Peter p.r.i.c.ked up his ears. "Ja, Baas, you cut off the chief Baviaan"s head and sent it in pickle about the country. I have seen it."
The big man laughed. "You see I am not forgotten," he said to his friend, and then to us: "So I treat my enemies, and so will Germany treat hers. You, too, if you fail me by a fraction of an inch." And he laughed loud again.
There was something horrible in that boisterousness. Peter was watching him from below his eyelids, as I have seen him watch a lion about to charge.
He flung himself on a chair, put his elbows on the table, and thrust his face forward.
"You have come from a d.a.m.ned muddled show. If I had Maritz in my power I would have him flogged at a wagon"s end. Fools and pig-dogs, they had the game in their hands and they flung it away. We could have raised a fire that would have burned the English into the sea, and for lack of fuel they let it die down. Then they try to fan it when the ashes are cold."
He rolled a paper pellet and flicked it into the air. "That is what I think of your idiot general," he said, "and of all you Dutch. As slow as a fat vrouw and as greedy as an aasvogel."
We looked very glum and sullen.
"A pair of dumb dogs," he cried. "A thousand Brandenburgers would have won in a fortnight. Seitz hadn"t much to boast of, mostly clerks and farmers and half-castes, and no soldier worth the name to lead them, but it took Botha and s.m.u.ts and a dozen generals to hunt him down. But Maritz!" His scorn came like a gust of wind.
"Maritz did all the fighting there was," said Peter sulkily. "At any rate he wasn"t afraid of the sight of the khaki like your lot."
"Maybe he wasn"t," said the giant in a cooing voice; "maybe he had his reasons for that. You Dutchmen have always a feather-bed to fall on. You can always turn traitor. Maritz now calls himself Robinson, and has a pension from his friend Botha."
"That," said Peter, "is a very d.a.m.ned lie."
"I asked for information," said Stumm with a sudden politeness. "But that is all past and done with. Maritz matters no more than your old Cronjes and Krugers. The show is over, and you are looking for safety. For a new master perhaps? But, man, what can you bring? What can you offer? You and your Dutch are lying in the dust with the yoke on your necks. The Pretoria lawyers have talked you round. You see that map," and he pointed to a big one on the wall. "South Africa is coloured green. Not red for the English, or yellow for the Germans. Some day it will be yellow, but for a little it will be green-the colour of neutrals, of nothings, of boys and young ladies and chicken-hearts."
I kept wondering what he was playing at.
Then he fixed his eyes on Peter. "What do you come here for? The game"s up in your own country. What can you offer us Germans? If we gave you ten million marks and sent you back you could do nothing. Stir up a village row, perhaps, and shoot a policeman. South Africa is counted out in this war. Botha is a cleverish man and has beaten you calves"-heads of rebels. Can you deny it?"
Peter couldn"t. He was terribly honest in some things, and these were for certain his opinions.
"No," he said, "that is true, Baas."
"Then what in G.o.d"s name can you do?" shouted Stumm.
Peter mumbled some foolishness about n.o.bbling Angola for Germany and starting a revolution among the natives. Stumm flung up his arms and cursed, and the Under-Secretary laughed.
It was high time for me to chip in. I was beginning to see the kind of fellow this Stumm was, and as he talked I thought of my mission, which had got overlaid by my Boer past. It looked as if he might be useful.
"Let me speak," I said. "My friend is a great hunter, but he fights better than he talks. He is no politician. You speak truth. South Africa is a closed door for the present, and the key to it is elsewhere. Here in Europe, and in the east, and in other parts of Africa. We have come to help you to find the key."
Stumm was listening. "Go on, my little Boer. It will be a new thing to hear a taakhaar on world-politics."
"You are fighting," I said, "in East Africa; and soon you may fight in Egypt. All the east coast north of the Zambesi will be your battle-ground. The English run about the world with little expeditions. I do not know where the places are, though I read of them in the papers. But I know my Africa. You want to beat them here in Europe and on the seas. Therefore, like wise generals, you try to divide them and have them scattered throughout the globe while you stick at home. That is your plan?"
"A second Falkenhayn," said Stumm, laughing.
"Well, England will not let East Africa go. She fears for Egypt and she fears, too, for India. If you press her there she will send armies and more armies till she is so weak in Europe that a child can crush her. That is England"s way. She cares more for her Empire than for what may happen to her allies. So I say press and still press there, destroy the railway to the Lakes, burn her capital, pen up every Englishman in Mombasa island. At this moment it is worth for you a thousand Damaralands."
The man was really interested and the Under-Secretary, too, p.r.i.c.ked up his ears.
"We can keep our territory," said the former; "but as for pressing, how the devil are we to press? The accursed English hold the sea. We cannot ship men or guns there. South are the Portuguese and west the Belgians. You cannot move a ma.s.s without a lever."
"The lever is there, ready for you," I said.
"Then for G.o.d"s sake show it me," he cried.
I looked at the door to see that it was shut, as if what I had to say was very secret.
"You need men, and the men are waiting. They are black, but they are the stuff of warriors. All round your borders you have the remains of great fighting tribes, the Angoni, the Masai, the Manyumwezi, and above all the Somalis of the north, and the dwellers on the upper Nile. The British recruit their black regiments there, and so do you. But to get recruits is not enough. You must set whole nations moving, as the Zulu under Tchaka flowed over South Africa."
"It cannot be done," said the Under-Secretary.
"It can be done," I said quietly. "We two are here to do it."
This kind of talk was jolly difficult for me, chiefly because of Stumm"s asides in German to the official. I had, above all things, to get the credit of knowing no German, and, if you understand a language well, it is not very easy when you are interrupted not to show that you know it, either by a direct answer, or by referring to the interruption in what you say next. I had to be always on my guard, and yet it was up to me to be very persuasive and convince these fellows that I would be useful. Somehow or other I had to get into their confidence.
"I have been for years up and down in Africa-Uganda and the Congo and the Upper Nile. I know the ways of the Kaffir as no Englishman does. We Afrikanders see into the black man"s heart, and though he may hate us he does our will. You Germans are like the English; you are too big folk to understand plain men. "Civilize," you cry. "Educate," say the English. The black man obeys and puts away his G.o.ds, but he worships them all the time in his soul. We must get his G.o.ds on our side, and then he will move mountains. We must do as John Laputa did with Sheba"s necklace."
"That"s all in the air," said Stumm, but he did not laugh.
"It is sober common sense," I said. "But you must begin at the right end. First find the race that fears its priests. It is waiting for you-the Mussulmans of Somaliland and the Abyssinian border and the Blue and White Nile. They would be like dried gra.s.ses to catch fire if you used the flint and steel of their religion. Look what the English suffered from a crazy Mullah who ruled only a dozen villages. Once get the flames going and they will lick up the pagans of the west and south. This is the way of Africa. How many thousands, think you, were in the Mahdi"s army who never heard of the Prophet till they saw the black flags of the Emirs going into battle?"
Stumm was smiling. He turned his face to the official and spoke with his hand over his mouth, but I caught his words. They were: "This is the man for Hilda." The other pursed his lips and looked a little scared.
Stumm rang a bell and the lieutenant came in and clicked his heels. He nodded towards Peter. "Take this man away with you. We have done with him. The other fellow will follow presently."
Peter went out with a puzzled face and Stumm turned to me.
"You are a dreamer, Brandt," he said. "But I do not reject you on that account. Dreams sometimes come true, when an army follows the visionary. But who is going to kindle the flame?"
"You," I said.
"What the devil do you mean?" he asked.
"That is your part. You are the cleverest people in the world. You have already half the Mussulman lands in your power. It is for you to show us how to kindle a holy war, for clearly you have the secret of it. Never fear but we will carry out your order."
"We have no secret," he said shortly, and glanced at the official, who stared out of the window.
I dropped my jaw and looked the picture of disappointment. "I do not believe you," I said slowly. "You play a game with me. I have not come six thousand miles to be made a fool of."
"Discipline, by G.o.d," Stumm cried. "This is none of your ragged commandos." In two strides he was above me and had lifted me out of my seat. His great hands clutched my shoulders, and his thumbs gouged my armpits. I felt as if I were in the grip of a big ape. Then very slowly he shook me so that my teeth seemed loosened and my head swam. He let me go and I dropped limply back in the chair.
"Now, go! Futsack! And remember that I am your master. I, Ulric von Stumm, who owns you as a Kaffir owns his mongrel. Germany may have some use for you, my friend, when you fear me as you never feared your G.o.d."
As I walked dizzily away the big man was smiling in his horrible way, and that little official was blinking and smiling too. I had struck a dashed queer country, so queer that I had had no time to remember that for the first time in my life I had been bullied without hitting back. When I realized it I nearly choked with anger. But I thanked heaven I had shown no temper, for I remembered my mission. Luck seemed to have brought me into useful company.