"Lord! they go back!" gasped his sergeant; and Bones saw to his amazement a little knot of men making their frantic way up the hill.
At first he suspected an ambush within an ambush, but it was unlikely; he could never be more at Ogibo's mercy than he had been.
Cautiously he felt his way up the hill path, a revolver in each hand.
He rounded a sharp corner of the path and saw....
A great square chasm yawned in the very centre of the pathway, the bushes on either side were buried under the earth which the diggers of wells had flung up, and piled one on the other, a writhing, struggling confusion of shining bodies, were Ogibo's soldiers to the number of a hundred, with a silent Ogibo undermost, wholly indifferent to his embarrassing position, for his neck was broken.
Hamilton came up in the afternoon and brought villagers to assist at the work of rescue and afterwards he interviewed the chief of the shy and timid Well-folk.
"O chief," said Hamilton, "it is an order of Sandi that you shall dig no wells near towns, and yet you have done this."
"Bless his old heart!" murmured Bones.
"Lord, I break the law," said the man, simply, "also I break all custom, for to-day, by your favour, I cross the river, I and my people. This we have never done since time was."