This time from the bush, and the Houssas answered it. Forty men fired independently at the patch of green from whence the flashes had come.
Forty men and more leapt into the water and waded ashore, Sanders at their head.
The ambush had failed. Sanders found three dead men of the Isisi and one slightly injured and quite prepared for surrender.
"Männlichers!" said Sanders, examining the rifles, and he whistled.
"Lord," said the living of the four, "we did what we were told; for it is an order that no man shall come to you with tidings; also, on a certain night that we should shoot you."
"Whose order?" demanded Sanders.
"Our lord Ofesi's," said the man. "Also, it is an order from a certain white lord who dwells with his people on the border of the land."
They were speaking when the whoo-ing messenger came up at a jog-trot, too weary to be cautioned by the sound of guns.
He was a tired man, dusty, almost naked, and he carried a spear and a cleft-stick.
Sanders read the letter which was stuck therein. It was in ornamental Arabic, and was from Ahmed Ali.