I looked about me. There on a shelf in the room stood the clay lamps with which it was lighted at night, and by them lay a coil of the wick which these people used, made of fine and dry plaited rushes, many feet of it.
"There's the very stuff!" I said.
We got it down, we soaked it in a mixture of the native oil, mixed with gunpowder that I extracted from a cartridge, and behold! in half an hour we had two splendid slow matches that by experiment I reckoned would take quite five minutes to burn before the fire reached the powder. That was all we could do for the moment.
"Now, Baas," said Hans, when we had finished our preparations and hidden the matches away to dry, "all this is very nice, but supposing that the stone falls and the water runs in and everything goes softly, how are we to get off the island? If we drown the priests of Heu–Heu— though I do not think we shall drown them because they will bolt up the mountain–side like rock rabbits—we drown ourselves also, and travel in their company to the Place of Fires of which your Reverend Father was so fond of talking. It will be very nice to try to drown the priests of Heu–Heu, Baas, but we shall be no better off, nor will the Lady Sabeela if we leave her tied to that post."
"We shall not leave her, Hans, that is if things go as I hope; we shall leave someone else."
Hans saw light and his face brightened.
"Oh, Baas, now I understand! You mean that you will tie to the post the Lady Dramana, who is older and not quite so nice–looking as the Lady Sabeela, which is why you told her she must stay with us all the time after she comes back? That is quite a good plan, especially as it will save us trouble with her afterwards. Only, Baas, it will be necessary to give her a little knock on the head first lest she should make a noise and betray us in her selfishness."
"Hans, you are a brute to think that I mean anything of the sort," I said indignantly.
"Yes, Baas, of course I am a brute who think of you and myself before I do of others. But then who will the Baas leave? Surely he does not mean to leave me dressed up in a bride's robe?" he added in genuine alarm.
"Hans, you are a fool as well as a brute, for, silly as you may be, how could I get on without you? I do not mean to leave any one living. I mean to leave that dead woman in the gate house."
He stared at me in evident admiration and answered,
"The Baas is growing quite clever. For once he has thought of something that I have not thought of first. It is a good plan—if we can carry her there without any one seeing us, and the Lady Sabeela does not betray us by making a noise, laughing and crying both together like stupid women do. But suppose that it all happens, there will be four of us, and how are we to get into that canoe, Baas, if those cowardly Walloos wait so long?"
"Thus, Hans. When the canoe lands the Lady Sabeela and she has been tied to the post, if Dramana speaks truth, it waits for the dawn at a little distance. While it is waiting you must swim out to it, taking your pistol with you, which you will hold above your head with one hand to keep the cartridges dry, but leaving everything else behind. Then you must get into the boat, telling the Walloo and Issicore, or whoever is there, who you are. Later, when all is quiet, the Lady Dramana and I will carry the dead woman to the post and tie her there in place of Sabeela. After this you will bring the canoe to the landing steps—the small landing steps by the big boulder which we saw near to the sluice mouth on the lake wall, those that Dramana told us were used by fishermen, because it is not lawful for them to set foot upon the Rock of Offerings. You remember them?"
"Yes, Baas. You mean the ones at the end of a little pier which Dramana also said was built to keep mud from the lake from drifting into the sluice mouth and blocking it."
"When I see you coming, Hans, I shall fire the slow matches and we will run down to the pier and get into the canoe. I hope that the priests and their women in the cave, which is at a distance, will not hear the powder explode beneath that shed, and that when they come out of the cave they will find the water running in and swamping them. This might give them something else to do besides pursuing us, as doubtless they would otherwise, for I am sure they have canoes hidden away somewhere near by, although Dramana may not know where they are. Now do you understand?"
"Oh, yes, Baas. As I said, the Baas has grown quite clever all of a sudden. I think it must be that Wine of Dreams he drank last night that has woke up his mind. But the Baas has missed one thing. Supposing that I get into the canoe safely, how am I to make those people row in to the landing steps and take you off? Probably they will be afraid, Baas, or say that it is against their custom, or that Heu–Heu will catch them if they do, or something of the sort."
"You will talk to them gently, Hans, and if they will not listen, then you will talk to them with your pistol. Yes, if necessary, you will shoot one or more of them, Hans, after which I think the rest will obey you. But I hope that this will not be necessary, since if Issicore is there, certainly he will desire to win back Sabeela from Heu–Heu. Now we have settled everything, and I am going to sleep for a while, with the slow matches under me to dry them, as I advise you to do also. We had little rest last night, and to–night we shall have none at all, so we may as well take some while we can. But first bring that mat and tie up the twigs from the stinking tree for Zikali, on whom be every kind of curse for sending us on this job."
"Settled everything!" I repeated to myself with inward sarcasm as I lay down and shut my eyes. In truth, nothing at all was ever less settled, since success in such a desperate adventure depended upon a string of hypotheses long enough to reach from where we were to Capetown. Our case was an excellent example of the old proverb:
If ifs and ands made pots and pans,
There'd be no work for tinkers' hands.
If the canoe came; if it waited off the rock; if Hans could swim out to it without being observed and get aboard; if he could persuade those fetish–ridden Walloos to come to take us off; if we could carry out our little game about the powder undetected; if the powder went off all right and broke up the sluice–handle as per our plan; if we could free Sabeela from the post; if she did not play the fool in some female fashion; if blackguards of sorts did not manage to cut our throats during all these operations, and a score of other "ifs," why, then our pots and pans would be satisfactorily manufactured and perhaps the priests of Heu–Heu would be satisfactorily frightened away or drowned. As it was, it looked to me as though, so far from not getting any rest that night, we should slumber more soundly than ever we did before—in the last long sleep of all.
Well, it could not be helped, so I just fell back upon my favourite fatalism, said my prayers and went off to sleep, which, thank God, I can do at any time and under almost any circumstances. Had it not been for that gift I should have been dead long ago.
When I woke up it was dark, and I found Dramana standing over me; indeed, it was her entry that roused me. I looked at my watch and discovered to my surprise that it was past ten o'clock at night.
"Why did you not wake me before?" I said to Hans.
"What was the use, Baas, seeing that there was nothing to be done and it is dull to be idle without a drop to drink?"