'What is the matter?' she demanded.
'S-sh!' he cautioned. 'Do not let them hear you speak to me, but put your ear close to me while I tell you in a low voice what Luvini is planning.'
The girl bent her head close to the lips of the little black. 'You have been kind to me,' he whispered, 'and now that Luvini would harm you I have come to tell you.'
'What do you mean?' exclaimed Flora, in a low voice.
'I mean that Luvini, after the Arabs are killed, has given orders that the black boys kill all the white men and take you prisoner. He intends to either keep you for himself or to sell you in the north for a great sum of money.'
'But how do you know all this?' demanded the girl.
'All the blacks in camp know it,' replied the boy. 'I was to have stolen your rifle and your pistol, as each of the boys will steal the weapons of his white master.'
The girl sprang to her feet. 'I'll teach that nigger a lesson,' she cried, seizing her pistol and striding toward the flap of the tent.
The boy seized her about the knees and held her. 'No! no!' he cried. 'Do not do it. Do not say anything. It will only mean that they will kill the white men sooner and take you prisoner just the same. Every black boy in the camp is against you. Luvini has promised that the ivory shall be divided equally among them all. They are ready now, and if you should threaten Luvini, or if in any other way they should learn that you were aware of the plot, they would fall upon you immediately.'
'What do you expect me to do then?' she asked.
'There is but one hope, and that is in flight. You and the white men must escape into the jungle. Not even I may accompany you.'
The girl stood looking at the little boy in silence for a moment, and then finally she said, 'Very well, I will do as you say. You have saved my life. Perhaps I may never be able to repay you, and perhaps, again, I may. Go, now, before suspicion alights upon you.'
The black withdrew from the tent, crawling beneath the back wall to avoid being seen by any of his fellows who were in the center of the camp from which the front of the tent was in plain view. Immediately he was gone Flora walked casually into the open and went to Kraski's tent, which the Russian occupied in common with Bluber. She found the two men and in low whispers apprised them of what the black had told her. Kraski then called Peebles and Throck, it being decided that they should give no outward sign of holding any suspicion that aught was wrong. The Englishmen were for jumping in upon the blacks and annihilating them, but Flora Hawkes dissuaded them from any such rash act by pointing out how greatly they were outnumbered by the natives, and how hopeless it would be to attempt to overpower them.
Bluber, with his usual cunning and shrewdness which inclined always to double dealing where there was the slightest possibility for it, suggested that they secretly advise the Arabs of what they had learned, and joining forces with them take up as strong a position in the camp as possible and commence to fire into the blacks without waiting for their attack.
Again Flora Hawkes vetoed the suggestion. 'It will not do,' she said, 'for the Arabs are at heart as much our enemies as the blacks. If we were successful in subduing the niggers it would be but a question of minutes before the Arabs knew every detail of the plot that we had laid against them, after which our lives would not be worth that,' and she snapped her fingers.
'I guess Flora is right, as usual,' growled Peebles, 'but what in 'ell are we goin' to do wanderin' around in this 'ere jungle without no niggers to hunt for us, or cook for us, or carry things for us, or find our way for us, that's wot I'd like to know, and 'ere we are, 'n that's that.'
'No, I guess there ain't nothin' else to do,' said Throck; 'but blime if I likes to run away, says I, leastwise not for no dirty niggers.'
There came then to the ears of the whites, rumbling from the far distance in the jungle, the roar of a lion.
'Oi! Oi!' cried Bluber. 'Ve go out all alone in dot jungle? Mein Gott! I just as soon stay here und get killed like a vite man.'
'They won't kill you like a white man,' said Kraski. 'They'll torture you if you stay.'
Bluber wrung his hands, and the sweat of fear rolled down his oily face. 'Oi! vy did I done it? Vy did I done it?' he wailed. 'Vy didn't I stay home in London vere I belong?'
'Shut up!' snapped Flora. 'Don't you know that if you do anything to arouse the suspicion of these fellows they will be on us at once? There is only one thing for us to do and that is to wait until they precipitate the attack upon the Arabs. We will still have our weapons, for they do not plan to steal them from us until after the Arabs are killed. In the confusion of the fight, we must make our escape into the jungle, and after that—God knows—and God help us.'
'Yes,' blubbered Bluber, who was in a blue funk, 'Gott help us!'
A moment later Luvini came to them. 'All is ready, Bwanas,' he said. 'As soon as the evening meal has been eaten, be in readiness. You will hear a shot, that will be the signal. Then open fire upon the Arabs.'
'Good,' said Kraski; 'we have just been talking about it and we have decided that we will take our stand near the gate to prevent their escape.'
'It is well,' said Luvini, 'but you must remain here.' He was addressing Flora. 'It would not be safe for you to be where there is to be fighting. Remain here in your tent, and we will confine the fighting to the other side of the village and possibly to the gate, if any of them makes a break for escape.'
'All right,' said Flora, 'I will remain here where it is safe.'
Satisfied that things could not have worked into his hands to better advantage, the black left them, and presently the entire camp was occupied with the evening meal. There was an atmosphere of restraint, and high, nervous tension throughout the entire camp that must have been noticeable, even to the Arabs, though they, alone of the entire company, were ignorant as to its cause. Bluber was so terrified that he could not eat, but sat white and trembling with his eyes roving wildly about the camp—first to the blacks, then to the Arabs, and then to the gate, the distance to which he must have measured a hundred times as he sat there waiting for the shot that was to be the signal for the massacre that was to send him out into the jungle to be, he surely thought, the immediate prey of the first hunting lion that passed.
Peebles and Throck ate their meal stolidly, much to Bluber's disgust. Kraski, being of a highly nervous temperament, ate but little, but he showed no signs of fear. Nor did Flora Hawkes, though at heart she realized the hopelessness of their situation.
Darkness had fallen. Some of the blacks and Arabs were still eating, when suddenly the silence was shattered by the sharp staccato report of a rifle. An Arab sank silently to the earth. Kraski rose and grasped Flora by the arm. 'Come!' he cried.
Followed by Peebles and Throck, and preceded by Bluber, to whose feet fright had lent wings, they hurried toward the gate of the palisade.
By now the air was filled with the hoarse cries of fighting men and the report of rifles. The Arabs, who had numbered but about a dozen, were putting up a game fight, and being far better marksmen than the blacks, the issue of the battle was still in doubt when Kraski opened the gate and the five whites fled into the darkness of the jungle.
The outcome of the fight within the camp could not have been other than it was, for so greatly did the blacks outnumber the Arabs, that eventually, notwithstanding their poor marksmanship, they succeeded in shooting down the last of the nomads of the north. Then it was that Luvini turned his attention to the other whites only to discover that they had fled the village. The black realized two things instantly. One was that someone had betrayed him, and the other, that the whites couldn't have gone far in the short time since they had left the camp.
Calling his warriors about him he explained to them what had happened, and impressing upon them that the whites, if permitted to escape, would eventually return with reinforcements to punish the blacks, he aroused his followers, who now numbered over two hundred warriors, to the necessity of setting out immediately upon the trail of the fugitives and overtaking them before they could carry word even to a neighboring village, the nearest of which was not more than a day's march distant.
