The passage through the tunnel took less than a minute, but Tom felt almost suffocated before he reached open air again. He said to himself that it was like crawling in a grave. Some day, he thought, the earth will fall in; he wondered that such a tunnel, made with no art, had not collapsed long ago. Its inner end opened into the hollow trunk of a tree. Climbing until his eyes were on a level with a small hole scooped out of the wood, he looked out upon the plantation.
The tree was a few feet within the thorn fence. Some little distance to the left were the huts and sheds occupied by the negroes. In front of these was the broad, clear, level space that was the usual playground of the children and the promenade of the elders when work was done. Now, however, no children sported upon it. Some sixty sturdy negroes, ranging in age from sixteen to forty and upwards, were drawn up in ranks. At each end hovered an Arab overseer with his whip. And facing the recruits, some yards away from them, stood the German sergeant, a stiff, thick-set, bull-necked soldier, differing from hundreds of his kind whom Tom had seen in Germany only in his uniform, which, more suited to the African climate, was less complimentary to the sergeant's tight figure. The sergeant bellowed an order, in words that seemed to be German acclimatised; the negroes hesitated, then, each interpreting the command in his own way, became a mob instead of a half company. The German stamped and roared; the overseers cracked their whips; and the scared recruits scrambled back somehow into their original formation.
The sun beat fiercely down upon the scene, and the perspiring sergeant, a martyr to duty, drew a finger round the inside of his coat collar and tried again. Brandishing the light cane he carried, he hurled abuse at the negroes in his hybrid dialect, and having thus let off steam, repeated his sharp words of command. It was evident that he was attempting to teach the recruits how to form extended order from fours, and Tom almost sympathised with him as the men blundered in the simplest movements. They appeared to be unable to distinguish "right turn" from "left turn"; and even those who had once moved correctly seemed to be unable to remember for five minutes what they had learnt.
"Mirambo no dis place, sah," whispered Mwesa over his shoulder.
The words recalled the purpose of his visit. Mirambo was no doubt tied up in the hut which Reinecke used as a jail for refractory labourers. It was at the further end of the row of huts, in full view from every part of the parade ground. An askari was standing at ease outside it. Tom's sense of the hopelessness of any attempt at rescue was deepened. Surely Mwesa himself must realise it. Sorry as he was, Tom felt that there was nothing to be done.
A sudden commotion drew his attention once more to the drilling. The sergeant, incensed by the repeated blunders of one particularly stupid negro, had lifted his cane and dealt the man several vicious cuts across the face. Yelling with pain and rage, the victim had sprung upon the sergeant, hurled him to the ground, and seized him by the throat. Two of the overseers had just rushed to the spot, and were dragging the negro from the prostrate German. There was much chattering and excitement among the other recruits and the negroes who were looking on from the huts.
The sergeant rose stiffly to his feet, and with apoplectic fury ordered the Arabs to tie the culprit hand and foot. As they were doing so, Tom, who had been boiling with indignation at the German's brutality, had one of those sudden inspirations which are often turning-points in a career. Bidding the two lads follow him, he clambered up to the fork of the tree, let himself down to the ground on the rear side, and ran, under cover of a line of bushes, until he was some thirty yards nearer the body of recruits. Then, stiffening himself, he emerged into the open, rifle in hand, and advanced with quick martial strides across the parade ground. Until that moment he had not been seen; the sergeant and the Arabs had their backs towards him; but the sudden silence that fell upon the negroes as they beheld the young m'sungu, who had been absent so long, followed by the two boys, attracted the German's attention. He swung round to see what it was that all eyes were fixed on so intently, and stared with amazement when, from the lips of the tall young white man within a few paces of him, came the sharp command in German--
"Sergeant, release that man."
The instinct of military obedience on which Tom had reckoned did not fail. The sergeant saluted; at a word from him the Arabs released the negro from his bonds; the recruits broke their ranks and rushed towards Tom with yells of delight, and from the dwellings along one side of the parade ground the whole negro population, men, women and children, trooped forth shouting welcome to the m'sungu, and utterly regardless of the overseers. The sergeant's authority had vanished. A few seconds before he had had behind him the prestige of German rule; in yielding to the command of an Englishman (whom he did not yet know as an Englishman) he had become a thing of naught to these impressionable Africans.
