"'Deed now, I wish we had Mike Henchie and Denis O'Sullivan and a few more uv the bhoys. We'd treat the niggers to the finest dancing wid the shillelagh that iver was seen this side uv Limerick."
"I wish we had! You speak of shillelaghs. Won't Indian clubs do? I have it! We'll get some of the children to go through their exercises. Go and collect them, Samba—Lofinda and Ilafa and Lokilo and Isungila, they're the best, and about a dozen more. But hang it! I forgot. They won't be seen over the wall."
"Sure there's the platform by the blockhouse, sorr. 'Tis uncommon small for a stage play, but 'tis meself could make it wider in a brace uv shakes."
"Then do so, like a good fellow. It's a capital idea of yours, Barney."
The platform was quickly enlarged. Then, just after midday, when the sun was blazing fiercely, and in the ordinary course of things everybody would be at rest in the huts, Barney marshalled some twenty children, boys and girls, on the platform, and Jack accompanied Mboyo and Samba to the little exit.
"You must give me a signal if you succeed with the outpost," said Jack, as they prepared to slip through. "It must not be a sound. You had better show yourself for a moment above the rocks, Samba."
The instant they had reached the gully, Imbono's drummer began to beat his drum, not with the powerful strokes that would have sent a thunderous boom echoing for miles around, but with gentle taps that would scarcely be heard beyond the two outposts. At the same time two or three children blew softly through their little trumpets of banana leaves. In a moment two woolly heads could be seen cautiously peeping over the rocks for which Mboyo and Samba were making. Then the performance began. Instructed by Barney, the children on the platform swung their clubs about, wondering why they were forbidden to sing the song about Lokolobolo which usually accompanied their exercise. They knew nothing of the intention of their instructor, nor why he had chosen this hot hour instead of the cool of the evening; but they loved him, and delighted in the rhythmic motion, and they plied their clubs gracefully, all unconscious of the four curious eyes watching them from the rocks a few hundred yards away.
Jack saw nothing of their pretty movements. He was at the wall. The two men of the outpost gazed at the children. Jack gazed at them. Below him squatted his warriors, subdued to unnatural quietness by the thought of what was before them. Impatiently they waited for the word. They did not know exactly what they were to do; Lokolobolo had simply said they were to follow him. But they knew Lokolobolo; had he not time and again brought Elobela's schemes to nought? Lokolobolo had said they were to follow him; and they were confident that where he led was the one place in the world for them.
Twenty minutes passed. The performance on the platform still went on. Then Jack suddenly saw the two black heads above the rocks disappear. Next moment Samba's head showed itself where they had been.
"Aiyoko!"[[1]] said Jack to his men.