Tom thanked the boy warmly for what he had done for him. He was a good deal troubled in mind, and passed many hours of the night in that grass hut in anxious meditation on his position. Mwesa had rescued him from a lingering death, but to what end? If it was true, as Reinecke had said, that Britain was at war with Germany, that already a German expedition against Rhodesia was in preparation, the immediate future was very black. He dared not go to Bismarckburg; the nearest British territory was forty or fifty miles away; how was it possible to accomplish so long a journey through difficult country and hostile people? At present, indeed, his injuries precluded even a much shorter journey. Until he should have fully recovered he must remain in hiding. How was he to subsist? There was game in the forest, no doubt plenty of vegetable food in the shape of berries and nuts, though only a native could distinguish the edible from the poisonous. Mwesa would help him--but Mwesa was himself a complication. Tom felt that, the boy having done so much for him, he was bound to consider the boy, and Mirambo; his lot seemed to be knit with theirs. It would not be just to appropriate Mwesa, and leave his relatives in the slavery from which the boy had come to deliver them. Yet how helpless he was to do anything either for them or for himself! He fell asleep with these problems all unsolved. When he awoke the boy was gone. Tom supposed that he was seeking food, but as time slipped away and Mwesa did not return he grew uneasy. Then, however, common sense asserted itself. The boy who had already dared so much, who had built him a hut and brought him food, would not desert him. There must be some good reason for his absence. A little after mid-day Mwesa came back, looking more pleased with himself than ever. A rabbit dangled from his waist; slung over one shoulder was a native grass bag stuffed with cassava; in one hand he carried an axe, in the other a sporting rifle, which Tom recognised as the property of Reinecke. Mwesa threw his load down, and emptying his bag, revealed, under the cassava roots, a number of cartridges. He chuckled with delight. "You have been back to the plantation?" said Tom. "Yes, sah: me go back; nobody see." He went on to explain that there were strange doings at the plantation. Reinecke had called the negroes about him, and told them that war had broken out between England and Germany; that the Germans were going to seize all the English lands in Africa; that he himself was a great officer in the German army, and had been ordered to turn every able-bodied man into a soldier. The gathering of the crops being finished, such work as was necessary on the plantation must be done by the women and the older men. He was going to Bismarckburg to arrange for supplies of arms. During his absence the overseers would exercise the men.