"No, no; I do not believe it. If any of my people believes it, he shall surely die!"
Barega glared round the circle of his trembling subjects, as if to dare any of them to confess himself a doubter.
"No one believes it," said Tom quickly. "Now I tell you this," he added, turning to Barega; "you will lose no more cattle, my friend. Your losses are due to Mabruki's bad medicine."
"I will have his head!" cried Barega furiously.
"Wait, my brother. Let me plead for him. What will his death avail? It will not bring back your cattle. No, it is for the strong to show mercy. What shall be his doom? Let it be this, that he give to everyone who has lost cattle by this strange death one bull for every bull that died, you, O chief, to choose first among his beasts. And mark, if in the days to come any cattle die in the same way, let Mabruki give the owner two bulls for every one that so dies. My medicine is not concerned with cattle; but I think Mabruki has enough medicine left to preserve your cattle henceforth."
The suggestion met with instant approval, and Mabruki himself dared not raise a protest. As he slunk shamefaced away, the assembly broke up, to discuss the wonderful occurrences with shouting and laughter for hours afterwards.
"Like it berrah much, sah," he said; "jolly good bloony bloon."
"Yes; and we must never repeat the performance. We will not stale our big medicine, Mbutu."
The explanation of the wonderful event was simplicity itself.
When Tom had offered to pit himself against Mabruki, he had in his mind the trick of Japanese wrestling. But that was hardly sufficient, perhaps, to impress the people, and he resolved to attempt something even more startling. While thinking over the matter, he remembered how amazed he had been himself when, as a young child, he first saw a balloon. Could he make a fire-balloon? Suddenly he bethought him of a roll of Indian silk he had seen among the chief's possessions. Surely that would provide the very material he required. He persuaded the chief to give him a few lengths from the roll, and during the time of his seclusion in the hut he had, with Mbutu's assistance, cut the silk into strips, stuck them together with a natural gum obtained from trees near, stitched the seams together, smeared the whole surface with gum to make it air-tight, and bent a thin sapling to hold open the mouth of the balloon, with a light pan dangling from it to hold combustible material steeped in spirit. Mbutu had smuggled the balloon into the plantation on the previous night, while Tom was engaged in practising his wrestling trick on the katikiro. When the performance began with the ringing of the bell, Mbutu had inflated the envelope with hot air over a large charcoal fire, and at the second drum-signal had ignited the spirit-soaked material, and let the balloon rise.