Cover art

REINECKE FLUNG UP HIS ARM.

TOM WILLOUGHBY'S SCOUTS

A STORY OF THE WAR IN GERMAN EAST AFRICA

BY

HERBERT STRANG

ILLUSTRATED BY WAL PAGET

HUMPHREY MILFORD
OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS
LONDON, EDINBURGH, GLASGOW
TORONTO, MELBOURNE, CAPE TOWN, BOMBAY
1919

PRINTED 1918 IN GREAT BRITAIN BY R. CLAY & SONS, LTD.,
BRUNSWICK STREET, STAMFORD STREET, S.E. 1, AND BUNGAY, SUFFOLK.

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CONTENTS

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LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

[Reinecke flung up his Arm] (See p. 193) . . . . . . Frontispiece
[Tom took careful Aim and fired]
[Tom makes a Diversion]
[Mwesa flung Himself on the Arab]

[CHAPTER I--TANGANYIKA]

Among the passengers who boarded the Hedwig von Wissmann at Kigoma on Lake Tanganyika, one June day in 1914, there were two who engaged more particularly the attention of those already on deck. The first was a tall stalwart man of some fifty years, with hard blue eyes, full red cheeks, a square chin, and a heavy blond moustache streaked with grey. He stepped somewhat jerkily up the gangway, brought his hand stiffly to his brow in response to the salute of the first officer, and was led by that deferential functionary to a chair beneath the deck awning.

The second presented a striking contrast. Equally tall, he was slim and loosely built, with lean, sunburnt, hairless cheeks, a clean upper lip that curved slightly in a natural smile, and brown eyes that flashed a look of intelligent interest around. He walked with the lithe easy movements of athletic youth, turned to see that the porter was following with his luggage, a single travelling trunk and a rifle case, and satisfied on that score, picked up a deck-chair and planted it for himself where the awning would give shade without shutting off the air.

Both these new arrivals wore suits of white drill, and pith helmets; but whereas the elder man was tightly buttoned, suggesting a certain strain, the younger allowed his coat to hang open, showing his soft shirt and the cummerbund about his waist.

The gangway was pulled in, a seaman cast off the mooring rope, and the vessel sheered off from the landing-stage with those seemingly aimless movements with which a steamer, until she is well under way, responds to the signals from the bridge. In a few minutes the Hedwig von Wissmann was heading southward down the lake, on her three-hundred-mile voyage to Bismarckburg.

The younger of the two passengers lit a cigarette and unobtrusively took stock of his fellow-travellers. The tall man before mentioned was already puffing at a long black cigar, and a steward, with marked servility, had placed a glass of some lemon-coloured liquid on a table at his elbow. Beyond him four men of middle age, also provided with cigars and glasses, were playing cards, not in dignified silence, like Sarah Battle of immortal memory, but with a sort of voracity, and a voluble exchange of gutturals. Sitting apart, smoking a dark briar pipe, sat a grizzled and somewhat shabby passenger who, though the brim of his panama was turned down over his eyes, had nevertheless watched and drawn conclusions about the two strangers.

"H'm! Public school--nineteen, perhaps--griffin--nice lad--clean," his disjointed thoughts ran. "T'other fellow--Potsdam--goose step--beer barrel--don't like the breed."

For a while he sat smoking, giving a little grunt now and then, and now and then a glance at the young Englishman. Presently he heaved himself out of his chair, tilted back his hat, and waddling a few steps, planted himself with legs apart in front of the youth.

"Harrow or Rugby, sir?" he said without preamble.

"Neither, sir," replied the other with a smile. "I was at quite an obscure grammar school--not a public school in the--well, in the swagger sense."

The old man's grey eyes twinkled.

"H'm!" he ejaculated. "Don't get up." He took a chair that stood folded against one of the stanchions and drew it alongside.

"Name, sir?"

The youth looked into the face of his questioner, saw nothing but benevolence there, and thinking "Queer old stick!" answered--

"Willoughby--Tom Willoughby."

"H'm! Not Bob Willoughby's son, by any chance?"

"My father's name was Robert, sir."

"Takes after his mother, I suppose," the old man murmured to himself, but audibly. "Hasn't got Bob's nose. I knew him," he went on aloud. "Saw in The Times he was gone: sorry, my lad. Haven't seen him since '98, when I was in Uganda. Haven't been out since; wanted to run round once more before I'm laid on the shelf. Going to Rhodesia, I presume?"

"No: only as far as Bismarckburg: my father was interested in some land on the edge of the Plateau."

"German land, begad!"

"Well, you see he was partner with a German: went equal shares with him in a coffee plantation seven or eight years ago."

"H'm! Why didn't he stick to mines?" said the old gentleman in one of his audible asides. "And you step into his shoes, I suppose?"

"Not exactly, sir. He left his property to my brother and me jointly. We decided that Bob--he's twenty-four--had better stick to the commission business in London, and I should come out and learn planting, or at any rate see if it's worth while going on; the plantation has never paid, and it's lucky for us we don't depend on it."

"Never paid in eight years? It's time it did. What's your German partner about? I'm an old hand; my name's Barkworth, and I was a friend of your father. My advice is, if your coffee hasn't paid in eight years, cut your losses and try cotton."

"It may come to that; that's what I'm out to discover; but my brother thought it at least worth while looking into things on the spot with Mr. Reinecke----"

"Curt Reinecke?" said Mr. Barkworth abruptly.

"Yes."

"I know him--or did, twenty years ago. He's your partner. H'm!" He blew out a heavy cloud of smoke. Tom looked at him a little anxiously.

"Mr. Reinecke has had a lot of bad luck, sir," he said. "He was always hoping the tide would turn, Bob suggested that he might be incompetent, but my father had complete confidence in him."

"Reinecke incompetent! Bosh! He's clever enough."

There was something in Mr. Barkworth's tone that caused Tom to say--

"I've never met him myself, and I should really be glad of any information, sir. You see, it's rather awkward, dealing with a man old enough to be my father, I mean, and----"

"Yes, of course. Reinecke is a clever fellow; I've nothing against him, but I recommend you to go carefully. I don't like him, but then I don't like Germans."

"I can't say I do," said Tom. "I spent a year in Germany. But I've met a few jolly decent chaps, and seeing that my father thought so highly of Mr. Reinecke----"

"You're predisposed in his favour. Naturally. Well, keep an open mind. Don't be in a hurry to decide. That's an old man's advice. I'm nearly seventy, my lad, and the older I get the more I learn. With people, now--there's the man who falls on the neck of the first comer, and wishes he hadn't. There's the man who stiffens his back and freezes, and then finds that he's lost his chance of making a friend. Don't be like either: 'prove all things'--and men--'and hold fast to that which is good.' H'm! I'm beginning to preach: sure sign of dotage.--You haven't seen a view like that before."

It was indeed a new and an enchanting experience to Tom Willoughby, this voyage on the vast lake, or inland sea, that stretches for four hundred miles in the heart of equatorial Africa. Looking eastward to the nearer shore, he beheld a high bank richly clad with forest jungle, fringed and festooned with lovely creepers and climbing plants. Below, the blue waters, tossed by a south-east breeze, broke high upon a wilderness of rugged rocks; above, masses of cloud raced across the green heights, revealing now and then patches of bare brown rock, now and then the misty tops of distant mountains. The coastline was variegated with headlands, creeks, and bays; southward could be discerned the bold mountainous promontory of Kungwe. Here and there Arab dhows with their triangular sails and the low log canoes of native fishermen hugged the shore; and birds with brilliant plumage glittered and flashed as they darted in and out among the foliage or swooped down upon the surface in search of food.

Tom feasted his eyes on these novel scenes until a bugle summoned the passengers to luncheon. He would have found it a slow meal but for his new friend. They were placed side by side at some distance from the captain, the intervening seats being occupied by the Germans. The planters talked shop among themselves, and Tom was amused at the obsequious gratitude they showed to Major von Rudenheim, the newly arrived German officer, when he dispensed them a word now and then, as a man throws a bone to a dog. The major had the place of honour next the captain, whose bearing towards him was scarcely less deferential. Through the meal the two Englishmen were almost ignored by the rest. Afterwards, however, when the planters had returned to their cards and Major von Rudenheim and Mr. Barkworth had both disappeared, Captain Goltermann came up to Tom where he sat alone on deck.

"Fine country, Mr. Villoughby," he said pleasantly. "I hope you like zis trip."

"Thanks, captain, it's quite charming; but I'm not what we call a tripper."

"So! It is business, not pleasure, zat bring you? But zere shall be pleasure and business, I zink. If I can assist you----"

"Thanks again. I expect Mr. Reinecke to meet me at Bismarckburg."

"Mr. Reinecke! He is great friend of mine. You are lucky to go to him--as pupil, perhaps?"

It seemed to Tom that the amiable captain was trying to pump him, and he smiled inwardly.

"I daresay I could learn a good deal from Mr. Reinecke," he said, guardedly, but with great amiability.

"Zat is certain. He is a most excellent man of business, and as a planter zere is no one like him. Zat I ought to know, because I carry his goods. Yes, truly, many fine cargoes haf I carried from Bismarckburg to Ujiji. Zere vill vun vait me, vizout doubt. Yes, my friend Reinecke is ze model of efficiency--of German efficiency. Ze English are great colonists--so! no vun deny it; and zey are proud zey know how to manage ze nigger--yes? But I tell you--you are young man--I tell you your countrymen cannot make ze nigger vork---ve Germans can."

Tom was to learn later the methods by which the Germans achieved that desirable end: at present he was slightly amused at the Teutonic self-satisfaction of the speaker. It was so like what he had encountered during his year in Stuttgart.

"Ze German kultur," the captain proceeded--"it is carried verever ze German go. Yes; viz our mezod, our zystem, ve create for our Kaiser a great empire in Africa. In ten, tventy year ze Masai, ze Wanyamwezi, ze Wakamba, ze Wahehe, and all ze ozers--zey shall become Germans--black Germans, but ze colour, vat is it? It is of ze skin; I speak of ze soul, sir."

At this moment there was a great hubbub on the lower deck forward, where a motley assortment of natives and Indian traders was located. The captain hurried away; the planters left their cards and flocked to see what was happening. Tom followed them. Looking over the rail, he saw a young negro being dragged along by two petty officers, who cuffed and kicked him between their shouts of abuse. They hauled him on until they stood below the captain, and then explained in German that they had found him hidden among some bales of cargo: he had not paid his passage and had no money.

"Throw him overboard," cried the captain. The planters laughed.

"Only a stowaway," said one, and their curiosity being satisfied, they went back to the awning.

Whether the captain had meant what he said or not, he had turned away, and the officers were apparently about to carry out the order. Tom, understanding German and knowing something of Germans, was nevertheless amazed. Acting on the impulse of the moment he hurried after the captain.

"I say, captain, I'll pay for the boy," he cried. "Let him go."

Captain Goltermann smiled.

"Ze nigger? You are good Samaritan, sir. Vell, it is your affair, not mine. Pay if you please; you fling money avay."

He called to the officers, who gave the boy a parting kick and shot him into the midst of the crowd of shouting negroes before them. Tom paid the passage money, and went back to his chair. Had he made a fool of himself? It was really absurd to have supposed that the Germans would have drowned the boy. "I wonder what Mr. Barkworth would say?" he thought. And then he sprang up and hastened to find the purser: he had suddenly remembered that if the boy had no money for his fare, neither could he pay for his food. "No good doing things by halves," he thought. He told the purser to charge the boy's keep to him, adding: "and don't make a song about it."

[CHAPTER II--PARTNERS]

Tom Willoughby's first impression of Curt Reinecke had an element of surprise. Conspicuous on the landing-stage at Bismarckburg was a thin wiry man of middle height, clad in the loose white garments affected by planters, with a large white linen hat, its brim turned down helmet-wise. The coppery hue of his face was accentuated by a huge white moustache, which projected at least two inches beyond the outlines of his shaven cheeks. He might have passed for a South American president.

"That's Reinecke," said Mr. Barkworth, as he stepped on to the gangway in advance of Tom. "Hasn't altered a jot. His moustache was white twenty years ago; and he was as bald as a bladder. Good-bye, my lad: we may meet again: we may not: God bless you!"

Mr. Barkworth had already explained that, as the Hedwig von Wissmann would remain two or three days at Bismarckburg to unload, he was going to complete his journey to Kitata in Rhodesia by sailing boat. They shook hands cordially and parted.

It was impossible for Reinecke to mistake the lad he had come to meet. Among the passengers who landed there was none so young as Tom, no other who bore the stamp of Englishman. Reinecke came up to him with a smile, lifted his hat, revealing for an instant his smooth pink crown, and said--

"Mr. Villoughby, vizout doubt. A tousand hearty velcomes."

"How d'you do, Mr. Reinecke?" responded Tom. "Glad to meet you."

"Ve shall go to ze hotel for to-day; I shall see to your baggage. To-morrow ve go to ze plantation. Zat zhentleman you part viz--I zink I know his look, but his name--no, I do not remember: it is--no, it vill not come."

"Barkworth."

"Ach! So! Barkvorce. Yes, of course, of course; I remember: it is long ago----"

He stopped abruptly, and gazed after the broad shambling figure with a look that Tom could not fathom. Then he turned to Tom again, begged him to excuse his absence for a moment, and went up the gangway on to the steamer. Returning after a minute or two, he explained that he had arranged for Tom's baggage to be sent to the hotel, and had invited Captain Goltermann to visit the plantation while the vessel remained in harbour.

"I can gif you good shootings," he said, smiling again. "You English are all good sports, eh? And my friend ze captain also is expert viz ze gun."

Tom felt that he had nothing to complain of in the warmth of his reception, and glowed with anticipation of diversifying his business inquiries with sport of a kind new to him.

He learnt that the plantation lay at a distance of about twenty miles from the lake-side, on the Tanganyika Plateau, and could only be reached by a rough path over the hills, impassable for wheeled traffic. But he would not be expected to walk. The journey would be done by machila, which turned out to be a light canvas litter slung on a pole and borne by two strapping natives. Reinecke had brought three pairs of porters, in addition to a dozen who would convey certain bales of stores which had come by the steamer. It was thus a large party that left early next morning, the three white men in their litters going ahead, the porters following at some distance under the charge of an Arab overseer armed with a long whip.

Within half an hour of leaving the port the path entered hilly country, much overgrown with forest vegetation. The air was still, hot and humid, and Tom, though this novel means of locomotion, over rough ground, had its discomforts, reflected that he would have been still more uncomfortable had he walked. Innumerable insects buzzed around, seeking to pierce the protective curtains that enclosed him. Through the meshes of the muslin he saw gigantic ferns, revelling in the moist shade of huge trees, festooned with lianas and rattan. He heard monkeys chattering overhead, the soft notes of doves and the shriller cries of partridges and guinea-fowl; and but for the teeming insects he would have liked to spring from his litter and go afoot, where every yard brought some new beauty, some novel form of life, to view. After three hours the caravan halted, for the purpose of refreshing the Europeans with cool lager beer from bottles carried in ice-packs by one of the natives. It was drawing towards evening when they arrived at a clearing beyond which there was a dense and impenetrable thorn hedge about eight feet high. The path led to a wooden gate set in the midst of the hedge. This Reinecke opened with a key, and he stood back with a smile and a bow as he invited Tom, now on his feet, to enter.

"Zis is our estate," he said. "Vunce more I bid you tousand velcomes, and I vish your visit bring us good luck."

"Thanks very much," said Tom, noticing at the same time that Reinecke's eyes were fixed on the peculiarly stolid face of Captain Goltermann.

"Yes, viz better luck you shall be rich man in a few years, Mr. Villoughby," said the captain. "Zere is no man zat knows like my friend Reinecke ze--ze----"

"Ze ups and downs of coffee," suggested Reinecke. "A good season--yes, zere shall be zree or four tousand kilos ze acre; but a bad season--ah! disease come--who can stop it? Vat physician haf ve for ze cure? Zen--ah! it break ze heart."

Tom looked about him with interest. As far as he could see, extended row on row of coffee plants in straight lines about six feet apart. Between them, at the same interval, were dug shallow pits some eighteen inches deep. He had arrived just at the time when the fruit was ripe, and a number of negroes were busily picking it from the bushes. Here and there among them stood tall Arab overseers, all armed with whips.

Presently the party came to a couple of machines resembling cider presses, which Reinecke explained were pulpers for separating the beans from the reddish pulp that covered them. Then they passed two large brick vats, in one of which the beans were fermented, in the other washed and dried. Beyond these were sheds where the coffee, now ready for market, was stored and packed. And then, in a separate clearing, laid out like a European garden, they came to Reinecke's bungalow, a brightly painted structure of wood, with a long verandah and a thatched roof. A table was laid on the verandah, and a few minutes after his arrival Tom was seated with his host and his fellow-guest at a meal, prepared and served by native servants, which reminded him, with a difference, of the meals he had known the year before, when his father had sent him to Germany.

Finding that Tom understood German, Reinecke conversed in that language, dropping into English now and then to explain technical terms. He related to his interested guests the story of the plantation: how the land was first cleared by cutting down the timber and uprooting the bush: how this was burnt and the ashes mixed with the soil: the months of hoeing: the sowings in the seed beds: the planting out of the seedlings in November, when the rains began: and the tedious three years' waiting before the young plants started to bear. Those three years he had utilised by planting a thorn fence about the whole clearing of some hundreds of acres. Tom supposed that this fence had been erected to keep out wild beasts, for depredations by human marauders were not to be feared in a district where German authority was established. Reinecke assented; but Tom was to discover before many days were past that the fence had another, even a sinister purpose.

The next two days were spent very agreeably in shooting expeditions into the wild country beyond the plantation. Captain Goltermann turned out to be a crack shot, and the greater number of the antelopes and buffaloes which the sportsmen brought down fell to his gun. Tom was all anxiety to get a shot at a lion or even an elephant, which Reinecke told him were to be found in parts of the Plateau; but the Germans were indisposed to take the long journeys that were necessary to reach the habitats of these more dangerous game: Goltermann's visit was to be only a short one.

One trifling incident of these days was to have an important bearing on Tom's fortunes. Captain Goltermann had shot an antelope, but, with less than his usual skill or luck, had only wounded it. Determined not to lose his prey, he followed, accompanied by the others, over a stretch of hilly country, dotted with bush, tracking the animal by its blood-stains into a deep nullah through which a stream flowed. The sportsmen caught sight of it at last, drinking at the border of a lake, the source of the stream. Goltermann had just raised his gun to give the coup de grâce when the antelope suddenly sank into the water and appeared no more.

"We have provided a meal for a crocodile," said the captain with a shrug. "The slimy sneaking reptile!"

"It was bad luck for you, Goltermann," said Reinecke. "The beast was hopelessly trapped; there's no exit from this end of the nullah. Our long tramp for nothing!"

Naturally, it was not until the captain had left that Tom broached the business that had brought him from England.

"Now that we have come into my father's property," he said on the third morning at breakfast, "my brother and I thought it just as well that I should take a trip out and see things on the spot. He explained that in his letter."

"Naturally," said Reinecke. "It is what I should have done myself."

"Of course," Tom went on, "I've only had a year's business training--in Germany, by the way: and I know nothing whatever about coffee: but I know two and two make four, and I'm sure if you'll be good enough to go into things with me, I'll soon get the hang of them. If the plantation can't be made to pay, there's only one way out--sacrifice our interest. On the other hand, if there's a chance of success, I thought perhaps I might stay on here and become a planter myself: it's a life I think I should take to."

"Excellent," said Reinecke. "I am very glad you have come. And if you can suggest some means of making the place pay--well, need I say I shall be delighted. What with poor crops and low prices, and the heavy costs of carriage, it is difficult to wring from it even the small, and I confess unsatisfactory margin which I have been able to show since the plants came into bearing."

It crossed Tom's mind that this pessimistic attitude was hard to square with Captain Goltermann's enthusiastic praise of Reinecke, and his remarks on the valuable cargoes that he had carried; but he remembered Mr. Barkworth's advice to "go carefully," to "keep an open mind," and at present he had no material on which to form a judgment. Nor could he yet decide how to estimate Reinecke. The German had been cordiality itself. He had left nothing undone for his guest's comfort; his manner had every appearance of frankness; yet Tom was conscious in himself of an instinctive reserve, a something undefined that held him back from complete confidence.

"You will see the books, of course," said Reinecke, rising to unlock his desk. "They are kept in German, but after your year's training in Germany that will be no difficulty to you. Here they are: the stock book, the cost book, the ledger: on this file you will find the vouchers for the quantities of beans we have shipped from Bismarckburg. My clerk is very methodical: he is a nigger, but trained in Germany, and in spirit a true German: you will find all in order. I will leave you to examine them at your leisure, and anything you want explained--why, of course I shall be delighted."

Tom spent the rest of the morning in digesting the figures that Reinecke had placed before him. It was a task that went against the grain; he hated anything that savoured of the part of inquisitor; but he reflected that it was purely a matter of business, and being thorough in whatever he undertook he bent his mind to the distasteful job, resolved to get it over as quickly as possible.

As Reinecke had said, everything was in order. There were records of the total quantity of beans produced; he compared the vouchers for the consignments with the entries in the stock book, and found that they tallied. The other books gave him the costs of production, which included wages, provisions, upkeep of buildings and so on; duplicates of the invoices dispatched with the goods to a firm in Hamburg; records of bills of exchange received in payment, and the hundred and one details incident to an export business. Balance sheets had, of course, been sent to his father: here was the material on which those sheets were based, and everything confirmed the position as he already knew it: that the plantation did little more than pay the not inconsiderable salary which Reinecke drew as manager. His and the Willoughbys' shares of the profits were minute.

Tom could only conclude that Captain Goltermann, knowing nothing of the details of management, had drawn erroneous conclusions from the facts within his knowledge. His vessel conveyed a certain number of bags up the lake at certain seasons: that was all. It was easy for a seaman to make mistakes in such a matter. If so, then, what was wrong? Were the costs too high in proportion to the out-turn? Was the acreage under cultivation too small? Was there something faulty in the methods employed? Tom felt that these questions carried him beyond his depth. Would it not have been better to send an expert to make the necessary investigations? That might still have to be done: meanwhile here he was; he must learn what he could, spend a few months in getting a grip of things, keep Bob at home informed, and then go back and consult with him.

When Reinecke returned to lunch, Tom complimented him on the perfect order in which his books were kept, and frankly told him the conclusion to which he had come.

"That means that I must trespass on your hospitality for some months, at any rate," he added. "I shall see the results from this season's crops, your preparations for next, and fresh sowings, I suppose. Of course I can't expect to learn in a few months what has taken you years."

"That is so," said the German, and Tom fancied that there was a shade less cordiality in his manner, which was perhaps not to be wondered at in view of the prospect of having a stranger quartered on him for an indefinite period. "Still," Reinecke went on, "it is with knowledge as with wealth. The heir inherits thousands which his father has laboriously amassed; the pupil enjoys the fruits of his master's long and concentrated study. I think you will be an apt pupil."

He said this with so pleasant a smile that Tom dismissed his feeling of a moment before as unwarranted, and reflected that Reinecke was really taking things with a very good grace.

Next day he accompanied Reinecke to the outlying quarter of the estate where the workers were lodged in huts and sheds constructed by themselves. They were shut off from the outer world by the ring fence, which consisted of quick-growing thorn bushes so closely matted as to form a practically impenetrable barrier many feet thick. There were more than a hundred adult negroes, men and women, employed on the plantation. A number of children playing in front of the huts stopped and clustered together in silent groups when the two white men appeared.

"I suppose the workers get a holiday sometimes?" said Tom, whose schooldays were only eighteen months behind him.

"Of course," said Reinecke. "There are slack times, in the early part of the season between the hoeings, when there is little to be done."

"But I mean, they go away sometimes?"

"Why should they? Where should they go? There is only the forest, and the port. They would be eaten in the forest; they would eat up the port." Reinecke laughed at his joke.

"Then they are practically prisoners?"

"My dear Mr. Willoughby, this is Africa. In Europe you put fences round your cattle: the negroes are just cattle. Break your fences, and your animals stray and are lost. So with the niggers."

"But that is slavery."

"Words! words!" said Reinecke lightly. "They are no more slaves than the apprentices who are bound to their masters for a term of years. They are indentured labourers. They are paid; and there's not a man among them but accumulates enough to make him rich when his time is up."

"They can go to their homes, then, when their time is up?"

Reinecke shrugged.

"As they please," he said. "They have a long way to go. See, Mr. Willoughby, I give you a page from German colonial history. Twenty years ago, in our early days, our brave pioneers of empire had enormous difficulties to contend with. There was one savage tribe, the Wahehe some two hundred miles north of us here, that resisted our civilising mission with especial pertinacity and violence. On August 17, '91, they gained a victory over our much-tried soldiers. They dispersed as we approached, but when the column of Captain von Zelewski was passing through a rugged and densely-grown country it was attacked along its whole length by thousands of the treacherous dogs. Zelewski was among the first to fall; taken at a disadvantage his column was almost annihilated. Ten Germans, sir--ten Germans, I say, as well as over three hundred askaris and porters, were slain. The gallant Lieutenant von Tettenborn fought his way back with a few survivors to Kondoa, and thence reached the coast."

"We've had many incidents of that sort in India and elsewhere," said Tom. "I suppose there was a punitive expedition?"

"There was, sir; but not until three years had passed. For three years those treacherous swine were allowed to flout the German might. Then, in October '94, we captured and destroyed Iringa, their principal village, and were again attacked in the woods on our way to the coast. Some of the petty chiefs held out against us for years, but the German destructive sword is very sure. Finally they were terribly subdued, and some hundreds of them were transported into this Tanganyika country and compelled to earn their living by peaceful toil. My people here are Wahehe. I have one of the very chiefs who opposed us--one Mirambo, a great hunter in his youth. I need not say that I find his woodcraft very useful when I go hunting. By the way, he carried Captain Goltermann's gun the other day. And now you see, Mr. Willoughby, how well off these people are. They might have been treated as rebels; they might have suffered as prisoners of war. Instead, they are indentured labourers, engaged, for pay, in producing a useful commodity--with no profit to their employers, mark you. My dear sir, it is philanthropy."

Tom did not venture to say what he thought. In these early days it was useless to enter into a dispute with Reinecke. But to his British way of thinking the condition of the labourers was simply slavery, however the German might seek to disguise it, and he would make it his business to find out for himself the natives' point of view. If they were contented with their lot, it would be folly to disturb them. But if not--and he remembered the whips he had seen in the overseers' hands--a new system must be introduced, with or without Reinecke's consent.

[CHAPTER III--THE VOUCHER]

During the next two or three days Tom went about the plantation, watching the negroes at their work of picking and pulping the fruit. Reinecke left him in perfect freedom to go where he pleased, and see anything and everything. The natives worked industriously: there was no lack of talk and laughter among them, no indication of discontent or ill-treatment. Tom's misgiving was dissipated; he concluded that the overseers' whips were wands of office rather than instruments of correction. The negroes gazed at him with a certain curiosity and interest. Some smiled, in unconscious response to the charm of his expression, of which he was equally unconscious. One of them, he noticed, a lad apparently about seventeen, looked at him with a peculiar intentness. Once, when, in lighting his pipe, he dropped his box of matches, the young negro sprang forward, picked it up, and handed it to him with a sort of proud pleasure that so trifling a service hardly accounted for.

"Thanks," said Tom, and the lad's face beamed as, admonished by a severe look from the overseer with whom Tom had been talking, he went back to the bush which he had left.

"I hope you will pardon my leaving you so much to yourself," said Reinecke one day. "There is little to be learnt at this season, except what you can see with your own eyes. In seedtime, if you still favour me with your company, I shall have more opportunities of giving you definite instruction. And now what do you say to a little relaxation? Shall we go shooting to-morrow?"

"I shall be delighted."

"Very well. I will give orders that Mirambo and another man shall accompany us to-morrow. We shall find wild geese and snipe at the stream a few miles south; possibly a hippo, if, like most youngsters, you've a fancy for big game."

When they started next morning, Tom looked at the German's gunbearer with a good deal more attention than he had shown previously. It was strange that this humble negro had once been a chief. Mirambo was a well-built man past middle life, quick in his movements, and with large eyes of piercing brilliance. With him was a youth whom even a white man, not easily able to distinguish one negro from another, could hardly fail to recognise as his son. Reinecke gave them their instructions in their own tongue, and with a bullying manner that Tom secretly resented. They received them silently, with an utter lack of expression, displaying none of the interest or alacrity which an English gamekeeper would have shown in similar circumstances.

The party of four set off, the negroes leading. Their destination was one of the rare streams that traverse this part of the Plateau, and make their way in devious course and with many cascades to the great lake below. The morning was still young. By starting early, Reinecke had explained, they would make as large a bag as the men could carry before the midday heat became oppressive, and after a brief rest could stroll leisurely back to a late lunch. Tom reflected that this attitude evinced no great enthusiasm for sport, and concluded that Reinecke was really rather a good fellow in taking so much trouble for the sake of a guest.

It was not until they were well in the forest that Mirambo showed any animation. The instincts of the old hunter awoke. His keen eyes moved restlessly, alert to mark the spoor of beasts in the woods and on the open park-like spaces dotted with acacias, euphorbias, and the wild thick bushes known as scrub. At one spot he became excited, pointing to fresh marks in the soft soil.

"The tracks of a wart-hog," Reinecke explained. "The beast evidently went to his hole not long ago."

"I've never seen one," said Tom. "Couldn't we track him and have a shot?"

"We couldn't carry him home. We're out for birds. Still, I daresay the niggers could dispose of him. You can try your hand if you like."

To Tom's surprise, the negroes, instead of following the tracks in the direction in which the animal had apparently gone, went in the opposite direction.

"They're going away from him," he said.

"No, no," said Reinecke with a smile. "Speak low--or better not at all: he's close at hand."

He halted, bidding Tom stand by with his rifle ready cocked. The two negroes stole forward, and within about fifty yards posted themselves one on each side of a hole in the ground. Then together they began to stamp heavily with their feet, uttering no sound, and keeping their eyes fixed on the hole. Wondering at this strange performance, Tom looked inquiringly at Reinecke, who shook his head and signed to him to be on the alert. Presently there appeared in the hole the ugly tusked snout of a wart-hog. He grunted with annoyance at his slumbers having been disturbed by a shower of falling earth, heaved his ungainly body out, and began to trot away on his short legs directly across the white man's line of fire.

"Now!" murmured Reinecke. "Behind the ear."

Tom shouldered his rifle, took careful aim, and fired. But whether owing to excitement, or to the fact that the animal, through his protective colouring, was almost indistinguishable from the background of brownish bush, his shot missed the vital spot and inflicted only a gash in the shoulder. The infuriated animal wheeled round and charged across the open space. But he had covered only a few yards when a well-planted shot from Reinecke's rifle stretched him on the ground.

TOM TOOK CAREFUL AIM AND FIRED.

"Don't take it to heart," said the German, noticing Tom's crestfallen expression. "Everyone misses his first shot at a wart-hog. I remember a famous sportsman once having to dodge round a tree for a quarter of an hour to escape the tusks of a beast he had only wounded. Better luck next time."

"But why didn't he charge the negroes? He passed within a few inches of them."

"They stood a little way back from the hole, you noticed; and besides, the beast is very short-sighted. You were surprised that all the tracks apparently lead away from the hole instead of towards it. That's not cunning, as it was in the case of that cattle-stealer, wasn't it? in classical story who pulled oxen into a cave by the tails. It's sheer necessity. That hole was once the dwelling of an ant-bear; the wart-hog had appropriated it. But his head and shoulders are so much bigger than the rest of him that he has to go in tail first."

The negroes had rushed to the animal as soon as it fell, lifted the head slightly, and tied it to one of the hind legs with thongs of creeper. Then Mirambo tore a strip from his white loincloth and attached it to the wart-hog's horns.

"That's to scare vultures away until our return," said Reinecke. "In the rainy season myriads of flies would be at the carcase already, but in this dry weather it will probably not suffer much before the niggers get back to cut it up. Hyenas and other scavengers don't prowl till night. Now let us get on."

The negroes, whose pleasure is always rather in the quarry than in the chase, were delighted at having secured, without trouble to themselves, a quantity of fresh pork to carry home, and went on with alacrity to the stream a few miles away. Here, in the course of a couple of hours, the two white men had shot as many geese, quail, and guinea-fowl as the negroes could conveniently carry slung about their bodies, with the prospect of the addition of a good many pounds of hog's flesh later. Tom was disappointed of his half-cherished hope of bagging a hippo; but his morning's sport had been sufficiently exciting to form an interesting part of his next budget of news for his brother.

A negro carried the mail to Bismarckburg once a week, and Tom had already dispatched his first letter, giving a description of the plantation and a running account of his experiences so far. He had confined himself to statements of fact, saying nothing about the problems he found himself faced with--the character of Reinecke and the conditions of the negro labour. Until he should have arrived at definite conclusions on these matters he felt that it would be unwise to trouble his brother with them.

In his second letter he related further sporting expeditions, in some of which he had been accompanied by Reinecke, in others only by Mirambo and other natives. He had shot several hartebeeste and waterbuck, which Mirambo was accustomed to skin and cut up on the spot. On these occasions Tom was tempted sometimes to question the negro directly about the conditions of his employment; but he was held back by a sense of loyalty to Reinecke. Pending further light on the man himself, he would rely solely on his own observations.

It was at the end of the third week of his stay that the first really disquieting incident occurred. Reinecke had gone to Bismarckburg, and Tom, having time on his hands, had made up his mind to write a long letter home. Going to the desk to get some paper, he discovered that the drawer in which he had usually found it was empty, and he tried the drawer below. This, however, would not open fully: it stuck half way. He put his hand in, thinking that something had probably become wedged between the upper part of the drawer and the one above. It was as he had supposed. By pushing in the drawer a little, he was able to work out the obstruction, which turned out to be a paper, half folded and much creased. On the portion that was not folded down he saw a series of figures like the numbers on the vouchers which were kept on a file.

"An old voucher," he thought; and unfolded it to see if it were worth keeping. To his surprise it was dated Nov. 17, 1913, and evidently belonged to the series which he had examined in connection with the accounts of the past year. But that series had corresponded exactly with the entries in the stock book--or had he made a mistake? To reassure himself he got out the file, turned to the vouchers for November, and once more compared them with the book. There was no discrepancy. The book showed that on Nov. 17, 1913, a consignment of 1000 kilos was shipped on board the Hedwig von Wissmann, and there was a voucher corresponding. The voucher he had just found was for a consignment of 1000 kilos.

This was odd. The numbers on the two vouchers were consecutive: clearly they did not refer to the same consignment. Yet there was only one entry of that date in the book. If one had been a duplicate or a carbon copy of the other, the matter would have been easily explicable; but both were originals, and written in the same clerkly hand.

Troubled, for it was impossible to crush down a suspicion, Tom put the voucher into his pocket, and went out into the plantation.

"I'll write to Bob to-morrow," he said to himself. At the back of his mind there was the feeling that he might have more to say than he had expected.

Reinecke was in good spirits when he returned about sunset.

"I've just made an excellent contract with a dealer representing a new house," he said. "He'll take all next season's crop, at a good price. I hoped your visit would bring us good luck, and this is the best."

"Capital news," said Tom. The German's manner was so frank and cordial that he was almost ashamed of his suspicion. "By the way, I found this to-day: it was stuck between two drawers. Is it any good?"

He handed Reinecke the voucher, folded. The German opened it, and said instantly, with a smile--

"At last! I wondered what had become of it. It is a voucher I lost, and I got the shipping clerk to give me another. You found that on the file all right?"

"Yes."

"You don't know how I worried about that lost voucher. And you found it wedged between the drawers? Extraordinary way things have of disappearing! Well, we don't want it now. But I'm glad you found it."

He tore it across and threw the pieces into the waste-paper basket.

"Now for dinner," Reinecke went on. "I hope your appetite is as good as mine. And how have you put in your time to-day?"

The German's explanation was so natural and reasonable, so ready, his manner so free from embarrassment, that Tom was for the moment quite reassured, and chatted unconstrainedly until bedtime--and Reinecke appeared to take great pleasure in making him talk. But later, in the privacy of his room, some rather troublesome questions suggested themselves. Was it not unlike a shipping clerk to issue a duplicate without writing "duplicate" upon it? How was it that duplicate and original bore consecutive numbers, when at least two or three days must have elapsed between them? It was very odd that no consignment from another firm should have been shipped in the interim. And then suddenly Tom flushed. "By George!" he thought. "I'm hanged if the duplicate hasn't got the earlier number!"

Then he wondered whether he was not mistaken. Saying to himself, "I must find out for certain," he went back to the living-room to examine the fragments in the waste-paper basket. He passed the door of Reinecke's room, and heard his host splashing within.

The basket had been emptied.

The discoveries he had made kept Tom awake during a good part of the night. They were very disturbing. Reinecke's explanation had been plausible enough, and it was possible Tom was mistaken in his recollection of the numbers on the vouchers. But the German's haste in disposing of the contents of the basket bred an ugly suspicion. Were there other such "duplicates" in existence? Did the books account for only a part of the consignments? Had Reinecke, in fact, been systematically robbing his partners? Tom felt worried and perplexed. Here, thousands of miles from home, young and inexperienced, he was hardly in a position to deal with a clever rogue, if Reinecke was in truth a rogue; and he wished that he had some older person at hand, some one like blunt, rugged old Mr. Barkworth, to whom he could turn for advice. He was not likely to find any help among the Germans in Bismarckburg, and inquiries of the shipping clerk would probably be fruitless. Of course, he might question Reinecke's own clerk, but that course had very obvious disadvantages.

He concluded that he could do nothing at present except mention the matter in his next letter to his brother, and be more than ever alert in studying his host. To play the part of detective was abhorrent, but there seemed to be no help for it, and he writhed inwardly at the idea of living under the same roof with a man whom he distrusted but with whom he must try to keep up an appearance of friendship.

When the next mail day came, his feeling of mistrust prompted him to give his letter into the hand of the negro postman just as the latter was starting. Reinecke's correspondence was as usual placed in a padlocked bag. The man had gone about a mile on his way from the plantation when Reinecke overtook him, carrying two letters.

"I forgot these," he said. "Put down your bag."

He unlocked the bag, dropped his letters into it, and took up the voucher slip bearing the number of letters enclosed; this would be signed at the post office and brought back with the incoming mail.

"That letter of Mr. Willoughby's had better go in too," he said. "Give it to me."

The man took it from the folds of his loincloth, and Reinecke appeared to drop it into the bag. In reality he put it into his pocket. Having altered the figures on the slip, he relocked the bag and dismissed the man. Twelve hours later the postman returned and delivered his bag as usual into his master's hand.

Next day, in going about the plantation, Tom, as was natural enough, sought the negro, to ask him whether he had duly posted the letter entrusted to him in so unusual a manner. But he could not find the man, and on asking where he was, learnt that he had been sent on an errand to Bismarckburg. It was nearly a fortnight before he returned to the plantation, and by that time Tom was no longer in a position to make any inquiry of him.

[CHAPTER IV--TRAPPED]

"You talked of slavery," said Reinecke one day. "Our niggers were no better than slaves! Have you seen anything to confirm that rather scandalous suggestion?" His tone was lightly sarcastic.

"If you mean any signs of positive ill-treatment, none," said Tom. (He was not aware that Reinecke had given the overseers strict orders not to use their whips while the Englishman was on the spot). "But I had always understood that the negro is naturally a cheerful person----"

"Well!" interrupted Reinecke. "Don't they laugh enough? Don't they make noise enough?"

"The youngsters do make a great row," Tom confessed smiling; "of course children always are noisy and happy; they don't understand. But the older men seem rather apathetic. Apart from actual ill-treatment, of which I do you the justice to say there's no sign, the mere loss of liberty must be horribly depressing. You admit that they can't leave if they want to."

"Not at all. Some have at times cut a way through the hedge. They've repented of it." He smiled grimly. "But now, what would be a convincing proof to you that things here are after all not so bad?--that the life has some attractions, even for the freedom-loving negro?"

"The return of one who had escaped, I suppose."

"That's a proof I can hardly give you, because the few who have escaped--or run away, as I should put it--have either been caught and brought back or have no doubt come to grief in the forest. But I can give you an instance of a nigger coming here of his own accord, and being apparently quite content to remain."

"Indeed!"

"Yes; and, strangely enough, he arrived on the same day as you. You won't suggest that you are the attraction?"

Tom resented this unmannerly remark, still more the tone in which it was uttered, but he said nothing.

"As you may imagine," Reinecke went on, "I don't know all the people. My Arabs look after them. And I shouldn't have known anything about this voluntary slave but for the fact that I mistook him for Mirambo's son, and one of the overseers corrected me. It appears that when we landed our stores from the Hedwig von Wissmann that day, we were one porter short, and this fellow, a sturdy lad, was hanging about and appeared to have nothing to do. He was engaged and came up with the others and stayed on--works well, and is quite cheerful, I'm told. He's astonishingly like Mirambo's boy. Some of these niggers claim to be descended from their old kings or chiefs: Mirambo himself does; and it's quite possible that this youth comes of the same stock. There's a jotting for your note-book, if you are making notes, and I daresay you are."

Again there was a covert sneer in the German's tone. Tom felt that he would soon have to quarrel with his host. As soon as he should have come to a definite conclusion about the man's integrity he would cut his visit short.

It seemed, indeed, as if Reinecke was determined to make him feel that he had overstayed his welcome. Once or twice, when he asked that Mirambo or his son might accompany him shooting, Reinecke declared that he could not spare any of the men; it was the busiest time of the year, not a time for amusement.

"But there's no reason why you shouldn't go alone, if you find idleness boring," he added once. "There are no dangerous beasts in our immediate neighbourhood. I'd only warn you not to go too far."

Tom was glad enough to take him at his word. While the fruit-picking was going on, there was nothing for him to learn, and Reinecke had been so ungracious lately that companionship was impossible. So he went occasionally into the woods alone, never straying more than a mile or two from the plantation, and taking even more pleasure in quietly watching the smaller animals--the tree-lizards, chameleons, iguanas--than in shooting pigeons or teal. His hope of big-game hunting was apparently to remain unrealised.

One day on returning he found Reinecke in a particularly good humour.

"I have had a visit to-day from a high German officer, Major von Rudenheim," he said: "an excellent soldier. He came on the boat with you, of course: did you have the pleasure of conversing with him?"

"No. He seemed to me too much of what we call a big pot."

"True: our German officers are very much above civilians. In any case, however--you are not aware that I hold the rank of Captain of Landwehr? So we met, as it were, on equal terms, though he is a step higher in rank. And I have another piece of news for you. Eland have been seen near that small lake where we shot buck with Captain Goltermann, you remember. Would you like to add elands' horns to your trophies?"

"I should indeed," replied Tom, again wavering in his estimate of Reinecke. "He really isn't a bad sort at times," he thought.

Next morning happened to be mail day, and as Reinecke had letters to write, Tom feared that he was to be disappointed. But the German was again in excellent temper.

"You can start without me," he said. "I shall be through with my letters in an hour or so, and I'll follow you and meet you near the edge of the lake--you remember, by that fallen tree where we ate our lunch. Don't startle the game away: it will be a little practice in stalking for you. I'll bring the men along with me."

Tom set off, determined to show that the woodcraft he had picked up during the past few weeks was not inconsiderable. He reached the appointed spot, and ventured to cast about in various directions, without, however, finding any traces of the eland. Returning to the rendezvous, he was there joined by Reinecke, alone.

"I'm afraid the bird has flown," he said ruefully. "I haven't seen a sign of them."

"I will show you," replied Reinecke with a smile. "We shall have to stalk them, and we'll see what we can do without Mirambo's assistance. He'll bring up some men presently to carry home the game."

He set off along a faint native track, so long disused and so much overgrown that Tom by himself would hardly have discovered it. They pushed their way through the vegetation, and after about a quarter of an hour Reinecke whispered to Tom to stop and be careful to make no noise.

"We ought to find our quarry in a glade just ahead," he said. "I'll go on: follow when I call."

He disappeared among the undergrowth. In a few minutes Tom heard a shot, then a faint call, and hurried eagerly on. The track widened a little, and Tom was quickening his steps when he suddenly felt the earth give way beneath his feet, and next moment found himself lying at the bottom of a deep pit, amidst a litter of earth and brushwood, and conscious of a sharp pain in the calf of his left leg. Almost stunned by the fall, he lay for a moment or two scarcely able to realise what had happened. Then he shouted for help.

There was no answer. All was silent except for the hum of insects and the rustling of some small animals which his sudden descent upon their lair had disturbed. He shouted again, more loudly; then, supposing that his voice from the depth of the pit had not penetrated to Reinecke's ears through the vegetation above, he reached for his rifle, which lay beside him, and fired a couple of shots into the air. Not yet seriously uneasy, he stooped to see what caused the pain in his leg, and found that it had been gashed by one of some half-dozen sharp-pointed stakes that were planted in the bottom of the pit.

"A native game-pit," he thought. "Reinecke might have warned me."

Standing up, he discovered that his right ankle was sprained.

"They'll have to carry me home," he thought, "and the sooner the better; the stuff here must have been rotting for years. I wish to goodness Reinecke would come."

Once more he shouted, then tried to scale the wall of the pit; but this was perpendicular, and it was evidently a case of cutting notches in it--a tiresome job to a man who could scarcely stand. It struck him that he had better bind up the gash in his leg as well as he could. When the men came he would get them to carry him to the lake and bathe the wound. How lucky it was that he had escaped with only one wound, and that in no vital spot! Looking at that ugly array of spikes, he shuddered at the thought of the hideous injuries they might have inflicted.

While tying his handkerchief tightly round his leg he shouted from time to time. Was it possible that Reinecke had met with a similar misfortune? For the first time Tom felt really uneasy. Reinecke's call to him had been very faint, and had not been repeated. If they were both in the same predicament there was no hope of relief until the negroes came up from the plantation. To make sure of their not missing him, he shouted and fired at intervals, until almost all his cartridges were gone. Still there was no response.

He looked up the wall of the pit. It was eleven or twelve feet high. If only he could raise himself high enough to get his arms on the edge, the rest would be easy. It should not take very long to cut a few notches in the earth: one of the spikes would form a serviceable tool. He worked one out of the ground, and rose to his feet, wincing with the pain that shot through his sprained ankle. To his chagrin, the earth of the pit wall was friable. It crumbled as he drove the spike into it; so far from making a hole that would afford him a firm foothold, he succeeded only in breaking down a part of the wall.

"Fairly trapped," he thought, and sat down again to ease his aching legs.

His watch announced midday. The men ought to have arrived by this time. They would carry food and drink, and he was very thirsty. The rendezvous was well known to them: surely they had not mistaken Reinecke's instructions. And then at last he was startled by a suspicion that sprang up suddenly in his mind--a suspicion so horrible that he strove to crush it. Reinecke might have lied to him about the vouchers; was he villain enough to have decoyed him deliberately to this cunningly concealed trap--deliberately schemed to clear finally out of his path the man whom he regarded as a stumbling-block on his way to fortune, the discoverer of his crimes?

The thought, terrible as it was, would not be stifled. Tom recalled the gradual changes in the German's manner--the descent from almost excessive cordiality to stiffness, sarcasm, positive rudeness: then the sudden return to geniality, the apparent eagerness to indulge his guest. For the first time he was struck with the peculiar arrangements for the day's shooting expedition--the sending him on alone, the absence of gunbearers. This train of thought, once started, was carried on remorselessly by Tom's active imagination. Granted the man's intention of putting him out of the way, how easily one detail fitted into another! How naturally the Englishman's disappearance could be explained! It was known to every one on the plantation that he had sometimes gone shooting alone. Reinecke could say, and his statement could be corroborated, that his guest had started alone on this morning, he himself being engaged with correspondence. He had followed later, according to arrangement, but had failed to meet the Englishman at the appointed spot. He had searched for him, and after some days had found the poor fellow's remains at the bottom of an old, long disused game-pit. How plausible the story would be! Bob, thousands of miles away, would grieve: the story might get into the papers: people would read the paragraph, perhaps sigh, and pass on to a scandal nearer home, or to the latest news of the trouble in Ireland. In a few weeks Tom Willoughby would be only the shadow of a name.

Impatient with himself at the length his imagination had carried him, Tom shouted again, fired off another cartridge--the last but one. "I must keep one for emergencies," he thought. He made another attempt to cut holes in the wall, and threw the spike from him in disgust at the second failure. It occurred to him to heap up debris at the foot of the wall, to form a mounting block; but at the stirring of the putrid mass innumerable insects, beetles, reptiles, foul nameless things issued forth, causing him to shudder with loathing, and to shrink at actual pain from their bites and stings. Overcome with nausea, he retreated to a far corner where this creeping population had not been disturbed, and for a time, weary as he was, sickened by his increasing pain, he leant against the wall, rather than sit down again, until sheer fatigue compelled him to make an uneasy seat of his slanted rifle.

With the passage of time his thirst became a torture, and the shouts he uttered ever and anon sounded cracked and harsh from his parched throat. A sort of lethargy settled upon him: not a stoic resignation, a calm acquiescence in fate's decree, but a numbness of the senses and the mind. For a time he was scarcely conscious of pain, of the things moving at his feet, of the gradual cooling of the air as evening drew on. Then he roused himself with a start, and heedless of stings and the loathsome touch of obscene creatures, he gathered up heaps of rotted leaves and twigs and the litter that had fallen under him, and began with frantic energy to pile them against the wall. His weight crushed them into half their former bulk, and he fell exhausted on the futile pillar.

Night came on. Alternately he dozed, and awoke to a sharpened keenness of apprehension. Now and then he heard noises above--the harsh persistent note of the nightjar, the hollow melancholy scale of the hornbill, the horrid whine of hyenas prowling in quest of prey and calling to one another with increasing frequency as the night stole towards dawn. A sudden raucous cry, apparently near at hand, caused him to seize the spike for defence in case some unwary beast should stumble into the pit. Once he beheld a pair of eyes, glaring with greenish light upon him from the brink. He uttered a hoarse cry: the eyes disappeared: and he seemed to hear a creaking rustle among the trees above.

Slumber again sealed his senses, and when he awoke, the pale misty light of dawn threw green rays into his prison. His limbs were numb with cold. His dry throat gave forth only a whistling croak when he tried to shout. Scarcely able to move, he watched the mouth of the pit and the sunlight filtering through the foliage and dispersing the mist. Listless, unconscious of the flight of time, he was just aware of the lengthening day as a sunbeam climbed down the side of his prison. All at once he was shaken into attention by a sound overhead, and while he was feebly trying to call, a shadow fell across the opening. A man's form appeared, and with a gasp of unutterable thankfulness he saw Reinecke peering down upon him. He struggled giddily to his feet: surely the bitterness of death was past.

But what was Reinecke saying? What words were these, that struck upon his ear in spasms, as it were?

"You came to spy ... enjoy your visit ... mad English ... war with Germany ... learn what it means to provoke the German."

He tried to collect his bewildered senses. It was Reinecke. What was he talking about? "Expedition to conquer Rhodesia ... months before I return ... a safe resting-place ... gather remains ... nothing but bones ... white bones."

Had Reinecke gone? The voice had ceased; the sunlight fell unchecked: and Tom, in a last flash of illumination before the darkness of unconsciousness enshrouded him, realised that Reinecke had betrayed him and had left him here to die.

[CHAPTER V--A FRIEND IN NEED]

On the previous evening, when the day's work on the plantation was over and the workers had returned to their homes, a young negro left the large dwelling which he shared with a number of other unmarried men, and betook himself to the hut where Mirambo was supping with his family.

"Have you eaten already, Mwesa?" asked the old hunter.

"No. I am not hungry. He has not come back."

The lad's eyes were wide with anxiety. No one could have failed to notice how strongly he resembled Mushota, the slightly older lad squatting by his father's side.

"Has the Leopard come back?"

"He came back at midday. The Antelope will never come back."

"Why so, Mwesa?"

"There has been whipping to-day."

Mirambo's face clouded. There had been no whipping since the Antelope, as Tom Willoughby was known among the negroes, had come to the plantation. The Leopard was their name for Reinecke. The negro is very shrewd, and it had not needed certain information brought by Mwesa to make the people connect the cessation of corporal punishment with the presence of the young stranger. That information, however, given first to Mirambo, had spread through the whole community, and was talked of freely among themselves. But it had never reached the ears of the Arab overseers: oppression is always met by secrecy. Neither they nor Reinecke knew that the young negro who had marched from Bismarckburg among the porters, and had remained a willing worker on the plantation, was not the chance recruit he had seemed to be. The stowaway of the Hedwig von Wissmann had come of set purpose; and when Reinecke sarcastically asked Tom whether he supposed his attractions accounted for the boy's staying on, he had unwittingly hit upon the truth. Mwesa had stayed as a starved and beaten dog will stay with one who has been kind to him.

Quite unaware of the interest he had excited among these simple negroes, Tom had been watched, all his movements commented on, from day to day. Whether by observation or by instinct the negroes knew that there was some intimate connection, obscure to them, between him and their taskmaster. They judged that the young Englishman was an object of respect or fear to the German, for Mwesa had told them that he was English and that the English did not whip their workers, except perhaps in punishment for crime. The Leopard had some reason for drawing in his claws.

Mwesa, like others, had seen the Englishman start, unattended, with his gun. He had done so before: those who saw him go marked the fact as they marked all that he did, but thought no more about it--except Mwesa, who watched all day for his hero's return. He had noticed, moreover, the going and the coming of Reinecke, also with his gun; and he had been troubled when the German returned alone, and when at sunset the Englishman was still absent.

"The Leopard has killed," said Mirambo after an interval of gloomy silence.

Mwesa burst into tears.

When he left the hut later, after eating a bowl of manioc, he carried a long sharp knife. Stealing along behind the huts, he made his way in the darkness to a remote spot, climbed up into a tree, and disappeared. Half an hour later he crept back to Mirambo's hut, restored the knife, which the man would have to account for next day, and then returned to his own lodging, and slipped in unperceived by his fellow inmates. His exit was prepared, but no negro travels willingly by night.

Next day, at the time when the negroes had their midday meal, he was about to make his escape from a place no longer endurable to him, when he caught sight of Reinecke leaving by the gate, again unattended. Mwesa looked around; no one else was in sight. He shinned up the tree he had climbed the night before. A few minutes later he was running like a wild animal through the scrub outside the fence. He posted himself among the trees at a spot where he could not fail to see Reinecke as he left the gate. When the German had passed, the negro followed him with the stealth of one come of a long line of hunters, tracking him over the course he had pursued on the previous day, without revealing himself by so much as a rustle among the leaves or the crack of a fallen twig.

As Reinecke approached the pit, no guardian spirit told him of the watcher whose eager face was looking at him out of a frame of green foliage, whose keen ears pricked up as he heard his master speaking to some one below him. When the German, his eyes alight with malign triumph, turned to retrace his steps there was nothing to show that he had been found out; the face had disappeared. Nor could Reinecke suspect that he was dogged back to the plantation, and that when the gate had closed upon him, a negro lad, lithe as a young antelope, bounded back to the pit, and peered anxiously into the depths.

Tom had relapsed into a state of half-consciousness. He was roused by a voice, and looking up, saw a black shiny face gazing down upon him. Two rows of white teeth parted, two big eyes danced with delight when they saw the white man glance upward.

"Sah, sah!" called the voice.

"Who are you?" Tom murmured faintly.

"Me Mwesa, sah; me come back bimeby, you see."

The lad ran back into the forest. Tom lay as in a dream. Who was this negro that spoke negro's English, and had called him "sah"? He had never heard any of Reinecke's slaves use English, yet what negro in these parts could be other than one of Reinecke's slaves? Where had the boy gone? What was he going to do? Tom felt almost too weak and listless even to hope.

After what seemed a very long time the negro came back, carrying a long green rope which he had plaited from strands of creepers. His face beamed with excitement and joy. Making one end of the rope fast to a sapling that grew near the edge of the pit, he threw the other end down and laughed when he saw that a long coil lay at the bottom. Then he swarmed down until he stood over Tom, and exclaimed:

"Sah climb; all right now."

"Who are you?" Tom asked again.

"Me Mwesa. No talk now: talk bimeby. Dis bad place."

But climbing was easier said than done. Tom was amazed to find how weak he was after only twenty-four hours' confinement in the pit. "Have I so little staying power?" he thought. But twenty-four hours in heat and squalor, without food or water, with a wounded leg and a sprained ankle, and a mind racked with anxiety and foreboding, would have put a tax on the strongest.

He found himself unable to climb. Whereupon Mwesa knotted the rope about his waist, swarmed up the rope again, and hauled until sweat poured from his body. As soon as Tom was safely over the brink, the lad let himself down once more into the pit, and returned with Tom's rifle and a couple of the sharpened stakes.

"Come 'long, sah," he said: "me find place."

Tom allowed himself to be helped along, asking no questions, content for the present to have regained freedom after the horrors of the past twenty-four hours. Mwesa led him along the old native track, in the opposite direction from the plantation. Presently they came to a brook tumbling over rocks. Here he bathed his aching limbs and drank deep draughts.

"Where are you taking me?" he asked.

"No savvy, sah: all right bimeby," replied the boy.

They started again. Mwesa kept carefully to the track, tracing it unerringly even where it was almost obliterated. The forest was thick all round, and Tom, at another time, might have felt uneasy at this apparently aimless wandering. Now, however, one way was as good as another, so long as it did not lead back to the plantation.

Mwesa had no doubt guessed that the track would sooner or later lead to a clearing. After more than an hour's painful walk, Tom found himself at the edge of what had once been an open space, but was now an expanse covered with scrub and forest trees of recent growth.

"Stay dis place, sah," said the negro.

Tom was ready to stay anywhere. He sank down on the ground, and lay, resting and watching the further proceedings of his rescuer. The lad cut down a number of young pliable branches, trimmed them to the same length, and stuck them into the ground in a circle, at equal intervals apart, bending them at the top until all met. Then he wound long grasses and tendrils of creepers in and out around the whole circumference, until in a surprisingly short space of time he had fashioned a rough and ready circular hut at the corner of the clearing, which was almost completely hidden by rank growths of vegetation. He smiled with pride in his handiwork when he invited Tom to enter.

"Come back bimeby," he cried, and darted away into the forest. When he returned he brought a wild gourd full of water and a handful of berries.

"No can get nuffin else," he said deprecatingly.

"They will do very well," said Tom, who indeed could have eaten sawdust after his long fast. "Now tell me who you are, and how you found me, and why you are helping me."

The smile that spread over the lad's face awoke in Tom a dormant memory. Surely this was the boy who had rushed so eagerly to pick up his match-box a day or two after he had reached the plantation.

"Sah sabe Mwesa, Mwesa sabe sah," said the negro, happily.

"Save! What do you mean?"

"On boat, sah: German man kick, say frow me in water: sah pay cash, all right all same."

"Oh!" exclaimed Tom, feeling a touch of embarrassment. That little unconsidered act of kindness had surely not won such devotion as to bring the boy into slavery for his sake? "Tell me about yourself," he said.

The negro's story, told in his strange English, took a long time in the telling, so roundabout was the course of the narrative, so much broken by explanations and cumbered by trifling details. But the gist of it, as understood by Tom, was as follows--

Mwesa was the son of Miluma, once a notable chief of the Wahehe, and one of those who had sustained for a long time the resistance of his people to the Germans. At length he had fallen into the enemy's hands, and had been among the first batch of labourers who had cleared the ground for Reinecke's plantation. Miluma's wife and two of his children had died under their hardships, and the chief, left with Mwesa alone, had fled with the boy, and, more lucky than other negroes, had neither been recaptured nor killed in the forest. He had fallen in with an English trader, with whom he had taken service, accompanying him in his journeys through the country of the Great Lakes, and living at other times among his native household at Zanzibar. Mwesa, only a few years old at the period of the escape, had at first remained in Zanzibar during his father's absence, but at the age of twelve he, too, had travelled with the Englishman's caravan, and had picked up a smattering of English as well as of the dialects of the tribes through whose countries he had passed.

Then his father died, the Englishman returned to Europe, and Mwesa, now seventeen, was left alone in the world. Having a little money in his possession, he bethought him of his uncle Mirambo, whose large family had prevented him from escaping at the same time as Miluma, and of whom his father had often spoken. He would return to the plantation, see if his uncle were yet alive, and perhaps help him, or any of his family who were still living, to escape with him to British territory. He took passage in a dhow that was sailing down the lake, but the vessel had been blown ashore, and the shipwrecked crew and passengers robbed of all they possessed by predatory natives. Mwesa and one other had got away, and after an adventurous journey had arrived at Ujiji. Learning there that a steamer was expected at Kigoma, Mwesa had made his way to the port and smuggled himself on board.

On arriving at Bismarckburg he had found that the young Englishman who had befriended him on board the vessel was going to the plantation which was his own goal, and had at once sought employment among the porters. It seemed to him that the presence of an Englishman was a good augury for the success of his mission. He had remained at the plantation, always on the watch; and it was not long before he suspected that Reinecke had a grudge against his benefactor. Slight signs that might have escaped the notice of anybody who had not a personal interest in the Englishman had betrayed to him and to Mirambo the real feelings of the German; and Mwesa had now a double motive: the rescue of his uncle and the care of the white man. For the sake of the latter uncle and nephew had concealed their relationship, awaiting the day when, as they expected, the Englishman would leave. On that day they, too, would go. But the crisis had come in an unforeseen manner. The disappearance of the Englishman and Reinecke's strange movements had intensified their suspicions, and Mwesa had stolen out to discover what the German had done with his guest.

Tom thanked the boy warmly for what he had done for him. He was a good deal troubled in mind, and passed many hours of the night in that grass hut in anxious meditation on his position. Mwesa had rescued him from a lingering death, but to what end? If it was true, as Reinecke had said, that Britain was at war with Germany, that already a German expedition against Rhodesia was in preparation, the immediate future was very black. He dared not go to Bismarckburg; the nearest British territory was forty or fifty miles away; how was it possible to accomplish so long a journey through difficult country and hostile people? At present, indeed, his injuries precluded even a much shorter journey. Until he should have fully recovered he must remain in hiding. How was he to subsist? There was game in the forest, no doubt plenty of vegetable food in the shape of berries and nuts, though only a native could distinguish the edible from the poisonous. Mwesa would help him--but Mwesa was himself a complication. Tom felt that, the boy having done so much for him, he was bound to consider the boy, and Mirambo; his lot seemed to be knit with theirs. It would not be just to appropriate Mwesa, and leave his relatives in the slavery from which the boy had come to deliver them. Yet how helpless he was to do anything either for them or for himself!

He fell asleep with these problems all unsolved. When he awoke the boy was gone. Tom supposed that he was seeking food, but as time slipped away and Mwesa did not return he grew uneasy. Then, however, common sense asserted itself. The boy who had already dared so much, who had built him a hut and brought him food, would not desert him. There must be some good reason for his absence.

A little after mid-day Mwesa came back, looking more pleased with himself than ever. A rabbit dangled from his waist; slung over one shoulder was a native grass bag stuffed with cassava; in one hand he carried an axe, in the other a sporting rifle, which Tom recognised as the property of Reinecke. Mwesa threw his load down, and emptying his bag, revealed, under the cassava roots, a number of cartridges. He chuckled with delight.

"You have been back to the plantation?" said Tom.

"Yes, sah: me go back; nobody see."

He went on to explain that there were strange doings at the plantation. Reinecke had called the negroes about him, and told them that war had broken out between England and Germany; that the Germans were going to seize all the English lands in Africa; that he himself was a great officer in the German army, and had been ordered to turn every able-bodied man into a soldier. The gathering of the crops being finished, such work as was necessary on the plantation must be done by the women and the older men. He was going to Bismarckburg to arrange for supplies of arms. During his absence the overseers would exercise the men.

Taking advantage of the excitement that followed this announcement, Mwesa had managed to possess himself of the articles with which he had come laden.

"Me now sah him boy," he said gleefully.

Tom looked at him with a ruminating eye. It was well to have a companion in this forest solitude, and he felt instinctively that Mwesa's fidelity might be relied on. But was he entitled to involve the boy in his own misfortunes, or to separate him from his new-found relatives? He reflected that the boy would be useful to him in helping him to find his way into British territory; and when Mwesa emphatically assured him that he was determined not to go back to the plantation, or to be drilled to fight against the English, he made up his mind to accept the service thus volunteered.

"Very well, Mwesa," he said, "you are my boy. Whatever comes, we will share it."

Mwesa was already skinning the rabbit, and Tom having a box of matches, the boy kindled a fire and prepared to cook a meal for his new master. Meanwhile Tom took earnest thought for their future. Until he had recovered from his injuries it would be hopeless to attempt to reach Abercorn; but it struck him that to remain in his present position, only a few miles from the plantation, might be dangerous. Reinecke might revisit the pit, and finding it no longer tenanted, would almost certainly hunt for him in the neighbourhood. It was necessary to find a secure refuge where he could rest until he was able to undertake the journey. Almost as soon as the idea occurred to him, he remembered that he had passed this way with Reinecke and Goltermann, on the day when he had first made distant acquaintance with crocodiles. The nullah and the lake in the hills lay a few miles to the east. The former, with its windings, its overhanging rocks, its patches of dense scrub, would furnish a safe hiding-place. Game was plentiful in the adjacent forest; the lake would be an unfailing water supply; and though he would have to guard against falling a prey to the reptiles that infested its shores, Mwesa's knowledge of their ways would no doubt serve him well. The neighbourhood was wholly uninhabited, and it was so far from the plantation that Reinecke and his people were unlikely to visit it.

Could he find it? Having gone there only once, before he had had any experience of forest travel, he knew that unassisted he would have been completely at a loss. But he hoped that Mwesa would discover the track leading to it, and when, as he ate his dinner of roast rabbit, he mentioned the matter to the negro, the latter instantly started up and ran off in the direction Tom pointed out. In twenty minutes he was back, and declared with his invariable smile that he had found the track. He proceeded to dismantle the hut and to obliterate the traces of the fire; then, loading himself with their few possessions, he begged Tom to lean on him and make for their new home at once.

Tom limped along, anxious to reach the nullah before night. On the way Mwesa told him more about the morning's scene at the plantation. Reinecke had boasted that the English were to be driven into the sea. All their possessions would become the booty of the Germans, and the Wahehe, if they served him faithfully, should share in it. They had once been great warriors; now they would learn how to be askaris, and under German leadership do great deeds and amass great riches. The negroes had listened to him in silence; and only when he had left them did their sullen discontent find expression. They remembered that they had always fought against the Germans, not for them; and some of the elder men said they would rather fight against them again. But there was no open revolt; cowed by years of oppression, devoid of leadership, they could only accept their destiny.

With great difficulty Tom managed to drag himself along for two or three miles; then he declared that he could go no farther. It was already late in the afternoon. Mwesa at once constructed a temporary hut, and there they passed the night.

Next morning, after again covering their tracks as completely as possible, they set off again. Even with Mwesa's support, Tom could only crawl along at the rate of little more than a mile an hour. The almost disused hunter's path was sometimes hard to find: here and there it was overgrown with thorns through which Mwesa had to cleave a way; and in the middle hours of the day the humid heat was so oppressive that Tom had to take long rests. Towards evening, however, they came suddenly upon a dip in the ground which Tom thought he recognised.

"Run ahead," he said to Mwesa, "and see if the nullah is in that direction."

The boy sprinted away, returning in a few minutes.

"All right, sah!" he cried. "All right ober dah."

They went on. Emerging from the forest, they crossed an expanse of scrub and came to the mouth of the nullah, which was like a deep cutting in the hills. A thin stream trickled down the middle: Tom could not doubt that the lake must be only a few hundred yards farther, and, in spite of his fatigue, he struggled on to make sure that he had reached his destination. There at last was the lake, still, not a breath of air bending the rushes on its banks, or stirring the trees on the island in the centre.

Mwesa had just time to rig up a slight shelter of branches near the margin of the lake before darkness fell. He cooked some manioc for Tom and himself; and when Tom sank into heavy sleep, the boy kept watch all night by the fire.

In the grey light of dawn, when Mwesa also was asleep, Tom was awakened by a rustling at the entrance of the rude hut, across which Mwesa had thrown a rough barrier of thorns as a defence against a chance marauder. Starting up on his elbow, he saw dimly some dark shape apparently edging its way between the lower part of the barrier and the ground. For a moment or two he was unable to distinguish what it was; then he gave a sudden shout, seized the shot-gun which lay by his side, sprang to his feet and fired.

Awakened by his shout, Mwesa had jumped up and come to his master's side. There was a violent commotion in the thorny barrier. Next moment the slight hut collapsed, and both occupants were half buried by the boughs. Extricating themselves from the tangle, they peered out at the interlaced branches of thorn. Nothing was to be seen.

"Wat dat noise, sah?" whispered Mwesa.

"I think I saw the snout of a crocodile," replied Tom.

Mwesa clicked in his throat, caught up his axe, and rushed out. But the crocodile had disappeared.

"He berry much 'fraid, sah," said the boy, when he came back. "Gun make him berry sick. He go tell no come dis way no more: oh no!"