At last Kitembo straightened up. The expression upon his face was serious, and when he spoke his voice trembled slightly. "This is bad," he said, shaking his bullet head.
"What do you mean?" demanded Zveri.
"This arrow bears the mark of a warrior who was left behind in our base camp," replied the chief.
"That is impossible," cried Zveri.
Kitembo shrugged. "I know it," he said, "but it is true."
"With an arrow out of the air the Hindu was slain," suggested a black headman, standing near Kitembo.
"Shut up, you fool," snapped Romero, "or you'll have the whole camp in a blue funk."
"That's right," said Zveri. "We must hush this thing up." He turned to the headman. "You and Kitembo," he commanded, "must not repeat this to your men. Let us keep it to ourselves."
Both Kitembo and the headman agreed to guard the secret, but within half an hour every man in camp knew that the sentry had been shot with an arrow that had been left behind in the base camp, and immediately their minds were prepared for other things that lay ahead of them upon the long trail.
The effect of the incident upon the minds of the black soldiers was apparent during the following day's march. They were quieter and more thoughtful, and there was much low voiced conversation among them; but if they had given signs of nervousness during the day, it was nothing as compared with their state of mind after darkness fell upon their camp that night. The sentries evidenced their terror plainly by their listening attitudes and nervous attention to the sounds that came out of the blackness surrounding the camp. Most of them were brave men who would have faced a visible enemy with courage, but to a man they were convinced that they were confronted by the supernatural, against which they knew that neither rifle nor bravery might avail. They felt that ghostly eyes were watching them, and the result was as demoralizing as would an actual attack have been; in fact, far more so.