Roger, scarcely halting more than a minute here or a minute there to glean this information, rode eastward as rapidly as his tired donkey could be urged to go. The absolutely familiar scenery was not much altered for the lapse of seven years. The roads were even smoother and neater, the hedges of dracæna and scarlet-flowered Erythrina more luxuriant. There were brilliant flower-gardens round the bungalows. There was the Stotts' former Mission station and school. Beside it was a new chapel of florid Gothic architecture.
Dr. Wiese's house and laboratory. He paused, got off the donkey, and entered the front garden. There, to greet him, was Dr. Wiese himself, lying on his back on a bed of scarlet geraniums, dead, in a pool of congealing blood, with a swarm of flies buzzing about his shattered face. He could see a smashed door, a broken verandah post, and strewn papers, glass bottles, odds and ends of things remaining over from a looting of the house. This was too serious an episode to be passed by without investigation. Omari had by this time come up. And not far behind him were the returning refugees and his caravan of soldier-porters. He strode up to the dead man. Yes, it was Wiese, the physician-friend of many years, who had striven so hard to save Lucy from an insidious disease.... Shocking ... to see him like this after seven years! If only he had arrived yesterday it might not have happened. He took the shortest cut over flower-beds, past broken-into aviaries, trampled botanic gardens with an infinitude of labels, to the laboratory, whence came a shouting and quarrelling.
In this building there were a few Nyasaland soldiers in khaki and a number of sinister-looking Ruga-ruga, like those who had once been in Stolzenberg's employ. Bottles were being smashed in the search for brandy, strange fumes filled the air, irrevocable damage was doubtless being done. Here and there, thrown on one side whilst they searched for treasure, were heaps of slaughtered turkeys, peafowl, Crowned cranes and guinea-fowl, which the looting soldiery had obtained from the poultry yards and aviaries round about.
Roger, possessed with a fury which transformed him at this stupid destruction, shouted military commands to the men in khaki and in rags. Mechanically they dropped their booty and were silent. Some of the Ruga-ruga recognized him as the Bwana-mkubwa who had once reigned here, and had joined the "Wadachi"[#] in investigating the "Terror's" death and disappearance. Cowed by his presence, they obeyed an order to march out of the building and assemble with the soldiers in the public square of Magara there to await further orders. Revolver in hand, and well backed by his determined-looking Wanyamwezi, he said: "I will shoot any man among you whom I catch looting or destroying." Sullenly they slunk away.
[#] Germans.
Another mile's ride and here he was before his former home, his mouth and throat dry with apprehension. The formal garden in front of the house was beautifully neat, gay with flowers in better order even than in his days. Up the pebbled path which led to the verandah and the stone steps he walked with a beating heart. Oh, that he should be seeing it all again; and oh, that Lucy might come out through the French windows with her graceful, rather languid walk, to throw her arms around his neck and say: "Dearest; dear, dear Roger; back at last!" Or that even trusty sister, Maud— How was Maud faring? He had heard nothing of her since a letter reached him at Stanley Pool, nearly two years ago ... those terrible years of silence whilst he traversed Central Africa....
But at the rumour of his approach it was neither his living sister nor the wraith of his dead wife that emerged from the open doorway: it was the sinister figure of Willowby Patterne: like himself in khaki: thinner, yellower, greyer, wickeder-looking than he had seen him ten or twelve years ago.
"Had a presentiment we should meet here," said Patterne, trying with a hand that shook to fix an insolent eyeglass in a bloodshot eye. "Though no one knew what had become of you since you bolted from England when the war started. No! ..." (as Roger makes to advance) "... Stay where you are or I shall have you arrested at once you ... you ... German ... spy!" (Roger takes his revolver out of its leather case and sees that it is loaded and ready.)
"Oh? I've got a revolver, too. If you make the slightest movement till I tell you to go, and where to go, I shall shoot."
At this threat, the general purport of which he understands, Omari bin Brahimu steps in front of his master and produces his revolver. Seeing this, Willowby Patterne calls in a rather quavering voice, "Njoôni, watu wangu, upesi; yupo adui! Upesi!"[#] Two men come from the back premises, look from the white devil pacing up and down on the verandah to the figures of Roger and Omari; and then, with a shout of joy, fling themselves on Roger—not to arrest him as Willowby first supposes, and so hesitates to shoot, but to kiss his hand, kneel at his feet, utter incoherent cries of joy, the while Omari keeps his pistol steadily aimed at the "Little Terror." They are two of Brentham's Somali gun-bearers of seven years back, Yusuf Ali and Ashuro.