Tom Burnaby Part 29

"Ten pound," said the German instantly.

"What! Ten pounds for those few things! Why, it's ruinous! How do you make out the bill?"

"I gif no bill. I hafe vat you call mon-o-po-ly, my young friend. It is take it or leafe it, I do not mind."

"Business are business, indeed! Well, I want the things. I can do without the watch and the pocket-books, perhaps. How much then?"

"Ten pound; I hafe only vun price."

"You old Shylock! Well, I haven't the cash, so I can't expect the five per cent, but I'll give you an order on my uncle. I suppose that'll satisfy you?"

"Oh yes! ze British officer vat you call pay opp. I vill feel quite safe."

"Very well. Heavens! how funny it is to hold a pencil again! There you are: 'Pay Herr Schwab on sight ten pounds (10). Tom Burnaby'. That'll do, eh?"

"All correct, my young friend. And now, vat more can I do for you?"

"I hardly like to ask you, but would you mind--pray don't hesitate to say so--would you mind cutting my hair?"

"You hafe done me vell, Mr. Burnaby; I do not mind. I vill cut your hair, and sell you ze scissors."

"Fire away, then, and don't dig into my skin, will you?"

Schwab turned up his sleeves, tucked a long yellow scarf from his variety bundle round Tom's neck, and cropped him close, with no more than the usual stabs and p.r.i.c.ks. Then Tom escorted him round his little domain, and gratified him with an order for various tools and implements. He remained overnight as Tom's guest, and started early in the morning northwards to visit the Arabs.

Before he left, Tom warned him that he might find the Arabs rather unpleasant customers. But Schwab puffed himself out and waved the warning away.

"Vat!" he said, "the Arabs vill not dare do anyzink to me, a Gairman!

Our Kaiser, who is in Berlin--he vould know ze reason vy if vun hair of my head vas touched."

"You Germans are lucky," laughed Tom. "The King isn't so particular about my hair! Besides, it's not much good knowing after the event.

You're out of reach of an army corps, you know, or even a telegram."

"I am not vun small bit afraid. I hafe my Mausers. I hafe my revolver; besides, I go to sell ammunition, and zat ze Arabs vill alvays be most glad to get."

"I must put my veto on that. I fear, Mr. Schwab, you don't quite realize the situation. I have every sympathy with legitimate trade--we British are a trading nation; but as matters stand I must regard rifles as contraband of war. Sell the Arabs pins and milking-pails and anything else you like, but no arms or ammunition. In fact, I shall have to ask you to leave your cases of ammunition here, taking with you only enough to serve your immediate needs. I can't have arms put into my enemy's hands. And you're smuggling, you know; you'd get into hot water if the Free State people knew. I'll keep your ammunition safe until you return. And another thing, Herr Schwab. You'll be good enough to give the Arabs no information about me or the village. I'm not sure that as a precaution I oughtn't to prevent your getting to them at all, but I don't want to be unfriendly. It's understood, then, that you keep to yourself all that you have seen here?"

The German tried for half an hour to wriggle out of the dilemma, but Tom told him flatly at last that on no other conditions would he be allowed to proceed; and he at last submitted with a shrug.

Half an hour after Schwab had gone Tom started with Mbutu, the katikiro, the kasegara, the princ.i.p.al drummer, and three other officials, for the hill to which the chiefs had been summoned for palaver. They all arrived at the rendezvous, and for five long hours Tom patiently explained and argued and explained again, striving with infinite tact to dispel their suspicions and to persuade them of the ultimate advantage they would all derive from co-operation. Coached beforehand in definite details by the katikiro, he reminded them of the ravages from which they had already suffered; of the villages burnt to the ground, the crops destroyed, the ruthless ma.s.sacres, the brutal mutilations, the hundreds captured as slaves. He touched a tender spot when he spoke of the immense treasures of ivory of which the Arabs had despoiled them--ivory which their own skill as hunters had obtained, and which they might have sold profitably to the Free State Government or to merchants. Lastly, finding it necessary to take a leaf out of the African's own book, he spoke of himself, of the Great White King, of his own deeds against the Arabs, and said that only if they fell in with his proposal could they hope to deal a final crus.h.i.+ng blow at the Arab power. The chiefs were more and more impressed, and at length one of them said that only one thing was still needed to bring him under Kuboko's banner. He had heard great stories of Kuboko's big medicine; if Kuboko would exhibit his magic and convince him by the evidence of his own eyes, he would willingly call Kuboko brother and follow him as his great chief.

Tom instantly agreed, and the katikiro fairly danced with merriment.

Nothing could be more effectual, Tom thought, than his final performance with the medicine-man, so he invited the chiefs in turn to knock him down if they could. They showed at first some reluctance, but Msala a.s.sured them that Kuboko would bear them no malice. Thus rea.s.sured they advanced in turn, and in a very few minutes all three were sitting on the ground, laughing uproariously at their own mishaps, while the katikiro and his friends made the countryside resound with their boisterous "Hoo! hoo! hoo!" No further proof was required; the chiefs signified their adhesion to the proposed confederation, and declared that they were ready, on a day to be fixed, formally to become Kuboko's blood-brothers.

This being achieved, Tom spent another hour in explaining the details of the federation. Each chief, as soon as the approach of the Arabs was signalled, was to place himself unreservedly at Tom's orders, and bring his contingent into the field. They could each promise about two hundred men. The signal would be given in the usual way by drums, and to ensure early information Tom intimated that he would arrange a series of posts about three miles apart, extending for some thirty miles into the forest, in the direction from which the Arabs might be expected. As soon as the enemy was sighted, the fact would be announced by drums from post to post; but in order to provide against the possibility of mistake a message would also be conveyed by runners.

One of the conditions of the alliance was that each member of the confederacy bound himself to a.s.sist in the rebuilding of any village that might be destroyed, and Tom was especially careful in explaining the reason.

"You see, my brothers," he said, "you will not wish to leave your villages feeling that during your absence, and owing to your absence, they may be burnt, and your wives and children thus rendered homeless.

But by accepting my plan, when the drum tells you that the Arabs are coming, you may rush to join me with every confidence; for if your villages are destroyed, you know that all your brothers, yes, and I myself, will help to build them up again. And so you will have new huts for old. Is it well, my brothers?"

There were grunts of acquiescence.

"There is one other thing," Tom continued. "The Arabs, if they come in the large numbers that we expect, will range the country far and wide for food. Then I recommend you, if at this late season of the year you have still any of your crops unreaped, or any of your food-roots in the ground, to gather in all that you can, and dig deep pits in secret places, and there store your harvest. It is not well that we should feed the Arabs."

The chiefs again showed by their grunts that they found Kuboko's recommendation good.

"Now I want you, when you return to your own villages, to call up all the petty chiefs who look up to you, the chiefs of tens and twenties and thirties, and explain to them what we have talked about to-day. If they agree to come in with us, you will bring them to a grand palaver on this same hillside eight days from now. Every man will carry his arms, and come equipped as for war."

Tom was thoroughly tired out when he got back to the village. He had intended to write, in one of the note-books he had obtained from Schwab, a brief jotting of recent events, for future reference, but he put off that till next morning. When morning came, however, he was too anxious to begin his experiments in powder-making to spend any time in penning records. He had a large quant.i.ty of crude sulphur and saltpetre to refine, and he was by no means sure that with the rough apparatus at hand he would be successful. That could easily be tested, and he at once set about his preparations for the task.

He got a number of large earthen pots of all shapes and sizes, and broke up the rough dirty rolls of sulphur into these. Then he heated them gently over slow fires, and found, as he had hoped, that the earthy impurities gradually settled at the bottom, leaving the pure sulphur, a liquid like treacle, at the top. This he ladled off into clean vessels.

So far so good. The next thing was the saltpetre which had been collected by the women. This also he put into vessels, and dissolved the crude solid in water. Raising the mixture to the boiling-point, he allowed it to cool gradually, and watched for the result. The pure saltpetre was deposited in a solid crystalline ma.s.s at the bottom.

Here then were two of the necessary const.i.tuents; the third was easily obtained, for the katikiro had admirably carried out his instructions, and had personally superintended the cutting and carrying of an immense quant.i.ty of splendid wood from the forest, which was easily converted into charcoal by heating it in closed vessels.

Nothing now remained but to mix these ingredients.

"We must take care it isn't bang! soos.h.!.+ black man all dead," said Tom to Mbutu, who, with all the other officials, was taking the keenest interest in the experiments. "I think we had better build a shed half a mile away, so that if there is an explosion it will do no harm except to me and you and my a.s.sistants."

"Sah no go," said Mbutu. "Me go; make bang stuff; blow up; all same for one."

"No, my boy, that won't do. Why, the people here would lose all faith in me if I was afraid to take my own big medicine. No; we'll set about running up a shed at once, and take care to avoid risks as much as possible. Two men with you and me will be enough to do the mixing, at first, at any rate, and you may choose them out of your own friends."

A wooden shed was soon fixed up on an open s.p.a.ce far from trees or bush, and Tom arranged to begin work before dawn next day, so as to get some mixing done before the sun was high. He was not at all sure about the proportions in which the three const.i.tuents ought to be mixed, but hoped to find that out by experiment. Just as the darkness began to clear he went out to the shed with Mbutu alone to make a first attempt in private. It was unsuccessful; the mixture burnt readily enough, but without explosion. He guessed from his failure that the quant.i.ty of saltpetre in his first mixture had not been sufficient, and, carefully measuring out his quant.i.ties in a small bra.s.s cup, he increased the amount little by little, testing a portion of the mixture after each addition, until at last he was rewarded with a decided explosion which reverberated in a hundred echoes, and was answered by the banging of the sentry's drum in the village. Tom laughed with almost childish delight at the success of his efforts, and, taking careful note of the proportions he had finally arrived at, he returned to the village.

Next morning he took out the two Bahima selected by Mbutu, and found that not only were they quick to learn, but, what is more important in a native of Africa, they recognized the necessity for caution. They worked steadily till ten o'clock, and at the end of the day Tom found himself in possession of several pounds of serviceable powder. It was a queer-looking mixture, and Tom said to himself, with a laugh, that no doubt it would miserably fail to pa.s.s the Waltham test; but he knew that it would serve his purpose, and that was sufficient. Within a fortnight he had stored about half a ton in the recesses of the cavern in the cliff, and had collected in the village a large quant.i.ty of the several const.i.tuents, which only awaited mixing.

"It is a pity," he thought, "that with an almost unlimited supply of powder, we can make so little use of it. At the most we have muskets for only two hundred and fifty men, and many of these are likely to be as dangerous to us as to the enemy. With the powder we already have we could supply a brigade for a month's campaign. But surely it can be used in some other way?"

In the event of another siege the store of powder would, he knew, be invaluable for mining purposes; but he wished to find some method by which it could be turned to account in field operations. At last he hit upon an idea. Why not lay in a supply of hand-grenades? He could not, of course, with the limited supply of metal in the village, and the still more limited smithy arrangements, manufacture bombs with a metal case; but after some cogitation he found a means of surmounting this difficulty. The grenades, he thought, might be made of thick pottery, encased in a double or triple envelope of elastic wicker-work, the latter intended to prevent the bomb, when thrown, from bursting before the fuse had time to do its work. In the manufacture of this outer envelope Tom relied on the extreme ingenuity of the Bahima in all kinds of basket-weaving; and his expectations in this respect were more than realized. Experimenting first with a dummy sh.e.l.l, he found that, protected by the wicker covering, it could be thrown to a distance of forty or fifty yards without breaking the earthenware container. This was quite sufficient for his purpose.

"I think," he said to the katikiro, who was watching his experiments with mingled wonder and amus.e.m.e.nt, "that we shall be able to give the Arabs more than one surprise if they visit us again. I want you to get your potters and weavers to make two dozen more jars after this pattern; Mbutu will take them, together with a large basketful of granite chips, to the shed where we made the powder. We shall see to-morrow whether these little jars are going to be of use to us."

On the following morning Tom went with Mbutu to the powder-shed, which had always been made taboo to the villagers. There he half-filled one of the jars with granite chips (all the available iron sc.r.a.ps being required for the muskets), and rammed in on the top a bursting-charge of gunpowder. Into the neck of the jar he fitted a plug, through which a hole was bored for the insertion of a time fuse. In the preparation of the fuse Tom's school-boy experiments in pyrotechny stood him in good stead. Some cotton fibre steeped in a solution of saltpetre fully answered his purpose. His next step was to erect a framework of match-boarding to serve as a target. Stationing himself behind an earthen breastwork about forty yards from the target, he set fire to the fuse of his trial bomb and, hurling it at the target, dropped to the ground behind the entrenchment. There he waited for some seconds until a loud report showed that his grenades could at least be trusted to explode; some small fragments dropped within a few feet of his shelter.

Stepping up to the target, he found it pitted in a dozen places with dents due to the granite chips, some of which were driven some distance into the wood. There was no doubt that had a body of men been within a few feet of the bomb when it exploded, not many would have survived.

Tom's next concern was to ensure, first, that the fuse should be perfectly trustworthy, and secondly, that the bursting-charge of powder should not be so great as to bring the grenadiers themselves within the danger-zone. It required two or three days of careful experiment before he was satisfied on these points. Then he instructed the katikiro to select twenty potters and twice as many weavers to manufacture a large supply of bombs; and under his own and Mbutu's supervision these were carefully charged in the shed, and stowed away in the cavern on the cliff. The provision of a number of plug-bayonets by the village smiths completed his experiments in the preparation of warlike stores.

On the day before the general palaver, the katikiro came to Tom and informed him that the chief who had so insolently dismissed Barega's messenger during the siege had come into the village with a retinue, and had very humbly asked to see Kuboko.

"Ah!" said Tom; "he has come round, has he? Bring him up."

The chief and his men drew near very much as whipped dogs would have done. Within ten yards of Tom's hut they flung themselves on their faces, and wriggled their way with ludicrous contortions towards him.

He thought it a good opportunity for teaching the whole village a salutary lesson, so he summoned the people by beat of drum, and ordered them to stand round. Then he severely asked the fawning chief his name and business.

"O Kuboko, great master, my name is Uchunku," said the man. "I am weaker than a dog, smaller than a flea. Nothing that I have but is mine by the mercy of Kuboko. I have heard of Kuboko's mighty power, and I fall on my face, for no man can stand upright in the presence of the man of big medicine. I have heard, O Kuboko, of the wonderful thrower that casts mountains as high as the very stars of heaven; and of the mighty flood that flowed from the hollow of Kuboko's hand, and upon which the Arabs were swept away even as leaves upon the torrent. All this have I heard, and more, and I come to put my neck under Kuboko's foot, and beg him to gird my village about with his mighty magic."