But perhaps of all that they could conjure to their minds nothing so strange as the reality; for how could they know that they had heard the victory cry of an English lord and a great lion who had just made their kill together?
VII
DISASTER
The cold and gloomy dawn but reflected the spirits of the company as the white men dragged themselves lethargically from their blankets. But the first to view the camp in the swiftly coming daylight were galvanized into instant wakefulness by what it revealed.
Bill West was the first to suspect what had happened. He looked wonderingly about for a moment and then started, almost at a run, for the crude shelters thrown up by the blacks the previous evening.
He called aloud to Kwamudi and several others whose names he knew, but there was no response. He looked into shelter after shelter, and always the results were the same. Then he hurried over to Orman's tent. The director was just coming out as West ran up. O'Grady was directly behind him.
"What's the matter with breakfast?" demanded the latter. "I don't see a sign of the cooks."
"And you won't," said West; "they've gone, ducked, vamoosed. If you want breakfast, you'll cook it yourself."
"What do you mean gone, Bill?" asked Orman.
"The whole kit and kaboodle of 'em have run out on us," explained the cameraman. "There's not a smoke in camp. Even the askaris have beat it. The camp's unguarded, and God only knows how long it has been."