We accepted that description of ourselves, letting it go by silent assent, and explained our lack of tents and almost every other thing the white man generally travels with as due to haste. Heaven only knew what lies Kazimoto told those credulous folk, to the perfectly worthy end of making our lot bearable, but we were fed after a fashion, and lodged after a worse one all along our road. And who should send in reports about us—and to whom? Obviously white men with a prisoner, marching in such a hurry toward the north, were government officials. Who should report officials to their government? As for the tale about our having left our loads behind—are not all white people crazy? Who shall explain their craziness?
From being a nuisance the Baganda became a joke. When it dawned on his fat intellect that we were hurrying toward Schillingschen with only one rifle among us and no baggage at all, he jumped at once to the conclusion we must be Schillingschen's friends; and his fear that we intended to hand him over to that ruthless brute for summary punishment was more melting to his backbone than the dread of our imaginary whip, that had caused him to give Schillingschen away.
He tried to bite through the thongs that held him, but Will twisted for him handcuffs out of thick iron wire that we begged from a chief, who had intended to make ornaments with it for his own legs. We did not dare let the man escape, nor care to prevent our men from using force when he threw himself on the ground and wept like a spoiled child.
"I will tell you" he said at last, deciding he might as well be hanged for mutton as for lamb, "what Bwana Schillingschen is searching for! I will tell you who knows where to find it! I will tell you where to find the man who knows! Only let me run away then to my own home in Uganda, and I will never again leave it! I am afraid! I am afraid!"
But that was only one more reason for keeping him with us, and no ground at all for delay. He would not tell unless we loosed his hands first, so we pressed on, camping late and starting early, until about noon of the fourth day we caught sight of Schillingschen's tents in the distance, and gathered our party at once into a little rocky hollow to discuss the situation.
Behind us the land sloped gradually for thirty or forty miles toward a sharp escarpment that overlooked the level land beside the lake. At times between the hills and trees we could glimpse Nyanza itself, looking like the vast rim of forever, mysterious and calm. In front of us the rolling hills, broken out here and there into rocky knolls, piled up on one another toward the hump of Elgon, on which the blue sky rested. In every direction were villages of folk who knew so little of white men that they paid no taxes yet and did no work—marrying and giving in marriage—fighting and running away—eating and drinking and watching their women cultivate the corn and beans and sweet potatoes—without as much as foreboding of the taxes, work for wages, missionaries, law and commerce soon to come.
Schillingschen was more than taking his time, he was dawdling, keeping his donkeys fat, and letting his men wander at pleasure to right and left gathering reports for him of unusual folk or things. We came very close to being seen by one of them, who emerged from a village near us with a pair of chickens he had foraged, followed by the owner of the luckless birds in a great hurry and fury to get paid for them.
Schillingschen's tent could fairly easily be stalked from the far side in broad daylight, and I was for making the attempt. There was the risk that one of our porters might grow restless and break bounds if we waited, or that the Baganda might take to yelling. We gagged him as soon as I talked of the danger of that.
Coutlass and Brown, however, were the only two who would agree with me. Like me, they were weary to death of mtama porridge, with or without milk, and the sight of Schillingschen's distant campfire with a great pot resting on stones in the midst of it whetted appetite for white man's food. They and I were for supping as soon as possible from the German's provender, and sleeping under his canvas roof.
But Fred and Will insisted on caution, claiming reasonably that surprise would be infinitely easier after dark. It was unlikely that Schillingschen would post any sentries, and not much matter if he did. His knowledge of natives and natural air of authority made him quite safe among any but the wildest, and these were a comparatively peaceful folk. In all probability he would sit and read by candle light, with his boys all snoring a hundred yards away. There was no making Fred and Will see the virtue of my contention that a sudden attack while his boys were scattered all about among the villages would be just as likely to succeed; so we settled down to wait where we were with what patience we could summon.