Sanders fired three times with his automatic Colt, and the messenger of the proud chief Sakola went down sideways like a drunken man.
Sergeant Abiboo, revolver in hand, leapt through a window of the bungalow to find his master moving a smouldering uniform jacket—you cannot fire through your pocket with impunity—and eyeing the huddled form of the fallen bushman with a thoughtful frown.
"Carry him to the hospital," said Sanders. "I do not think he is dead."
He picked up the spear and examined the point.
There was lock-jaw in the slightest scratch of it, for these men are skilled in the use of tetanus.
The compound was aroused. Men had come racing over from the Houssa lines, and a rough stretcher was formed to carry away the débris.
Thus occupied with his affairs Sanders had no time to observe the arrival of the mail-boat, and the landing of Mr. Hold.
The big American filled the only comfortable seat in the surf-boat, but called upon his familiar gods to witness the perilous character of his sitting.
He was dressed in white, white irregularly splashed with dull grey patches of sea-water, for the Kroomen who manipulated the sweeps had not the finesse, nor the feather stroke, of a Harvard eight, and they worked independently.
He was tall and broad and thick—the other way. His face was clean-shaven, and he wore a cigar two points south-west.