Tom spent the rest of the morning in digesting the figures that Reinecke had placed before him. It was a task that went against the grain; he hated anything that savoured of the part of inquisitor; but he reflected that it was purely a matter of business, and being thorough in whatever he undertook he bent his mind to the distasteful job, resolved to get it over as quickly as possible.

As Reinecke had said, everything was in order. There were records of the total quant.i.ty of beans produced; he compared the vouchers for the consignments with the entries in the stock book, and found that they tallied. The other books gave him the costs of production, which included wages, provisions, upkeep of buildings and so on; duplicates of the invoices dispatched with the goods to a firm in Hamburg; records of bills of exchange received in payment, and the hundred and one details incident to an export business. Balance sheets had, of course, been sent to his father: here was the material on which those sheets were based, and everything confirmed the position as he already knew it: that the plantation did little more than pay the not inconsiderable salary which Reinecke drew as manager. His and the Willoughbys' shares of the profits were minute.

Tom could only conclude that Captain Goltermann, knowing nothing of the details of management, had drawn erroneous conclusions from the facts within his knowledge. His vessel conveyed a certain number of bags up the lake at certain seasons: that was all. It was easy for a seaman to make mistakes in such a matter. If so, then, what was wrong? Were the costs too high in proportion to the out-turn? Was the acreage under cultivation too small? Was there something faulty in the methods employed? Tom felt that these questions carried him beyond his depth.

Would it not have been better to send an expert to make the necessary investigations? That might still have to be done: meanwhile here he was; he must learn what he could, spend a few months in getting a grip of things, keep Bob at home informed, and then go back and consult with him.

When Reinecke returned to lunch, Tom complimented him on the perfect order in which his books were kept, and frankly told him the conclusion to which he had come.

"That means that I must trespa.s.s on your hospitality for some months, at any rate," he added. "I shall see the results from this season's crops, your preparations for next, and fresh sowings, I suppose. Of course I can't expect to learn in a few months what has taken you years."

"That is so," said the German, and Tom fancied that there was a shade less cordiality in his manner, which was perhaps not to be wondered at in view of the prospect of having a stranger quartered on him for an indefinite period. "Still," Reinecke went on, "it is with knowledge as with wealth. The heir inherits thousands which his father has laboriously ama.s.sed; the pupil enjoys the fruits of his master's long and concentrated study. I think you will be an apt pupil."

He said this with so pleasant a smile that Tom dismissed his feeling of a moment before as unwarranted, and reflected that Reinecke was really taking things with a very good grace.

Next day he accompanied Reinecke to the outlying quarter of the estate where the workers were lodged in huts and sheds constructed by themselves. They were shut off from the outer world by the ring fence, which consisted of quick-growing thorn bushes so closely matted as to form a practically impenetrable barrier many feet thick. There were more than a hundred adult negroes, men and women, employed on the plantation. A number of children playing in front of the huts stopped and cl.u.s.tered together in silent groups when the two white men appeared.

"I suppose the workers get a holiday sometimes?" said Tom, whose schooldays were only eighteen months behind him.

"Of course," said Reinecke. "There are slack times, in the early part of the season between the hoeings, when there is little to be done."

"But I mean, they go away sometimes?"

"Why should they? Where should they go? There is only the forest, and the port. They would be eaten in the forest; they would eat up the port." Reinecke laughed at his joke.

"Then they are practically prisoners?"

"My dear Mr. Willoughby, this is Africa. In Europe you put fences round your cattle: the negroes are just cattle. Break your fences, and your animals stray and are lost. So with the n.i.g.g.e.rs."

"But that is slavery."

"Words! words!" said Reinecke lightly. "They are no more slaves than the apprentices who are bound to their masters for a term of years. They are indentured labourers. They are paid; and there's not a man among them but acc.u.mulates enough to make him rich when his time is up."

"They can go to their homes, then, when their time is up?"

Reinecke shrugged.

"As they please," he said. "They have a long way to go. See, Mr.

Willoughby, I give you a page from German colonial history. Twenty years ago, in our early days, our brave pioneers of empire had enormous difficulties to contend with. There was one savage tribe, the Wahehe some two hundred miles north of us here, that resisted our civilising mission with especial pertinacity and violence. On August 17, '91, they gained a victory over our much-tried soldiers. They dispersed as we approached, but when the column of Captain von Zelewski was pa.s.sing through a rugged and densely-grown country it was attacked along its whole length by thousands of the treacherous dogs. Zelewski was among the first to fall; taken at a disadvantage his column was almost annihilated. Ten Germans, sir--ten Germans, I say, as well as over three hundred askaris and porters, were slain. The gallant Lieutenant von Tettenborn fought his way back with a few survivors to Kondoa, and thence reached the coast."

"We've had many incidents of that sort in India and elsewhere," said Tom. "I suppose there was a punitive expedition?"

"There was, sir; but not until three years had pa.s.sed. For three years those treacherous swine were allowed to flout the German might. Then, in October '94, we captured and destroyed Iringa, their princ.i.p.al village, and were again attacked in the woods on our way to the coast.

Some of the petty chiefs held out against us for years, but the German destructive sword is very sure. Finally they were terribly subdued, and some hundreds of them were transported into this Tanganyika country and compelled to earn their living by peaceful toil. My people here are Wahehe. I have one of the very chiefs who opposed us--one Mirambo, a great hunter in his youth. I need not say that I find his woodcraft very useful when I go hunting. By the way, he carried Captain Goltermann's gun the other day. And now you see, Mr. Willoughby, how well off these people are. They might have been treated as rebels; they might have suffered as prisoners of war. Instead, they are indentured labourers, engaged, for pay, in producing a useful commodity--with no profit to their employers, mark you. My dear sir, it is philanthropy."

Tom did not venture to say what he thought. In these early days it was useless to enter into a dispute with Reinecke. But to his British way of thinking the condition of the labourers was simply slavery, however the German might seek to disguise it, and he would make it his business to find out for himself the natives' point of view. If they were contented with their lot, it would be folly to disturb them. But if not--and he remembered the whips he had seen in the overseers' hands--a new system must be introduced, with or without Reinecke's consent.

CHAPTER III--THE VOUCHER

During the next two or three days Tom went about the plantation, watching the negroes at their work of picking and pulping the fruit.

Reinecke left him in perfect freedom to go where he pleased, and see anything and everything. The natives worked industriously: there was no lack of talk and laughter among them, no indication of discontent or ill-treatment. Tom's misgiving was dissipated; he concluded that the overseers' whips were wands of office rather than instruments of correction. The negroes gazed at him with a certain curiosity and interest. Some smiled, in unconscious response to the charm of his expression, of which he was equally unconscious. One of them, he noticed, a lad apparently about seventeen, looked at him with a peculiar intentness. Once, when, in lighting his pipe, he dropped his box of matches, the young negro sprang forward, picked it up, and handed it to him with a sort of proud pleasure that so trifling a service hardly accounted for.

"Thanks," said Tom, and the lad's face beamed as, admonished by a severe look from the overseer with whom Tom had been talking, he went back to the bush which he had left.

"I hope you will pardon my leaving you so much to yourself," said Reinecke one day. "There is little to be learnt at this season, except what you can see with your own eyes. In seedtime, if you still favour me with your company, I shall have more opportunities of giving you definite instruction. And now what do you say to a little relaxation?

Shall we go shooting to-morrow?"

"I shall be delighted."

"Very well. I will give orders that Mirambo and another man shall accompany us to-morrow. We shall find wild geese and snipe at the stream a few miles south; possibly a hippo, if, like most youngsters, you've a fancy for big game."

When they started next morning, Tom looked at the German's gunbearer with a good deal more attention than he had shown previously. It was strange that this humble negro had once been a chief. Mirambo was a well-built man past middle life, quick in his movements, and with large eyes of piercing brilliance. With him was a youth whom even a white man, not easily able to distinguish one negro from another, could hardly fail to recognise as his son. Reinecke gave them their instructions in their own tongue, and with a bullying manner that Tom secretly resented.

They received them silently, with an utter lack of expression, displaying none of the interest or alacrity which an English gamekeeper would have shown in similar circ.u.mstances.

The party of four set off, the negroes leading. Their destination was one of the rare streams that traverse this part of the Plateau, and make their way in devious course and with many cascades to the great lake below. The morning was still young. By starting early, Reinecke had explained, they would make as large a bag as the men could carry before the midday heat became oppressive, and after a brief rest could stroll leisurely back to a late lunch. Tom reflected that this att.i.tude evinced no great enthusiasm for sport, and concluded that Reinecke was really rather a good fellow in taking so much trouble for the sake of a guest.

It was not until they were well in the forest that Mirambo showed any animation. The instincts of the old hunter awoke. His keen eyes moved restlessly, alert to mark the spoor of beasts in the woods and on the open park-like s.p.a.ces dotted with acacias, euphorbias, and the wild thick bushes known as scrub. At one spot he became excited, pointing to fresh marks in the soft soil.

"The tracks of a wart-hog," Reinecke explained. "The beast evidently went to his hole not long ago."

"I've never seen one," said Tom. "Couldn't we track him and have a shot?"

"We couldn't carry him home. We're out for birds. Still, I daresay the n.i.g.g.e.rs could dispose of him. You can try your hand if you like."

To Tom's surprise, the negroes, instead of following the tracks in the direction in which the animal had apparently gone, went in the opposite direction.

"They're going away from him," he said.

"No, no," said Reinecke with a smile. "Speak low--or better not at all: he's close at hand."

He halted, bidding Tom stand by with his rifle ready c.o.c.ked. The two negroes stole forward, and within about fifty yards posted themselves one on each side of a hole in the ground. Then together they began to stamp heavily with their feet, uttering no sound, and keeping their eyes fixed on the hole. Wondering at this strange performance, Tom looked inquiringly at Reinecke, who shook his head and signed to him to be on the alert. Presently there appeared in the hole the ugly tusked snout of a wart-hog. He grunted with annoyance at his slumbers having been disturbed by a shower of falling earth, heaved his ungainly body out, and began to trot away on his short legs directly across the white man's line of fire.

"Now!" murmured Reinecke. "Behind the ear."

Tom shouldered his rifle, took careful aim, and fired. But whether owing to excitement, or to the fact that the animal, through his protective colouring, was almost indistinguishable from the background of brownish bush, his shot missed the vital spot and inflicted only a gash in the shoulder. The infuriated animal wheeled round and charged across the open s.p.a.ce. But he had covered only a few yards when a well-planted shot from Reinecke's rifle stretched him on the ground.

[Ill.u.s.tration: TOM TOOK CAREFUL AIM AND FIRED.]

"Don't take it to heart," said the German, noticing Tom's crestfallen expression. "Everyone misses his first shot at a wart-hog. I remember a famous sportsman once having to dodge round a tree for a quarter of an hour to escape the tusks of a beast he had only wounded. Better luck next time."

"But why didn't he charge the negroes? He pa.s.sed within a few inches of them."

"They stood a little way back from the hole, you noticed; and besides, the beast is very short-sighted. You were surprised that all the tracks apparently lead away from the hole instead of towards it. That's not cunning, as it was in the case of that cattle-stealer, wasn't it? in cla.s.sical story who pulled oxen into a cave by the tails. It's sheer necessity. That hole was once the dwelling of an ant-bear; the wart-hog had appropriated it. But his head and shoulders are so much bigger than the rest of him that he has to go in tail first."

The negroes had rushed to the animal as soon as it fell, lifted the head slightly, and tied it to one of the hind legs with thongs of creeper.