“Wait a few seconds,” he said. “Here is Lord Fairholme. But for his urgent wish to visit Miss Dane, we should not have been in Kadana to–night. Hello! Who the dev—what canoe is that?”
Even while he was speaking, another craft shot out from the dense layer of mist that hid the surface of the river. Though the trees on the opposite bank were clearly visible in the ever–spreading moonlight, the Benuë itself was invisible. A Hausa sergeant challenged from the launch, and the reply came in his own tongue. A small native boat, propelled by two paddles, grated on a strip of shingle, and an Arab and a negro stepped ashore.
By this time, Fairholme had joined Colville and had been introduced to Hume. The Arab, hardly waiting an instant for a response to a curt inquiry, stalked towards them. He was a tall man, gaunt but wiry, and he carried himself with the listless air of one barely convalescent after a severe illness.
But there was no trace of listlessness in his voice. He singled out Colville immediately as the officer in charge of the party, and addressed him in the Hausa language.
“You would better bring your men ashore, run the launch as far up the bank as possible, and barricade yourself in the strongest building available,” he said. “The men of Oku are out. Three of their war canoes are stationed at the bend in the river and their occupants are armed with Mannlicher rifles. Escape that way is impossible. Your only chance is to hold this post as long as Allah permits. I shall try to pass the blockading canoes and reach Ibi, though I fear it will be too late.”
Colville hardly knew at which he was most amazed, the commanding tone of this haggard son of the desert or the astounding news he brought.
“Say, then, hadji,” he cried, half ironically, “What plague has broken out in Oku that the whole line of the Benuë should be threatened.”
“The chief plague is that of blindness among officers who fail to see the pits dug for them by crafty natives,” was the stern answer. “I speak truly, young master. You have half an hour, at best an hour, in which to make preparations.”
“But these war canoes you speak of—they are not at the bend; I have just come up stream.”
“They passed but now. You did not see them for the mist. I accompanied them.”