“I don’t understand you, Mr. M‘Crae. . . . I hope I have the name right. . . . I don’t understand the meaning of this. Will you be good enough to explain?”
“There’s no time for explanation,” said M‘Crae. “I’m saying that we have to leave here, all three of us, as quickly as we can. It’ll be a hard journey in front of us, but I’m thinking it’s better to be driven than to be dead. That’s what it comes to. . . . There’s no time for talking.”
He told them swiftly and dryly what had happened to him after his arrest. How the askaris had dragged him to the House of the Moon and left him, with hands and feet bound, in a shanty at the back of the long white building; how the old woman whose tongue had been cut out had brought him porridge of mealie meal in a bowl, and how he had been forced to lap it like a dog. Once Godovius had been to see him, bringing the pleasant announcement that he was soon to be shot: soon, but not yet; that England was already paying for her infamy in the sack of London and the destruction of her fleet. “In a year’s time,” he had said, “no swine of an Englishman will be able to show his face in Africa. The black men will laugh at you. You have already lost South Africa. The German flag is flying in Pretoria and Capetown. It is probable that you will live to hear worse things than this, even though you do not see the end.”
M‘Crae did not tell them what Godovius had said of Eva, nor of the anger which had nearly driven him mad in his bonds.
“And then,” he said, “he came again to-night. I never saw a man so changed. He was pretty near the colour of his uniform. ‘If I cut the ropes,’ he said, ‘will you promise that you will not attack me?’ A ludicrous question to a one-armed man, cramped with captivity and weaponless!”
M‘Crae had given his word, and Godovius had released him. “Now listen,” he said. “You are an Englishman and I am a German. That is one thing. For others we have good cause to hate each other. War is war, and it is our duty to hate. But besides this we are both white men. At Luguru there is a white woman. I will be frank with you. For the moment our hatred must go, for we are all in the same danger. Where the danger has come from I cannot tell you. Probably it is part of your damned English scheming. The English have always paid other races to fight their battles. You know that this colony is now one armed camp. In every tribe we have raised levies and armed them. My black swine, the Waluguru, are getting out of hand. To-day I have shot seven of them; but things are still dangerous. It may spread. All the armed natives of Africa may rise against us, German and English alike. They hate us . . . we know that . . . and in an isolated place like this we shall stand no chance. To-night, on my way home, I have been fired at by my own people. They may try to burn the house over me. That will not be so easy, for I have a machine gun. But the mission they will strip and burn without trouble. You can think of the fate of your two English. And I cannot save them; perhaps I cannot save myself. Somehow they must get to M’papwa, where there are plenty of white men to protect them. I am a German soldier. My post is here; and in any case I must stay and teach these black devils what the German rule means in their own blood. You are an enemy and a prisoner. See, I give you your liberty, and in exchange you give me your word that you will return here when you have saved them. I am taking the risk of letting you go. If we meet again I shall know that you too are a soldier and worthy of my nobility. Miss Eva is in your hands. You had better go quickly.”
He had asked for arms, and Godovius, after a moment of hesitation and distrust, had given him a Mauser pistol. “You will put it in your belt,” he said. “I shall watch you go. You will hold your hand above your head. Remember, I have a rifle, and you will be covered until you are out of range.”
M‘Crae had laughed. “I hate all you damned Englanders,” said Godovius. “You have no sense of seriousness. I do not do this of my own will. But I love that woman. I would rather she were killed by my hand than given to the Waluguru. And I wish her to live. You understand?”
M‘Crae understood. His journey to the mission had not been easy: for his body was still cramped by his long confinement and the woods were full of watching Waluguru whom it had been difficult to evade. “At the present moment,” he said, “they are all about the bush round the house. As I said, there’ll be no time. Miss Eva will put together some food, and I will slip out again to see where the way is open.”
In Eva’s mind there was no questioning. In whatever other way she may have regarded M‘Crae, she trusted him without reservation. She had reason to trust him. As soon as he gave the word she was ready to obey. She remembered the parcel of food which she had made ready for M‘Crae on the evening of her hopeless expedition, and turned to go. The voice of James recalled her.