Now weaver birds go to sleep at nights like sensible people, and they live near villages, liking the society of human beings. Certainly they do not advertise their presence so brazenly as did this bird, who twittered and twittered at intervals.
Sanders watched patiently.
Then suddenly, from close at hand, from the very deck on which he stood, came an answering call.
Sanders had his little cabin on the bridge of the steamer; he walked farther away from it. In the corner of the bridge he crouched down, his thumb on the safety-catch.
He felt, rather than saw, a man come from the forest; he knew that there was one on board the steamer who met him.
Then creeping round the deck-house came two men. He could just discern the bulk of them as they moved forward till they found the door of the cabin and crept in. He heard a little noise, and grinned again, though he knew that their spear-heads were making sad havoc of his bedclothes.
Then there was a little pause, and he saw one come out by himself and look around.
He turned to speak softly to the man inside.
Sanders rose noiselessly.
The man in the doorway said "Kah!" in a gurgling voice and went down limply, because Sanders had kicked him scientifically in the stomach, which is a native's weak spot. The second man ran out, but fell with a crash over the Commissioner's extended leg, and, falling, received the full weight of a heavy pistol barrel in the neighbourhood of his right ear.