Trentham smiled.

'The fact is, the plebs were disappointed of their feast. They are cannibals; the patricians are not. A big fellow came up as spokesman of the plebs, and declared they must have one of us four. Grinson is protected by his goose, and the chief wouldn't give them you, Hoole, or me, because we know French. But he suggested that we might dispense with Meek.'

'Me, sir!' cried Meek.

'Yes. I gathered that the chief was anxious to conciliate his rather unruly subjects, and I had a good deal of difficulty in begging you off, pointing out (I hope you don't mind) that you are rather lean and scraggy----'

'Danged if that ain't too bad!' cried Meek with unwonted vehemence.

'Well, really, I thought it the best way to get you off.'

''Tis not that I mind, sir--not at all, and I 'm obliged to you. I was always skin and bone, no matter what I eat----'

'Like the lean cattle in the Bible, Ephraim,' said Grinson, 'what ate up the fat uns and you 'd never have knowed it.'

'True, so I was born,' Meek went on, 'and so I must be. But the idea of eating me, just because I never had no goose p.r.i.c.ked on my arm nor can't parly-voo! Danged if there 's any justice in this world--not a morsel.'

'Well, you 're safe now, anyway,' said Hoole, smiling. 'Did you hear anything about Hahn, Trentham?'

'Yes. It appears that the numbers here have recently been increased by the influx of people from one or two small coast villages that have been destroyed by the Germans. This place, being farther from the sea, has escaped as yet; but the chief is rather alarmed, and has scouting parties constantly out to give warning if the white men from the ship approach. Apparently Hahn fell into the hands of one of those parties.

The chief told me that a white man had been taken down to the sh.o.r.e to be sacrificed in the hope of averting disaster. The sacrificial party has not returned yet, and I thought it wiser to say nothing about the rescue of the victim; it wouldn't tend to make us popular with the plebs. The worst of it is, the chief seems to think we 'll be useful to him. When I talked about his helping us to get away he suddenly became deaf, and I couldn't help judging from his manner that he wants to keep us, either to prop him up against his troublesome people, or to protect him from the Germans. We had better humour him for the moment. At any rate we shall get food. By and by we can take our bearings, possibly make or get hold of a canoe. It's no good our attempting to make our way overland to Wilhelmshafen through a country infested by cannibals.'

'And precious little good our staying to help him against the Germans with nothing but a revolver and our knives,' said Hoole. 'Still, there 's nothing else for it. If we can gain the people's confidence they may help us in the end--especially if the Raider clears off, and I guess it won't remain in these waters for ever. But it's deuced unpleasant.'

'Ay, and there 's neither justice nor mercy in this world,' sighed Meek.

'Eat me! Br-r-r!'

CHAPTER VIII

A RECONNAISSANCE

The hut allotted to the four white men, like all the others in the inner enclosure, was built of logs, and in shape resembled an expanded sentry-box. It had no furniture except a few gra.s.s mats laid upon the earthen floor, and a clumsy rack of sticks, containing some crude platters of clay, and a couple of heavy wooden clubs. Worn out by their recent experiences, the occupants slept soundly through their first night as the chief's guests, only disturbed at intervals by the visitations of c.o.c.kroaches which the darkness drew from crevices in the walls.

Next morning they were given a breakfast of bananas and nuts, and water brought to them in long bamboo stalks, which had been cleaned of their part.i.tions except at the end.

'We are not supposed to wash,' remarked Trentham, 'and we can't shave; before long we shall all be as hairy as Meek.'

Meek looked apologetic, and Grinson pa.s.sed a hand over his cheeks and chin, already dark with stubble.

'A regular Jack ash.o.r.e, sir,' he said, 'and no barber round the corner.

What is to be will be, and I only hope I make a better show than Ephraim; his whiskers ain't much of an ornament, I must say.'

'I ought to have shaved young,' sighed Meek. ''Tis too late now, Mr.

Grinson.'

'Truly, Ephraim, you 've lost your chance, poor lad. But you might look worse, that's one comfort.'

While they were at breakfast the man who had interpreted on the previous day came with a message from the chief. They were free to move about the enclosure, but the gate was forbidden them.

'We 're prisoners, then,' said Hoole.

'I fancy he doesn't trust the cannibals outside,' said Trentham. 'For the present I dare say we are safer where we are. But I don't know how we are to kill time.'

'Here you are, sir,' said Grinson, producing a greasy pack of cards. 'A rubber or two 'll be good for the digestion. Ephraim plays a good hand, though you might not think it.'

While they were playing cards a man came from the chief's house and looked in on them through the doorway. His shadow caused them to glance up, and Hoole and Trentham recognised him as the patrician leader of the party from whom they had rescued Hahn. They wondered whether the recognition was mutual, feeling that it might go hardly with them if they were known; but the man, after a prolonged stare of curiosity, departed without giving any sign of suspicion. It came out afterwards that his party, finding the chimney blocked, had had to wait for the ebb tide and then walk for some miles along the sh.o.r.e before they reached a practicable path up the cliffs. They had then returned to the chimney, removed the obstruction from its top, and sought to track the fugitives; but they had lost the trail in the forest.

Several days pa.s.sed--days of tedium and growing irritation. The prisoners were given regular meals of bananas, sweet potatoes, and other roots, sometimes a bird or a pig; but movement beyond the stockade was still interdicted. They saw nothing of the chief, and one day, when Trentham sent him a message, asking that they might be allowed to go out and see what the Germans were doing, the answer was that he was sick, and could not attend to them until he was out and about again. Hoole suggested that it was a diplomatic illness, but the sight of the hideously painted figure of the tribal medicine-man going every day into the chief's house seemed to show that the reason given was genuine.

One afternoon there were signs of much excitement in the village. From beyond the stockade came a babel of voices; a man admitted through the gate gave those within some news which appeared to agitate them, and a few minutes after he had entered the chief's house the interpreter came running to the hut, and said that the chief wished to see the 'white man fella' at once.

'Release at last!' said Trentham when he returned. Alone of the four, Meek showed no sign of pleasure.

'The old fellow is in a pretty bad way,' Trentham went on. 'The medicine-man was chanting incantations over him, and he looked pathetically resigned. He had just heard bad news. It appears that his son, whose name I understood to be Flanso--a corruption of Francois, I fancy--went out yesterday with a small scouting party, and had just got through that burnt village when they were surprised by a number of white men and collared; only the messenger escaped. Among the party was Kafulu, the head-man of the natives outside, and it's to that fact we owe our chance. I offered to go out and see if I could discover what had become of the prisoners, antic.i.p.ating the chief's request. He jumped at it, and told me that the cannibals outside, when they understand what our errand is, won't do us any harm. But only you and I are to go, Hoole; the others must remain as hostages.'

'A dirty trick, sir,' said Meek. 'As sure as your back is turned, they 'll eat me; I know they will.'

'Don't you take on, Ephraim,' said Grinson. ''Tis true I 'd rather go with the gentlemen, but I 'll protect you, me lad. Before they eat you, they 'll have to cook my goose.'

Early next morning, Hoole and Trentham started with half a dozen of the chief's best men and the interpreter. Hoole had his revolver, Trentham a spear like those with which the escort were armed. They marched rapidly through the forest, reached the burnt village about midday, and found there the bodies of two of the scouting party, shot by the Germans. From this point they moved with great circ.u.mspection, the guide leading them through a maze of vegetation by a winding track that bore downhill, crossing narrow gullies and swift hill streams.

Late in the afternoon they entered a tract of country strewn with rounded boulders, which had no doubt been brought down in remote ages by glacial action from the mountain range in the interior. Here the ground sloped steeply to the edge of the cliffs, and they had a view far over the sea. Deprived of cover by the lack of vegetation, they bore away towards the forest on the right. Though they had approached by a different route, the white men now recognised the spot from which they had caught sight of the Raider lying in the cove below the cliffs.

Half-way down the forest-clad slope Trentham called a halt.

'We know where we are now, Hoole,' he said, 'and I think we had better leave the natives here under cover while we go on by ourselves. They 'll be no good to us in reconnoitring, and the fewer the better on a job like this.'

He instructed the interpreter to remain with the men on guard, and if not rejoined by nightfall, to return to the village.

A very rough and narrow track led through the trees and scrub with which the whole face of the cliff was covered. The two men crept cautiously down this for some distance; then it occurred to Hoole that it would be safer to make a way of their own through the bush, for at some turn of the track they might suddenly meet some one ascending, or emerge unexpectedly into view from the beach. Accordingly they turned off to the right, and continued their course as quickly as possible under cover, moving parallel with the track.

Not many minutes had pa.s.sed before they had reason to be glad that the precaution had occurred to Hoole in time. Less than a hundred yards below the spot where they had quitted the track they came to the edge of a s.p.a.ce from which the vegetation had been cleared away. The path ran through this, and at one side of it stood a rough log hut where a German sailor, armed with a rifle, was standing on guard. Trentham, a little in advance of Hoole, was the first to catch sight of the man. He motioned to Hoole to halt, peered out for a few moments at the scene before him, then went back.

'There 's a sentry-post below,' he said in a low tone. 'The man's back was towards me; he was watching something going on below him. We shall have to creep round. It's pretty rough going; take care you don't slip.'

Keeping on the seaward side of the sentry, they wormed their way through the bush. With every step the descent became steeper, and they had to cling to branches and roots in order to keep their footing. The contour of the cliff hid them from the sentry, but the dislodging of a loose stone might at any moment betray their presence, and they let themselves down inch by inch with great care.

[Ill.u.s.tration: WITH EVERY STEP THE DESCENT BECAME STEEPER.]

As they had noticed on the occasion of their previous visit, the cove in which the Raider lay was almost encircled. The cliff which they were now scaling jutted out in a kind of spit on the eastern side. When they finally reached its base they found themselves among a tangle of jagged rocks. The tide was coming in, and they realised from the banks of seaweed that the rocks were covered at the flood, and that they had little time to spare if their reconnaissance was to lead them much farther and they had to return by the same route.

After a precautionary glance seaward they began to make their way through the ma.s.s of rocks, clambering, springing from one to another, always careful not to expose themselves to the view of the sentry somewhere high up on their left. Presently, between two high rocks at the outer edge, they caught sight of blue water. Entering the gap, they looked out, and found that almost the whole of the cove was before them.

'She 's gone,' said Hoole.

The well-remembered vessel was no longer at her anchorage. No craft of any kind lay within the cove. But men were moving about the beach. To the left, near the base of the cliff, above high-water mark, were two large sheds; a little further on was a third shed, still larger.