CHAPTER VI--MWESA'S MISSIONTom could not help laughing as he surveyed the ruins of Mwesa's little building, and the negro himself put his hands on his hips and roared with merriment."Silly fella tink all same proper house," he said, alluding to the crocodile. "Me show him."It was clear that their first task, if they were to remain for any length of time in this spot, must be to construct a more substantial dwelling, and after a light breakfast they set forth to survey for a site. Tom found that his long tramp on the previous day had caused his injured ankle to swell, and he could only get along by hopping on his sound foot. Fortunately he had not far to go before lighting on a suitable situation in a spot above the shore of the lake, where a few isolated trees in the form of a rough circle enclosed a clear space some twenty yards across. Here, after bathing his ankle and tying his handkerchief tightly about it, he sat down to watch Mwesa set about building him a "proper house."The boy cut down with his axe a number of straight saplings, trimmed them, cut them to the same length, and then planted them in a circle in the centre of the space. After a search along the banks of the stream he returned with a load of withies cut from tough creeping-plants. With these he bound the upright poles together: first in the middle, then two feet below, and finally the same distance above. He worked with such astonishing speed that early in the afternoon the framework of the new hut was complete, standing up like a cage or a circular crate. After a short rest he started on the roof. He gathered together a number of flexible saplings, which he laid down on the floor of the hut so that they radiated from the centre like the spokes of a wheel. Then he fastened the ends together, lifting the saplings one by one until the structure resembled the ribs of an inverted Chinese umbrella. When it was finished he drew the loose ends together, turned it upside down, and pushed it up through the open roof space, the ends, when released, resting on the tops of the poles. The skeleton of the hut was complete.Tom envied the boy's dexterity. All his measurements had been made with the eye alone, and Tom reflected that the work would have occupied a white artisan, provided with a foot rule, probably twice or thrice as long. Mwesa promised that another day's work would finish the job.Next day he filled up the interstices between the poles with damp mud, which he carried in his wallet from the edge of the lake. He left a space about three feet square at the entrance; and built up with mud, in the interior of the hut, a long bench some three feet high. The mud dried rapidly in the heat of the day, and when the bench had hardened, he mounted upon it, and wove long grasses in and out among the rods composing the roof, until this was fairly impervious. It would give slight protection against heavy rain, but the rainy season was not yet due, and Tom agreed that the hut would form a very serviceable shelter during the short time he expected to occupy it.It occurred to him, however, to suggest a means of doubly securing themselves against intruders, human or other. The trees surrounding the open space could be turned into an effective zariba by planting poles between them, and interlacing the poles with strands of prickly thorn. Mwesa fell in with the notion at once, but this was a much longer task than the construction of the hut had been, and in fact it occupied him off and on for nearly a week.Meanwhile the food he had brought from the plantation had long been consumed, and he spent part of every day in snaring birds or small animals for the subsistence of himself and his master. It appeared that vegetable food was not to be obtained in this part of the country, and Tom grew somewhat uneasy as to the effect of an uninterrupted diet of flesh. He was uneasy, too, about his injuries. The wound caused by the spike was healing well, but the swelling of his ankle was but little reduced, and it gave him great pain to hobble even a few yards. It was clear that without the ministrations of his faithful and indefatigable boy he would starve.Often as he lay at night, on rushes strewn upon the bench, listening to the cries of night-birds, the bark of distant hyaenas, the coughs of the crocodiles in the lake, the grunts and snarls of beasts that came prowling around the zariba, but never attempted to penetrate it, scared by the fire kept constantly burning within the enclosure--as he lay listening to these eerie sounds he pondered plans for the future. His dearest wish was to make his way to the frontier as soon as he was fit to travel, and to join the British forces which, he supposed, were gathering to resist the German invasion. The news that Germany and Britain were at war had scarcely surprised him. Recollections of what he had heard and seen during his year in Germany seemed to give corroboration enough. He remembered in particular one young German baroness, who had been to school at Cheltenham, and was continually boasting of what the Germans would do when "the Day" came. He remembered, too, how his father scoffed at the warnings of those who foretold that Germany was only awaiting an opportunity for making her tiger-spring, and how he and his brother had been rebuked for heeding the "alarmists." And now the Day had come at last. He wondered what spark had exploded the European powder-barrel, what pretext Germany had alleged for the attack which, he believed, she had long been secretly cherishing and preparing for. In the only letter he had received from England since his arrival, Bob had said nothing of trouble brewing. Whatever the ostensible reason was, he had no doubt the war had sprung from Germany's lust for world-power, and with the easy confidence which too many Englishmen felt in those early days, he believed that the British Navy would square accounts with the Germans before many months had passed. He did not know that Germany had cast her gauntlet in the face of half the world, did not suspect that she had already set the bases of civilisation staggering.As for Africa, he took it for granted that German possessions would soon be wiped off the map. It would have been difficult for a true-born Englishman to think otherwise. All that he wished and hoped for was that he might reach Rhodesia before the last act was played.When about ten days had slipped away, and even Mwesa had nothing to occupy him except the daily search for food, Tom began to fidget for news. He was still unable to walk without pain; inaction irked him, and ignorance of what was going on at the plantation and beyond gave him a fit of the blues. His despondency did not escape the keen eyes of the negro, who at last asked what was troubling him."I want to know things, Mwesa," he answered: "what Reinecke is doing, whether fighting has already begun--all sorts of things. And I want to get away from here and join my own people."The boy's anxious expression cleared; his eyes brightened."Me go; one day, two, me come back tell sah," he said."Do you think you could go safely?"Mwesa looked hurt at the suggestion. Had he not already stolen in and out of the plantation? Why should his master suppose that he could not do it again? He would set off at once, as soon as he had provided food and water for a day or two, and he would come back stuffed with news.The boy was so eager that Tom let him go. He took nothing but his wallet and a knife. By nightfall he would reach the plantation. There he would learn all that was to be learnt from Mirambo: his master would be only one night alone.It was not till the dense blackness of night brooding over the nullah deepened his feeling of solitude that Tom doubted whether he had done right. The boy might not return: who could tell what mischance might befall him? In daytime he might escape the many perils of the forest; but what if he were discovered in his furtive passage of the thorn fence and impressed into the ranks of the recruits? "Without Mwesa what will become of me?" The troublesome question gave Tom no rest as he lay in the hut, listening to the outer noises to which darkness adds mystery and horror. Alone, almost helpless, what could a white man do in the wilds of Africa? Tom was not ordinarily a victim to "nerves"; but the series of shocks he had recently suffered had quickened his imagination in proportion as it had reduced his physical vigour, and the sensations of that night were one long nightmare.At dawn, limp and haggard, he got up, crawled out of the hut, and sat down with his back against a tree-trunk, listening for the return of the negro boy. He heard rustlings among the trees, the call of a quail, the snorting grunt of some animal prowling round the zariba. But neither rustle nor footfall caught his ear when Mwesa suddenly appeared at his side."Come back all right, sah," said the boy cheerfully."But how? I didn't hear you. How did you get in?""Climb tree, sah; come like snake."He had dropped thus into the enclosure to avoid making a gap in the fence. As before, he came laden with food. Welcome as this was, Tom was more eager to have his tale of news; but before Mwesa would relate his discoveries, he produced from his wallet, with much show of mystery, a small bundle with a covering of leaves tied with grass thread. Opening this with an expression of great solemnity, he displayed a lump of some substance olive-green in colour, and of the consistency of putty."Good medicine, sah. Mirambo my uncle: berry clebber pusson. Me make sah well."Dropping to his knees he unwound the handkerchief from Tom's injured ankle, pinched off a small portion of the plastic medicament, and rubbed it gently over the joint, muttering strange words. It gradually softened to a greenish oil. When the joint was thoroughly anointed, the boy bound it again with the handkerchief, jumped up, and, smiling away his look of intent earnestness declared:"Sah, one time better; two time better; t'ree time all same well."Then he unslung from his shoulder a small iron cooking-pot, and sat down to tell his news.At the plantation drill was in full swing. Some askaris had come from Bismarckburg under the charge of a German non-commissioned officer, the former as guards and examples, the latter to train the new recruits. Drill went on all day and every day, the German giving his commands in a Bantu dialect which was hard to understand, with the result that he frequently lost his temper. The negroes who were slow were stimulated by the whips of the overseers. A few rifles had been brought, and some of the quicker men were already being trained in aiming and sighting: as yet they had fired no shot. They were all sullen and resentful; but cowed by the presence of the armed askaris and in constant fear of the whip, they gave no utterance to their feelings in face of their taskmasters, pouring out their hearts only in the seclusion of their own huts and sheds.Reinecke himself was now seldom at the plantation. Mirambo believed that he was busy at headquarters at Bismarckburg. The askaris had said that a great force was being prepared to attack the English in Abercorn, and had boasted of the terrible things they were going to do and the great riches they would soon enjoy. They told of many battles won in the white man's country far away; of many great cities which the Germans had taken; how the King of England and his war chiefs had been hanged by the people, enraged at defeat. Soon there would not be a single Englishman in the whole of Africa."Do they believe that stuff?" said Tom. "It's all nonsense."Mwesa was not at all sure that he had not believed it himself, for how was a simple African to deny what was told him with such assurance? Indeed, even among the Germans, settlers and soldiers alike, in those early days of the war, no rumour was too fantastic to find easy credence. Conceit is a hotbed for credulity. But Tom's vigorous assertion that it was all nonsense was enough to convince Mwesa."Dey silly fellas, sah," he said scornfully. "Mwesa him English: he know all right."Tom knew nothing of the relative strength of the British and German forces in East Africa; but having a Briton's invincible faith in the British Navy, he could not believe that the German colony, cut off from Europe as it must be, could really measure itself against the resources of the British Empire. But he remembered how, in the past, British carelessness and want of foresight had bred disasters only painfully retrieved, and he felt no little anxiety as to how far Northern Rhodesia was prepared to resist the expedition which the Germans were organising.He was only the more eager to join his fellow-countrymen, and take his part in the fight, if fight there was to be. At school he had been colour-sergeant in the cadet corps, and looked back with reminiscent pleasure on the field days, when, in the intervals of business, he had munched apples in a farmer's orchard or solaced himself and his squad with junket in a dairy. "Rummy," he thought, "if all that swat were to turn out useful after all. But here it will be minus the apples and junket."This being his state of mind, he was doubly curious about the healing properties of the stuff"--Mirambo's plasticine, he called it--that Mwesa had brought from his uncle. He was aware almost at once of a lessening of the pain in his ankle. After the second application the swelling was sensibly reduced; within a week he found himself able to walk freely. Mwesa took the cure as a matter of course."What's the stuff made of?" Tom asked him.Mwesa shook his head gravely."Berry good medicine: Mirambo him savvy all same."And that was all that Tom could get out of him.
CHAPTER VI--MWESA'S MISSIONTom could not help laughing as he surveyed the ruins of Mwesa's little building, and the negro himself put his hands on his hips and roared with merriment."Silly fella tink all same proper house," he said, alluding to the crocodile. "Me show him."It was clear that their first task, if they were to remain for any length of time in this spot, must be to construct a more substantial dwelling, and after a light breakfast they set forth to survey for a site. Tom found that his long tramp on the previous day had caused his injured ankle to swell, and he could only get along by hopping on his sound foot. Fortunately he had not far to go before lighting on a suitable situation in a spot above the shore of the lake, where a few isolated trees in the form of a rough circle enclosed a clear space some twenty yards across. Here, after bathing his ankle and tying his handkerchief tightly about it, he sat down to watch Mwesa set about building him a "proper house."The boy cut down with his axe a number of straight saplings, trimmed them, cut them to the same length, and then planted them in a circle in the centre of the space. After a search along the banks of the stream he returned with a load of withies cut from tough creeping-plants. With these he bound the upright poles together: first in the middle, then two feet below, and finally the same distance above. He worked with such astonishing speed that early in the afternoon the framework of the new hut was complete, standing up like a cage or a circular crate. After a short rest he started on the roof. He gathered together a number of flexible saplings, which he laid down on the floor of the hut so that they radiated from the centre like the spokes of a wheel. Then he fastened the ends together, lifting the saplings one by one until the structure resembled the ribs of an inverted Chinese umbrella. When it was finished he drew the loose ends together, turned it upside down, and pushed it up through the open roof space, the ends, when released, resting on the tops of the poles. The skeleton of the hut was complete.Tom envied the boy's dexterity. All his measurements had been made with the eye alone, and Tom reflected that the work would have occupied a white artisan, provided with a foot rule, probably twice or thrice as long. Mwesa promised that another day's work would finish the job.Next day he filled up the interstices between the poles with damp mud, which he carried in his wallet from the edge of the lake. He left a space about three feet square at the entrance; and built up with mud, in the interior of the hut, a long bench some three feet high. The mud dried rapidly in the heat of the day, and when the bench had hardened, he mounted upon it, and wove long grasses in and out among the rods composing the roof, until this was fairly impervious. It would give slight protection against heavy rain, but the rainy season was not yet due, and Tom agreed that the hut would form a very serviceable shelter during the short time he expected to occupy it.It occurred to him, however, to suggest a means of doubly securing themselves against intruders, human or other. The trees surrounding the open space could be turned into an effective zariba by planting poles between them, and interlacing the poles with strands of prickly thorn. Mwesa fell in with the notion at once, but this was a much longer task than the construction of the hut had been, and in fact it occupied him off and on for nearly a week.Meanwhile the food he had brought from the plantation had long been consumed, and he spent part of every day in snaring birds or small animals for the subsistence of himself and his master. It appeared that vegetable food was not to be obtained in this part of the country, and Tom grew somewhat uneasy as to the effect of an uninterrupted diet of flesh. He was uneasy, too, about his injuries. The wound caused by the spike was healing well, but the swelling of his ankle was but little reduced, and it gave him great pain to hobble even a few yards. It was clear that without the ministrations of his faithful and indefatigable boy he would starve.Often as he lay at night, on rushes strewn upon the bench, listening to the cries of night-birds, the bark of distant hyaenas, the coughs of the crocodiles in the lake, the grunts and snarls of beasts that came prowling around the zariba, but never attempted to penetrate it, scared by the fire kept constantly burning within the enclosure--as he lay listening to these eerie sounds he pondered plans for the future. His dearest wish was to make his way to the frontier as soon as he was fit to travel, and to join the British forces which, he supposed, were gathering to resist the German invasion. The news that Germany and Britain were at war had scarcely surprised him. Recollections of what he had heard and seen during his year in Germany seemed to give corroboration enough. He remembered in particular one young German baroness, who had been to school at Cheltenham, and was continually boasting of what the Germans would do when "the Day" came. He remembered, too, how his father scoffed at the warnings of those who foretold that Germany was only awaiting an opportunity for making her tiger-spring, and how he and his brother had been rebuked for heeding the "alarmists." And now the Day had come at last. He wondered what spark had exploded the European powder-barrel, what pretext Germany had alleged for the attack which, he believed, she had long been secretly cherishing and preparing for. In the only letter he had received from England since his arrival, Bob had said nothing of trouble brewing. Whatever the ostensible reason was, he had no doubt the war had sprung from Germany's lust for world-power, and with the easy confidence which too many Englishmen felt in those early days, he believed that the British Navy would square accounts with the Germans before many months had passed. He did not know that Germany had cast her gauntlet in the face of half the world, did not suspect that she had already set the bases of civilisation staggering.As for Africa, he took it for granted that German possessions would soon be wiped off the map. It would have been difficult for a true-born Englishman to think otherwise. All that he wished and hoped for was that he might reach Rhodesia before the last act was played.When about ten days had slipped away, and even Mwesa had nothing to occupy him except the daily search for food, Tom began to fidget for news. He was still unable to walk without pain; inaction irked him, and ignorance of what was going on at the plantation and beyond gave him a fit of the blues. His despondency did not escape the keen eyes of the negro, who at last asked what was troubling him."I want to know things, Mwesa," he answered: "what Reinecke is doing, whether fighting has already begun--all sorts of things. And I want to get away from here and join my own people."The boy's anxious expression cleared; his eyes brightened."Me go; one day, two, me come back tell sah," he said."Do you think you could go safely?"Mwesa looked hurt at the suggestion. Had he not already stolen in and out of the plantation? Why should his master suppose that he could not do it again? He would set off at once, as soon as he had provided food and water for a day or two, and he would come back stuffed with news.The boy was so eager that Tom let him go. He took nothing but his wallet and a knife. By nightfall he would reach the plantation. There he would learn all that was to be learnt from Mirambo: his master would be only one night alone.It was not till the dense blackness of night brooding over the nullah deepened his feeling of solitude that Tom doubted whether he had done right. The boy might not return: who could tell what mischance might befall him? In daytime he might escape the many perils of the forest; but what if he were discovered in his furtive passage of the thorn fence and impressed into the ranks of the recruits? "Without Mwesa what will become of me?" The troublesome question gave Tom no rest as he lay in the hut, listening to the outer noises to which darkness adds mystery and horror. Alone, almost helpless, what could a white man do in the wilds of Africa? Tom was not ordinarily a victim to "nerves"; but the series of shocks he had recently suffered had quickened his imagination in proportion as it had reduced his physical vigour, and the sensations of that night were one long nightmare.At dawn, limp and haggard, he got up, crawled out of the hut, and sat down with his back against a tree-trunk, listening for the return of the negro boy. He heard rustlings among the trees, the call of a quail, the snorting grunt of some animal prowling round the zariba. But neither rustle nor footfall caught his ear when Mwesa suddenly appeared at his side."Come back all right, sah," said the boy cheerfully."But how? I didn't hear you. How did you get in?""Climb tree, sah; come like snake."He had dropped thus into the enclosure to avoid making a gap in the fence. As before, he came laden with food. Welcome as this was, Tom was more eager to have his tale of news; but before Mwesa would relate his discoveries, he produced from his wallet, with much show of mystery, a small bundle with a covering of leaves tied with grass thread. Opening this with an expression of great solemnity, he displayed a lump of some substance olive-green in colour, and of the consistency of putty."Good medicine, sah. Mirambo my uncle: berry clebber pusson. Me make sah well."Dropping to his knees he unwound the handkerchief from Tom's injured ankle, pinched off a small portion of the plastic medicament, and rubbed it gently over the joint, muttering strange words. It gradually softened to a greenish oil. When the joint was thoroughly anointed, the boy bound it again with the handkerchief, jumped up, and, smiling away his look of intent earnestness declared:"Sah, one time better; two time better; t'ree time all same well."Then he unslung from his shoulder a small iron cooking-pot, and sat down to tell his news.At the plantation drill was in full swing. Some askaris had come from Bismarckburg under the charge of a German non-commissioned officer, the former as guards and examples, the latter to train the new recruits. Drill went on all day and every day, the German giving his commands in a Bantu dialect which was hard to understand, with the result that he frequently lost his temper. The negroes who were slow were stimulated by the whips of the overseers. A few rifles had been brought, and some of the quicker men were already being trained in aiming and sighting: as yet they had fired no shot. They were all sullen and resentful; but cowed by the presence of the armed askaris and in constant fear of the whip, they gave no utterance to their feelings in face of their taskmasters, pouring out their hearts only in the seclusion of their own huts and sheds.Reinecke himself was now seldom at the plantation. Mirambo believed that he was busy at headquarters at Bismarckburg. The askaris had said that a great force was being prepared to attack the English in Abercorn, and had boasted of the terrible things they were going to do and the great riches they would soon enjoy. They told of many battles won in the white man's country far away; of many great cities which the Germans had taken; how the King of England and his war chiefs had been hanged by the people, enraged at defeat. Soon there would not be a single Englishman in the whole of Africa."Do they believe that stuff?" said Tom. "It's all nonsense."Mwesa was not at all sure that he had not believed it himself, for how was a simple African to deny what was told him with such assurance? Indeed, even among the Germans, settlers and soldiers alike, in those early days of the war, no rumour was too fantastic to find easy credence. Conceit is a hotbed for credulity. But Tom's vigorous assertion that it was all nonsense was enough to convince Mwesa."Dey silly fellas, sah," he said scornfully. "Mwesa him English: he know all right."Tom knew nothing of the relative strength of the British and German forces in East Africa; but having a Briton's invincible faith in the British Navy, he could not believe that the German colony, cut off from Europe as it must be, could really measure itself against the resources of the British Empire. But he remembered how, in the past, British carelessness and want of foresight had bred disasters only painfully retrieved, and he felt no little anxiety as to how far Northern Rhodesia was prepared to resist the expedition which the Germans were organising.He was only the more eager to join his fellow-countrymen, and take his part in the fight, if fight there was to be. At school he had been colour-sergeant in the cadet corps, and looked back with reminiscent pleasure on the field days, when, in the intervals of business, he had munched apples in a farmer's orchard or solaced himself and his squad with junket in a dairy. "Rummy," he thought, "if all that swat were to turn out useful after all. But here it will be minus the apples and junket."This being his state of mind, he was doubly curious about the healing properties of the stuff"--Mirambo's plasticine, he called it--that Mwesa had brought from his uncle. He was aware almost at once of a lessening of the pain in his ankle. After the second application the swelling was sensibly reduced; within a week he found himself able to walk freely. Mwesa took the cure as a matter of course."What's the stuff made of?" Tom asked him.Mwesa shook his head gravely."Berry good medicine: Mirambo him savvy all same."And that was all that Tom could get out of him.
Tom could not help laughing as he surveyed the ruins of Mwesa's little building, and the negro himself put his hands on his hips and roared with merriment.
"Silly fella tink all same proper house," he said, alluding to the crocodile. "Me show him."
It was clear that their first task, if they were to remain for any length of time in this spot, must be to construct a more substantial dwelling, and after a light breakfast they set forth to survey for a site. Tom found that his long tramp on the previous day had caused his injured ankle to swell, and he could only get along by hopping on his sound foot. Fortunately he had not far to go before lighting on a suitable situation in a spot above the shore of the lake, where a few isolated trees in the form of a rough circle enclosed a clear space some twenty yards across. Here, after bathing his ankle and tying his handkerchief tightly about it, he sat down to watch Mwesa set about building him a "proper house."
The boy cut down with his axe a number of straight saplings, trimmed them, cut them to the same length, and then planted them in a circle in the centre of the space. After a search along the banks of the stream he returned with a load of withies cut from tough creeping-plants. With these he bound the upright poles together: first in the middle, then two feet below, and finally the same distance above. He worked with such astonishing speed that early in the afternoon the framework of the new hut was complete, standing up like a cage or a circular crate. After a short rest he started on the roof. He gathered together a number of flexible saplings, which he laid down on the floor of the hut so that they radiated from the centre like the spokes of a wheel. Then he fastened the ends together, lifting the saplings one by one until the structure resembled the ribs of an inverted Chinese umbrella. When it was finished he drew the loose ends together, turned it upside down, and pushed it up through the open roof space, the ends, when released, resting on the tops of the poles. The skeleton of the hut was complete.
Tom envied the boy's dexterity. All his measurements had been made with the eye alone, and Tom reflected that the work would have occupied a white artisan, provided with a foot rule, probably twice or thrice as long. Mwesa promised that another day's work would finish the job.
Next day he filled up the interstices between the poles with damp mud, which he carried in his wallet from the edge of the lake. He left a space about three feet square at the entrance; and built up with mud, in the interior of the hut, a long bench some three feet high. The mud dried rapidly in the heat of the day, and when the bench had hardened, he mounted upon it, and wove long grasses in and out among the rods composing the roof, until this was fairly impervious. It would give slight protection against heavy rain, but the rainy season was not yet due, and Tom agreed that the hut would form a very serviceable shelter during the short time he expected to occupy it.
It occurred to him, however, to suggest a means of doubly securing themselves against intruders, human or other. The trees surrounding the open space could be turned into an effective zariba by planting poles between them, and interlacing the poles with strands of prickly thorn. Mwesa fell in with the notion at once, but this was a much longer task than the construction of the hut had been, and in fact it occupied him off and on for nearly a week.
Meanwhile the food he had brought from the plantation had long been consumed, and he spent part of every day in snaring birds or small animals for the subsistence of himself and his master. It appeared that vegetable food was not to be obtained in this part of the country, and Tom grew somewhat uneasy as to the effect of an uninterrupted diet of flesh. He was uneasy, too, about his injuries. The wound caused by the spike was healing well, but the swelling of his ankle was but little reduced, and it gave him great pain to hobble even a few yards. It was clear that without the ministrations of his faithful and indefatigable boy he would starve.
Often as he lay at night, on rushes strewn upon the bench, listening to the cries of night-birds, the bark of distant hyaenas, the coughs of the crocodiles in the lake, the grunts and snarls of beasts that came prowling around the zariba, but never attempted to penetrate it, scared by the fire kept constantly burning within the enclosure--as he lay listening to these eerie sounds he pondered plans for the future. His dearest wish was to make his way to the frontier as soon as he was fit to travel, and to join the British forces which, he supposed, were gathering to resist the German invasion. The news that Germany and Britain were at war had scarcely surprised him. Recollections of what he had heard and seen during his year in Germany seemed to give corroboration enough. He remembered in particular one young German baroness, who had been to school at Cheltenham, and was continually boasting of what the Germans would do when "the Day" came. He remembered, too, how his father scoffed at the warnings of those who foretold that Germany was only awaiting an opportunity for making her tiger-spring, and how he and his brother had been rebuked for heeding the "alarmists." And now the Day had come at last. He wondered what spark had exploded the European powder-barrel, what pretext Germany had alleged for the attack which, he believed, she had long been secretly cherishing and preparing for. In the only letter he had received from England since his arrival, Bob had said nothing of trouble brewing. Whatever the ostensible reason was, he had no doubt the war had sprung from Germany's lust for world-power, and with the easy confidence which too many Englishmen felt in those early days, he believed that the British Navy would square accounts with the Germans before many months had passed. He did not know that Germany had cast her gauntlet in the face of half the world, did not suspect that she had already set the bases of civilisation staggering.
As for Africa, he took it for granted that German possessions would soon be wiped off the map. It would have been difficult for a true-born Englishman to think otherwise. All that he wished and hoped for was that he might reach Rhodesia before the last act was played.
When about ten days had slipped away, and even Mwesa had nothing to occupy him except the daily search for food, Tom began to fidget for news. He was still unable to walk without pain; inaction irked him, and ignorance of what was going on at the plantation and beyond gave him a fit of the blues. His despondency did not escape the keen eyes of the negro, who at last asked what was troubling him.
"I want to know things, Mwesa," he answered: "what Reinecke is doing, whether fighting has already begun--all sorts of things. And I want to get away from here and join my own people."
The boy's anxious expression cleared; his eyes brightened.
"Me go; one day, two, me come back tell sah," he said.
"Do you think you could go safely?"
Mwesa looked hurt at the suggestion. Had he not already stolen in and out of the plantation? Why should his master suppose that he could not do it again? He would set off at once, as soon as he had provided food and water for a day or two, and he would come back stuffed with news.
The boy was so eager that Tom let him go. He took nothing but his wallet and a knife. By nightfall he would reach the plantation. There he would learn all that was to be learnt from Mirambo: his master would be only one night alone.
It was not till the dense blackness of night brooding over the nullah deepened his feeling of solitude that Tom doubted whether he had done right. The boy might not return: who could tell what mischance might befall him? In daytime he might escape the many perils of the forest; but what if he were discovered in his furtive passage of the thorn fence and impressed into the ranks of the recruits? "Without Mwesa what will become of me?" The troublesome question gave Tom no rest as he lay in the hut, listening to the outer noises to which darkness adds mystery and horror. Alone, almost helpless, what could a white man do in the wilds of Africa? Tom was not ordinarily a victim to "nerves"; but the series of shocks he had recently suffered had quickened his imagination in proportion as it had reduced his physical vigour, and the sensations of that night were one long nightmare.
At dawn, limp and haggard, he got up, crawled out of the hut, and sat down with his back against a tree-trunk, listening for the return of the negro boy. He heard rustlings among the trees, the call of a quail, the snorting grunt of some animal prowling round the zariba. But neither rustle nor footfall caught his ear when Mwesa suddenly appeared at his side.
"Come back all right, sah," said the boy cheerfully.
"But how? I didn't hear you. How did you get in?"
"Climb tree, sah; come like snake."
He had dropped thus into the enclosure to avoid making a gap in the fence. As before, he came laden with food. Welcome as this was, Tom was more eager to have his tale of news; but before Mwesa would relate his discoveries, he produced from his wallet, with much show of mystery, a small bundle with a covering of leaves tied with grass thread. Opening this with an expression of great solemnity, he displayed a lump of some substance olive-green in colour, and of the consistency of putty.
"Good medicine, sah. Mirambo my uncle: berry clebber pusson. Me make sah well."
Dropping to his knees he unwound the handkerchief from Tom's injured ankle, pinched off a small portion of the plastic medicament, and rubbed it gently over the joint, muttering strange words. It gradually softened to a greenish oil. When the joint was thoroughly anointed, the boy bound it again with the handkerchief, jumped up, and, smiling away his look of intent earnestness declared:
"Sah, one time better; two time better; t'ree time all same well."
Then he unslung from his shoulder a small iron cooking-pot, and sat down to tell his news.
At the plantation drill was in full swing. Some askaris had come from Bismarckburg under the charge of a German non-commissioned officer, the former as guards and examples, the latter to train the new recruits. Drill went on all day and every day, the German giving his commands in a Bantu dialect which was hard to understand, with the result that he frequently lost his temper. The negroes who were slow were stimulated by the whips of the overseers. A few rifles had been brought, and some of the quicker men were already being trained in aiming and sighting: as yet they had fired no shot. They were all sullen and resentful; but cowed by the presence of the armed askaris and in constant fear of the whip, they gave no utterance to their feelings in face of their taskmasters, pouring out their hearts only in the seclusion of their own huts and sheds.
Reinecke himself was now seldom at the plantation. Mirambo believed that he was busy at headquarters at Bismarckburg. The askaris had said that a great force was being prepared to attack the English in Abercorn, and had boasted of the terrible things they were going to do and the great riches they would soon enjoy. They told of many battles won in the white man's country far away; of many great cities which the Germans had taken; how the King of England and his war chiefs had been hanged by the people, enraged at defeat. Soon there would not be a single Englishman in the whole of Africa.
"Do they believe that stuff?" said Tom. "It's all nonsense."
Mwesa was not at all sure that he had not believed it himself, for how was a simple African to deny what was told him with such assurance? Indeed, even among the Germans, settlers and soldiers alike, in those early days of the war, no rumour was too fantastic to find easy credence. Conceit is a hotbed for credulity. But Tom's vigorous assertion that it was all nonsense was enough to convince Mwesa.
"Dey silly fellas, sah," he said scornfully. "Mwesa him English: he know all right."
Tom knew nothing of the relative strength of the British and German forces in East Africa; but having a Briton's invincible faith in the British Navy, he could not believe that the German colony, cut off from Europe as it must be, could really measure itself against the resources of the British Empire. But he remembered how, in the past, British carelessness and want of foresight had bred disasters only painfully retrieved, and he felt no little anxiety as to how far Northern Rhodesia was prepared to resist the expedition which the Germans were organising.
He was only the more eager to join his fellow-countrymen, and take his part in the fight, if fight there was to be. At school he had been colour-sergeant in the cadet corps, and looked back with reminiscent pleasure on the field days, when, in the intervals of business, he had munched apples in a farmer's orchard or solaced himself and his squad with junket in a dairy. "Rummy," he thought, "if all that swat were to turn out useful after all. But here it will be minus the apples and junket."
This being his state of mind, he was doubly curious about the healing properties of the stuff"--Mirambo's plasticine, he called it--that Mwesa had brought from his uncle. He was aware almost at once of a lessening of the pain in his ankle. After the second application the swelling was sensibly reduced; within a week he found himself able to walk freely. Mwesa took the cure as a matter of course.
"What's the stuff made of?" Tom asked him.
Mwesa shook his head gravely.
"Berry good medicine: Mirambo him savvy all same."
And that was all that Tom could get out of him.