A curious crowd followed them closely for some distance, and not a word was spoken until they had turned off into a side avenue lined with low mud buildings.
"Now," said Melton quickly, "I need not tell you, my dear fellow, what a pleasant surprise this meeting has been, but all explanation must be deferred to a more suitable time. You have made a friend and an enemy today, for Makar Makalo is the most powerful Arab in the whole Somali country, while that big negro is Oko Sain, the head chief of all the Gallas who dwell two hundred miles back from the coast. What did Makar tell you?"
Guy repeated the Arab's warning, and Melton stood for a moment in deep thought.
"I suspected as much," he said finally. "Never before have there been so many Arabs and Somalis from the interior at Berbera. Only yesterday a caravan of two thousand camels arrived from Harar in the Galla country. Something is wrong, I have felt certain, and now Makar confirms my fears."
A glimmering suspicion of the truth flashed over Guy's mind at this juncture, but he hesitated to speak.
"Now then," continued Melton, "this can mean nothing but a massacre. The only soldiers in the place are about sixty of the Bombay infantry, who were sent down here from Zaila, and as for the fortifications, they are nothing but a few mud walls. There they lie yonder," and he pointed to an English flag floating over the house-tops some distance away.
"We are only wasting time here," he added. "We'll look about a little and then I'll decide what to do. I don't want to raise any false alarm."
They turned back to the main avenue. The crowds still surged up and down, and the tumult seemed as harsh and discordant as ever, but the place had nevertheless undergone a change since they had left it a short time before. Little bartering was going on, and but few Arabs and Somalis were to be seen. Those on the street were mostly harmless traders from Aden and Cairo.
"What has become of all the Arabs?" asked Guy.
"That is just what I want to know," said Melton; "I'll soon find out, though. Walk as fast as you can now, Chutney, and look as unconcerned as possible."