After the first widely scattered shots, the firing had ceased, to be followed by a silence even more ominous to the overwrought nerves of the black soldiers. The utter silence of the enemy, the lack of any sign of movement in the grasses ahead of them, coupled with the mysterious warnings which still rang in their ears, convinced the blacks that they faced no mortal foe.
"Turn back!" came mournfully from the grasses ahead. "This is the last warning. Death will follow disobedience."
The line wavered, and to steady it Romero gave the command to fire. In response came a rattle of musketry out of the grasses ahead of them, and this time a dozen men went down, killed or wounded.
"Charge!" cried Romero, but instead the men wheeled about and broke for the rear and safety.
At sight of the advance line bearing down upon them, throwing away their rifles as they ran, the support turned and fled, carrying the reserve with it, and the whites were carried along in the mad rout.
In disgust, Romero fell back alone. He saw no enemy, for none pursued him, and this fact induced within him an uneasiness that the singing bullets had been unable to arouse. As he plodded on alone far in the rear of his companions, he began to share to some extent the feeling of unreasoning terror that had seized his black companions, or at least, if not to share it, to sympathize with them. It is one thing to face a foe that you can see, and quite another to be beset by an invisible enemy, of whose very appearance, even, one is ignorant.
Shortly after Romero reentered the forest, he saw some one walking along the trail ahead of him; and presently, when he had an unobstructed view, he saw that it was Zora Drinov.
He called to her then, and she turned and waited for him.
"I was afraid that you had been killed, Comrade," she said.
"I was born under a lucky star," he replied smiling. "Men were shot down on either side of me and behind me. Where is Zveri?"