Next minute Harry, exerting all his young strength, had seized and flung him far into the stream.
A plash by night in an African river is but little likely to awake any one encamped by its banks. So far Harry was safe, but would the Indian give the alarm?
He did not wait to think, he only snatched up the weapons and the shot-belt and darted away like a red deer swiftly along the riverside. He wondered to hear no shout.
The truth is, the Somali sentinel feared to give it; to him it would have meant death, whatever it might be to Harry.
But looking round shortly, he was hardly surprised to find he was hotly pursued by the sentinel. He ran on for about two hundred yards farther, and, on looking round again, he noticed that the Somali was fast gaining on him. So Harry stopped.
His Highland blood was up.
“I won’t run from one man,” he said, “neither will I kill him; I’ll give him a throw, though, if he likes, after the manner of Donald Dinnie.”
So he stood and waited.
He had not long to wait. The Indian had divested himself of the linen jacket he wore, and next moment confronted him, panting, but with gleaming eyes and on murder intent. That is, murder if he could manage it quietly.
“Halt!” cried Harry, in Swahili, as he came to the charge. “No farther, or you die!”