So Wimba, although without firearms to render him a useful ally, likewise was hoisted to the wall.
Then all four leaped down into the courtyard, where ordinarily Chief Ruku-Ru stabled his milch cows. But now the courtyard, deep in dung, was deserted. The raiders already had driven off the animals.
In one corner of the spacious yard lay two guards outstretched in the sun. The boys shivered.
“Killed,” said Bob, gritting his teeth. “Well, these rascals need a lesson. Come on.”
Yells from the other side of the opposite mud wall apprised them their surmise was correct. The fight was raging there, and with uncommon fierceness. But Chief Ruku-Ru’s forces were getting the worst of it. The raiders were too many for them.
Bob leaped to the low roof of a cow shed built against the wall, which overtopped it by two or three feet. Crouching behind this bulwark, he peered out. He found he faced the great village square. The two forces were fighting at close quarters. The air was filled with arrows. Here and there lay fallen warriors, never to move again, while others were dragging themselves away with ghastly wounds upon them.
It was easy to distinguish between the two forces. Easy for one thing, if for no other. Not because of the fact that one side had herded cattle and wailing women indiscriminately into one corner of the square at its back. That betokened the enemy host, right enough. But a clearer indication was afforded by the two leaders.
Chief Ruku-Ru, strongly built, a ferocious fighter, had thrown aside shield, spear, bow, and armed only with a wicked knife was engaged in hand to hand combat with a gigantic negro similarly accoutred who wore in addition a tuft of golden eagle feathers in his hair.
These were the respective chieftains, and their fighting men stood back to permit them free play. In fact, in the vicinity of the two warriors, all other fighting had died away.
The boys were unaware that Chief Ruku-Ru’s opponent was known as the Bone Crusher, and that his fame as a terrible fighter was widespread amongst all the Kikuyu clans. But that this individual combat had dwarfed all others for the moment was apparent. Not only those warriors in their vicinity had ceased fighting, as if by common consent, but over the whole square in a trice spread a truce that reached to the farthest combatants. The shouts of the fighters, the wails of the captive women, died away. Only the panting of the two gladiators could be heard.