited the pit and discovered my escape, and guesses I may be
somewhere in the forest."
Again they heard the cry.
"Who knows you are with me, besides Mirambo?" asked Tom.
"Mushota, no more, sah. Mirambo say no tell: berry wise man, Mirambo."
"Then I think we had better answer: it may be Mirambo himself. But we
will not call here; let us get away from the hut. It will not do to
risk bringing an enemy here."
It was now nearly dark. Adopting Mwesa's precaution, they climbed one
of the trees that formed the boundary of their enclosure, dropped to the
ground outside the zariba, and made their way into the nullah. The cry
was repeated once more; this time it was louder. When they had walked
nearly a quarter of a mile down the nullah, Tom ordered Mwesa to answer,
and the boy let out a curious series of notes, like the dropping scale
of the hornbill. There was a shout in response.
"Mushota, sah," cried Mwesa, his big eyes gleaming. "He say what place
me be."
"Tell him."
Mwesa directed his cousin, and in a few minutes the lad, so strangely
like him, came bounding along in the middle of the watercourse. The two
negroes embraced, and Mushota, his features and arms working with
excitement, poured out a story in a torrent of clicks and gurgles, every
now and then glancing at Tom, who stood a little apart.
Mwesa's expressive countenance showed that the story affected him
deeply. He turned to his master, and seemed to strive to find English
words in which to repeat what he had heard.
"Come, let us get back to our hut," said Tom. "We can only just see to
find our way. You can tell me all about it as we go."
Tom had two natural gifts rare in one who was little more than a
schoolboy--patience and sympathy. He could be stiff enough with his
equals in rank and education; but with this faithful negro lad,
ignorant, struggling to express himself in a strange and difficult
language, he was so patient that Mwesa's stumbling utterance became more
coherent as he told Mushota's story, and Tom was able to grasp its
essentials.
It concerned Mirambo. The old hunter, once a chief and a warrior of
renown among his own people, had not taken kindly to the methods of the
German drill-sergeant. Day after day he had been flogged by the
overseers for slowness of movement or some other fault in drill, and at
last the German sergeant, who had hitherto left punishment to the Arabs,
had kicked the man in the presence of the whole company of recruits.
Mirambo had retaliated with a swift blow that knocked the German off his
feet. The sergeant, when he got up, was on the point of shooting the
negro; but the head overseer, interposing, explained that Mirambo was
Reinecke's best hunting man, and the sergeant had then ordered him to be
chained up until Reinecke returned from Bismarckburg. Only a few days
before, a negro had been shot for a similar offence, and Mushota feared
that his father would suffer the same fate. Knowing the whereabouts of
the white man who had befriended his cousin, he had stolen out at midday
when even the indefatigable German rested, and had come to beg the
m'sungu to save his father.
"But why come to me? What can I do?" asked Tom, astonished at the
confidence with which Mwesa put his cousin's plea. It was almost
laughable that they should seek help of him, a fugitive, one whom
Reinecke had tried to kill, a single man without resources in an enemy's
country.
"Sah English," exclaimed Mwesa. "Sah savvy big medicine, white man
medicine. Sah boss, no fear."
Touched by this childlike faith in the power either of the English name
or of "white man medicine," which he supposed to mean some magic art, he
was at a loss what answer to make. He was willing enough to help, but
quite unable to see how. It seemed best to temporise--to refrain from
immediately dashing the negroes' hopes, and to explain to them presently
how impossible was the feat besought of him.
"We will talk it over in our hut," he said, and was then sorry he had
deferred the inevitable disappointment, for Mwesa clapped his hands and
laughed, and said to Mushota a few words that set him laughing too. His
caution had only strengthened their belief in him.
The two negroes chattered together the rest of the way to the hut, and
Tom was left to his by no means pleasant reflections. How could he
break the unpalatable truth to these simple souls? What would be the
effect on them? He could enter into their feelings through the
recollection of an incident of his own childhood. His father had
promised him, a child of five, the present of a horse, and he remembered
the bitter tears he shed when the horse turned out to be a wooden toy
instead of the expected creature of flesh and bone. The negro is always
a child.
And then he found himself thinking: "Why not risk a visit to the
plantation? It's running my head into a noose, perhaps; but after all I
owe to Mwesa I may at least show him that I'm ready to do what I can.
He can get in and out: why shouldn't I? Reinecke is absent. I don't
suppose he ever confided to the Arabs his pleasant intentions with
regard to me; perhaps I might venture to tackle them (provided the drill
sergeants aren't about), and get them to release Mirambo.... What tosh!
of course that's impossible: still, I might at least reconnoitre, and
I'll be hanged if I don't."
It was dark when they reached the hut, but the slight glow from the fire
that Mwesa had kept always burning in the enclosure revealed to Tom the
look of hopeful contentment on the faces of the two negroes. They all
squatted at the entrance, and Tom asked:
"When will Reinecke be back?"
Mwesa translated to his cousin. The answer was, "To-morrow night."
"How many Germans are at the plantation?'
"One: the other had accompanied Reinecke."
"And how many askaris?"
"Six; the others had gone to Bismarckburg."
Tom pondered this information. He had no chance if he was caught; the
likelihood of his being able to release Mirambo had almost vanished.
And what if the man, by some lucky stroke, were released? Would he
consent to escape without his family? There were five in all: the
larger the party, the more difficult to evade pursuit. "It's all
utterly hopeless," thought Tom. "They will see it for themselves if I
go and talk to them on the spot."
He told the boys what he proposed to do, at the same time warning them
that no good would come of it. The promise overshadowed the warning:
the m'sungu would go; every other good thing would follow. Half vexed,
half amused by what seemed sheer unreason, Tom bade them sleep: perhaps
with morning they would see facts as they were.
Before the glimmering dawn had penetrated the nullah, when the
four-footed creatures had slunk to their dens and the birds were
beginning to stir, the three clambered down on the outside of the zariba
and started on their long tramp. Tom wished to reach the plantation
before mid-day; he would then perhaps see for himself how the German
drilled his dusky recruits.
On arriving in the neighbourhood of the plantation, Mwesa struck off to
the left, and led the way stealthily through dense bush where there was
no path, and none but himself could have found the track of his own
previous journeys. They came presently to the stream that supplied the
plantation with water. Climbing down the steep moss-covered bank, they
crept quietly along the bed until they reached the thorn fence, which
formed an impenetrable barrier across the stream. In the bank, just on
the outside, Mwesa pulled aside a curtain of rank grass, revealing a
hole scarcely larger than a drain pipe. Mushota crawled into it, Mwesa
signed to Tom to follow him: he himself entered last, having remained to
see that the grass fell naturally over the entrance to this narrow
tunnel.
The passage through the tunnel took less than a minute, but Tom felt
almost suffocated before he reached open air again. He said to himself
that it was like crawling in a grave. Some day, he thought, the earth
will fall in; he wondered that such a tunnel, made with no art, had not
collapsed long ago. Its inner end opened into the hollow trunk of a
tree. Climbing until his eyes were on a level with a small hole scooped
out of the wood, he looked out upon the plantation.
The tree was a few feet within the thorn fence. Some little distance to
the left were the huts and sheds occupied by the negroes. In front of
these was the broad, clear, level space that was the usual playground of
the children and the promenade of the elders when work was done. Now,
however, no children sported upon it. Some sixty sturdy negroes, ranging
in age from sixteen to forty and upwards, were drawn up in ranks. At
each end hovered an Arab overseer with his whip. And facing the
recruits, some yards away from them, stood the German sergeant, a stiff,
thick-set, bull-necked soldier, differing from hundreds of his kind whom
Tom had seen in Germany only in his uniform, which, more suited to the
African climate, was less complimentary to the sergeant's tight figure.
The sergeant bellowed an order, in words that seemed to be German
acclimatised; the negroes hesitated, then, each interpreting the command
in his own way, became a mob instead of a half company. The German
stamped and roared; the overseers cracked their whips; and the scared
recruits scrambled back somehow into their original formation.
The sun beat fiercely down upon the scene, and the perspiring sergeant,
a martyr to duty, drew a finger round the inside of his coat collar and
tried again. Brandishing the light cane he carried, he hurled abuse at
the negroes in his hybrid dialect, and having thus let off steam,
repeated his sharp words of command. It was evident that he was
attempting to teach the recruits how to form extended order from fours,
and Tom almost sympathised with him as the men blundered in the simplest
movements. They appeared to be unable to distinguish "right turn" from
"left turn"; and even those who had once moved correctly seemed to be
unable to remember for five minutes what they had learnt.
"Mirambo no dis place, sah," whispered Mwesa over his shoulder.
The words recalled the purpose of his visit. Mirambo was no doubt tied
up in the hut which Reinecke used as a jail for refractory labourers. It
was at the further end of the row of huts, in full view from every part
of the parade ground. An askari was standing at ease outside it. Tom's
sense of the hopelessness of any attempt at rescue was deepened. Surely
Mwesa himself must realise it. Sorry as he was, Tom felt that there was
nothing to be done.
A sudden commotion drew his attention once more to the drilling. The
sergeant, incensed by the repeated blunders of one particularly stupid
negro, had lifted his cane and dealt the man several vicious cuts across
the face. Yelling with pain and rage, the victim had sprung upon the
sergeant, hurled him to the ground, and seized him by the throat. Two
of the overseers had just rushed to the spot, and were dragging the
negro from the prostrate German. There was much chattering and
excitement among the other recruits and the negroes who were looking on
from the huts.
The sergeant rose stiffly to his feet, and with apoplectic fury ordered
the Arabs to tie the culprit hand and foot. As they were doing so, Tom,
who had been boiling with indignation at the German's brutality, had one
of those sudden inspirations which are often turning-points in a career.
Bidding the two lads follow him, he clambered up to the fork of the
tree, let himself down to the ground on the rear side, and ran, under
cover of a line of bushes, until he was some thirty yards nearer the
body of recruits. Then, stiffening himself, he emerged into the open,
rifle in hand, and advanced with quick martial strides across the parade
ground. Until that moment he had not been seen; the sergeant and the
Arabs had their backs towards him; but the sudden silence that fell upon
the negroes as they beheld the young m'sungu, who had been absent so
long, followed by the two boys, attracted the German's attention. He
swung round to see what it was that all eyes were fixed on so intently,
and stared with amazement when, from the lips of the tall young white
man within a few paces of him, came the sharp command in German--
"Sergeant, release that man."
The instinct of military obedience on which Tom had reckoned did not
fail. The sergeant saluted; at a word from him the Arabs released the
negro from his bonds; the recruits broke their ranks and rushed towards
Tom with yells of delight, and from the dwellings along one side of the
parade ground the whole negro population, men, women and children,
trooped forth shouting welcome to the m'sungu, and utterly regardless of
the overseers. The sergeant's authority had vanished. A few seconds
before he had had behind him the prestige of German rule; in yielding to
the command of an Englishman (whom he did not yet know as an Englishman)
he had become a thing of naught to these impressionable Africans.
[Illustration: TOM MAKES A DIVERSION.]
Before he had collected his muddled wits he was surprised to hear that
he was under arrest, and found himself on his way with two of the Arabs
to the jail hut, under guard of two of his own askaris. Tom, wondering
how long the man's stupefaction would last, followed to the hut, ordered
Mirambo to be released, and the door to be shut and bolted.
As he turned away, he saw one of the overseers bolting across the parade
ground in the direction of the gate.
"After him, Mwesa," he cried, and the boy, who had followed him like a
shadow, instantly darted after the runaway, accompanied by a troop of
his fellow negroes. The Arab, whose whip had formerly been a terror to
them, was chased across the plantation, and, just as he reached the
gate, was seized by a score of sinewy hands and hauled back with yells
of triumphant glee, to join the other prisoners in the lock-up. Tom,
with Mwesa as interpreter, ordered Mirambo to collect all the men on the
parade ground, and there wait for him. Then, astonished and a little
intimidated by his own success, he hurried to the bungalow. Reinecke
was expected to return that evening. It was now past noon; within the
next five or six hours there must be some hard thinking if this
unexpected development was to be turned to the best account.