Still, there is a way out of most difficulties if only it can be hit upon. My own mental resources were exhausted, it is true, but Hans remained, and possibly he might have some suggestion of value to make. He was a curious creature, Hans, and often his concentrated primitive instincts led him more directly to the mark than did all my civilized reasonings.
So speaking without emphasis in Dutch, for I did not wish Dramana to guess my internal excitement, I put the problem to Hans in these words:
"Supposing and you and I, Hans, with none to help, except perhaps this woman, found it necessary to break that bar of stone and cause the water gate to fall, so as to let in the lake flood over it, how could we do it with such means as we have in this place?"
Hans stared about him, twiddling his hat in his usual vacuous fashion, and remarked,
"I don't know, Baas."
"Then find out, for I want to learn if your conclusions agree with my own," I answered.
"I think that if they agree with the Baas's, they will agree with nothing at all," said Hans, delivering this shrewd and perfectly accurate shot with such a wooden expression of utter stupidity that I could have kicked him.
Next, without more words, he removed himself from my neighbourhood and began to examine the lever in a casual fashion, especially the hook of rock which held it in its place. Presently he remarked in Arabic, so that Dramana might understand, that he wanted to see how deep the pit was, which we could not do from the floor of the shed, and instantly climbed up the slope of the beam–like lever with all the agility of a monkey, and sat himself, cross–legged, on the top of it, just below the stone hinge that I have described. Here he remained for a while, apparently staring into the darkness of the hole or pit on the farther side of the stone slab, where, of course, it was almost empty, as the door cut off the water from the irrigation channel on the island side.
"That hole is too dark to see into," he said, presently, and swarmed down the shaft again. Then he called my attention to the body of the dead woman who Dramana had told us was struck by the lever and killed while it was being dragged into place, which lay almost out of sight in the shadow by the wall of the shed. We went to look at her. She was a tall woman, handsome, like all these people, and young. Outwardly she showed no signs of injury, for her long white robe was unstained. I suppose that she had been crushed between the lever and the hook, or perhaps struck in the side of the head as it was being swung into place. Whilst we were examining the corpse of this unfortunate, Hans said to me, still speaking in Dutch,
"Does the Baas remember that we have two pound tins of the best rifle powder in our bag and that he scolded me because I did not take them out when we left the house of the Walloo, saying that it was foolish to bring them with us as they would be quite useless to us on the island?"
I replied that I had some recollection of the incident, and that, as a matter of fact, they had been heavy to carry. Then Hans proceeded to set a riddle in his irritating and sententious way, asking,
"Who does the Baas think knows most about things that are to happen— the Baas or the Baas's Reverend Father in Heaven?"
"My father, I presume, Hans," I replied airily.
"The Baas is right. The Baas's father in the sky knows much more than the Baas, but sometimes I think that Hans knows better than either, at any rate, here on the earth."
I stared at the little wretch, rendered speechless by his irreverent impudence, but he went on unabashed:
"I did not forget to leave that powder behind, Baas; I brought it with me thinking that it might be useful, because with powder you can blow up men and other things. Also, I did not wish it to stay where we might never see it again."
"Well, what about the powder?" I asked.
"Nothing much, Baas. At least, only this. These Walloo do not bore stones very well; they make the holes too big for what has to go through them. That in the water gate is so large that there would be room to put two pound flasks of powder beneath the pin, so that the strain lifts it up to the top of the hole."
"And what would be the use of putting two flasks of powder in such a place?" I inquired carelessly, for at the moment I was thinking about the dead woman.
"None at all, Baas; none at all. Only I thought the Baas asked me how we could loose that stone arm. If two pounds of powder were put into the hole, covered with a little mud, and fired, I think that they would blow out the bit of rock at the top of the hole, or break the pin, or both. Then, as there would be nothing to hold it, the stone door would fall down and the lake would come in and water the fields of the priests of Heu–Heu, if in his wisdom and kindness the Baas thinks they want it at harvest time, and after so much rain."
"You little wretch," I said; "you infernal, clever little wretch! Hang me if I don't think you have got hold of the right end of the stick this time. Only the business will take a lot of thinking out and arrangement."
"Yes, Baas, and we had better do that in the house, which, as the Baas knows, is quite close, only about a hundred paces away. Let us get out of this place, Baas, before the lady begins to smell rats; only, as you go, take a good squint at that hole in the top of the stone door and the rock pin that goes through it."
Then Hans, who all this while had been staring at the body of the woman and apparently talking about her, bowed towards it, remarking in Arabic, "Allah, I mean Heu–Heu, receive her into his bosom," and retreated reverentially.
So we went away, but I, lingering behind, examined the hole and the pin very carefully.
Hans was quite right: there was just room left in the former to accommodate two tin flasks of powder, also, there were not more than three inches of rock on the topside of the hole. Surely two pounds of powder would suffice to blow out this ring of stone and perhaps to shatter the pin as well.
Chapter XII
The Plot
We left the shed and, after she had locked its door very carefully and returned the stone key to her pouch, were taken by Dramana to see the famous Tree of Illusions, of which the juice and leaves, if powdered and burnt, could produce such strange dreams and intoxicating effects. It grew in a large walled space that was called Heu–Heu's Garden, though nothing else was planted there. Dramana assured us indeed that this tree had a poisonous effect upon all other vegetation.
Passing the wall by a door of which she also produced some kind of key out of her bag, we found ourselves standing in front of the famous tree, if so it can be called, for its growth was shrub–like and its topmost twigs were not more than twenty feet above the ground. On the other hand, it covered a great area and had a trunk two or three feet thick from which projected a vast number of branches whereof the extremities lay upon the soil, and I think rooted there, after the manner of wild figs, though of this I am not certain.
It was an unholy product of nature, inasmuch as it had no real foliage, only dark green, euphorbia–like and flesh fingers—indeed, I think it must have been some variety of euphorbia. At the extremities of these green fingers appeared purple–coloured blooms with a most evil smell that reminded me of the odour of something dead; also down their sides—for, like the orange, the tree appeared to have the property of flowering and fruiting at the same time—were yellow seed vessels about the size of those of a prickly pear. Except that the trunk was covered with corrugated gray bark and that the finger–like leaves were full of resinous white milk like those of other euphorbias, there is nothing more to say about it. I should add, however, that Dramana told us no other specimen existed, either on the mainland or the island, and that to attempt its propagation elsewhere was a capital offence. In short, the Tree of Illusions was a monopoly of the priests.