The village lay amongst its farm lands in a break of the forest, and the gaps between the houses had been filled with thorns. Shots came from it at intervals, and were answered by the shots of invisible marksmen who lay within the edge of the forest. The sun glared high overhead in a fleckless sky. The air was salt with the smoke of the crude trade powder.
White-Man's-Trouble counselled retreat.
"Yes, that's all right," said Carter irritably. "No one wants to ram his head into a scrap less than I do. But where the deuce can we go to? There's been no single branch to this road we've come along, and the bush on each side is about the thickest in Africa. Nothing short of a regiment of men with matchets would make a path through it anywhere. Going back to that last village means getting skewered. All the way along I've been wondering how on earth we got out of it without having at least ten spears rammed into each of us."
"O Carter, I no fit to go get mixed in dem fight palaver."
"You're so beastly unoriginal. Why go on repeating the same thing? I'd like further to point out that we've not had a bite to eat for twenty-four hours, and I personally can't go on living on my own fat without inconvenience, as you seem to do."
"No savvy."
"Well, to translate, I say I plenty-much fit for chop."
White-Man's-Trouble rubbed the waistband of his trousers tenderly. "Me, too," he admitted.
"Then, as there is only starvation and other unpleasant things behind, I'm going ahead to prospect. Gee! There's somebody on this side with a rifle. And, by Christopher, there's another rifle in the village shooting back!"
The flintlock trade guns roared out at intervals, and every now and again there came the sharp bark of smokeless powder, and its clean whop-whop of a bullet from a modern rifle. By careful watching Carter decided that there was only one rifle on each side, and he further made out that one was bombarding the other to the exclusion of all lesser interests.