"Oh happy living things! no tongue
Their beauty may declare;
If springs of love gush from your heart
You bless them unaware."
Well, this good Somali, Carrambo, was to be depended upon. That was evident. He was indeed a strange being in many ways, and held every life but his own very cheap indeed, but he was going to be faithful to his employers. He had a certain code of morality which he considered binding on him, else he could have robbed our heroes and delivered them into Goo-goo's hands very easily indeed. But he had no such thought.
He now walked in front, as the elephants felt their way with cautious steps adown the hill towards a ford in the stream, an attendant close by the head of each.
Carrambo did not mean to take his party through that demon-haunted forest, but by a more circuitous and safer route.
Well was it for all that they had abandoned the fort and the hill at the time they did; for the savages had worked themselves up into a kind of murderous frenzy, and determined to attack and slay the whites long before daybreak.
On looking behind them while still some distance from the ford, our boys could hear their bloodthirsty and maniacal howls, and knew they had reached the fort and found it empty.
And then they knew they were being pursued!
The full moon had now arisen, and its pure silvery light was bathing hill and glen and forest. Even the distant snow-clad mountain-peaks could be seen sparkling like koh-i-noors in its radiance.
But here is the ford, and it is quickly negotiated. None too quickly, however, for hardly are they on the other bank ere the savages had reached the stream.
A battle was now unavoidable.