Came Elobela,
(Chorus) Yah!
Bad Elobela,
(Chorus) Yo!
To the house of the dog
Came Lokolobolo,
(Chorus) Yah! Yo!
Short was the fight.
Where is he now,
Sad Elobela?
Gone to the forest,
Beating his head,
Hiding his eyes
From Lokolobolo,
Friend of Imbono,
Lion and leopard,
Brave Lokolobolo.
CHAPTER XV
A Revolt at Ilola
Every day since the advent of Elbel, Jack had been conscious of the growing danger of his position. A negro village, in the grip of rubber collectors; adjacent to it, a little settlement occupied mainly by negroes, many of whom were fugitives from a tyranny illegal indeed, but regularized by custom; in both settlements, natives who looked to him for help against their oppressors. It was a situation difficult enough to daunt the pluckiest lad not yet eighteen. But it is lads like Jack Challoner who make one of the prime glories of our Anglo-Saxon race. Is not page after page of our national annals filled with the deeds of youths—drummers, buglers, ensigns, midshipmen—who have stepped forward in moments of crisis, and shown a noble courage, a devotion to duty, and a capacity beyond their years?
Jack did not quail before the responsibility his uncle had all unwittingly thrown upon him, even though he knew that his victory over the Belgian might enormously increase his difficulties. Already he had wondered why Elbel had not put his settlement in a state of siege. The only conclusion he could come to was that the man was little more than a blusterer, without enough imagination to conceive the right means to adopt, or destitute of sufficient organizing power to put them in force. It would have been a comparatively simple matter, seeing his overwhelming strength in point of numbers, to prevent Jack from securing his needful supply of water from the stream; but day by day Elbel had allowed the women with their calabashes to go and come unmolested. Surely, Jack thought, he would now at any rate take that most obvious step towards the reduction of his enemy. And as he sat in his hut that evening, his head racked with pain from long thinking, he felt sick at heart as he realized how the fate of these poor people who had sought his aid seemed to depend on him alone.
Just as darkness had fallen, the chief Imbono came into the camp. Elbel had forbidden any one to leave the village, but the chief had bribed the sentry and been allowed to pass. He came to report that his young men had just returned from their rubber hunt after a week's absence in the forest, and learning of what had taken place, were bent on exacting vengeance for the insults and injuries inflicted on their people by the forest guards and by Elbel himself. With his defeat the Belgian's prestige had utterly gone, and to the ignorant negroes the opportunity seemed favourable for revenge. But Imbono, more far-seeing than they, had come to ask advice. He had great difficulty in holding his men in. Should he let them loose, to work their will upon their oppressors?
Jack earnestly advised the chief to do his utmost to restrain them.
"Believe me, my brother," he said, "if they do as you say they wish to do, it will almost certainly bring ruin upon you. Elobela will be only too glad to have an excuse for visiting upon you the rancour caused by his reverse. True, he failed to force my camp; but he is still stronger in arms and men than I. I could do nothing to help you; for if I once move out of the shelter of my stockade, I shall be at Elobela's mercy. In the open it is only rifles that count."
"I will do as you say, O Lokolobolo. But it is hard for me, for since the coming of Elobela my people do not obey me as they used to do. If I say, do this, Elobela forbids it; if I say, refrain from this, Elobela bids them do it. It is hard for them to serve two masters. But I will tell them what my brother says; I can do no more."