Tom Burnaby Part 26

"Come, Mbutu," he said, "a night's work and a day's waiting and then we shall be free. Come with me."

In pitch darkness, for the sky was heavy with threatening rain, they made their way across the courtyard into the village, past the silent reservoir and the swollen stream, up to the stockade above the precipice. There they clambered over with infinite caution, lest the slightest sound should arouse the attention of the Arabs below. Feeling over the ground, they searched for the small aperture through which Tom had thrust his stick when exploring the cavern. Tom was half afraid lest some shifting of the soil had covered it up; but after ten minutes'

careful search Mbutu whispered that he had put his hand into it.

Thrusting a stick into the hole to mark the spot, they hurried to the chief's hut. When Barega came out, rubbing his eyes, Tom asked him for the services of twenty men, with baskets, spades, and bars of iron. He asked him also to pretend to lead a sortie out of the south gate, and to order his men to make as much noise as possible.

"Beat all your drums," he said; "clash all your pots and pans together; let the men yell their hardest, and keep up the din until I send you word."

Barega naturally asked what purpose was to be served by all this to-do, and what his brother would be about in the meantime. But Tom begged him to wait a little; he had a plan, he said. He would rather keep it to himself until he was sure of its success, lest his brother should be disappointed. The chief agreed to follow his instructions, and Tom left him.

Getting twenty of the strongest men together, he led them across the stockade, impressing on them that they must exercise the greatest caution and hold their tongues. Arriving the hole, he selected four of the longest and strongest bars of iron and ordered the men to push them quietly for some distance into the narrow cleft. Then, when he gave the word, one man on the one side was to push and two men on the other to pull at each bar, his aim being to widen the cleft into a practicable pa.s.sage. The bars had barely been inserted when the noise of drums rolled over the stockade. A moment afterwards a great clashing and clanking startled the air, and wild cries from some hundreds of l.u.s.ty throats woke echoes from rock and plantation. The sounds of hurried movement rose from the depths of the precipice; the Arab camp was evidently alarmed; and then Tom gave the signal. The men pushed and pulled as he had directed, but in vain; the heavy rock refused to budge.

Another man was told off to each bar, and again they put forth their strength; but still there was no sign of movement. The uproar from the village was greater than ever; there was little risk, after all, Tom thought, of his movements being heard; so he now ordered the men to exert all the force of which they were capable, regardless of noise. The result was startling. The whole of the ground; near the rock suddenly gave way and fell with a swish and thud into the cavern. Two of the men stumbled forward after it into the darkness, and knocked their shins violently against the rock. But they clambered up again, and Tom found that all the damage they had suffered was a few contusions.

[Ill.u.s.tration: BAREGA'S VILLAGE DURING THE SIEGE]

Tom now went, cautiously feeling his way, to the extreme verge of the precipice, and, bidding his men keep silence, strained his ears to catch any sounds from below. There was not a murmur. He judged that the Arabs had hastily left their camp and made their way up to the south gate to meet the antic.i.p.ated attack. It appeared safe.

"Dig, men, dig!" he said.

The twenty Bahima began to dig a pa.s.sage through the debris. Not a word was spoken. The din in the village was beginning to lull. Tom despatched Mbutu with the request that the noise should be kept up. The baskets of earth, as they were filled, were carried to the stockade and emptied on the inside. The work went on as rapidly as possible in the darkness, the men toiling with unabated zeal, sure that Kuboko, the man of big medicine, must have some excellent plan in view. Meanwhile the chief, finding the Arabs pressing close, and their rifle fire, erratic as it was, becoming dangerous, had withdrawn his sortie-party into the village; but the drums still maintained a tremendous din that must have been heard in the still night air for many miles.

Rather more than two hours had gone, and only the first part of the task Tom had in his mind was completed. A clear pa.s.sage ten feet wide had been cut from the summit of the cliff into the cavern. Ordering the panting negroes to sit down and rest, Tom walked back the twelve feet to the stockade, took a string of bush-rope from his pocket, and tying it to one of the palings, returned to his men. The straight line made by the string lay in the direction of the tank. Then he set the men to dig a trench along the line towards the stockade, making it ten feet wide and three deep. He ordered them to stop within a foot of the fencing, lest that should be loosened by the movement of the earth. This took another two hours, as nearly as Tom could judge. It was approaching three o'clock in the morning, and there was still much to be done before his arrangements were complete. Thinking it wise to defer the rest of his operations, for which light was absolutely necessary, he dismissed the men, returned to the village, and sent word to the chief that the weary drummers might now take their well-earned rest.

Then he unfolded his scheme to the wondering chief. The Arab camp at the foot of the precipice was, it was true, secure from missiles hurled over the spur; but it was immediately below the cavern. Tom's plan was to let the water from the full reservoir suddenly into the cavern, and he calculated that the force it gained as it plunged thence over the precipice would be sufficient to work havoc below. The reservoir was eighty yards long and sixty wide; its depth was more than six feet; the weight of the water it contained was thus some seven thousand tons. By the time this immense quant.i.ty, gathering impetus as it fell, reached the camp two hundred feet beneath its outlet, the dynamic energy it would have acquired would be tremendous. The plan threw Barega into wild excitement, and he was eager to see it carried out at once; but Tom smilingly informed him that there was work still to be done, and, thanking him for so admirably making a noise, advised him to retire to his hut and finish his broken sleep.

Next day the whole village knew that Kuboko had some terrifically big medicine in preparation, though none but the chief as yet knew what it was. Tom had many times to drive away the crowd of little half-starved children who came about him, looking up into his face with admiration and awe. There was still a trench to be dug from the reservoir to the stockade, but as the village was exposed to the Arabs on the upper ground to the south, no digging could be done during the day. Rain fell heavily, and Tom hoped almost against hope that it would cease before night, and that some glimmer of moonlight would enable him then to complete his preparations. During the day, however, he was not idle. He employed the same men who had so intelligently constructed his balista in making the rough semblance of the two doors of a river lock, each five feet wide and six feet deep. When finished, the edge of each was pierced with a red-hot bar of iron in three places at equal distances apart. Then the two doors were st.i.tched together with bush rope through the holes, and the seam was covered with cloth well plastered with kaolin, the cloth being made to adhere to the wood with glue extracted from the bones of oxen. Wood was getting short in the village, but Tom, after some search, found four stout balks which he laid aside for future use.

Well pleased with his morning's work, he slept all the afternoon, and then, as soon as it was dark, set eight hundred men and women digging the trench to connect the tank with the trench outside the stockade. He placed them at various points along the line of twenty yards, so that the work might be quickly carried out, and nearest the tank left a bank three feet thick untouched. When the trench was so far complete, he let down at the end three feet from the tank the twin hatchway he had constructed, so that it completely blocked the channel, and sh.o.r.ed it up with the four balks of timber, two to each panel. Round the lower end of these he got his men to fasten strong ropes, the other ends of which he tied to posts driven into the ground above.

It was now, he judged, about eleven o'clock. The rain had ceased, and in three hours the new moon would rise. Dismissing the great body of the workers, with orders that a small gang of them should remain within call, he took the chief aside to make final arrangements. As the edge of the moon appeared over the horizon, Barega was to muster four hundred men at the south gate, and the katikiro two hundred at the north gate.

Tom surmised that when the avalanche of water descended upon their camp, the Arabs would in their flight rush for safety to the higher ground on either side. They would probably be unarmed, and should fall an easy prey to the Bahima. Those who were encamped round the village and in the banana plantation would naturally run to the a.s.sistance of their friends, and would take the paths around the south end of the village.

Three hundred of the four hundred Bahima there placed would take them in flank, the remaining hundred were to attack the fugitives from the camp, who would be a.s.sailed at the same time by the party from the north.

Thinking out all these details carefully, Tom saw the possibility of a hitch should the Arabs become alarmed before he was ready; but he impressed upon Barega and the katikiro that they must entirely reverse the procedure of the previous night, and, instead of making as much din as possible, enjoin the strictest silence on their men.

It only remained to scoop out the earth left between the tank and the trench, and between the end of the outer trench and the stockade. Some ten feet of the fencing was quietly removed to facilitate operations; then the reserve gang was called up, and in about an hour the work was done. The scooping at the tank end was a delicate task, for Tom did not wish to lose any lives by drowning. The last thin wall of earth between the boards and the reservoir was pushed down with long poles, and the water, flowing into the trench, was checked by the hatchway. Beyond that there was a clear course through a channel five feet wide and six deep to the arch of the cavern, and that was perpendicularly above the camp. Tom sent Mbutu to see that the sortie-parties were ready, loosed the ends of the ropes about the posts, and placed four strong men at each. His arrangements were complete.

Now that the critical moment was so near at hand Tom's heart in spite of himself beat with almost audible thuds. There was the huge reservoir, the surface of the water just discernible, only a gentle ripple on its surface indicating its recent disturbance. In a few short moments that placid pond was to become an impetuous torrent, rushing downward with all the force of its seven thousand tons, nothing to check it, nothing to prevent it from dealing death to the men below. As his vivid imagination conjured up the scene at the base of the precipice, and contrasted it with the peaceful scene above, Tom felt a pang, a touch of pity and remorse, a shuddering reluctance to launch so many miserable wretches into eternity. But that inward vision dissolved, and another took its place. He saw once more the long caravan of slaves, the gaunt, chained figures, with the wild, hunted look, the terrible lash of their masters provoking shrieks answered by redoubled blows, the horrible mutilations inflicted on weak women and children. There rang in his ears once more the piteous cry of a poor slave woman who for some trivial offence was led away to be slaughtered: "Oh, my lord, oh, my master! Oh, my lord, oh, my master!" He felt a rush of hot blood to his face, a flush of shame that such things should be. He remembered that such treatment would be measured out to Barega's people if the Arabs captured the village, and thought with a solemn sense of awe of the strange chain of events which had made him so potent a factor in the life and safety of these black people. It was life against life--the Arabs were a pest--and he set his lips and hardened his heart.

Then, looking towards the horizon, he saw the ruddy horn of the moon emerging. Ten minutes pa.s.sed; he could see dimly the outlines of the trees.

"Now!" he whispered, with an outward calm that gave no clue to his intense emotion. The sixteen men heaved at the ropes; the balks of timber fell; the weight of water falling on the unsupported hatchway drove it inwards; and in ten seconds more the torrent swept with a dull roar into the cavern. Then, with a crash that seemed to shake the cliff to its foundations, the enormous ma.s.s of loose rock hiding the mouth of the cavern was driven over the edge. Even above the roar and splash rose the cries of the hapless men beneath, and then from each end of the camp came, as though in mocking answer, the exultant shouts of the warriors hastening to a.s.sail their foe. A few rifle shots rang out, but the rush of the Bahima was irresistible. They were famished, they were fighting for their lives and liberty, and, dashing down the slopes to north and south, they fell without mercy or respite upon their shaken foes.

Demoralized, leaderless, unarmed, the Arabs and Manyema below were rushing hither and thither like scared sheep, unable to act, unable to think. The force in the plantations above, catching the panic, scattered at the first onslaught of the Bahima, who, with spears and knives and every kind of weapon, were strewing the ground with dead.

One little group, holding close together under their leader, came rushing across the path of the Bahima chief at the head of his men.

Barega lifted his spear to strike, but the Arab leader, at four paces'

distance, fired his pistol at him point-blank, and he fell. The next instant the Arab was transfixed with a dozen spears, but the gallant chief, shot through the breast, had fought his last fight. His men rushed on, pursuing the enemy with savage cries, and the chief, lifting himself painfully upon his elbow, saw that he was alone. A few seconds later, Tom, his task on the bluff finished, came hasting with Mbutu and his sixteen men to a.s.sist in the fight. Many bodies lay scattered p.r.o.ne on the ground, but among them he saw one man in a half-sitting posture.

"Kuboko! Kuboko, my brother!"

Tom heard the faint cry, started, and turned aside. He had but just time to grip the outstretched hand; then Barega heaved a sigh and died.

Tom stood looking down at his dead friend, for, during the months they had been so strangely thrown together, he had come to look upon the simple, heathen African as a true friend. Thoughts of what he owed to the negro pa.s.sed through his mind; he felt deeply sorry that Barega was never to enjoy the fruits of the victory for which they had worked together. "Poor fellow!" he murmured; then, gulping down the lump in his throat, he went on.

The tide of battle, if battle it could be called, had meanwhile rolled onwards. All unconscious of the death of their chief, the Bahima sped down into the plain, hunting the fugitives like wild beasts, tracking them in the moonlight like sleuth-hounds to places where they attempted to hide. There were no prisoners, none merely wounded; the Bahima did their fell work thoroughly. Right into the outskirts of the forest they kept up the chase till, tired of the work of slaughter, they began to straggle back to the village. All night long they continued to come in by twos and threes, some small parties even not arriving until after dawn.

The scene when daylight broke was gruesome beyond belief. The tent of the Arab chief lay half-buried beneath a ma.s.s of broken rock in the centre of a shallow pond. Many of the Arabs and Manyeina had perished by the avalanche of earth and water, and scores had fallen to the spears of the Bahima. The camp was half under water, and all kinds of articles were floating about or showing above the surface, among them several barrels which Tom guessed to be filled with gunpowder. Rifles, pistols, spears, a medley of weapons and implements, were scattered all around, and outside the immediate circle of devastation many boxes and bags of provisions lay uninjured.

Walking down to the scene, sick at heart, and yet convinced that he had only done his duty, Tom came, within about five hundred yards of the chief's tent, upon an enclosure in which some four hundred slaves were herded. It seemed that only by the merest chance could they have escaped the ma.s.sacre. They had in reality been saved by their position.

Their enclosure had been placed where it was so that the free movements of their masters round the village should not be impeded. Thus, while exposed to the wind and weather, they had been out of the direct line of the Bahima's onslaught. Being chained and fenced in, they had been unable to escape, and, indeed, their Manyema guards had stuck to their posts till the last, and only fled when dawn showed them the fate of their friends. Tom at once gave orders that the fetters on these men and women should be knocked off, and that they should be taken under a guard into the village. They could there be fed, and it might be decided subsequently what was to be done with them.

Tom then set a party of Bairo to recover from the water as many of the Arabs' effects as possible, and another to search the surrounding country for any traces of Hima cattle which had escaped the Arabs. He was about to order another gang to bury the dead, but remembered that the people who had died in the village before the arrival of the Arabs had not been buried, but taken out into the open to be eaten by the beasts of the field. Only the chief's body was usually buried, and all that was left of Barega had already been carried into the village to await solemn interment in the ground below his hut. Ordering the villagers to remove the dead to a distance, and to leave them exposed on the plain, Tom returned dead-beat to his hut, and threw himself down upon his couch.

CHAPTER XV

Arms and the Man

A Deputation--An Unexpected Honour--Msala Improves the Occasion--The Political Situation--First Steps--A Problem--Prospecting for Sulphur--Herr Schwab on His Travels--Made in Germany

The chief was buried at nightfall. A long framework of banana-stalks was constructed, on which his body was placed. It was then covered with several layers of bark-cloth provided by his wives, who had smeared their faces with kaolin, and taken off their necklaces, armlets, and other articles of adornment, exhibiting, besides these outward signs of mourning, a very real grief. Tom had a vague idea that at a chief's death his wives were slain and buried with him, and was greatly relieved to find that this was not the custom among the Bahima. A deep hole was dug beneath the hut, and there, after the recital of a sort of liturgy by the medicine-man, who had emerged from his retirement into a position of some importance again, Barega was consigned to his last home amid wailing and lamentation.

Returning sadly to his hut, Tom lay awake thinking of many things. His task, he supposed, was now done. The villagers would elect another chief, and things would go on as before. He himself would be free to return to his own kind and kin, whose interests he resolved to enlist on behalf of the people.

"And surely the Free State officials ought to look after them," he thought. "I suppose they are too remote to have done anything hitherto.

I wonder whether Uncle Jack could get me some work under their government, so that I could do something systematically towards the freeing of the slaves? Englishmen have been thus employed, I know.

There was Captain Hinde, and Captain Burrows; I am sure I have read something about their work. I'd rather be in the service of our own Government, of course, but I suppose there's no chance of that whatever.

Well, it isn't much use speculating after all. I don't want to go back to Glasgow if I can help it, though, if I am to be an engineer, I suppose I couldn't learn my trade better anywhere else. I wonder who their new chief will be, by the by? Murasi is, of course, out of the question, and Mwonga, the other brother, is at present too young, though he's a fine, handsome, intelligent lad, and will turn out well some day.

The katikiro--really I am quite fond of that amusing old boy--is all very well in a fight, but he hasn't a particle of moral courage, and I'm afraid, if it came to a tussle between him and the medicine-man, he'd be nowhere. Well, they must fight it out among themselves."

Next morning, before he was up, Mbutu came to him in a state of considerable excitement.

"Sah," he said, "katikiro outside; kasegara outside; all big men outside; want see sah, bad want."

"Do they, indeed? Well, Mbutu, tell them I'll be out in a minute or two. I suppose they'll proceed to elect a new chief to-day," he resumed, when Mbutu returned.

"No, sah, no chief yet; wait one moon; great big cry fust."

"Dear me! I shouldn't have thought there'd be official mourning in savage Africa! So they keep it up for a month, eh?"

"Yes, sah. Brudders, sons, cousins, all people come drink museru, sah; knock big drum, little drum; sing, dance all night, sah; den make new chief."

"I should like to see that; but we can't wait a month; we must be off back to the Nyanza in a day or two."

All this time Tom had been taking his morning tub and donning his clothes.

"Don't believe Uncle Jack would know me from a chimpanzee," he said with a laugh. "What with this wretched down upon my cheeks, and my long mane, and my patched old toggery, I'm more like one of those begging fakirs in India he has told me about than anything else I ever heard of.

Well, now to see what my friend Msala wants."