They were to throw their paddles overboard. They did that also.
They were to tie all their canoes together into one big raft. They obeyed him there, too, with frenzied quickness.
He took the raft in tow and steamed off down river to the headquarters Free State post of the Upper River. He was feeling almost complacent at the time. He had shown Commandant Balliot what he was pleased to term a quick way with rebels.
But Commandant Balliot, whose life had been saved, and army disarmed and brought back from rebellion in spite of himself, was not the man to let any vague feeling of gratitude overweigh his own deep sense of injury. He was incompetent, and he knew it, but Kettle had been tactless enough to tell him so; and, moreover, Kettle had thrown out the national gibe about Waterloo, which no Belgian can ever forgive. Commandant Balliot gritted his teeth, and rubbed at his scrubby beard, and melodramatically vowed revenge.
He said nothing about it then; he even sat at meat with the two Englishmen, and shared the ship duties with them without so much as a murmur. He could not but notice, too, that Kettle said nothing more now about being supreme chief, and had, in fact, tacitly dropped back to his old position as skipper of the launch. But Balliot brooded over the injuries he had received at the hands of this truculent little sailor, and they grew none the smaller from being held in memory.
Kettle's own method of reporting his doings, too, was not calculated to endear him to the authorities. He steamed down to headquarters at Leopoldville, went ashore, and swung into the Commandant's house with easy contempt and assurance. He gave an arid account of the launch's voyage up the great river to the centre of Africa and back, and then in ten words described Balliot's disaster, his rescue, and its cost. "And so," he wound up, "as the contract was outside Mr. Balliot's size, I took it in my own hands and carried it through. I've brought back your blooming army down here. It's quite tame now."
The Commandant at Leopoldville nodded stiffly, and said he would confer with Captain Kettle's senior officer, Commandant Balliot, after which Kettle would probably hear something further.
"All right," said the little man. "I should tell you, too, that Mr. Balliot's not without his uses. With a bit of teaching I got him to handle my engines quite decent for an amateur." He turned to go, but stopped again in the glare of the doorway. "Oh, there's one other thing. I want to recommend to you Doctor Clay. He's a good man, Clay. He stood by me well in the trouble we had, after he got roused up. I'd like to recommend him for promotion."
"I will see if Commandant Balliot--as senior officer--adds his recommendation to yours," said the other drily. "Good-morning to you for the present."
Captain Kettle went down to the beach, and stepped along the gangway on to the stern-wheel launch. The working negroes on the lower deck stopped their chatter for the moment as he passed, and looked up at him with a queer mixture of awe and admiration. From above came the tinkle of a banjo and the roar of an English song. The doctor was free, and was amusing himself according to his fashion.