A soft felt hat, pulled down over his eyes, would have concealed the direction of his gaze, even had the awning been removed. His lightly clasped hands rested over one knee, and but for the steady glow of the cigar he might have been asleep.
Yet Sanders of the River was monstrously awake. His eyes were watching the tousled bushes by the water's edge, roving from point to point, searching every possible egress.
There was somebody concealed in those bushes—as to that Sanders had no doubt. But why did they wait—for it was a case of "they"—and why, if they were hostile, had they not attacked him before?
Sanders had had his warnings. Some of the pigeons came before he had left headquarters; awkwardly scrawled red labels had set the bugles ringing through the Houssa quarters. But he had missed the worst of the messages. Bosambo's all-Arabic exclamation had fallen into the talons of a watchful hawk—poor winged messenger and all.
Sanders rose swiftly and silently. Behind him was the open door of his cabin, and he stepped in, walked in the darkness to the telephone above the head of his bunk and pressed a button.
Abiboo dozing with his head against the buzzer answered instantly.
"Let all men be awakened," said Sanders in a whisper. "Six rifles to cover the bush between the two dead trees."
"On my head," whispered Abiboo, and settled his tarboosh more firmly upon that section of his anatomy.
Sanders stood by the door of his cabin, a sporting Lee-Enfield in the crook of his arm, waiting.
Then from far away he heard a faint cry, a melancholy, shrill whoo-wooing. It was the cry that set the men of the villages shuddering, for it was such a cry as ghosts make.