N HOC SIGNO VADE
Lean, loveless, hungry lanes are these!
The longest has an end.
Ill luck tasted to the bitter lees
Soonest shall mend.
From out the foe’s ranks if Heaven please
Shall come your friend.
CHAPTER TEN
We came to no fixed decision that night, although we knew there was no alternative. She held out, in the vain hope of making us agree to leave Kazimoto and Brown behind. The porters, she agreed, might come in very handy, although it was at least doubtful that we should be able to slip out of Muanza by land. The Germans had taken latterly to counting our porters every morning, to supplying them with ration money once every day, and to sending the bill to us by an askari, who waited for the cash. At any rate, she conceded the porters, provided we would leave the two others behind. And of course we were adamant.
She left us an hour and a half before dawn, we letting her return alone because of the greater danger of detection if we had tried to escort her. It was after she had gone, while we sat listening for the sound of a challenge that would have ruined all her hopes, if not ours, that Will conceived the bright idea which finally saved us.
“The Heinies don’t know that we’re wise to their game,” he said cheerfully. His ears were sticking out from his head and he had the naughty boy look that always presaged wisdom. “Why don’t we play that card for all it’s worth?”
“We need five cards to make even a poker hand,” Fred objected.
“Will a full house suit you—aces and queens?” he answered. “I’ve named you one ace already. Ace number two is the fact that these German officials are brutes pure and simple—brutes who don’t understand how to be anything else, with brutal low cunning and no other cleverness.”
“That sounds like the joker!” said Fred.
“It’s ace number two, I tell you! The third is the fact that Brown of Lumbwa can talk with Kazimoto in the night through that corrugated iron partition! Three aces—count ’em—one, two, three! Queens? One of ’em left a few minutes ago! The other’s the dhow! We’ll call that blessed boat the Queen of Sheba for luck! The Queen of Sheba got to her journey’s end, and found more than she expected, and by the lights of little old Broadway, so shall we! I’ve dealt the cards—is it up to me to play them?”
“Your hand, America! Talk it over first, though! There’s an awful lot hangs on the game!” said Fred.
I fell asleep while they argued over the points of Will’s strategy. Africa is a land of sudden death and swift recoveries, but for a convalescent man I had been through a strenuous day and had right to be tired out. It was broad daylight when I awoke, and breakfast was ready. Fred and Will had returned from their march around the township with the native band, and to my surprise the commandant was standing in front of their tent, talking with them. I threw on a jacket and joined them at table.
“I don’t understand you,” said the commandant. “Either talk German or speak more slowly!”
Will took a purchase on his stock of patience and began again.
“If our porters run away, you’ll blame us. We don’t care to be blamed for what is none of our fault. So if you don’t put ’em all on a chain and lock ’em up nights, we’re going to discontinue paying for their keep. That’s flat! You can work ’em if you like. Let ’em help keep the township clean. We’ll pay their board and wages as long as you’re responsible for their not escaping! And say! If you want to get real work out of ’em I’ll give you a tip. There never was a savage like that Kazimoto of ours for getting results out of that gang. Put him on the same chain with the lot of ’em, and we’ll all be satisfied! I don’t presume to be running your jail, but I’m telling you facts that’ll hurt nobody. Those porters ’ud be a darn sight better off with plenty of exercise.”
“Do I understand you to ask that your porters be made prisoners?” asked the commandant.
“You get me exactly!” said Will.
The commandant grunted, nodded, waited for us to get up and salute him, grunted again with disgust when we did nothing of the sort, turned on his heel, and walked off. We spent an hour on tenterhooks, and I began to believe the German had simply become more suspicious than ever and would keep closer watch on us without troubling at all about the men. But at the end of an hour we saw the porters rounded up, and a chain fetched out that was long enough to hold them all. They disappeared within the boma wall. Ten minutes later suddenly Will pointed toward the southward.
“Look! See what happens when the roofs of shanty-town take fire!”
Flames went up from the dry grass roof of one of the rectangular Swahili huts. Within thirty seconds the askaris on guard at the boma began firing their rifles in the air as fast as they could pull the trigger and reload. Within two minutes the chain-gang was headed for jail, where it was locked behind doors, in order that every askari in Muanza might be free to pile arms and hurry to the fire.
It was not only askaris; the whole township turned out as to the circus, with Schubert and his long kiboko ruling the riot. The other sergeants were in evidence, but quiet, imperturbable men compared to their feldwebel, plying their kibokos without wasting words, stirring the whole world within their reach into action—if not orderly and purposeful, action, at least.
Schubert climbed on a roof well to windward and safe from the sparks, and directed proceedings in a voice that out-thundered the mob’s roar and crackling flames. To illustrate his meaning he seized handfuls of the thatch on which he stood and tore them out, to the huge discontent of the owner. The crowd saw what he wanted and began at once tearing off roofs in a wide circle around the fire so as to isolate it, Schubert demonstrating until scarcely a handful of thatch remained on the roof he honored and he had to stand awkwardly on the crisscross poles, while the owner and his women wept.
Within ten minutes after the commencement of the fire there was under way a regular orgy of roof pulling. Whoever had an enemy ran and tore his roof off, and there were several instances of reciprocity, two families tearing off each other’s roofs, each believing the other to be at the fire.
Muanza was a furious place—a riot—a home of din and tumult while the fire lasted, and when it was put out it took another hour to stop the fights between victims of the flames and unofficial salvage-men.
“D’ye get the idea of it?” asked Will. “D’ye see the Achilles heel?”
In that second, I believe, Fred Oakes and I betrayed ourselves genuine adventurers. Any fool could have talked glibly about setting the town on fire; any coward could have yelped about the danger of it, and improbability of success. It needed adventurers to size up instantly all the odds against the idea, recognize the one infinitesimal chance, and plump for it. And we were there!
“It’s the only chance we’ve got!” agreed Fred. “I’m for it! Lead on America!”
“I believe we can pull it off!” said I. “I’m game!”
After that it seemed like waste of time to talk, yet every single detail of our plan had to be thought out beforehand and mentally rehearsed, if we hoped to have even the one slim chance we built on. Luckily Professor Schillingschen continued drunk, which meant that he would sleep early and give Lady Waldon another chance to pay us a nocturnal visit. One of our boys told us that according to market gossips the commandant was drinking with him and the two of them were watching a sort of prolonged native nautch they had staged in seclusion on the hill.
The next day we learned there was to be a murder trial of no less than nine men—an event likely to keep the whole garrison’s attention drawn away from us. And after the trial would come the hanging (it would have been impossible to convince any one, German or native, that the verdict and sentence were not foregone conclusions). The stars in their courses appeared to be on our side. For several nights to come the worst the moon could do would be to show a sliver of silver crescent for an hour or two.
Lady Waldon came earlier that night. When we outlined our plan to her roughly she argued against it at first—and it was impossible far-fetched—ridiculous. She insisted again on our simply sneaking away by night with her. But Fred wasted no time on argument, and took the upper hand.
“Take us or leave us, Lady Waldon, as we are! We’ve an unwritten rule that none of us has ever thought of breaking, that binds us to obey the member of the party whose plan we have adopted. On this occasion we have agreed to Mr. Yerkes’ plan, and you’ve got to obey him implicitly if you want to have part with us! We will not leave our men or Brown of Lumbwa behind, and we will not change the plan by a hair’s breadth! Will you or won’t you obey?”
She yielded then very quickly. It seemed a relief to her at last to subject her views to those of men whose purpose was merely honest. Will took up the reins at once.
“We’ve talked over buying the boat,” he said, “but that’s hopeless. The more we paid for it the louder the owner would brag. The Germans would be ‘on’ in a minute. We’ve simply got to steal it. It’s up to you to find out the man’s proper name and address, and we’ll send him the money from the first British post-office we reach.”
“Don Quixote de la Mancha!” she said critically. “Well—we steal the boat and you pay for it afterward. The owner will think you are crazy, and if the Germans ever discover it they will take the money away from him by some legal process. But go on!”
“We’ve plenty of money,” said Will, “so there’s no need to worry about too many supplies to begin with. But we’ll need scant rations for ourselves and all our men until we reach some place where more are to be bought. And we’ve got to get them on board the dhow secretly. The first question is, how to do that.”
She told us at once of a path going round by the back of the hill behind us, that would make the trip to the dhow in the dark a matter of over two miles, but that avoided all sentries and habitations. We agreed that all three of us should climb to the top of the hill, which was not out of bounds—and study the track next morning. On the fateful night we must take our chance, just as she had done, of avoiding the sleepy-eyed sentry who kept watch over the Greeks.
“We’ll talk to Brown of Lumbwa on the morning and afternoon march around the township,” Will went on. “Brown must whisper to Kazimoto through the corrugated iron partition in the jail at night, and have them all ready to break loose at the signal and bring him along with them. We must be careful to show Brown just where the dhow is. He has been sober quite a while. Maybe he’ll remember if we direct him carefully.”
“What is to be the signal?” she asked.
“Just what I’m coming to,” said Will. “A fire-alarm on the first windy night! The next question is, who is to start the fire? We’ll need a good one! Yet if we do it, we’re likely to be caught by the crowd coming running to deal with it.”
“Coutlass!” she answered suddenly. “Coutlass and his two friends!”
“You’ll perhaps pardon me,” Fred answered, “but none of us would trust those Greeks as far as a hen could swim in alcohol!”
“Yet you must! Leave them to me! They don’t know that the sand in my glass has run down. Let me go to them presently, pretending that I went direct to them and am afraid of being seen by you. I will tell them that the Germans want a good excuse for putting you three men in jail and that they will he sent away free as a reward if they will start a fire and charge you afterward with arson! I will tell them to choose the first windy night, so as to have a really spectacular blaze worth committing perjury about!”
“Better arrange a signal,” Will advised. “They might otherwise fire before we were ready!”
“Very well. You men give me the word at midday of the day of the start, and I will spread red, white and blue laundry on the roof of the commandant’s house for the Greeks to see.”
“Good enough!” agreed Will. “Now one more stunt! We simply must have firearms. The Germans have taken ours away and locked them up. At a pinch I suppose we could manage with one rifle, provided we had lots of ammunition. We would rather have one each. In fact, the more the merrier. One we must have! What about it?”
She thought for several minutes. At last she told us that one of the commandant’s rifles and one of Schillingschen’s stood leaning in a corner of the living-room beside a book-case. Whether she could make away with one or both of those without detection she did not know, and she would have to use her wits regarding ammunition. It was always kept locked up.
“Why not kill an askari and take his rifle and cartridges?” she asked. “The sentry on duty watching the Greeks will be in the way. Knock him on the head from behind!”
“Thank you!” grinned Will, exchanging glances with us. “We shall have about enough on our consciences setting fire to half the township. We’ll not kill except in self-defense.”
“But you won’t set the town on fire! The Greeks will do that!”
“Don’t let’s argue ethics!” Fred interrupted, for Will’s ears were getting red. “Can you tell us for certain, Lady Waldon, whether all the askaris and German sergeants really run to a fire? Or do a certain number remain in the boma?”
“Oh, I know about that,” she answered. “Until the prisoners are all locked in—that is to say, in case of fire in the daytime—six or eight askaris remain inside the boma. The minute they are locked in, if the fire is serious, and in case of fire by night, they all go except two, who stand on the eastern boma wall, one at each corner. From there they are supposed to be able to see on every side except the water-front. Nobody guards the water-front; I don’t know why, unless it is that the gate on that side is kept locked almost always and the wall runs along the water’s edge.”
“As a matter of fact,” said I, “those two sentries on the wall will be too busy staring at the fire, if the Greeks really make a big one, to see anything else unless we march by under their noses with a brass band.”
“Bah!” sneered Lady Waldon. “If I get that rifle I would dare shoot them both for you myself!”
“If you overstep one detail of Will’s plan, I guarantee to put you ashore on the first barren island we come to!” said Fred. “Leave shooting to us!”
The next problem was to draw away from the Greeks the attention of the askari at the cross-roads. We could not see him, for it was one of those black African nights when the stars look like tiny pin-pricks and there are no shadows because all is dark. To go out and look what he was doing would have been to arouse his suspicion. Yet there was always a chance that he might be patrolling down near the Greek camp; doubtless acting on orders, he had a trick of approaching their tents very closely once in a while.
So when Lady Waldon had slipped out into the darkness we lit half a dozen lamps and started a concert, Fred playing and we singing the sort of tunes that black men love. He took the bait, hook, sinker, and all; in the silence at the end of the first song we heard his butt ground on the gravel just beyond the cactus hedge in front of us; and there he stayed, we entertaining him for an hour. By that time we were quite sure that Lady Waldon had passed along the road behind him; so Fred went out and gave him tobacco.
“It’s time you went and looked at those Greeks again!” he advised him. “You would be in trouble if they slipped away in the night!”
Now that a plan of campaign was finally decided on, there seemed much less to do than we had feared. Mapping out in our minds the way round the back of the hill to the dhow was perfectly simple; we went and smoked on the hilltop, and within an hour after breakfast had every turn and twist memorized. Fred drew a chart of the track for safety’s sake.
Persuading Brown of Lumbwa proved unexpectedly to be much the most difficult task. Added to the fact that the askaris who marched behind and the Greeks who marched in front were unusually inquisitive, Brown himself was afraid.
“We’ll all be shot in the dark!” he objected.
“Would you rather,” Will asked, “be shot in the dark with a run for ‘your money, or fed to the crocks in the doctor’s pond?” And he told him about the crocodiles to encourage him.
“They’ll have to let me out of jail at the end of the month,” Brown argued.
“Don’t you believe it! In less than a week from now we’ll all be in on one and the same charge of filibustering! They’ll not let you go back to British East to tell tales about their treatment of the rest of us,” Will assured him.
But Brown proved tinged with a little streak of yellow somewhere. It was not until the afternoon march that Fred and Will, one on either side of him, by appeals to his racial instinct and recalling the methods of the military court, induced him to do his part. Once having promised he vowed he would see the thing through to the end; but he was the weak link; he was afraid; and he disbelieved in the wisdom of the attempt.
It was Kazimoto in the end who kept Brown up to the mark, and shamed him into action by superior courage. Fred found a chance to speak to him as the long string rested at noon under the narrow shade of a cactus hedge, and warned him in about fifty words of what was intended. (The askaris, almost as leg-weary as the gang, were sprawling at the far end of the line, gambling at pitch-and-toss.)
“Be sure you sleep as near to the partition as you can. Get details of the plan from Mr. Brown, and then drill the porters one by one! Don’t let them tell one another. You tell each one of them yourself!”
Then he walked down the line and ordered the porters in a loud voice to obey the askaris implicitly, and to work harder in return for the good food and care they were getting, winking at the same time very emphatically, with the eye the askaris could not see.
The night work was the hardest., because, although we were quite sure about direction, even in the dark, it was another matter to feel our way and carry unaccustomed loads. By day we decided what to take and what to leave behind, and we cut down what to take with us to the irreducible, dangerous minimum. Then we broke that up into thirty-or forty-pound packages, so that when we all three made the trip to the dhow the most we took at one time was about a hundred pounds’ weight. In the condition I was in I could take not more than one trip to the others’ two; after the first it was agreed that I would better stay behind and keep an eye on the askari. The minute he showed symptoms of becoming inquisitive I was to invent some way of keeping his attention; so all unsuspected by him I lay in the sand by the roadside within three yards of him, while the ants crawled over me and he dozed leaning on his rifle. Once a long snake crawled over my wrist and my very marrow curdled with fear and loathing; but except for mosquitoes, who were legion and sucked their fill, there was no other contretemps. I don’t know what I would have done if the askari had taken alarm and set off to investigate. I trusted to intuition should that happen.
The work of arranging the stuff in the dhow was the most difficult of all, because we dared not light a lantern, yet we also dared not stow things carelessly for fear of confusion when the hour of action came. The space was ridiculously small for ourselves and all those men, and every inch had to be economized. In addition to that the dhow had to be worked backward off the mud far enough to be shoved off easily, and then made fast by a rope to the bushes in such way as not to be noticeable. Most of the ropes turned out to be rather rotten, and we could only guess at the condition of the sails; the feel of them in the dark gave us small assurance. But fortunately we had a couple of hundred feet of good half-inch manila in camp with us, and that Fred and Will took out and stowed in the hold the night following.
We bought such things at the D.O.A.G. as we could without arousing suspicion, as, for instance, a quantity of German dried pea-soup—not that the porters would take to it kindly, but it would go a long way among them at a pinch. Live stock we did not dare buy, for fear of the noise it would make; but we laid in some eggs and bananas. Most of the thirty-pound loads were rice.
It troubled us sorely to leave our good tents, beds, and equipment behind, yet all we could take was the blankets and one Gladstone bag packed with clothes for us all. Kettles and pots and pans were a noisy nuisance, yet we had to have them, and blankets for all those porters, who would escape from jail practically naked, were an essential; but fortunately we had a sixty-pound bale of trade-blankets among our loads.
Not one word did we exchange all this while with Coutlass and his friends. Not one overture did we make to them, or they to us. But there was no doubt of their intention to do their worst. They gloated over us—eyed us with lofty disdain and scornful superior knowledge. They were so full of the notion of having us jailed for their misdeed that they positively ached to come and jeer at us, and I believe were only saved from doing that by the shortness of the time.
At last, three days after decision had been reached, we threw our blankets with a red one uppermost over the top of both tents in the sun; and within thirty minutes after that Lady Saffren Waldon had spread on the commandant’s roof a blue cotton dress, a white petticoat, and a blazing red piece of silken stuff. There and then the Greeks and the Goanese pledged one another out in the open with copious draughts in turn from the neck of one whisky bottle, and we began to pray they might not get too drunk before night. Judging by their meaning glances at us, they considered us their mortal and cruel enemies whom it would be an act of sublime virtue to bring to book.
The trial of the natives for murder had taken place, accompanied by the usual amount of thrashing of witnesses and the usual stir throughout the countryside. These were charged with having murdered an askari near their village—a big bully sent to arrest a man, who had taken leave to help himself to more than rations, and had made a lot too free with the village women. So German military honor had to be upheld exemplarily. Condign vengeance was sure and swift. The execution was to take place on the drill-ground on the day we chose for our departure.
There was no risk of investigations that day. Had we known it, we could have gone away in all likelihood in broad daylight, so busy was the garrison in marshaling into place and policing the swarms of villagers brought in from as far as sixty miles away to witness German justice. Even the customary parade of the band was canceled for that occasion, and that was our only real ground for uneasiness, for it prevented our having a last talk with Brown of Lumbwa and assuring ourselves that courage would not fail him in the pinch.
We worried in plenty without cause, as it seems that humans must do on the eve of putting plans, however well laid, to the test. We had a thousand scares—a thousand doubts—and overlooked at least a thousand evidences that fortune favored us. Toward the end our hearts turned to water at the thought that Kazimoto would probably fail to do his part, although why we should have doubted him after his faithful record, and knowing his hatred of German rule, we would have found it hard to say.
Several times that morning we showed ourselves about the town, with the purpose of allaying any possible suspicion and saving the authorities the trouble of asking what we were up to. With the same end in view we attended the execution in the afternoon, and sincerely wished before it was over that we had stayed away.
On this occasion even the chain-gangs were included among the spectators, in the front row, on the ground that, being proved criminals, they needed the lesson more than the hempen-noose-food not yet caught and tried and brought to book.
The same sort of sermon, only this time more fiery and full of ranting humbug about German righteousness, was preached by the commandant. The miserable victims had received a simple death sentence, but he explained that in virtue of his superior office he had seen fit to add to it. “Death” he explained, “would certainly rid the German protectorate of such conscienceless scalawags as these, but might not be enough to discourage the bad element that disliked German rule. Natives must be taught that the very name of all that is German must be reverenced, and that German punishment is as terrible and sure as the German arm is long! And be sure of this!” he continued. “The ear of the German government is as far-reaching as its arm! In your villages—in your homes—in your families—there is always an agent of the government listening! Your own brother—your wife—your child may be that agent of the government! Now, watch carefully and see what happens to men with bad hearts—aye, and to women with bad hearts, who conspire against German rule!”
What followed was more impressive because of the determination we had heard of to bring all Africa under the German yoke. In vain should the wretched natives in after years escape by the hundreds northward in the hope of living under British government. The fools—the “easy people”—the “folk who gave without a price”—the “truth tellers”—the “men who wish to forget”—the unwise, cocksure, cleaner-living, unbelievably credulous, foolishly honest British officials would be all gone. The Pickelhaube and the lash, blackmail and coercion would take the place of generosity. Africa would better be back under the Arabs again, for the Arabs had no system to speak of and were inefficient. Some Arabs have a heart—some a very soft heart.
The crowd grew bright-eyed, little children straining forward between their elders in the bull-fight frenzy—that same intoxication of the senses that held the Roman freemen spellbound at the sight of suffering.
One at a time, that the last might see the torture of the first, the victims were noosed by the heel (one heel)—thrown with a jerk—hauled heel-first to the overhanging branch—and flogged into unconsciousness with slow blows, the lieutenant standing by to reprove the askaris if they struck too fast, for that would have been merciful. Not until the victims ceased to struggle were they lowered and thrown on the ground, to lie bleeding, awaiting their turn to be hanged.
The last two—supposed to have been the culprits who actually held the spear that pierced the marauding askari’s heart—were hauled up heel-to-heel together, and hanged presently in the same noose, the commandant laughing at their struggles and Professor Schillingschen studying their agony with strictly scientific interest.
When the last had ceased struggling Schillingschen permitted himself one more pleasure. He strolled over to us and blocked Fred’s way, standing with hands behind him and out-thrust chin.
“You flatter yourself, don’t you!” he sneered. He was just drunk enough to be boastful, while thoroughly sure of what he was saying. “You expect to tell a fine tale! I know the psychology of the English! I know it like a book! Let me tell you two things: First, your English would not believe you. They are such supremely cocksure fools that they can not be made to believe that another so-called civilized nation would act as they, in their egoism, would be ashamed to act! Civilization! That is a fine word, full of false meanings! Civilization is prudery—sham—false pride—veneer! Only the Germans are truly civilized, because they alone are not afraid to face naked animalism without its mask! The British dare not! They hide from it—shut their eyes! The fools! If you could tell them their story they would never listen!
“Second: You will never tell the story! Being English, you were such dull-witted fools that you did not even hide the cartridge cases, or the bones of the Masai you shot! Bah-ha-ha-ha-hah! You can escape hanging yet by telling your secret. Jail you can not escape! Try it if you don’t believe me! Try to escape—go on!”
He turned on his heel and left us, striding heavily with the strength of an ox and about the alertness of a traction engine, turning his head every once in a while to enjoy the spectacle of our discomfort.
We judged it best to appear concerned, as if that was indeed our first realization of the extent of the case against us and the nature of the evidence. But we did not find it difficult. We were all three startled by the fear that in some way he had got wind of our plans, and that he meant to play with us cat-and-mouse fashion.
That night it stormed—not rain, but wind from east to west, blowing such clouds of dust that one could scarcely see across the narrow streets. Every element favored us. Even the askari at the cross-roads, supposed to be watching the Greeks, turned his back to the wind, and what with rubbing sand in and out of smarting eyes and fingering it out of his ears, heard and saw nothing. It was scarcely sunset when we saw both Greeks and the Goanese sneak out of the camping-place in Indian file with their pockets full of cotton waste. They had soaked the stuff in kerosene right under our eye that afternoon.
There ought to have been a sliver of moon, but the wind and dust hid it. Fifteen minutes after sundown the only light was from the lamps in windows and the cooking fires glowing in the open here and there. Thirty minutes later there began to be a red glow in three directions. Less than one second after we saw the first indications of the holocaust a regular volley of shots broke out from the boma as the sentries on duty gave the general alarm. Less than five minutes after that the whole of the southern, grass-roofed section of the town was going up in flames, and every living man, black, white, gray, mulatto, brown and mixed, was running full pelt to the scene of action.
We waited ten minutes longer, rather expecting the Greeks to double back and begin denouncing us at once. In that case we intended to stretch them out with the first weapons handy. I sat feeling the weight of an ax, and wondering just how hard I could hit a Greek’s head with the back of it without killing him. Fred had a long tent-peg. Will chose a wooden mallet that our porters carried to help in pitching tents.
But the Greeks did not come, and there streamed such a perfect screen of crimson dust, sparkling in the reflected blaze and more beautiful than all the fireworks ever loosed off at a coronation, that it was folly to linger. We each seized the load left for that last trip (Fred’s included the hammer, Pincers, and cold chisel for striking off the porters’ chain) and started off quietly round the hill, not beginning to hurry until the hill lay between us and the burning town.
There was not much need for caution. The roar of flames, the shouting, the excitement would have protected us, whatever noise we made, however openly we ran. Over and above the tumult we could hear Schubert’s bull-throated bellowing, and then the echo to him as the sergeants took up the shout all together, ordering “Off with the grass roofs! Off with the roofs!”
The white officials were more than interested, and had no time for anything but thought for the blaze. As we crossed the shoulder of the far side of the hill we could see them standing on the drill-ground all together, clearly defined against the crimson flare. Schillingschen was with them.
There was no sign of what had happened at the boma. The gang would have to emerge from a little-used gate at the northern end, provided they could break the lock or secure the key to it; otherwise their only chance was to climb the wall by the cook-house roof and jump twenty feet on the far side. I was for running to the little gate and bursting it in from the outside, but Fred damned me for a mutineer between his panting for breath, and Will, who was longer-winded, agreed with him.
“Have to leave their end of the plan to them! Let’s do our part right!”
As it turned out, we were last at the rendezvous. We heard the chain clanking in the dark just ahead of us, and try how we might, could not catch up. Then, near the boat bow, Kazimoto suddenly recognized Fred and nearly throttled him in a fierce embrace, releasing all his pent-up rage, agony, resentment, misery, fear in one paroxysm of affection for the man who cared enough to run risks for the sake of rescuing him. Fred had to pry him off by main force.
“Into the boat with you!” Will ordered them. “Chain-gang first! Get down below, and lie down! The first head that shows shall be hit with a club! Quickly now!”
Clanking their infernal chain like all the ghosts from all the haunted granges of the Old World, they climbed overside and disappeared. There were more figures left on shore than than we expected. Brown we could make out dimly in the dark: he was chattering nervously, and admitted that but for Kazimoto he would not be there. The faithful fellow had broken down the corrugated iron partition and had dragged him out by main force. He was rather resentful than grateful.
“Hauled here by a nigger—think of it!”
We ordered Brown on board and below, pretty peremptorily. Lady Saffren Waldon stepped out of the darkness next, holding a rifle and two bandoleers so full of cartridges that she could hardly raise her arms. We took the load from her, and helped her overside. Fred took the rifle and succumbed to the hunter’s habit of opening the breach first thing. It was a German sporting Mauser, with a hair trigger attachment and magazine, as handy and useful a weapon as the heart of man could wish. He had scarcely snapped the breach to again when a voice we all recognized made the hair rise on my neck. Fred jumped and raised the rifle. Will swore softly—endlessly.
“Gassharrrrammminy! You men took us for damned fools, didn’t you? You thought to get away and leave us! By hell, no! We go or you stay! Birds of a feather fly together! One of you is American—I am American! Two of you are English—I am English, and can prove it! My friends come with me!”
Fred leveled the rifle at him.
“About face! Off back to town with you!” he barked.
“Not on your tin-type!” Coutlass yelled. “I’m no man’s popinjay! Shoot if you dare, and I’ll spoil the whole game! Help! He-e-e-lp! He-e-e-e-lp!”
The other Greek and the Goanese joined in the shout, the dark man setting up such an ululating screech that the very storm dwindled into second place in comparison. It was true, the unearthly yelling was carried out over the water, and very likely not a sound of it reached twenty yards inland; but it rattled our nerves, nevertheless. The skin grew prickly all up and down my backbone, and the men on the chain-gang inside the hull began shouting to know what the matter was.
Will remembered then that he was captain for the day, and made virtue of necessity.
“In with you!” he ordered. “Quick!”
With a grin that was half-triumph, half-cunning, and wholly glad, Coutlass helped his companions over the bow, and had the civility to stand there with hand outstretched to help us in after him. We sent him below with his friends, but he came up again and insisted on leaning his weight on the poles with which we began shoving off into deeper water. It was hard work, for with her human cargo and several hundred gallons of water that had leaked through her gaping seams, the dhow was down several inches. Her hull had just begun to feel the wind and to rise and fall freely, when a white figure ran screaming down toward the water’s edge and stood there waving to us frantically.
“Leave her!” said Lady Waldon excitedly, clutching my arm. I was up on the bow, just about to lay the pole along the deck and haul on the halyards. She spoke very slowly right in my ear. “That, is my maid Rebecca. The faithless slut—”
Coutlass began to shout, trying to pole the dhow back to land single-handed.
“We can’t leave that woman behind there!” Fred shouted, hardly making himself heard against the wind.
“Can’t we!” shouted Lady Waldon. “Give me that rifle, and I’ll solve the problem for you!”
But Coutlass solved it in another way by jumping overboard, over his head in deep water, taking our hempen warp with him (I had made one end of it fast to the bitts, meaning to be able to find it in the dark).
There was quite a sea running, even as close inshore as that, and for a moment I doubted whether the Greek would make it. By that time it was all we could do to see the woman’s white figure, still gesticulating, and screaming like a mad thing. Presently, however, the warp tightened, and then by the strain on it I knew that Coutlass was trying to haul us back inshore. Failing to do that, for the strength of the wind was increasing, he seized the Syrian woman by the waist and plunged into the water with her. I saw them disappear and hauled on the warp hand-over-hand with all my might, Lady Waldon leaning over to strike at my hands until I shouted to Fred to come and hold her. Then she begged Fred again for the rifle, promising to kill the two of them and reduce our problem to that extent if we would only let her.
Will and I hauled the dripping pair on board, and Coutlass carried the maid to the stern. She had fainted, either from fright or from being half-drowned, there was no guessing which. Then in pitch blackness with Will’s help I got the ship beam to the wind and began to make sail.
Now danger was only just beginning! I was the only one of them all who knew anything whatever about sails and sailing. I was too weak to get the sail up single-handed, had no compass, knew nothing whatever of the rocks and shoals, except by rumor that there were plenty of both. There appeared to be no way of reefing the lateen sail, which was made of no better material than calico, and I was entirely unfamiliar with the rigging.
Behind us, as we payed before the gaining wind, was brilliant blaze that showed where Muanza was. Against the blaze stood out the lakeward boma wall. I stood due east away from it, and discovered presently that by easing on the halyard so as to lower the long spar I could obtain something the effect of reefing.
I set Fred and Will to making a sea-anchor of buckets and spars in case the sail or rotten rigging should carry away, leaving us at the mercy of the short steep waves that fresh-water lakes and the North Sea only know. The big curved spar, now that it was hanging low, bucked and swung and the dhow steered like an omnibus on slippery pavement. Luckily, I had living ballast and could trim the ship how I chose. They all began to grow seasick, but I gave them something to think about by making them shift backward and forward and from side to side until I found which way the dhow rode easiest.
When Fred had finished the sea-anchor he got out the tools and began striking off the iron rings on the porters’ necks through which the chain passed. The job took him two hours, but at the end of it we owned a good serviceable chain, and a crew that could be drilled to take the brute hard labor off our shoulders.
Coutlass meanwhile was busy on the seat in the stern beside me making Hellenic inflammatory love to Lady Waldon’s maid, whom he had wrapped in his own blanket and held shivering in his arms. Lady Waldon herself sat on the other side of me, affecting not to be aware of the existence of either of them. The other Greek and the Goanese had been driven below, where they started to smoke until I saw the glow of their pipes and shouted to Will to stop that foolishness. He snatched both pipes and threw them overboard. The thought of being seen from shore was almost incitement enough for murder. They refused to turn a hand to anything that night, but sat sulking below the sloping roof of reeds and tarpaulin that did duty for a deck, wedged alongside of seasick Wanyamwezi.
It was Kazimoto who chose the least disheartened of the gang, beat them and stung them into liveliness, and set them to bailing. There was a trough running thwartwise of the ship into which the water had to be lifted from the midship well. It took the gang of eight men, working in relays, until nearly dawn to get the water out of her; and to keep her bottom reasonably dry after that two men working constantly.
I knew vaguely that the great island of Ukerewe lay to the northwestward of us. Between that and the mainland, running roughly north, was a passage that narrowed in more than one place to less than a hundred yards. That would have been the obvious course to take had we not been afraid of pursuit, had we dared get away by daylight, and provided I had known the way. As it was I intended to add another hundred miles to the distance between us and the northern shore of the lake, by sailing well clear of and around Ukerewe, trusting to the less frequented water and the wilder islands to make escape easier.
I judged it likely that the moment we were missed, the launch would be sent off in search of us, and that the Germans would search the narrow passage first. They would expect us to take the narrow passage, as the shortest, and depend on their ability to steam a dozen miles an hour to overhaul us, even should we get a long start on the outside course.
With gaining wind, a following sea, a little ship crowded to suffocation, and a sail that might blow to shreds at any minute, it was not long before I began to pray for the lee of Ukerewe, and to stand in closer toward where I judged the end of the island ought to be than perhaps I should have done. It was lucky, though, that I did.
In making calculations I had overlooked the obvious fact that, steaming three miles to our one, the launch could very well afford to take the outside course to start with. Then they could take a good look for us in the open water next morning, and, failing to find us, steam all around Ukerewe, come back down the inside passage, and catch us between two banks.
It was Lady Saffren Waldon on my left hand, looking anywhere but at her maid and sweeping the dark waste of water with eyes as restless as the waves themselves, who gave the first alarm.
“What is that light?” she asked me.
Following the direction of her hand I saw a red glow on the water to our left, not more than a mile behind.
“Reflection from the burning town,” I answered, but I had no sooner said it than I knew the answer was foolish. It was the glow that rides above hot steamer funnels in the night.
“Fred!” I shouted, for fear took hold of the very roots of my heart, “for the love of God make every one keep silence! Show no lights! Don’t speak above a whisper! Keep all heads below the gunwale! That cursed German launch is after us!”
We were in double danger. I could hear surf pounding on rocks to starboard. I did not dare to come up into the wind because nobody but I knew how the spar would have to be passed around the mast, and in any case the noise and the fluttering sail might attract attention.
“Look out for breakers ahead!” I ordered. “I’m going to hold this course and hope they pass us in the dark!”