Tom walked quietly back to his hut.
"You did it very well, Mbutu," he said.
Mbutu grinned.
"Like it berrah much, sah," he said; "jolly good bloony bloon."
"Yes; and we must never repeat the performance. We will not stale our big medicine, Mbutu."
The explanation of the wonderful event was simplicity itself.
When Tom had offered to pit himself against Mabruki, he had in his mind the trick of Japanese wrestling. But that was hardly sufficient, perhaps, to impress the people, and he resolved to attempt something even more startling. While thinking over the matter, he remembered how amazed he had been himself when, as a young child, he first saw a balloon. Could he make a fire-balloon? Suddenly he bethought him of a roll of Indian silk he had seen among the chief's possessions. Surely that would provide the very material he required. He persuaded the chief to give him a few lengths from the roll, and during the time of his seclusion in the hut he had, with Mbutu's assistance, cut the silk into strips, stuck them together with a natural gum obtained from trees near, stitched the seams together, smeared the whole surface with gum to make it air-tight, and bent a thin sapling to hold open the mouth of the balloon, with a light pan dangling from it to hold combustible material steeped in spirit. Mbutu had smuggled the balloon into the plantation on the previous night, while Tom was engaged in practising his wrestling trick on the katikiro. When the performance began with the ringing of the bell, Mbutu had inflated the envelope with hot air over a large charcoal fire, and at the second drum-signal had ignited the spirit-soaked material, and let the balloon rise.
Before Tom retired to rest that night, the katikiro came to him and humbly begged to know how he had made fire come from the tree-tops.
"Msala, my friend," said Tom, smiling, "that is my secret. We cannot all do everything; too much learning, like too much museru, might turn your head. Be satisfied with getting your cattle replaced, and take my word for it that you will never lose your bulls in the same way again."