His calculations were rudely disturbed. A few hours after his messengers left he received astonishing news from his base. He was sitting by the stockade, enjoying a well-earned rest and a meal, when a Muhima came panting up from the direction of the village, and threw himself on the ground with respectful greeting. Rising at Tom's order, he reported that he had a message from the katikiro; that he had run until his heart was jumping in his throat and his legs were like running water. What was the message? Oh! it was that the katikiro was sending eight hundred men to the burning mountain, as Kuboko had ordered, to remain there until Kuboko came to them. He would do anything that Kuboko bade him, especially as he had Kuboko's mark; but he entreated Kuboko to remember that his force, bereft of eight hundred men, was now so weak that he could not keep an enemy out of the village. The eight hundred would start in three cookings after the messenger left, and the katikiro hoped that Kuboko would be pleased with him.
Tom was thunderstruck. Eight hundred men to the burning mountain, to start in three hours! What could it mean? There was a terrible mistake somewhere, but how could Msala have made such a mistake after the clear instructions given him? He was not to move a man from the village unless he received a direct order, accompanied by a leaf from the notebook, with a pencilled diagram that was to be the indispensable guarantee of the genuineness of the message. No such order had been sent. Tom cudgelled his brains vainly for an explanation. The message could not have originated with his own force, for if any of his lieutenants had taken fright he would have asked for reinforcements and not sent the eight hundred to the volcano, twenty miles on the other side of the village. Could an enemy be approaching in that direction? But the katikiro's messenger had distinctly said that the order had been received from Kuboko. Tom puzzled and puzzled, canvassing every possible solution of the mystery. The thought suddenly flashed into his mind: Could there be foul play somewhere? Was it no mistake of the katikiro's, but a deliberate plot to denude the village of its garrison, and hand it over to the enemy? Surely a flanking movement could not already have been effected without his knowing it? Good heavens! was the smiling Msala a villain? It was difficult to think so, for he had been Tom's strongest and most faithful helper. The suspicion was dismissed at once. Then he must be the victim of a ruse. That was just as difficult to understand. The man had spoken of Kuboko's mark. The katikiro must, then, have received a paper with the diagram drawn upon it. No one else, so far as Tom knew, had seen the mark. Had Msala lost the paper given him? Had someone discovered the meaning of it and used it for a treacherous end? There could hardly be a second leaf, for the only paper among them all was contained in Tom's pocket-book. Stay! He took out his pocket-book and turned over the leaves. It struck him that someone might have tampered with it. It was to all appearance intact. He ran over the leaves rapidly in the opposite direction. There should be a loose leaf corresponding to that which had been torn out to give Msala. Where was that? He searched for it with growing uneasiness; held the book by its back and shook it violently. No loose leaf fell; it was gone! The book shut with a clasp, so that it was impossible that the odd leaf had fallen out of itself. It must have been abstracted. Someone had played him false!
With Tom thought and action went together.
"Who brought the message to the katikiro before you started?" he asked.
"Mkinga," said the man. "Mkinga came first. He came to the village and spoke to the katikiro; he talked a long time, and gave the katikiro a piece of white rag. I was by, for I am the katikiro's servant, and I saw, and I know that I speak the truth. Yes, he talked to the katikiro, and the katikiro held out the white rag and frowned, and asked Mkinga where Kuboko was, and all that had happened, and Mkinga told him, and the katikiro said: 'It is well,' and bade Mkinga go back to Kuboko and say that his servant the katikiro would obey his lord's bidding, and knew his lord's mark on the white rag."
"Mkinga!" exclaimed Tom. "Was there a man named Mkinga among our troops, Mbutu?"
"Yes, sah. Mkinga lazy man, sah; no work, no do nuffin; grumble, grumble all time, sah."
"Where is he now then?"
"Said him sick, sah; him no fight; no, no; him go home and nurse pickin."
"Ah! And what was he in the village? I don't remember the man."