The task was made easier for Mr. Hampton, however, by reason of the efforts of Samba, who took his new honors as “straw boss” seriously, and who moreover was ably supported in spurring on the by the dozen steadier men who had refused to leave camp the night before and go to Chief Ungaba’s beer party.
Nothing had occurred during the night as in little groups supporting each other the guilty bearers had stolen back from the village where revelry continued until dawn.
“Mabele him no got any fella-boys with him,” Samba had reported in the morning. “All fella-boys him come back.”
That had been one comfort to Mr. Hampton in the situation, as without all his bearers he would have been forced to abandon much of his impedimenta. And as the load had not decreased through the using up of supplies, but had been maintained at a steady level by reason of the addition of animal skins, every bearer was needed.
While all this was going on, Bob, Frank and Niellsen doing everything possible to be of aid, himself to the task of opening communication with Entebbe. The previous night in his conversations with Mr. Hampton, Ransome speaking from Entebbe had been extremely careful to speak only in the most guarded terms regarding the trouble amongst the natives west of Lake Victoria. Much that he had told the boys afterwards, concerning Ransome’s probable connection with the British secret service, constituted Mr. Hampton’s rather than anything which had been said openly over the radio. From this, the Hampton party drew the conclusion that Ransome suspected there might be one or more secret radio stations maintained in the region about them, and was taking no chances on being overheard. Therefore, when finally he did raise Entebbe, and got Mr. Ransome summoned to the phone, Jack exercised extreme care not to let slip anything which might be seized upon to advantage by hostile ears, yet at the same time to make his meaning clear.
“I understand,” Ransome responded finally. “I shall keep an eye out for your messenger Mabele.”
And from the tone employed, Jack felt assured that Ransome would, indeed, keep an eye out for Mabele. In fact, if he did not go further and send out to lay Mabele by the heels before he could reach the employing him, Jack thought he would be very much mistaken.
In this, however, he was mistaken, as later events proved. For when after an uneventful journey of five days, during which no trace of Mabele had been discovered, the Hampton party did reach Entebbe, on the northern shore of Lake Victoria, they found that Ransome had not caused Mabele’s arrest, although having obtained traces of him. On the contrary, he had permitted him to continue at large.
“And the reason was,” he explained in a conversation with Mr. Hampton, to which the boys and Niellsen were admitted, “that I thought it better to let him keep his freedom, in order that he might lead us, perhaps, to his employers. I have him under constant surveillance. And the last word I had from a spy put on his tracks and sent back to me by native runner was that he was working his way around the shores of the lake.”
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CHAPTER XXII MABELE DISAPPEARS
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CHAPTER XXIV PLANS TO CAPTURE THE PROPHET
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