When the man came, Jack got out of him a more lucid story than Lepoko had given. Elbel had promised freedom and large rewards if he would stir up a revolt against Jack, or assassinate him. The negro had readily promised, with no intention but to reveal the whole scheme to his beloved Lokolobolo.
Jack was still talking to the man when he heard loud cries. Running out of his hut, he found Barney clutching by the arm a strange negro, thronged about by a shouting crowd of the men of Ilombekabasi.
"Who is he?"
"'Tis wan uv Elbel's men, sorr. Lianza caught him in the forest, and brought him in. The men are simply mad to get at him, sorr, especially since they've heard uv what Elbel said to Mbota."
"Leave him to me. I will deal with him."
The men slowly dispersed. Jack took the trembling negro to his hut and questioned him.
"Do you know anything of Samba, the son of Mboyo and nephew of Boloko, one of your master's men?"
Yes, he knew.—Was there a man in Elobela's camp who did not know?—who had not exulted when the news spread that Samba, the best of Lokolobolo's scouts, had been captured and was to pay the penalty? Surely not a man was absent when Samba suffered the torture. Had not many of them tried in vain to discover the secret which Samba would be forced to betray?
The scout described to Jack the whole pitiful scene, in the glowing language, with the telling dramatic gestures, which the negro has at command when he feels that his audience is interested. And while the man told his story Jack went hot and cold by turns—cold with sheer horror of the scene conjured up by the man's vivid words, hot with a great wrath, a burning passionate desire to seek instant vengeance upon the evildoer.
Bidding Barney keep the negro carefully under guard, he went back to his hut, at the entrance to which Mr. Arlington had been anxiously watching the scene.