"Well, I beg your pardon for being horrible, but I tell you frankly that if I thought for a moment that a message like that would be believed, I'd send it in a moment. You know, Miss Head, we're in an uncommon tight place, and as acting commander-in-chief, I tell you flatly it will be a case of 'all-in' if it comes to a scrap." "Oh, Missy, dem Carter mean he fit for use ju-ju besides guns," White-Man's-Trouble explained. "It couldn't have been put more neatly. We must call in even the powers of darkness, as far as they'll answer to a whistle, if it comes to open fighting. But in the meanwhile, as some solemn idiot said in a text-book, 'preparedness for war is the best insurance for peace,' and I ask you to observe this tramway which the boys have laid down during the night. Trouble here was ganger, and I've only had to bang him for letting the gauge spread in two places." "Is it to show sightseers quickly round the works?" Kate asked. "No, madam. I shall mount on trucks those two tinpot brass muzzle-loading signal guns that you bamboozled out of old Image, have embrasures (if that's the word for holes to shoot through) at all the corners, and I can rush those guns round to fire at all points of the compass at a pace that will surprise friend Kwaka, if he is in command of the enemy. I am pleased to say Kwaka looks for the supernatural when he is dealing with me, and I make a point of conscience in seeing that he gets it. I found some sheets of yellow tissue-paper in the feteesh here, all mottled with black mildew, and they gave me an idea. I cut out a leopard and pasted him together, and left a hole in him underneath, and fitted that with a wire carrier and a cotton wool burner that will hold spirit." "What, a fire balloon?" "Just that. With a dose of trade gin on the cotton wool, and a match and a little careful manipulation, we'll have a portent sailing up into the sky that will astonish the Okky-men's weak nerves in most disastrous style." "You are really a most ingenious person," said Miss O'Neill. "Isn't he, Laura?" "I suppose so," said Laura. "It's that blessed Cascaes that's the weak spot in the defence. I suppose I've the usual West Coast prejudice against Portuguese; you know even the natives divide creation up into white men, black men, and Portuguese, and the particular specimen we've taken over here with the factory just bristles with bad points." "I think he's rather nice," said Laura. "You were fighting with him this morning and I hated to see it."