Mr. Ransome nodded.
“The Prophet was brought from his hut to face us,” he said. And he laughed heartily, as if at some humorous recollection. “You could never imagine what he is, Jack,” he said, “so I’ll tell you. Of course, I can’t be sure. But I believe he is one of these soured German professors, a man who doesn’t know the Great War ended years ago. In his warped mind there is only one thought uppermost. And that is that Germany was martyred in the war, that all the world was against her without reason, and that he must obtain revenge. I think he is a little crazy.”
“At any rate, he scorned us. ‘Pigs, you think to scare me,’ he said. ‘It is you who shall pay with your lives.’ Nevertheless, I think he was impressed at our promise to make the Great Spirit speak from the air at 8 o’clock tonight. And he’ll be outside to listen. And so will everybody else in the place.”
CHAPTER XXVIII
CONCLUSION
Sharp at 8 o’clock, Mr. Hampton and Mr. Ransome set off the rockets in the square. And as they went up with their comet’s tail of fire, the “Ohs” and “Ahs” of the natives could be heard all over the big enclosure ringed by its grass-thatched huts and lighted by a fire flaming in the center.
Then Mr. Hampton, who stood full in the glare, held up his hand for silence, and the interpreter cried that now the Great Spirit of the white men was about to speak.
To one side of the fire stood Chief Namla and beside him The Prophet, bespectacled and wrapped in a long white cotton robe. He looked both scornful and, to the keen discerning eyes of the only other white men, worried.
As for them, they were worried, too. They had cast all on this throw of the dice. Would they win or lose? Would everything go as planned? Or had Jack failed to connect the radio properly? Or had Frank and Bob fallen down on their part of the job?
Silence filled the great square, a silence accentuated by the deep breathing of the hundreds assembled, who waited for they knew not what.
Then it came. And what a feeling of relieved thankfulness filled the hearts and minds of the white men. Except The Prophet. He started in amazement, stared all about him as if in search of that strange voice—the voice of Samba speaking weighty words in the native tongue. As the voice concluded, amidst a stunned silence which had fallen upon the multitude, leaving them breathless, awe-stricken, mute. The Prophet turned furiously toward Mr. Hampton.