CHAPTER XV

AT KILEMBONGA

BEFORE nightfall Colin, Sinclair and Tiny Desmond were safely installed at Kilembonga. They were almost too dead-beat to take stock of their new abode that night. The reaction of their adventurous journey by train, car and on foot, ending with thirty odd miles on horseback had told heavily.

They were barely conscious of sitting down to a good square meal and of being shown into a spacious bedroom. After that everything became a blank until close on noon on the following day.

"Tiny, old son," exclaimed Colin, "we've slept the clock round."

"Might have slept the clock square, for all I know," replied Desmond, stretching his aching limbs. "Hullo! Where are we? Honest Injun, I thought we were back at Stockmere."

The two chums sat up and gazed at one another from opposite corners of a large palm-thatched room. The windows were shaded by "jalousies" or open louvres, from the almost vertical rays of the sun.

The interior of the room was simplicity itself, or, as Desmond remarked, "And everything within that cot was wondrous neat and clean." The furniture was almost entirely constructed of African teak, while to render the woodwork immune from the onslaughts of ants the legs of the beds, chairs, and wash-stands stood in shallow tin bowls of water.

"Where are our clothes, I wonder?" enquired Tiny.

"They can't have arrived yet," replied his chum. "The bullock waggon----"

"Yes, I know," interrupted Desmond. "But the things we wore yesterday. I have some idea that I left mine on that chair."

A brief search resulted in the finding of the missing garments. The clothes had been brushed, neatly folded, and placed inside two tin trunks.

Evidently the sounds made by the searchers had penetrated into another part of the house, for there was a tremendous knock on the door, followed by the entrance of Tenpenny Nail.

"Me your servant, sah," he announced, addressing Colin. "Tenpenny Nail--dat's me. Blue Fly him come one time. Gone fetchee up bath-water."

Colin regarded his new acquaintance curiously. He saw a tall, broad-shouldered man of a type totally distinct from the Kaffir.

Tenpenny Nail was a Kruman who had served in a Haussa regiment attached to the "Waifs," or West African Frontier Force. Attaining the rank of corporal, he had elected at the close of hostilities to take his discharge at Ujiji instead of returning to "The Coast." His former master, late platoon-commander, had recently sold out and returned to England, so Tenpenny Nail had taken service with Colonel Narfield at Kilembonga.

This much Tenpenny Nail related promptly, accompanying his recital with a succession of broad grins that gave his features the appearance of being almost all mouth.

In the midst of his introductory speech Tenpenny Nail was interrupted by the arrival of his colleague, Blue Fly, who so strongly resembled Colin's servant that the lad wondered if he would ever be able to distinguish one from the other.

Blue Fly was staggering under the weight of an enormous earthenware jar of water. He could have carried the weight with equanimity in the open by balancing the jar on his head; but the height of the doorway prevented him, and perforce he had to carry it in his arms.

Powerfully built from the waist upwards, Blue Fly, like most African natives, was woefully thin and weak "on his pins," and it certainly looked as if his spidery legs would give way under the weight of his burden.

"Massa Demon," he announced majestically. "Tiffin him ready in half a perishing hour."

"Right-o, Bluebottle," replied Tiny cheerfully.

Blue Fly looked both surprised and pained.

"I tell you, sah," he observed with solemn dignity. "My name is Blue Fly, sah, not Bluebottle."

"That's all right, old son," rejoined Tiny. "A mistake on both sides. My name's Desmond."

But it was a very long time before Blue Fly left off calling his new master "Demon," often at most inopportune moments.

Having bathed and dressed, Colin and Tiny found their way to the dining-room, where Colonel Narfield was awaiting them.

"Had a good night?" he inquired. "That's splendid. We won't start serious work for a couple of days. That'll give you a chance to look round, and by that time the rest of your kit ought to be here. No; we don't do much between eleven and three unless we're obliged to."

After lunch, Colonel Narfield, foregoing his customary "forty winks," showed the new arrivals round the place. The house was solidly constructed of teak with corrugated iron outside. The roof was partly thatch and partly "tin." It was not a picturesque building by any means, although the broad stoep saved it from utter ugliness. It was long and rambling, and with the exception of the right wing, was one-storeyed.

In front of the house was a wide courtyard; on the back were the stables, stores, and workshops. The whole was surrounded by a formidable-looking fence with a bank of earth on the inside and a six-feet ditch without.

The motor garage was empty for obvious reasons, but in the stable were six "salted" horses and four trek-oxen, the remainder being on their way from Tabora with the chums' luggage.

In the workshops, which were well equipped both for iron and woodwork, a dozen natives were diligently at work under the supervision of McFraser. Adjoining the shop was a spacious laboratory.

"This is where you will spend a good many of your working hours," observed Colonel Narfield. "Of course that doesn't mean that you won't get out-door work--far from it. We've got to make a complete survey of the Rubera Valley, which is almost entirely in this estate. It will have to be mapped out, photographed, and recorded before we tackle the task of mining gold. As the result of preliminary investigations, I find that the district promises to be rich in gold, both in reefs and sand."

He went on to explain how gold is collected from alluvium by means of hydraulic washings, and the various artifices used to render the operation more prolific and profitable. He explained, also, how gold is obtained from auriferous quartz, the broken ore being passed through a "stamp-battery," and the precious metal is then extracted by a chemical process.

"And what is the stockade for?" asked Tiny. "It doesn't seem high enough to keep out lions."

"A lion could leap over it," replied Colonel Narfield, "but it's hardly likely to do so, especially when there is plenty of food to be found outside. As a matter of fact this place was built under Hun supervision. It was at one time a fortified outpost."

"Against the Makoh'lenga?" asked Colin.

Herbert Narfield smiled.

"You seem to have Makoh'lenga on the brain," he remarked. "It would be interesting to know what your friend Van der Wyck actually did tell you."