He had made up his mind to release and dismiss the askaris; they would only be so many useless mouths to feed. But when he told them they were to go they looked by no means pleased. They gazed blankly at him and at one another, then withdrew in a knot and talked among themselves. Presently one of them came back, and said that none of them wished to go. They hated the Germans: they would rather serve the Englishman. Tom looked at them squarely. "Don’t make any mistake," he said. "You will not have an easy time if you stay with me. You will have to work hard." The man asked if they were to fight. "I can’t tell you that. You will not have rifles, at any rate, until you have shown that you are faithful." Would they have to drill? Tom smiled. He had watched recruits in barrack-yards in Germany, and he made a shrewd guess that the African askari did not find the German drill-sergeant a very gentle taskmaster. "You may have to do my drill," he said. "You don’t know what that is? Then you had better stay a few days and look on while I drill the Wahehe. If you don’t like it, you shall be free to go." The askari’s artless question drew Tom’s thoughts to a survey of his position. He had brought the people away. For the present, apparently, they were safe. What course was he to lay down for them and for himself? He was handicapped by ignorance of what was happening on the border forty miles away. From a remark let fall by Reinecke during that unforgettable dinner in the bungalow he surmised that the British in Northern Rhodesia were likely to be on the defensive at the opening of the campaign. The Germans, he knew, had a much larger military force on the frontier, and from what Reinecke had said, they were energetically raising new levies among the natives. It would be unlike the British, an extraordinary break-away from their traditions, if they were not taken by surprise, not slow in waking up, not tenacious and successful when fully aroused. Tom’s conclusion was that he must sit tight. He might try to open up communications with the British, with a view either to a dash across the frontier, or to joining them if they should advance into German territory. Meanwhile, though for some reason unknown the small force that had followed him up had drawn off, he was virtually besieged. His first task, then, was to put his position into as thorough a state of defence as was possible, and to establish such order among the little community as would further his ultimate design. "And I’ve got all my work cut out," he thought, somewhat drearily. Then he smiled as he remembered his brother. "Wouldn’t Bob grin! By George, though, if we’re at war Bob will want to be in it! Of course he will! The business will go to pot. What a rum world it is!" CHAPTER XI--TOM’S NEW ALLIES