"Dear old uncle!" said Jack as he handed the letter to Barney. "'Pon my soul, I'd forgotten my own birthday, and I haven't the ghost of a notion what the day of the month is; have you, Barney?"
"Divil a bit, sorr."
"Though, of course, I could reckon it out by counting up the Sundays. D'you know, Barney, I almost wish I'd made these negroes knock off work one day a week."
"Sure it wouldn't have answered atall atall sorr. A day's idleness would mean a day's quarrelling. Uv coorse 'tis a pity they're ignorant haythens, an' I wish we could have Father Mahone out for a month or two to tache the poor craturs; but until they can be tached in the proper way, betther let 'em alone, sorr."
"Perhaps you're right, Barney. Doesn't it seem to you odd that Uncle says nothing about the rubber question? His first letter, you remember, was full of it."
"Master's a wise man, sorr. What he does not say says more than what he does. He wouldn't be sure, you see, that his letter would iver reach you. And bedad, if he'd had good things to say uv the State officers, wouldn't he have said 'em? He's found 'em out, sorr, 'tis my belief."
"I shall be jolly glad to see him, dear old boy."
"And so will I, sorr, an' to see some things fit for a Christian to ate. Master's stomach won't take niggers' food, an' mine wouldn't if I could help it."
"But you're getting fat, man!"
"Sure that's the terrible pity uv it. Wid dacent food I kept as lean as a rake, and I'd niver have believed that the only way to get fat was to ate pig's food; for that's what it is, sorr, this maniac and other stuff. I'll now be wanting to get thin again, sorr."
The white men's stores had long since given out. For weeks they had had no sugar, no coffee, tea, or cocoa. Jack as well as Barney had to share the natives' food. Jack did not mind the change, and he believed that Barney's objection was more than half feigned, for the Irishman ate with unfailing appetite. The native diet was indeed nutritious and not unappetising. It included fish from the streams, which they ate both fresh and smoked; bananas, pine-apples, plantains, Indian corn, manioc, ground-nuts, and sweet potatoes. Manioc was their most important food, and Jack after a time began to like it, as made intokwanga. The root of the plant is pounded to a pulp, soaked for twenty-four hours in running water, and when it ferments, is worked up into a stiff dough. Cut into slices and fried in ground-nut oil it is very palatable. Jack also found the groundnuts delicious when roasted. A few goats kept in the settlement provided milk, and they had a regular supply of eggs from their fowls, so that Jack at least considered himself very well off.
The crops around the settlement ripened and were gathered: fine fields of Indian corn, amazing quantities of manioc and ground-nuts, that ripen beneath the soil. Yet Jack began to wonder whether his plantations would meet the needs of the population. It was still growing. The renown of Lokolobolo and Ilombekabasi had evidently spread far and wide, for every week more refugees came in from villages far apart. Besides the men of Jack's original party, there were now nearly two hundred people in the settlement, and Jack always had to remember that these might any day be increased by the four hundred from Imbono's villages, if Elbel returned to avenge Boloko's expulsion, as he certainly would do. Further, Mr. Martindale would no doubt bring back with him a certain number of trained workmen—carpenters, engine-men, and so forth; all these must be provided with house room and food. Jack was glad that he had planned the settlement on generous lines, though as he looked around he asked himself somewhat anxiously whether it would suffice to accommodate all. And what would his uncle say to it? Would he endorse what Jack had done, and take upon himself the protection of these outcasts against their own lawfully constituted, however unlawfully administered, government? Only time could decide that, and Jack awaited with growing impatience his uncle's return.
One morning a messenger came in from Ilola to say that news had reached Imbono of a herd of buffaloes which were feeding about five miles off in the open country to the west. Hitherto Jack had not had leisure to indulge his tastes for sport; but the knowledge that big game was now so near at hand prompted him to try his luck. Leaving Barney in charge of the settlement, he set off the same morning with Imbono and Mboyo, who had both become very fair marksmen, the former with an Albini rifle that had been Boloko's, the latter with a Mauser presented to him by Jack.
Samba and Lepoko were in attendance, carrying lunch for the party. Though Jack had picked up a good deal of the language, he found it in some respects so extraordinarily difficult that he was always glad of Lepoko as a stand-by.
By the time they had reached the spot where the herd had first been sighted, it had moved some distance away; but it was easily tracked, and by dint of careful stalking up the wind the party got within three hundred yards without being discovered by the keen-scented beasts. Then, however, the country became so open that to approach nearer unseen was impossible, and Jack decided to take a shot at them without going farther.
He had brought the heavy sporting rifle which had accounted for Imbono's enemy the hippopotamus in the river. Selecting the largest of the herd—they were the red buffaloes of the district, a good deal smaller than the kind he had seen in America—he fired and brought it down. The others broke away towards a clump of euphorbias, and Jack got another shot as they disappeared; but neither this nor the small-bore bullets of the chiefs' rifles appeared to take effect, for in an instant, as it seemed, the whole remaining herd vanished from sight.
Jack slipped two more cartridges into his empty chamber, and, leaving the bush from behind which he had fired, ran towards his kill. It was his first buffalo, and only those who have known the delight of bagging their first big game could appreciate his elation and excitement. He outstripped the rest of his party. The two chiefs, chagrined at their failure to bring down the animals at which they had aimed, seemed to have lost all interest in the hunt. Samba left them discussing with Lepoko the relative merits of their rifles, and hurried on after his master.
Jack bent over the prostrate body. Despite the tremor of excitement he had felt as he cocked his rifle he found that his aim had been true: the buffalo had been shot through the brain. At that moment—so strange are mental associations—he wished his school chum Tom Ingestre could have been there. Tom was the keenest sportsman in the school; how he would envy Jack when he saw the great horns and skull hanging as a trophy above the mantelpiece when he paid that promised visit to New York!
But while recollections of "Tiger Tom," as the school had nicknamed him, were running through his mind, Jack was suddenly startled by a bellow behind him and a couple of shots. Springing erect, he faced round towards the sound, to see Samba's dark body darting between himself and a second buffalo plunging towards him from the direction of the bushes. As happened once to Stanley travelling between Vivi and Isangila, the suddenness of the onset for the moment paralysed his will; he was too young a sportsman to be ready for every emergency. But the most seasoned hunter could not have dared to fire, for Samba's body at that instant almost hid the buffalo from view, coming as it did with lowered head.
The animal was only ten yards away when Samba crossed its track; but the boy's quick action broke its charge, and it stopped short, as though half inclined to turn in pursuit of Samba, who had now passed to its left. Then it again caught sight of Jack and the dead buffalo, and with another wild bellow dashed forward. In these few instants, however, Jack had recovered his self-possession, and raised his rifle to his shoulder. As the beast plunged forward it was met by a bullet which stretched it inert within a few feet of Jack's earlier victim.
"Bonolu mongo!"[1] exclaimed Jack, clapping Samba on the shoulder. "But for your plucky dash I should have been knocked over and probably killed. You saw him coming, eh?"
"Njenaki!"[2] replied Samba, with his beaming smile.
Meanwhile the two chiefs had run up with Lepoko and were examining the second buffalo, with an air of haste and excitement. They began to talk at one another so loud and fiercely, and to gesticulate so violently, that Jack, though he could not make out a word of what they were saying, saw that a pretty quarrel was working up.
"Now, Lepoko," he said, putting himself between the chiefs and sitting on the buffalo's head, "what is all this about?"
"Me tell massa," said Lepoko. "Imbono he say he kill ngombo; Mboyo say no, he kill ngombo; Lepoko say massa kill ngombo; no can tell; me fink one, two, free hab kill ngombo all same."
"Well, my own opinion is pretty well fixed, but we'll see. Why, there are three bullet marks in his hide besides mine. That's mine, you see, that large hole in the middle of the forehead. One of you two must have hit him twice. And I'm hanged if the bullets didn't go clean through him. No wonder he was in a rage. Tell them what I say, Lepoko."
On hearing what Jack had said, the chiefs began to jabber at each other again.
"Kwa te!" said Jack. "What do they say now, Lepoko?"
"Imbono say he make two holes, Mboyo say no, he make two holes. Lepoko fink bofe make two holes—how can do uvver way?"
"Two and one make three, my man, not four. I'll soon tell you who made the two."
By comparing the wounds he found that two of them had been made by Mauser bullets and one by an Albini.
"There's no doubt about it, Mboyo hit him twice. But to put an end to your squabble let me tell you that you both might have fired at him all day and never killed him if you hit him in those parts. Neither of you did him any damage, though you might have done for me, irritating him as you did. We'll settle the matter by saying he is Samba's buffalo. It was Samba who got in his way and gave me time to take good aim at him. And Samba might have been killed himself. I am grateful to your son, Mboyo, and proud of him, and when I get back I shall give him one of the rifles I have left, as a reward."
This end to the controversy satisfied both the chiefs. Neither grudged Samba anything. As for the boy, he was more than delighted. He had never dreamt of handling a rifle until he was at least fifteen, when the negro boy is as old as the white boy of twenty; and to have one his very own made him enormously proud.
"He say larn shoot one time, massa," said Lepoko. "Lepoko plenty mislable. What for? 'Cos he shoot plenty well; but massa no tell him to bring gun. No; Lepoko must lib for talk, talk, talk all time; me no happy all same."
"You shall have your chance next time. Now, Samba, run off to the camp and bring some men to cut up the buffaloes. We will wait hereabouts until you come back."
When Samba had gone it occurred to Jack that he would eat his luncheon at the summit of a small hill that rose steeply about half a mile from the spot where the buffaloes had been killed. The chiefs, disinclined like all Africans for exertion that was avoidable and seemed to have no object, pointed out that their present situation was quite suited for having the meal, and they were quite hungry enough without climbing for an appetite. But Jack persisted. He wished to ascertain whether there was a clear view from the hill, and though he might have ascended it alone, he feared lest in his absence the chiefs would again fall out over the buffalo. With an air of resignation the negroes accompanied him on the short walk, and luncheon was eaten on the hill-top.
Jack at least felt that he was well rewarded for his climb. A magnificent panorama was open to his view—a vast extent of forest-clad country, with here and there strips of open ground such as that below in which they had discovered the buffaloes. The forest stretched in an almost unbroken mass of foliage as far as the eye could reach, approaching on the north-east very close to Imbono's village.
After luncheon Jack got up and walked about the hilltop, taking a nearer view of the country through his field-glass. Here he caught a glimpse of the river, a small bluish patch amid the green; there, of a little spire of smoke rising perhaps from the fire of one of Imbono's scouts. All at once he halted and stood for some moments gazing intently in one direction. Far away, across a clearing only just visible through the trees, something was moving, continuously, in one direction. So great was the distance that the appearance was as of an army of ants. But he fancied he detected a patch or two of white amid the mass of black.
"Mboyo, look here!" he called.
The chief went to his side, and, stretching his head forward, gazed fixedly at the moving mass.
"Soldiers!" he exclaimed suddenly. "Black soldiers, and white chiefs! They are going to Ilola."
Imbono sprang to his side.
"It is true," he cried. "Mboyo speaks the truth. They are going to Ilola!"
Jack drew a deep breath. The long-expected was coming to pass. The enemy was at hand! And it was ominous that he was coming from the west by land instead of by river from the south. This must have involved a detour of many miles, through difficult forest country; but thus the enemy avoided the certainty of his approach being heralded in advance, as it would have been if he had come by the river. Elbel was planning a surprise!
There was no time to be lost in getting ready for his coming.
"Can they reach Ilola to-day, coming through the forest?" Jack asked Imbono.
It was just possible, replied the chief, but only by dint of very hard marching, and they could not arrive before nightfall.
"We must get back," said Jack. "Come, my brothers."
They descended the hill, and set off at full speed for Ilombekabasi. On the way they met a party of men coming under Samba's guidance to bring in the buffaloes. Jack bade them hasten in their task; they were far from any probable line of march of the enemy, and the meat might now prove very valuable. Hurrying on to his camp, Jack told Barney what he had seen.
"We're in for it now, Barney," he said.
"And we're ready, sorr, praise be!" said Barney.
Jack lost no time. At his request Imbono sent out scouts to get more exact particulars of the column and its progress, warning them to use the utmost care to avoid discovery. Imbono himself returned to Ilola to prepare his people for a migration to Ilombekabasi. Later in the day the scouts returned with the news that the enemy had pitched their camp about ten miles away. The force consisted of some two hundred forest guards armed with rifles, and a much larger number of followers carrying spears. Boloko was with them, and Elobela, and two other white men. The line of march had been direct for Ilola, and strict silence was kept. One of the scouts had seen Elobela himself strike a man who had incautiously shouted to his comrades.
"There's no doubt of their intentions, Barney," said Jack. "They want to surprise Ilola. That means a massacre; but by God's mercy we know in time!"
The inhabitants of Ilola and of Imbono's other villages were already flocking into the camp, bringing with them large supplies of food and their principal belongings. Before the sun set the villages were deserted. Jack was glad now to think that this contingency had been so long foreseen. It would have been impossible to make adequate arrangements for so large an additional population if he had waited until the danger was upon them. As it was, the huts stood ready.
It was a strange and impressive scene as Imbono's people filed in. They were excited, but not with alarm or fear. Some of them even were merry, laughing at little mishaps—the dropping of a basket of manioc, the breaking of a pot, the sprawling of children as Pat dashed in and out among them, barking as though it was he that was shepherding the throng. Barney was the master of ceremonies. With Samba's help he separated the various families, and showed each father the hut or huts he was to occupy. It was not a wealthy community, and only a few of the men had more wives than one; but these tried Barney's patience sorely, and he sighed for Father Mahone to come and tache the haythens betther manners.
"Only what could he do, if he came?" he said. "Whin a man has been fool enough to marry two or three wives, faith, I don't see how ye can alter it unless ye make 'em all widders."
About two miles from the camp there was a spot above the river from which the clearing and village of Ilola could be seen. An hour before dawn Jack went out with Samba to this spot and waited. Just after day had broken they perceived a large body of men rushing out from the forest towards the village stockade. Through his field-glasses Jack saw that the negroes were led by two men in white. Imbono, before he left, had had the gate of Ilola closed and barricaded. The invaders did not pause to break it down; they swarmed up the stockade and momentarily hesitated at the top, as though suspecting, from the silence of the village, that a trap had been laid for them. Then some of them could be seen dropping down inside; the rest instantly followed; and Jack smiled as he saw them assemble in little groups in the deserted compound, gesticulating in their excitement.
A few minutes later dense volumes of smoke rose from the village. The forest guards had fired the huts, no doubt in their first fury at the escape of the villagers. Jack could not help thinking that they would regret their hasty action. If they intended any long stay in the neighbourhood, the village would have been more useful to them intact than as a ruin. He had dismantled his own former camp, so that unless Elbel's men set about building for themselves they would have no shelter. Their folly only confirmed Jack's belief that they were but a poorly-disciplined rabble, and that Elbel himself was out of his element in work of a military kind.
Having learnt all that he wished to know, Jack returned to his camp. Elbel had clearly not expected the village to be abandoned. Jack wondered if he had learnt of the formation of the new camp. It seemed likely that news of it would long since have been carried down the river. He had apparently planned to wipe out the villagers first and tackle Jack later.
"Bedad, sorr, if he's any sinse at all he will lave us alone," said Barney when Jack told him what he had seen.
"I don't expect that. I'm sure he'll use his men against me. He'll want his revenge, for one thing; and then he has his eye on the gold, remember. He didn't dig about the cataract for nothing. He'll be glad of any excuse for attacking, if he sees a fair chance of beating us. You may depend upon it he knows all that Uncle has been doing, and if he can manage to drive us out and occupy this ground before Uncle gets back, it's all up with poor Uncle's claim, Barney. Possession is more than nine points of the law in this State. If Uncle had known the sort of things that go on here, he'd have thought twice before spending his money."
Very soon after Jack regained his camp, Imbono's scouts came in to report that the enemy was on the move. Before midday the head of the column was sighted making its way up the stream, this forming on the whole an easier approach than the rough stony ground on either bank. There was immense excitement in the camp as the people watched the advancing crowd. Jack could not but be touched as he observed the demeanour of the people. A few months before the sight of so many of the dreaded forest guards would have made them cower in abject fear; now, so great was their trust in the young Inglesa who had twice defeated Elobela, and who had prepared for them this fine new village with its wonderful defences, that they viewed the progress of the enemy with feelings only of anticipated triumph.
"Please God, I won't fail them," thought Jack.
About half a mile below the cataract the column came to a halt, and three men in white, attended by half a dozen armed negroes, advanced to within less than a quarter of a mile of the wall.
"The impident scoundhrels!" quoth Barney, standing at Jack's side.
"They do show a pretty cool trust in our forbearance," said Jack; "we could pick them off easily enough."
"Begorra, I would, sorr; do they deserve any betther? Elbel was a deceitful villain—you remimber, sorr, whin he fired under a flag uv truce at the ould camp. I wouldn't have any more mercy on him than I would on a rat."
"Yes, you would, Barney. We must play the game, whatever they do. And I wonder what they're up to. Here comes a man with a white flag. We shall soon see."
[1] "Brave boy."
[2] "I saw."
The negro looked by no means comfortable as he clambered up the steep side of the gully from the bed of the stream and approached the fort. There was no gate in the western face, and the man seemed somewhat uncertain what to do. But perceiving that he had a note in his hand, Jack ordered Lepoko to lean over the wall and take the paper on the point of a spear.
"Now let's see what he has to say," said Jack, unfolding the paper. "Listen, Barney. 'Having returned with a force sufficient to re-establish law and order in this part of the Congo State, I call upon you instantly to surrender the camp which you have constructed without permission on the territory of the State. The negroes who are with you are subjects of the State, and will be dealt with by me in accordance with the powers that I possess. You, being a foreigner, will be taken to Boma, to be tried under due form of law by the State Courts.'"
"Which means quick murder for the niggers, sorr, and slow murder for you. Don't answer his impidence, sorr."
"Oh, I must answer. We can't let things go by default, and we can go one better than he, Barney. He hasn't copied his letter, you see. It's very lucky I've got a duplicate book; who knows?—these documents may come in handy some day."
He wrote a brief reply, saying that he was not aware there was anything illegal in constructing a suitable camp on ground leased from the Société Cosmopolite; that, on the other hand, the natives who had sought shelter with him complained of treatment which was clearly against all law and justice; and that in these circumstances he proposed to remain where he was. When this note reached Elbel, he read it to the two white men with him, laughed, put it in his pocket-book, then returned with his party down the stream.
"A pretty little farce!" said Jack. "He knew what my answer would be; all he wanted was a chance of examining our defences."
"Sure he didn't get much for his trouble. He'd have to be a deal taller to see much uv us, sorr."
During the rest of the day Elbel was seen in the distance on various sides of the camp making further observations. From a point on the slope above he could overlook part of the enclosure, and what he observed from there through his field-glass evidently gave him food for thought, for before sunset he marched all his men down the stream, followed cautiously by Imbono's scouts. These reported by and by that the enemy had encamped about two miles away. The white men had tents, the natives were cutting branches to form temporary shelters. Foragers had been sent out in all directions. Jack knew that they would do little good. There were no people to harry, all were within his walls, and the crops around the villages had been gathered in. But this dearth was not likely to affect the besiegers for the present; for the scouts reported that some of their canoes had now come up the river loaded with stores.
Jack concluded from the fact of Elbel being in command that the Administration of the Congo State had not yet seen fit to intervene and equip an expedition under regular military officers. The Société Cosmopolite, in fact, an extremely wealthy corporation, had determined to root out this source of disaffection and revolt within its territory. The force commanded by Elbel represented practically the whole military establishment of the Company. He had no doubt received telegraphic authority from Europe to undertake the expedition, and could rely on the ultimate support of the State Government, which meanwhile would prefer the work to be done by the Company's troops rather than magnify the affair by employing its own forces.
It soon became clear to Jack that the lesson of his previous reverse had not been lost on Elbel. For a time, at least, there was to be no repetition of the rushing tactics that had proved so disastrous. Two days passed, and he had made no move. Scouts reported that he was busily engaged in building and fortifying his camp. The site chosen was a good deal nearer to Ilombekabasi than the first night's bivouac. It lay in a hollow somewhat more than half a mile from the cataract—in the face of an equal or inferior enemy, a very dangerous position, commanded, as it was, on almost all sides by the heights around. But it was sheltered from rifle-fire from the fort, and had a good water supply from a brook that fell some distance below into the stream that flanked Jack's settlement. Elbel could afford to ignore its strategical weakness by reason of his greatly superior numbers. For Jack could not occupy the rim of the hollow without drawing most of his men out of the fort, thus leaving it open to attack; and in any case, with only forty-five rifles, he could not do much to endanger a camp held by two hundred.
Ilombekabasi and Surrounding Country, showing Elbel's First Camp in ForegroundIlombekabasi and Surrounding Country, showing Elbel's First Camp in Foreground
These reflections passed through his mind as he pondered on the information given by the scouts. His constant preoccupation during the past months with problems of attack and defence had given rise to a habit of looking at every move or incident in its military bearings.
"I wonder whether the fellows in the army class would envy me or pity me most!" he thought.
Elbel attempted nothing in the way of fortification for his camp except a light stockade—with his superior numbers defensive work seemed almost a superfluity. By comparing the reports of various scouts—who, as usual with negroes, were somewhat erratic in their ideas of number—and by his own observation through his field-glass, Jack concluded that Elbel had, in addition to his two hundred rifles, about five hundred spearmen. Jack himself had, in addition to his forty-five rifles, three hundred spearmen. The mere numbers were, of course, no real index to the proportionate strength of the two forces. In ordinary circumstances, indeed, the spearmen might almost be neglected; the striking power was to be measured in rifles alone. But Jack hoped that, with the drill and discipline his men had undergone, it would be proved that a determined fellow behind a spear was still by no means a combatant to be held lightly. Had not the Arabs of the Soudan shown this? He had no little confidence that, when the time of trial came, his three hundred spearmen would prove every whit as staunch as the dervishes who broke the British square at Abu Klea and threw away their lives by the thousand at Omdurman.
On the second morning after Elbel's appearance Jack found that pickets were posted all round the fort. Clearly it was no longer safe to send out scouts, at all events by daylight. The danger was little diminished after dark, for fires were lit at various points and a regular patrol was established.
"I don't care about sending out any of the men now," said Jack to Barney. "If one of our fellows was caught, his fate would be horrible. It's to prevent scouting, I suppose, that Elbel has posted men round us."
"Might it not be to prevent reinforcements from reaching us, sorr?"
"Not likely. There are no people for scores of miles round, and the country indeed is mostly virgin forest. The only reinforcement likely to reach us is my uncle's contingent, and their arrival is sure to be advised all along the river for days or perhaps weeks in advance; and that's one of my worries, Barney. I don't want Uncle to fall into Elbel's hands, but how can I stop it?"
"Send a couple of men off to meet him, sorr, and tell him of the danger."
"I might do that, perhaps. But, as you see, they'd have to run the gauntlet of Elbel's forest guards. Elbel either wants to catch my uncle, or he has got some scheme of attack in preparation which he's anxious we shouldn't discover. Whichever it is he means to keep us bottled up."
Jack was sitting at the door of his hut with Barney, talking by the light of a small fire. Samba had been hovering about for some time, waiting, as Barney thought, until the time should come for him to curl himself up as usual at the entrance to the hut after his friend the Irishman had entered. The conversation ceased for a moment, Jack bending forward and drawing patterns on the ground with his stick. Samba came up and began to speak.
"Begorra, massa," he said, "me can do."
"What can you do, my boy?" asked Jack, smiling a little at the exclamation Samba had adopted from Barney.
Samba struggled to find words in the white man's puzzling tongue. But, recognizing that his small stock of phrases was insufficient, he ran off and fetched Lepoko.
"Me tell massa all same," said the interpreter, when Samba had spoken to him. "Samba boy say, sah, he lib for go out see fings for massa. He no 'fraid. He go in dark, creep, creep, no 'fraid nuffin nobody. He lib for see eberyfing massa want see, come back one time say all same fings he see."
"No, no, it's too dangerous. Samba is the very last of my people I should wish to fall into Elbel's hands."
Samba laughed when Lepoko repeated this to him.
"He no 'fraid Elobela," said Lepoko. "He hab got foot like leopard, eye like cat, he make Elobela plenty much 'fraid. Want go plenty much, sah; say Mboyo one fader, massa two fader; two times he want go."
"Shall we let him go, Barney?" asked Jack doubtfully.
"To be sure I would, sorr. He's gone through the forest and cheated the lions and tigers and all the other beasts and creeping things, ivery wan uv 'm a mighty power cleverer than Elbel."
"Barring the lions and tigers, I think you're right, Barney. Well, if he's to go we must do all we can to help him. Could he get down the gully side, I wonder?"
"He say dat plenty good way, sah. He lib for swim like fish, go through water, come back all same."
"We'll let him down by a rope, Barney, and we'll place Mboyo at the stockade in charge of it; he'll have the greatest interest in seeing that the boy goes in and out safely. And look here, I've heard Samba imitating the cries of various animals; he'd better arrange with Mboyo to be ready for him when he hears a certain cry. And he must carry enough food with him to last a day in case he is prevented from getting back. If he's out more than one day he must fend for himself; but I fancy, after what he has already been through, at least it'd be a very bare country where he couldn't pick up enough to keep him going. He's a splendid little fellow."
"That's the truth's truth, sorr; and sure, whin we leave this haythen country, he'd better come back wid us to London, sorr. Wid him wan side uv me an' Pat the other, I'd be on me way to be Lord Mayor, bedad!"
Thus it was arranged. With a tinful of food slung about him, Samba was let down by a rope from the stockade, and crept in the darkness down the gully. A few minutes later, from some point on the other side, came the strident call of a forest-beetle twice repeated, and Mboyo knew that his son was safely across.
When morning broke, Jack saw that the pickets were placed as they had been on the previous day. He could easily have disposed of several of them, either by rifle fire or by a quick sally; but even at the present stage he had a great reluctance to open hostilities, which must involve much bloodshed and suffering. He resolved to bide his time, knowing that so far as food supply was concerned he had enough for at least a couple of months, and was in that respect probably better placed than Elbel, while the secret of the water supply with good luck would escape detection. Now that the purpose of the tank was known, Jack's prestige among the natives, great as it had been before, was much enhanced, and they had added to their stock of songs one in which the wonderful providence of the Inglesa in arranging that the daily water should not fail was glowingly extolled.
The day passed undisturbed. Jack was puzzled to account for the enemy's silence. Elbel must have a scheme in preparation, he thought. What could it be? Jack had heard a good deal of hammering going on in the camp below, the sound coming faintly on the breeze; except for that there was no sign of activity; and the hammering was sufficiently accounted for by the work of finishing off the construction of the camp.
Before turning in for the night he went to the spot where Mboyo was posted, to learn whether anything had been heard of Samba. While he was there, he caught the low rasping notes of the forest-beetle.
"Samba n'asi!"[1] cried Mboyo, springing up.
He lowered the rope over the stockade. In a few moments it was gently tugged, and soon Samba slipped over the stockade and stood beside Jack. He had an interesting report to make. In the forest, he said, a large number of men were tapping certain trees for a resinous gum, which was being run into small barrels. It was the work of making these barrels that had caused the continuous hammering Jack had noticed.
"Good boy!" said Jack. "I suppose you are very tired now, Samba?"
No, he was not tired; he was ready to go out again at once if Lokolobolo wished. But Jack said he had done enough for one day, and bade him go to sleep.
"So that's their game!" said Jack to Barney, when all was quiet. "There's only one use for resin here, and that's to fire our fort, and they can't intend to make fireballs, or they wouldn't take the trouble to make barrels. They want barrels for carriage, and that means that they intend to bring the resin here. They can't shy barrels at the natives' huts, and so much of the wall is stone that it won't easily catch fire. What else is there inflammable?"
"There's the blockhouses at the corners, sorr."
"You're right. They are going to fire the blockhouses. I'm sorry now I didn't make 'm of stone as I intended. But we had enough trouble with the wall, and the natives are so little used to stonework that perhaps after all they'd have made a poor job of it."
"Sure, I don't see how they are going to get near enough to do any damage, sorr. They can't come up under fire. Do the spalpeens think they'll catch us napping, begore?"
"Can't say, Barney. We must wait and see. The sentries are arranged for the night, eh?"
"They are that, sorr. 'Tis mighty hard to keep the niggers awake; not wan uv 'm but would see the inside uv the guard-room pretty often if they were in the Irish Fusiliers. But Samba and me just take turns to go the rounds all night and keep 'm stirring, sorr; and 'twould be a lucky man that got across into this place widout a crack over the head."
The full purpose of Elbel was seen earlier than Jack had expected. A little before dawn Makoko, who had been on duty at the gate in the northern wall, hurried down to say that he had heard a sound as of a number of men marching for some distance up the hill above the fort. Jack accompanied him back, gently reprimanding him on the way for leaving his post. Judging by the sounds, there was unquestionably a large body of men on the move. They were approaching as quietly as negroes can; it is not an easy matter to persuade a force of black men to keep perfect silence.
While Jack was still with Makoko, another man came running up from the southern end of the fort and reported that he had heard the sound of many men advancing up the stream. Clearly a serious attack was intended at last. Sending word to Barney to remain on thequi viveat the southern wall, Jack waited anxiously for the glimmering light of dawn to reveal the enemy.
At last he could see them. They took little pains to conceal themselves. Elbel's riflemen were assembling on the ridge of the slope above. Among them were men carrying each a small barrel on his shoulder. They must have made a wide circuit from their camp below so that their movements might not be suspected until they were well in position.
The word was rapidly passed round the fort. In a few seconds every man was at his appointed place. The women and children had been bidden to remain in their huts, for a part of the enclosure being exposed to fire from the slope above, it would have been dangerous for any one to cross. Barney and his men at the southern wall were protected from this fire in their rear by the huts. At the northern wall Jack stood on a narrow platform by the gate, similar to that which he had used at his former camp near Ilola. His riflemen were posted below him, half of them at loop-holes left at intervals in the wall, the remainder just behind, ready to take their places at the word of command.
Jack was surprised to feel how little flustered he was. The responsibilities of the past months had bred self-control, and the capacity to grasp a situation quickly and act at once. And constant work with the same men, whom he had learned to know thoroughly, had created a mutual confidence which augured well for their success when put to the test.
A glance assured Jack that the main attack, if attack was intended, would be made by the riflemen. The spearmen in the valley of the river were designed to create a diversion and weaken the force available to oppose the principal assault. Barney could be trusted to hold his own against them.
So little did the enemy, having gained the position above, seek to conceal their movements, that Jack was tempted to salute them with a volley that must have done great execution—the range being scarcely two hundred yards. But Elbel seemed to know by instinct the feeling by which Jack would be animated. He evidently counted on being allowed to fire first. And indeed there was little time for Jack to consider the matter, for even as he made a mental note of the enemy's bravado, he heard a word of command given in a loud voice, and saw Elbel emerge from a small clump of bushes at the edge of the gully. The whole force, except ten men carrying barrels, flung themselves flat on their faces; and Jack had only time to give a rapid warning to his men when a scattered volley flashed from the line of prone figures, the bullets pattering on the stone wall like hail on a greenhouse.
Next moment the men with the barrels dashed forward, some making for the blockhouse above the gully, others for that at the opposite end of the northern wall. Through the clear space between the two parties the riflemen continued to fire as fast as they could reload. It was clear to Jack that Elbel expected the fire of his two hundred rifles, added to the unexpectedness of the movement, to keep down the fire of the defenders long enough to enable the barrel men to reach the blockhouses. But in this he was disappointed; nothing but a direct and combined assault on the wall would have gained the time he required. His rifle fire from a distance was quite ineffective. Jack had ordered his men to keep out of sight, and to fire through the loop-holes in the wall, aiming, not at the riflemen lying on the ground, but at the men sprinting with the barrels. Consequently, when the twenty-five rifles within the fort replied to the first volley, three of the runners fell on the one side and two on the other, their barrels rolling down the slope, some over the edge into the gully, others towards the copse on the east.
The other men, seeing the fate of their comrades, thought of nothing but their own safety. They dropped their barrels and rushed back. But even then they did not take the safe course. Instead of scattering and so lessening the chances of being hit, the two parties joined, and ran up the slope in a compact group. None of them reached the line of prostrate riflemen who were still blazing away ineffectually at the walls and blockhouses. The unfortunate men were caught in full flight and fell almost at the same moment, each man struck by several bullets.
Not till then did Jack allow his riflemen to turn their attention to the enemy's firing line. But one volley was sufficient. Elbel saw that his scheme had totally failed, and his position was untenable. Not a man of his opponents could be seen; his men had only small loop-holes to fire at, and the average negro is not a sufficiently good marksman to be formidable in such conditions. The defenders, on the other hand, found the enemy an excellent target; for, by some inexplicable piece of folly, Elbel had not ordered them to seek cover behind the many rocks and boulders that were scattered over the ground. He had lost all his barrel men and several of his riflemen, and within five minutes of the first volley he drew off his troops.
A yell of delight from the stockade followed his retirement. The men slapped their thighs and shouted "Yo! Yo!" until they were hoarse. The women and children poured out of the huts and danced about with wild enjoyment. Imbono's drummer banged with all his might. Some of the boys had made small trumpets of rolled banana leaves, and tootled away to their hearts' content, the sound being not unlike that made by blowing through tissue paper on a comb. Amid all the uproar Pat's joyous bark acclaimed the success.
"Faith, sorr, 'tis real mafficking, to be sure."
"Not quite, Barney. There's nobody drunk."
"True, an' the haythen sets an example to the Christian. There are no grog-shops here, praise be, wan at this corner and wan at that, to tempt the poor craturs."
"I only hope they're not shouting too soon, Barney. We haven't done with Elbel yet."
[1] Below.
Throughout that day Jack was on the alert in anticipation of another move on the part of the enemy. But Elbel's men, except the pickets, did not come within sight of the fort, and nothing was heard of them. Samba wished to go out again on a scouting mission, but Jack refused to allow him to leave the fort in daylight; perhaps in the darkness he might risk a journey once more.
Although the attempt to fire the blockhouses had been foiled, Jack, thinking over the matter, saw that the feat would not have been impossible with the exercise of a little common sense coupled with dash. A second attempt, better organized, might be successful.
"I wish we could guard against the risk," he said to Barney. "We don't want to be continuously on the fidget in case the blockhouses are fired. Yet we can't make 'em fireproof."
"That's true, sorr; still, something might be done to rejuce the inflammation."
"What's that?" said Jack without a smile. To call in question Barney's English was to wound him in the tenderest part.
"Why, sorr, why not drop down some uv them boulders we keep for repairing the wall? If we let them down wid care to the foot uv the blockhouses, close up against the woodwork, 'twould prevent any wan from setting a match to 'm."
"A good idea! we'll try it. Get the men to carry the stones up to the wall. We won't do anything more till it is dark."
When the sun had set, Jack had the stones hauled up to the roof of the blockhouse at the north-west corner, and then dropped down outside, as close to the woodwork as possible. The task was carried on in almost total darkness, only a few rushlights inside the camp preventing the workers from colliding with one another. But it was impossible to contrive that the heavy stones should fall silently, and a shot from up the slope soon told that the enemy had discovered what was going on. Active sniping for a time gave Jack a good deal of annoyance, and one or two of his men were hit; but he persevered in his work, and had partially accomplished it, when another danger suddenly threatened.
Up the slope, near the position occupied by the enemy in the morning, there appeared small points of light, which moved apparently at random for a few moments, and then came all in one direction, down the hill. They all started fairly close together, and Jack counted twelve in a line; but soon some diverged from the rest and went off at an angle. The others came on more and more rapidly towards the fort, jumping occasionally, but keeping on the whole a surprisingly straight course.
"Barrels again!" said Jack to Barney.
Only a few seconds after he had first observed them, they came with a quick succession of thuds against the wall and the half-finished rampart at the foot of the blockhouse, and the points of light spread out into fierce tongues of flame. Lighted matches had been attached to the barrels, and with the bursting of these by the stonework the resin they contained had taken fire. Of the dozen barrels that started, only four had reached their goal, the rest having rolled over the gully on the western slope as had happened during the day.
Jack hoped that his new stonework was sufficient to protect the logs at the base of the blockhouse. But one of the barrels, under the impetus gained in its passage down the hill, had jumped the boulders, and breaking as it crashed over, burst into flame within an inch or two of the woodwork. Another line of barrels was starting down the slope. Jack had called up his best marksmen at the first alarm, and ordered them to take pot-shots at the twinkling points of light, or the figures above, dimly lit up by the matches attached to the barrels. Whether any of the shots got home he could not tell; another set of barrels was trundling down towards the fort.
It appeared to Jack that nothing could save the blockhouse. Burning resin could only be extinguished by a deluge of water, and he had no means of bringing water from the tank in sufficient quantities. The logs were dry, and, when once fairly alight, would burn furiously. Barney suggested dropping a heavy boulder on the barrel most dangerously near, but Jack saw that the effect of this would be merely to spread the flames without necessarily extinguishing them. The fire would continue beneath the stone; it would lick the lowest logs, and in a few minutes the whole base of the blockhouse would be ablaze. The imminence of the danger acted as a spur to Jack's resourcefulness. It flashed upon him that there was one chance of saving the fort. Calling to Samba to follow him, he rushed from the roof of the blockhouse down the ladders connecting it with the second floor and this with the ground, and ran at full speed to his hut, where he seized an empty tobacco-tin and searched for a piece of wire. For a few moments he could not lay hands on any, but he then bethought himself of the wired cork of a Stephens' ink-bottle. Wrenching this out, he hastened to the underground magazine where the ammunition was, stored. Samba had preceded him thither with a lighted candle in a little lantern of bamboo.
Among the ammunition was a keg of loose powder sent up by Mr. Martindale for refilling cartridge cases. While Samba very cautiously held the lantern out of harm's way, Jack, with the brad of a penknife, bored two thin holes in the tin and two corresponding holes in the lid. Then he inserted the wire and filled the tin with powder. Clapping on the lid and firmly securing it by twisting up the wire, he rushed back to the blockhouse, up to the roof, and cleared out all the men helter-skelter, bidding them go with Samba and bring baskets full of earth to the base of the wall.
The place was now reeking with acrid smoke from the burning resin, great black eddies of it whirling over the roof, stinging Jack's eyes and making him cough and choke. When none but himself was left—for there was some danger in what he purposed—he went to the edge of the roof, and bending over, almost blinded by the fumes, he marked the spot where the flame seemed the fiercest, and dropped the tin into the midst of it. Though he sprang back at once, he had not reached the inmost edge of the roof when there was a loud explosion. The blockhouse rocked; clouds of sparks flew up; and feeling the tremor beneath him, Jack feared he had destroyed rather than saved. But the trembling ceased. He rushed back to the fore edge of the roof and peered over. As the smoke cleared away he saw no longer a blazing mass below him; nothing of the barrel was left; but all the ground for many yards around was dotted with little tongues of flame. The force of the explosion had broken up the huge devouring fire into a thousand harmless ones.
But the woodwork near which the barrel had rested was smouldering. There was still a danger that the blockhouse would burn. While that danger remained Jack felt that his task was not yet done, and he instantly prepared to meet it. Flames from the other barrels that had struck the wall were lighting up the scene. To carry out his purpose involved a great risk, but it was a risk that must be run. Calling to Samba, who had remained nearest at hand, he bade him bring a rope and send Barney and Makoko to him. When they arrived he got them to knot the rope about him, and let him down over the wall on the gully side, which was in deep shadow. Creeping round the blockhouse on the narrow ledge between it and the gully, he called to the men above to lower some of the baskets of earth which had been placed in readiness. As they reached him he emptied them upon the smouldering logs. It was impossible now to keep in the shadow; his every movement was betrayed by the still flaming barrels; and his work was not completed when bullets began to patter about him. His only protection was the rough rampart of boulders which had been thrown over from the roof. But he bent low; it is difficult even for expert marksmen to aim without the guidance of the riflesights, and Elbel's men were far from being experts; Jack finished his job as rapidly as might be, and escaped without a scratch. Then creeping round once more to the gully, he laid hold of the rope and was drawn up into safety.
The other blockhouses meanwhile had been in no danger. That at the north-east corner was defended by the nature of the ground, which sloped so rapidly that a barrel rolled from above could never hit the mark. That at the southeast corner, being at the edge of the precipice, could only be fired by the hand of man, and no man could approach it safely. By averting the danger at the north-west Jack had saved the camp.
But the attempt had been so nearly successful that he resolved to lose no time in completing the work of protection already begun. The moment was come, too, for showing Elbel that he could only maintain a thorough investment of the fort with the acquiescence of the besieged. At any time a sally must break the chain of pickets, for Elbel's force was not large enough to support them adequately all round. Averse as Jack was from shedding blood, he felt that it was necessary to teach the enemy a wholesome lesson.
Before he could do anything, however, he must know how the force was distributed, and how the pickets were placed. He remembered his half promise that Samba should be allowed to go scouting that night. No other could be trusted to move so warily or act so intelligently. Samba was accordingly let down into the gully. While he was gone Jack explained to Barney the plan he proposed to try should the boy's information favour it.
"I shall lead some of the men out, I don't know yet in what direction. At least it will surprise Elbel. I hope it will alarm his men and throw them into confusion. You must take advantage of it to go on with our defences. Let down more boulders from the roof, and build them up as fast as you can to form a facing three or four feet high to the two northern blockhouses. You'll only have about half an hour for the job, for Elbel will have got his whole force together by then, and I shan't be able to fight them all. But we've plenty of men to turn on to it, and when I give the signal they must tumble over the wall and get to work."
Within an hour Samba returned. He reported that the enemy had all retired to their camp except the pickets. About forty men were posted about a camp fire up stream near the place where the barrels had been rolled down. Another picket of the same strength was lying at the edge of the copse about a quarter of a mile to the east, and a third picket lay across the gully to the west. Samba had had great difficulty in eluding this western picket, and would have returned sooner but for the detour he had been obliged to make.
All favoured Jack's enterprise. The pickets were so far from the camp below the southern face of the fort that some time must elapse before help could reach them. They could only support one another, and the idea of a ruse to prevent that had already flashed through Jack's mind.
Selecting fifteen of his steadiest riflemen, including Makoko and Lepoko, Jack had them lowered one by one into the gully, and then himself followed. The night was fortunately very dark; all the flames from the barrels had gone out, and he trusted that the enemy would be quite unprepared for any movement from the fort. When all were assembled, they crept up the gully in dead silence, walking as far from the water as the steep sides allowed, so as to avoid kicking stones into it and making a splash. At first the gully was at least twelve feet deep, but it became more shallow as they proceeded, until by and by its top barely rose above their heads.
They had not gone far when they heard laughing and talking beyond them. However Elbel might regard his defeat, it had evidently not affected the spirits of his men; the negro's cheerfulness is hard to quench. At a bend in the stream, out of sight from the fort, shone the faint glow of the camp fire; and Jack, peeping cautiously round, saw a sentry on each bank, moving backwards and forwards, but stopping now and again to exchange pleasantries, or more often fatuous remarks about food, with the rest of the picket at the fire. It was nothing new to Jack that the Congo soldier's idea of sentry-go is somewhat loose.
Again Jack was favoured by circumstances. The glow of the fire did not extend far into the darkness of the gully; the noise of the laughing and talking was loud enough to drown all slight sounds for some distance around. Thus the sixteen men in the gully could approach very near the camp fire without being seen or heard. Jack's plan, already half formed before he started, was quickly adapted to the conditions. Silently gathering his men together, he ordered them in a whisper to follow him in a charge with the bayonet; not to fire except at the word of command; not in their pursuit of the enemy to go beyond the camp fire. It would have been easy to dispose of at least a third of the picket by firing upon them from the darkness; the distance was only about a hundred yards, and every shot would tell, for they were huddled together. Such an act would be justified by all the rules of warfare. Jack knew that in a like case he would receive no mercy from the enemy; but he was too young a campaigner to deal with them as they would deal with him; he could not give the order to shoot them down unawares.
When his men clearly understood what was required of them he led the way, and they all crept forward again. The glow of the fire now made them dimly visible to one another, but not to the picket, who were in the full light, nor to the sentries, whose attention was largely taken up by the proceedings of their comrades. When the sound of talking lulled for a few moments, Jack halted; when it grew in force, and he heard the sentries join in the chatter, he seized the opportunity to steal forward a few yards more. So by slow degrees they approached within forty paces.
To go further without discovery seemed to Jack impossible. Pausing for a moment to whisper once more to his men, he suddenly shouted the order to charge, and, springing up the bank, dashed forward with a cheer that was reinforced by the yells from fifteen lusty throats. The sounds of joviality about the camp fire died on the instant; the cheer from the river, echoed by the rocky walls of the gully, seemed to come from a host of men. Yells of alarm broke from the dusky figures by the fire. Some of the men seemed for the moment spellbound; others leapt to their feet and made a dash for the rifles stacked close by, tumbling over one another in their agitation; the majority simply scurried away like hares into the darkness, only anxious to get as far away as possible from this shouting host that had sprung as it were out of nothingness. As Jack's men rushed up there were a few reports of rifles hastily shot off, and eight or nine men made as if to stand firm near the camp fire; but they could not face the steel gleaming red in the glow. One or two hapless wretches were bayonetted before they had time to run; the rest, with a wild howl, flung down their weapons and bolted.
The sound of the conflict, Jack knew, would be taken by Barney as the signal to begin work outside the blockhouses. What would be its effect on the enemy? Would it draw their pickets on the right and left to the support of their comrades? Or would they be so much alarmed that nothing but flight would occur to them? He thought the probabilities favoured the former, for the firing having ceased, the immediate cause of alarm would seem to have been removed. Without staying to consider that the chain of investment would be broken by their action, the outer pickets would in all likelihood move towards each other for mutual support.
Here was an opportunity which Jack was quick to seize. Without a moment's loss of time, he called his men together and hurried back down the gully, where he ordered them to line the banks on both sides, keeping well in shadow from the light of the fire. The position they took up was about forty yards below the bivouac, almost the same spot from which the charge had been made. The men had only just established themselves when the picket from the eastern quarter came running up. Jack's situation was now so serious that he had no longer any compunction. As the negroes emerged from the gloom into the light of the camp fire, he ordered his men on the opposite bank to shoot. Several of the enemy fell; the rest turned tail, finding their comrades falling about them without being able to see their assailants. But they did not run far; when they had passed beyond the circle of light they halted.
Meanwhile all was quiet from the direction of the other picket beyond the gully. If this was advancing, it was with more caution. For some minutes no sound was heard; then on his left hand Lepoko detected a slight rustle in the brushwood, and he whispered to Jack that the enemy were creeping forward, feeling their way. At the same time there were sounds of movement on the right.
Now was the chance to attempt a ruse. Withdrawing his men stealthily down the stream for a hundred yards, Jack halted. The camp fire was dying down for want of fresh fuel; he hoped that the two parties would mistake each other in the gloom. A quarter of an hour passed. Then the air rang with shots and shouts; the two pickets had met and come into conflict. The error was soon discovered, and then there arose a terrific clamour as each party accused the other.
Jack considered that the work of the fort should have been completed by this time, all danger of interruption by the pickets having been removed by his sortie. He therefore led his men back along the gully, and arrived to find Barney putting the finishing touches to the work by the light of his bamboo lantern.
"All well?" said Jack.
"All well, sorr. You're not hurt at all?"
"Not a bit. None of us scratched. Now we'll get back. I don't think they'll try that particular dodge again."
They had hardly returned within the stockade when they heard the sound of a considerable body of men moving up the opposite bank of the stream towards the pickets above.
"Too late!" said Jack with a chuckle.
"Truth, sorr. That Elbel was niver intended for a sojer, 'tis plain. But who are the two white men wid him, thin? Sure, I thought he'd brought 'em wid him to tache him what to do, but they would all seem to be birds uv wan feather, sorr."
"We may find out by and by, perhaps to our cost. Meanwhile we had better man the walls and blockhouses in case he's going to favour us with a night attack."
But the sounds of movement among the enemy ceased, and the remainder of the night passed in unbroken quietness.
Next morning Jack's men found resting against the stone wall of the fort several barrels of resin which had not burned. The bumping they had received in rolling down the slope had shaken out the fuses. This was a lucky discovery. The inflammable contents of the barrels would come in useful—for making fireballs, if for no other purpose. Jack had them carried into the fort and stored in the magazine.
Very soon after daybreak Jack saw what seemed to be the greater portion of Elbel's force moving up the hill. He counted at least five hundred men, and noticed that only about a hundred of these were riflemen, the remainder carrying spears, or tools of some kind.
"You see what they are at, Barney?" he said.
"Shifting their camp, by what it appears, sorr."
"No, I don't think that's it. Elbel has failed with fire; he's now going to try water. He's going to cut off our water supply."
"Sure he's entitled to, as we don't pay rates, which is rubber. But we can do widout his water supply, sorr, having a private distillery uv our own."
"I'm pretty sure I'm right, for you see the men are going a great deal farther up the hill than they need if they're merely looking for another base of attack."
"Bedad, why shouldn't we have a little rifle practice at 'em, sorr? 'Tis long range firing, indeed, but mighty good practice."
"No. Our ammunition is too precious to be wasted; and even if we hit a few of them, that wouldn't stop Elbel's scheme, whatever it is. We'll keep our eye on the river and see if there's any shrinkage."
It was not until late in the afternoon that he got positive proof that Elbel was in fact diverting the stream. He had fancied for some time that the height of the water was less, but only about four o'clock did the fall become decided. After that, however, the stream dwindled very rapidly, until, towards nightfall, there was only a thin trickle of water in the river bed below the fort, where in the morning the stream had been twenty feet broad and nearly six feet deep. At the same time a remarkable change in the appearance of the country east of the fort had attracted the attention of the natives, who swarmed upon the platform on that side and gazed in amazement. Lokolobolo had brought water into their camp; but who had made water run in a swift river where no river had ever been before?
Nearly a mile away to the east, a broad shallow stream was rushing down the slope that extended from the precipice on which the fort stood to the foothills two miles beneath. The river, dammed no doubt by boulders far up the hill, had now been forced into the course which, but for a rocky barrier, it would long since have discovered for itself.
"A very pretty scheme, bedad!" said Barney. "And I just wish we could set a fountain going, like those in Trafalgar Square, just to show Mr. Elbel that he may have his river all to himself if he pleases."
"That wouldn't do at all, Barney. We don't want to flaunt our good fortune. In fact, our best course is to keep Elbel in the dark. Indeed I think we had better stop that overflow from our tank. Now that the cataract has dried up, the overflow would easily be seen."
"But what'll we do wid the overflow, sorr? Sure, we don't want a flood in the camp!"
"Certainly not. We'll break it up into a number of tiny trickles, and let them find their way through the wall at different points. They'll be sucked up or disappear before they reach the ground below."
"Bedad, now, I would niver have thought of that! Mr. Elbel will think we get our water from heaven, sorr, if he's iver heard uv it."
The work of damming the river having been accomplished, the main body of the enemy marched down just before dark and regained their camp. As they passed within earshot of the fort, Elbel's negroes could not refrain from flinging taunts at the men of their colour within the walls, telling them that they could no longer cook their food, much less wash their babies. This made the men very angry; they prepared to blaze away with their rifles at the gibing enemy, and Jack's command to drop their weapons might, perhaps, for once have been disregarded had not Samba suddenly struck up the song which one of the men had composed, chronicling Lokolobolo's great deeds with water and fire:
LokoloboloIn IlombekabasiDug a great hole,Filled it with watersGreat is his magic!How can we praise him—Lokolobolo?Lo! ElobelaCame with the fire tubsTo Ilombekabasi.But the InglesaLokoloboloFilled a pot with the fire-stuff.What a noise!What a smoke!Fire tubs are broken.Ha! Elobela!Where is your fire now?What is the good of you?Inglesa's magicNo one can master.Is it fire?Is it water?LokoloboloIn IlombekabasiQuenches the fire,Keeps water for black men.Ha! Elobela,Go home to your cook-pot.No good in this land,In Ilombekabasi.
The song was taken up one by one by the people, and in the delight of singing Lokolobolo's praise and Elobela's shame, the jeers of the negroes outside were forgotten.
That night Elbel posted no regular pickets round the fort. He had clearly given up the idea of a strict blockade, which was indeed impossible with the force at his command; but except for the desire to mask his own movements, he lost nothing by the withdrawal of his pickets, for even if the garrison took advantage of it to issue from the fort, they could make little use of their freedom in a country bare of supplies. Jack did not doubt that Elbel had many scouts abroad, and would be on the watch for an attempt to obtain water. He would imagine that none was procurable save from a distance of at least half a mile from the fort, and was doubtless already congratulating himself on the success of his strategy.
Several days passed, and life went on in the camp as peacefully as though no enemy was near. The women performed their daily tasks of cleaning and cooking; the men drilled and exercised; the children amused themselves as children always can. Jack took it into his head to teach them some of the round games popular with English children, knowing that the elders were sure to copy them; and every little novelty tended to amuse them and keep them cheerful. Indeed, he found the men so like children in their capacity for finding easy amusement, that one day he started a game of leap-frog for them, and soon the whole camp was hilarious, the men springing over one another's backs all round the enclosure with great shouts of laughter.
As Jack expected, Elbel kept a sharp watch by means of scouts all round the fort, to ensure that no water reached the besieged. Jack smiled as he pictured the Belgian's amazement, when day after day went by without any sign of distress. Now that the regular night pickets were removed, some of Jack's men found it easy to get out for little scouting expeditions; and except for an occasional brush between men of the two forces employed in this duty, there was nothing to show that four hundred men on the one side, and seven hundred on the other, were engaged in deadly warfare. In these duels the men of Ilombekabasi invariably came off best. They were at home equally in the forest and the plain; the enemy were for the most drawn from the Lower Congo—an inferior type of negro and less used to fighting in wooded districts. And a long immunity had rendered them careless. They were accustomed to see whole villages panic-stricken at the sight of an Albini rifle. They had had no need to cultivate the art of scouting, except in tracking runaways; nor even the higher kind of marksmanship; for it was their practice to tie their victim to a tree before shooting: in this way the State or the Concessionary Company was saved ammunition. Indeed, one cartridge was frequently sufficient to account for two or more men, women, or children, if they were tied up with due regard for the convenience of the marksman. It was a new and very disconcerting experience to meet men of their own colour who were not afraid of them, and they did not easily adapt themselves to the new condition of things.
For this work of scouting Jack had found no man yet to match Samba. The boy seemed to be endowed with a sixth sense, for he went safely in the most dangerous places, returned more quickly than the rest, and brought more information. And though he soon made himself expert with the rifle presented him by Jack after the buffalo hunt, he never took it with him on these scouting trips, preferring to go unencumbered. He relied on his knife.
One morning, when Jack was awakened as usual by Barney, he noticed a very comical look on the Irishman's face.
"Anything happened?" he said.
"Bedad, sorr, I didn't mean to tell ye till ye were dressed. What d'ye think that little varmint has done now?"
"Samba? No mischief, I hope."
"Mischief, begorra! Just after daybreak, whin you were sound asleep, sorr, and I was going the rounds as usual, Mboyo calls to me from the wall, and whin I comes up to 'm, there he is hauling like the divil on the rope. 'Samba must be getting fat like me,' says I to meself, lending a hand, 'for sure the boy will not need such a mighty big haul.' Mboyo jabbered away, but I couldn't understand him. And then, sorr, up comes a villainous ugly head, followed by a body ten times the size of Samba's, and a big nigger comes over, almost choked with a new kind uv necklace he was wearing, and shaking with the most terrible fright mortal man was iver in. Mboyo lets down the rope again, and up comes Samba, grinning like a Cheshire cat.