“Wouldn’t it be better to take to the river at once?”
“No, that means certain death. There are three canoes, and each has a Nordenfeldt mounted in its bows.”
“Good Lord, man, a Nordenfeldt!”
“Yes, and M’Wanga has a dozen 12–pounders in two batteries at Oku. Not that they will ever be of much use to him. I took care of that. But I failed utterly to get on board the canoes. They were moored in mid–stream, guarded day and night, and the guns were sheeted. Moreover, I have been out of gear nearly six weeks. This is a big business, Colville. How is it no one knew of what was going on?”
“There were rumors, but they died down. Forbes——”
“Did they send Forbes in my place?”
“Yes.”
“That explains it. He is a capital fellow in an office. To ask him to unravel an Oku plot was to set a bat catching sparrows by daylight.”
They had plenty of time to discuss matters thus coolly. No West African fighting–man would demean himself by delivering an assault on an enemy’s position without a preliminary hubbub of yells and wild shooting. It is different when he is the defender. Then he will lie close as a partridge till the precise moment that his usually antiquated guns can most effectually belch forth a destroying blast of nails, iron scraps, pebbles, and broken glass and pottery.
But the seconds passed, and the minutes, and no horde of demoniac figures poured across the open compound. The shooting was incessant, yet no bullet struck the house, though not even an indifferent native marksmen could well avoid hitting a big building in which all the living–rooms were on the same floor as the veranda. The lower part of the structure served as a store.