“Bah! I meant here,” and he waved his hand over the town. “I gave you strict orders about the ladies,” he said, glancing at me, “that they were to be treated with every respect, but to be closely guarded; but your fat brains will not hold two ideas at once!”
Wegelhoe lifted his cap and scratched his head as though to stir his brains up, but he remained silent under the rebuke. Berghen had become the officer once more, and they all felt it. He meditated for an instant; then addressed me again.
“Captain Diedrich, I am about to release one of these men, and send him round with some of my company to collect the bows and arrows from your people. Which one has the most authority?”
I intimated that Namoa was next in authority to King Zolca.
“Tell him that if he attempts to escape the king’s life is forfeited.”
I told Namoa what he was expected to do, and advised him to tell the people to give up any spare or old weapons they had, in order to avoid suspicion. As Paul was not present, shame keeping him somewhere in the background, I was able to talk freely in the native tongue.
Namoa was released and departed with two of the sailors and some of the disloyal natives. Berghen called after them to stay, he then told me that the Quadrucos could keep their short swords, an act of grace, which, after all, was only an empty condescension; for, as I soon found out, they were armed with long pikes, against which our short swords were vain weapons.
CHAPTER XII.
Azolta’s Stratagem—We are Rescued and retake the Town—The Camp on the Headland—The White Flag.
THE plot to which we had fallen victims had been most cunningly contrived and carried out. Through Paul’s relatives—and I have before mentioned that family feeling was very strong amongst the Quadrucos—a large number of natives had been seduced into joining the mutineers. There could have been no feeling of discontent amongst them; it was done by working on their simplicity and love of change and novelty. Berghen, too, had excited their admiration by his mechanical skill.