Tom Willoughby's Scouts Part 3

Then Mirambo tore a strip from his white loincloth and attached it to the wart-hog's horns.

"That's to scare vultures away until our return," said Reinecke. "In the rainy season myriads of flies would be at the carcase already, but in this dry weather it will probably not suffer much before the n.i.g.g.e.rs get back to cut it up. Hyenas and other scavengers don't prowl till night. Now let us get on."

The negroes, whose pleasure is always rather in the quarry than in the chase, were delighted at having secured, without trouble to themselves, a quant.i.ty of fresh pork to carry home, and went on with alacrity to the stream a few miles away. Here, in the course of a couple of hours, the two white men had shot as many geese, quail, and guinea-fowl as the negroes could conveniently carry slung about their bodies, with the prospect of the addition of a good many pounds of hog's flesh later.

Tom was disappointed of his half-cherished hope of bagging a hippo; but his morning's sport had been sufficiently exciting to form an interesting part of his next budget of news for his brother.

A negro carried the mail to Bismarckburg once a week, and Tom had already dispatched his first letter, giving a description of the plantation and a running account of his experiences so far. He had confined himself to statements of fact, saying nothing about the problems he found himself faced with--the character of Reinecke and the conditions of the negro labour. Until he should have arrived at definite conclusions on these matters he felt that it would be unwise to trouble his brother with them.

In his second letter he related further sporting expeditions, in some of which he had been accompanied by Reinecke, in others only by Mirambo and other natives. He had shot several hartebeeste and waterbuck, which Mirambo was accustomed to skin and cut up on the spot. On these occasions Tom was tempted sometimes to question the negro directly about the conditions of his employment; but he was held back by a sense of loyalty to Reinecke. Pending further light on the man himself, he would rely solely on his own observations.

It was at the end of the third week of his stay that the first really disquieting incident occurred. Reinecke had gone to Bismarckburg, and Tom, having time on his hands, had made up his mind to write a long letter home. Going to the desk to get some paper, he discovered that the drawer in which he had usually found it was empty, and he tried the drawer below. This, however, would not open fully: it stuck half way.

He put his hand in, thinking that something had probably become wedged between the upper part of the drawer and the one above. It was as he had supposed. By pushing in the drawer a little, he was able to work out the obstruction, which turned out to be a paper, half folded and much creased. On the portion that was not folded down he saw a series of figures like the numbers on the vouchers which were kept on a file.

"An old voucher," he thought; and unfolded it to see if it were worth keeping. To his surprise it was dated Nov. 17, 1913, and evidently belonged to the series which he had examined in connection with the accounts of the past year. But that series had corresponded exactly with the entries in the stock book--or had he made a mistake? To rea.s.sure himself he got out the file, turned to the vouchers for November, and once more compared them with the book. There was no discrepancy. The book showed that on Nov. 17, 1913, a consignment of 1000 kilos was shipped on board the _Hedwig von Wissmann_, and there was a voucher corresponding. The voucher he had just found was for a consignment of 1000 kilos.

This was odd. The numbers on the two vouchers were consecutive: clearly they did not refer to the same consignment. Yet there was only one entry of that date in the book. If one had been a duplicate or a carbon copy of the other, the matter would have been easily explicable; but both were originals, and written in the same clerkly hand.

Troubled, for it was impossible to crush down a suspicion, Tom put the voucher into his pocket, and went out into the plantation.

"I'll write to Bob to-morrow," he said to himself. At the back of his mind there was the feeling that he might have more to say than he had expected.

Reinecke was in good spirits when he returned about sunset.

"I've just made an excellent contract with a dealer representing a new house," he said. "He'll take all next season's crop, at a good price.

I hoped your visit would bring us good luck, and this is the best."

"Capital news," said Tom. The German's manner was so frank and cordial that he was almost ashamed of his suspicion. "By the way, I found this to-day: it was stuck between two drawers. Is it any good?"

He handed Reinecke the voucher, folded. The German opened it, and said instantly, with a smile--

"At last! I wondered what had become of it. It is a voucher I lost, and I got the shipping clerk to give me another. You found that on the file all right?"

"Yes."

"You don't know how I worried about that lost voucher. And you found it wedged between the drawers? Extraordinary way things have of disappearing! Well, we don't want it now. But I'm glad you found it."

He tore it across and threw the pieces into the waste-paper basket.

"Now for dinner," Reinecke went on. "I hope your appet.i.te is as good as mine. And how have you put in your time to-day?"

The German's explanation was so natural and reasonable, so ready, his manner so free from embarra.s.sment, that Tom was for the moment quite rea.s.sured, and chatted unconstrainedly until bedtime--and Reinecke appeared to take great pleasure in making him talk. But later, in the privacy of his room, some rather troublesome questions suggested themselves. Was it not unlike a shipping clerk to issue a duplicate without writing "duplicate" upon it? How was it that duplicate and original bore consecutive numbers, when at least two or three days must have elapsed between them? It was very odd that no consignment from another firm should have been shipped in the interim. And then suddenly Tom flushed. "By George!" he thought. "I'm hanged if the duplicate hasn't got the earlier number!"

Then he wondered whether he was not mistaken. Saying to himself, "I must find out for certain," he went back to the living-room to examine the fragments in the waste-paper basket. He pa.s.sed the door of Reinecke's room, and heard his host splashing within.

The basket had been emptied.

The discoveries he had made kept Tom awake during a good part of the night. They were very disturbing. Reinecke's explanation had been plausible enough, and it was possible Tom was mistaken in his recollection of the numbers on the vouchers. But the German's haste in disposing of the contents of the basket bred an ugly suspicion. Were there other such "duplicates" in existence? Did the books account for only a part of the consignments? Had Reinecke, in fact, been systematically robbing his partners? Tom felt worried and perplexed.

Here, thousands of miles from home, young and inexperienced, he was hardly in a position to deal with a clever rogue, if Reinecke was in truth a rogue; and he wished that he had some older person at hand, some one like blunt, rugged old Mr. Barkworth, to whom he could turn for advice. He was not likely to find any help among the Germans in Bismarckburg, and inquiries of the shipping clerk would probably be fruitless. Of course, he might question Reinecke's own clerk, but that course had very obvious disadvantages.

He concluded that he could do nothing at present except mention the matter in his next letter to his brother, and be more than ever alert in studying his host. To play the part of detective was abhorrent, but there seemed to be no help for it, and he writhed inwardly at the idea of living under the same roof with a man whom he distrusted but with whom he must try to keep up an appearance of friendship.

When the next mail day came, his feeling of mistrust prompted him to give his letter into the hand of the negro postman just as the latter was starting. Reinecke's correspondence was as usual placed in a padlocked bag. The man had gone about a mile on his way from the plantation when Reinecke overtook him, carrying two letters.

"I forgot these," he said. "Put down your bag."

He unlocked the bag, dropped his letters into it, and took up the voucher slip bearing the number of letters enclosed; this would be signed at the post office and brought back with the incoming mail.

"That letter of Mr. Willoughby's had better go in too," he said. "Give it to me."

The man took it from the folds of his loincloth, and Reinecke appeared to drop it into the bag. In reality he put it into his pocket. Having altered the figures on the slip, he relocked the bag and dismissed the man. Twelve hours later the postman returned and delivered his bag as usual into his master's hand.

Next day, in going about the plantation, Tom, as was natural enough, sought the negro, to ask him whether he had duly posted the letter entrusted to him in so unusual a manner. But he could not find the man, and on asking where he was, learnt that he had been sent on an errand to Bismarckburg. It was nearly a fortnight before he returned to the plantation, and by that time Tom was no longer in a position to make any inquiry of him.

CHAPTER IV--TRAPPED

"You talked of slavery," said Reinecke one day. "Our n.i.g.g.e.rs were no better than slaves! Have you seen anything to confirm that rather scandalous suggestion?" His tone was lightly sarcastic.

"If you mean any signs of positive ill-treatment, none," said Tom. (He was not aware that Reinecke had given the overseers strict orders not to use their whips while the Englishman was on the spot). "But I had always understood that the negro is naturally a cheerful person----"

"Well!" interrupted Reinecke. "Don't they laugh enough? Don't they make noise enough?"

"The youngsters do make a great row," Tom confessed smiling; "of course children always are noisy and happy; they don't understand. But the older men seem rather apathetic. Apart from actual ill-treatment, of which I do you the justice to say there's no sign, the mere loss of liberty must be horribly depressing. You admit that they can't leave if they want to."

"Not at all. Some have at times cut a way through the hedge. They've repented of it." He smiled grimly. "But now, what would be a convincing proof to you that things here are after all not so bad?--that the life has some attractions, even for the freedom-loving negro?"

"The return of one who had escaped, I suppose."

"That's a proof I can hardly give you, because the few who have escaped--or run away, as I should put it--have either been caught and brought back or have no doubt come to grief in the forest. But I can give you an instance of a n.i.g.g.e.r coming here of his own accord, and being apparently quite content to remain."

"Indeed!"

"Yes; and, strangely enough, he arrived on the same day as you. You won't suggest that _you_ are the attraction?"

Tom resented this unmannerly remark, still more the tone in which it was uttered, but he said nothing.

"As you may imagine," Reinecke went on, "I don't know all the people.

My Arabs look after them. And I shouldn't have known anything about this voluntary slave but for the fact that I mistook him for Mirambo's son, and one of the overseers corrected me. It appears that when we landed our stores from the _Hedwig von Wissmann_ that day, we were one porter short, and this fellow, a st.u.r.dy lad, was hanging about and appeared to have nothing to do. He was engaged and came up with the others and stayed on--works well, and is quite cheerful, I'm told. He's astonishingly like Mirambo's boy. Some of these n.i.g.g.e.rs claim to be descended from their old kings or chiefs: Mirambo himself does; and it's quite possible that this youth comes of the same stock. There's a jotting for your note-book, if you are making notes, and I daresay you are."

Again there was a covert sneer in the German's tone. Tom felt that he would soon have to quarrel with his host. As soon as he should have come to a definite conclusion about the man's integrity he would cut his visit short.

It seemed, indeed, as if Reinecke was determined to make him feel that he had overstayed his welcome. Once or twice, when he asked that Mirambo or his son might accompany him shooting, Reinecke declared that he could not spare any of the men; it was the busiest time of the year, not a time for amus.e.m.e.nt.

"But there's no reason why you shouldn't go alone, if you find idleness boring," he added once. "There are no dangerous beasts in our immediate neighbourhood. I'd only warn you not to go too far."