Tom Willoughby's Scouts

s of Mwesa's little building, and the negro himself

per house," he said, alluding

p on the previous day had caused his injured ankle to swell, and he could only get along by hopping on his sound foot. Fortunately he had not far to go before lighting on a suitable situation in a spot above the shore of the lake, where a

nally the same distance above. He worked with such astonishing speed that early in the afternoon the framework of the new hut was complete, standing up like a cage or a circular crate. After a short rest he started on the roof. He gathered together a number of flexible saplings, which he laid down on the floor of the hut so that they radiated from the centre like the spok

om reflected that the work would have occupied a white artisan, provided with a foot rule, p

of the hut, a long bench some three feet high. The mud dried rapidly in the heat of the day, and when the bench had hardened, he mounted upon it, and wove long grasses in and out among the rods composing the roof, until this

could be turned into an effective zariba by planting poles between them, and interlacing the poles with strands of prickly thorn. Mwesa fell in with t

food was not to be obtained in this part of the country, and Tom grew somewhat uneasy as to the effect of an uninterrupted diet of flesh. He was uneasy, too, about his injuries. The wound caused by the spike was hea

ely surprised him. Recollections of what he had heard and seen during his year in Germany seemed to give corroboration enough. He remembered in particular one young German baroness, who had been to school at Cheltenham, and was continually boasting of what the Germans would do when "the Day" came. He remembered, too, how his father scoffed at the warnings of those who foretold that Germany was only awaiting an opportunity for making her tiger-spring, and how he and his brother had been rebuked for heeding the "alarmists." And now the Day had come at last. He wondered what spark had exploded the European powder-barrel, what pretext Germany had alle

map. It would have been difficult for a true-born Englishman to think otherwise. All tha

for news. He was still unable to walk without pain; inaction irked him, and ignorance of what was going on at the plantation and be

s doing, whether fighting has already begun--all sorts of thi

xpression cleared;

wo, me come back t

nk you coul

Why should his master suppose that he could not do it again? He would set off at once, as soo

a knife. By nightfall he would reach the plantation. There he would learn all

were discovered in his furtive passage of the thorn fence and impressed into the ranks of the recruits? "Without Mwesa what will become of me?" The troublesome question gave Tom no rest as he lay in the hut, listening to the outer noises to which darkness adds mystery and horror. Alone, almost

for the return of the negro boy. He heard rustlings among the trees, the call of a quail, the snorting grunt of some an

ght, sah," said t

't hear you. How

, sah; come

tale of news; but before Mwesa would relate his discoveries, he produced from his wallet, with much show of mystery, a small bundle with a covering of leaves tied

bo my uncle: berry clebber

, and rubbed it gently over the joint, muttering strange words. It gradually softened to a greenish oil. When the joint was thoro

two time better; t're

der a small iron cooking-pot,

antu dialect which was hard to understand, with the result that he frequently lost his temper. The negroes who were slow were stimulated by the whips of the overseers. A few rifles had been brought, and some of the quicker men were already being trained in aiming and sighting: as yet

in Abercorn, and had boasted of the terrible things they were going to do and the great riches they would soon enjoy. They told of many battles won in the white man's country far away; of many grea

t stuff?" said Tom.

ance? Indeed, even among the Germans, settlers and soldiers alike, in those early days of the war, no rumour was too fantastic to fin

said scornfully. "Mwesa him

colony, cut off from Europe as it must be, could really measure itself against the resources of the British Empire. But he remembered how, in the past, British carelessness and want of f

t corps, and looked back with reminiscent pleasure on the field days, when, in the intervals of business, he had munched apples in a farmer's orchard or solaced hims

that Mwesa had brought from his uncle. He was aware almost at once of a lessening of the pain in his ankle. After the second applica

uff made of?"

ok his he

cine: Mirambo hi

l that Tom coul