"I owe these people my life. Keep ours in hand until we meet."
"These are the messengers, Mgara?" he went on, as the head man returned accompanied by two men. "Are they reliable, and above all, fearless?"
"They are both, Sidi," answered the chief, now very deferential. "One is my son, the other my brother's son."
"Good. Let them now get a piece of white flaxen cloth, and bind it and this token to a staff. Then let them seek out El Khanac yonder."
In a moment this was done, and, bearing the impromptu white flag and the writing on the board, the two young men started off into the scrub.
"Retire now into your houses, Mgara, you and all your people. I alone will stand within the gate, and maybe it will be well with you."
The Wajalu, who had been hanging on every word, now hastened to obey; nevertheless there was terror and dejection in every face. And their thoughts were much the same as those of their would-be deliverer. Had he the power to make good his word?
The hot morning hours dragged slowly by, and still no sign of attack. The village was a deserted place, in its brooding, death-like silence, so still, so complete as to render distinctly audible the sweep of the wings of carrion birds circling aloft. The severed heads grinned hideously from the stockade, and the unearthly molten stillness of the silent noon was such as to get upon the nerves of the ordinary watcher. But he who now stood there had no nerves—not in a matter of this kind. His experiences had been such as to kill and crush them out of all being.
Ha! What was this? The crows and vultures, which, emboldened by the deathly silence, had been circling nearer and nearer to the tree tops, suddenly and with one accord shot upward, now seeming mere specks in the blue ether. Then the silence was broken in appalling fashion. Rending the air in a terrific note of savagery and blood-thirst, there burst forth the harsh, hissing war-yell of the Wangoni.
It came from the forest edge on the farther side of the village. Laurence realized, with vexation and concern, that his merciful plan would be extremely difficult to carry out. That these ferocious auxiliaries should be allowed to initiate the attack he had not reckoned upon; and now to restrain them would be a herculean task.