"Come back all right, sah," said the boy cheerfully.
"But how? I didn't hear you. How did you get in?"
"Climb tree, sah; come like snake."
He had dropped thus into the enclosure to avoid making a gap in the fence. As before, he came laden with food. Welcome as this was, Tom was more eager to have his tale of news; but before Mwesa would relate his discoveries, he produced from his wallet, with much show of mystery, a small bundle with a covering of leaves tied with grass thread. Opening this with an expression of great solemnity, he displayed a lump of some substance olive-green in colour, and of the consistency of putty.
"Good medicine, sah. Mirambo my uncle: berry clebber pusson. Me make sah well."
Dropping to his knees he unwound the handkerchief from Tom's injured ankle, pinched off a small portion of the plastic medicament, and rubbed it gently over the joint, muttering strange words. It gradually softened to a greenish oil. When the joint was thoroughly anointed, the boy bound it again with the handkerchief, jumped up, and, smiling away his look of intent earnestness declared:
"Sah, one time better; two time better; t'ree time all same well."
Then he unslung from his shoulder a small iron cooking-pot, and sat down to tell his news.
At the plantation drill was in full swing. Some askaris had come from Bismarckburg under the charge of a German non-commissioned officer, the former as guards and examples, the latter to train the new recruits. Drill went on all day and every day, the German giving his commands in a Bantu dialect which was hard to understand, with the result that he frequently lost his temper. The negroes who were slow were stimulated by the whips of the overseers. A few rifles had been brought, and some of the quicker men were already being trained in aiming and sighting: as yet they had fired no shot. They were all sullen and resentful; but cowed by the presence of the armed askaris and in constant fear of the whip, they gave no utterance to their feelings in face of their taskmasters, pouring out their hearts only in the seclusion of their own huts and sheds.
Reinecke himself was now seldom at the plantation. Mirambo believed that he was busy at headquarters at Bismarckburg. The askaris had said that a great force was being prepared to attack the English in Abercorn, and had boasted of the terrible things they were going to do and the great riches they would soon enjoy. They told of many battles won in the white man's country far away; of many great cities which the Germans had taken; how the King of England and his war chiefs had been hanged by the people, enraged at defeat. Soon there would not be a single Englishman in the whole of Africa.