Prester John by John Buchan Page B

listening for the drums, but you won’t hear them. That business is over here. Tonight they beat in Swaziland and down into the Tonga border. Three days more, unless you and I, Mr Crawfurd, are extra smart, and they’ll be hearing them in Durban.’
    It was not till the lamp was lit, the fire burning well, and the house locked and shuttered, that Captain Arcoll began his tale.
    â€˜First,’ he said, ‘let me hear what you know. Colles told me that you were a keen fellow, and had wind of some mystery here. You wrote him about the way you were spied on, but I told him to take no notice. Your affair, Mr Crawfurd, had to wait on more urgent matters. Now, what do you think is happening?’
    I spoke very shortly, weighing my words, for I felt I was on trial before these bright eyes. ‘I think that some kind of native rising is about to commence.’
    â€˜Ay,’ he said drily, ‘you would, and your evidence would be the spying and drumming. Anything more?’
    â€˜I have come on the tracks of a lot of I.D.B. work in the neighbourhood. The natives have some supply of diamonds, which they sell bit by bit, and I don’t doubt but they have been getting guns with the proceeds.’
    He nodded. ‘Have you any notion who has been engaged in the job?’
    I had it on my tongue to mention Japp, but forbore, remembering my promise. ‘I can name one,’ I said ‘a little yellow Portugoose, who calls himself Henriques or Hendricks. He passed by here the day before yesterday.’
    Captain Arcoll suddenly was consumed with quiet laughter. ‘Did you notice the Kaffir who rode with him and carried his saddlebags? Well, he’s one of my men. Henriques would have a fit if he knew what was in those saddlebags. They contain my change of clothes, and other odds and ends. Henriques’ own stuff is in a hole in the spruit. A handy way of gettingone’s luggage sent on, eh? The bags are waiting for me at a place I appointed.’ And again Captain Arcoll indulged his sense of humour. Then he became grave, and returned to his examination.
    â€˜A rising with diamonds as the sinews of war, and Henriques as the chief agent. Well and good! But who is to lead, and what are the natives going to rise about?’
    â€˜I know nothing further, but I have made some guesses.’
    â€˜Let’s hear your guesses,’ he said, blowing smoke rings from his pipe.
    â€˜I think the main mover is a great black minister who calls himself John Laputa.’
    Captain Arcoll nearly sprang out of his chair. ‘Now, how on earth did you find that out? Quick, Mr Crawfurd, tell me all you know, for this is desperately important.’
    I began at the beginning, and told him the story of what happened on the Kirkcaple shore. Then I spoke of my sight of him on board ship, his talk with Henriques about Blaauwildebeestefontein, and his hurried departure from Durban.
    Captain Arcoll listened intently, and at the mention of Durban he laughed. ‘You and I seem to have been running on lines which nearly touched. I thought I had grabbed my friend Laputa that night in Durban, but I was too cocksure and he slipped off. Do you know, Mr Crawfurd, you have been on the right trail long before me? When did you say you saw him at his devil-worship? Seven years ago? Then you were the first man alive to know the Reverend John in his true colours. You knew seven years ago what I only found out last year.’
    â€˜Well, that’s my story,’ I said. ‘I don’t know what the rising is about, but there’s one other thing I can tell you. There’s some kind of sacred place for the Kaffirs, and I’ve found out where it is.’ I gave him a short account of my adventures in the Rooirand.
    He smoked silently for a bit after I had finished. ‘You’ve got the skeleton of the whole thing right, and you only want the filling up. And you found out everything for yourself?