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."