M’setu’s response was very long-winded. The gist of it was that he expected another recruiting visit from the Germans. He had heard that they had been thrown back across the border by the British, and was therefore not inclined to go to the trouble of removing all his people from their villages, but would rather stay and defend himself, with the assistance of the m’sungu, who had already rescued his young men. Tom was a good deal perplexed how to deal with this ingenuous offer of an alliance. M’setu’s warriors, armed only with spears, would be wiped out by a single machine-gun, and Tom could do nothing to help them: outside his nullah he would be as much at the Germans’ mercy as they. On the other hand, the chief’s men, familiar with a wider stretch of country than the Wahehe from the plantation, could do inestimable service as scouts, and might give him early warning of movements of which otherwise he would be unaware. Through Mwesa he explained as clearly as he could the difficulties of the situation, and in the upshot made an arrangement with M’setu by which the chief guaranteed to provide a company of skilled scouts, and Tom in his turn promised to lend assistance to M’setu if he was threatened, and in the last resort to give his people shelter in the nullah. M’setu departed, well satisfied with the result of his interview. "What time sah eat goats?" asked Mwesa. "Eat them! I’m not going to eat them," said Tom. "Take them up to Moses and tell him to look after them. We’ll have some milk by and by." CHAPTER XII--THE DESERTER "Come now, Reinecke, you have been away two months or so. What is the truth of things? We are fed here with what I am convinced are false, or at any rate too rosy, reports. Coming from the centre you ought to be well informed, and I want to know exactly how matters stand." Major von Rudenheim bent forward and fixed his hard blue eyes on Reinecke. They were sitting in the major’s quarters. Reinecke had just returned from a mission which had carried him right across the country, and after delivering dispatches at headquarters had lost no time in visiting his friend the major. "What is the truth?" said Reinecke, flicking the ash from his cigar irritably. "Who knows? They said that Paris would fall before the British Army got across the Channel; now it is said that Paris has not fallen, though the British Army has been annihilated." "And the Fleet?" "The British are skulking in their harbours and won’t fight. We have bombarded most of their commercial ports out of existence, but they had been laying in such enormous stocks of food in anticipation of the war that it will take a year or so to starve them out. So it’s said." "But surely if the ships won’t fight we command the sea and can bring them to terms. It ought to be over by Christmas."