Their movements, in the light of the campfire, were all plainly discernible to Luvini, and also to that other who watched from the foliage of the tree beneath which Jane Clayton and Flora Hawkes took refuge. Luvini had not come to fight. He had come to capture Flora Hawkes. He turned to his men. “There are only fifty of them,” he said. “We can kill them easily, but we did not come to make war. We came to get the white girl back again. Stay here and make a great show against those sons of jackals. Keep them always looking at you. Advance a little and then fall back again, and while you are thus keeping their attention attracted in this direction I will take fifty men and go to the rear of their camp and get the white girl, and when I have her I will send word to you and immediately you can return to the village, where, behind the palisade, we shall be safe against attack.”
Now this plan well suited the west coast blacks, who had no stomach for the battle looming so imminent, and so they danced and yelled and menaced more vociferously than before, for they felt they were doing it all with perfect impunity, since presently they should retire, after a bloodless victory, to the safety of their palisade.
As Luvini, making a detour, crept through the concealment of the dense jungles to the rear of the camp while the din of the west coast blacks arose to almost deafening proportions, there dropped suddenly to the ground before the two white women from the tree above them, the figure of a white giant, naked except for loincloth and leopard skin—his godlike contour picked out by the flickering light of the beast fire.
“John!” exclaimed Lady Greystoke. “Thank God it is you.”
“S-s-sh!” cautioned the white giant, placing a forefinger to his lips, and then suddenly he wheeled upon Flora Hawkes. “It is you I want,” he cried, and seizing the girl he threw her lightly across his shoulders, and before Lady Greystoke could interfere—before she half-realized what had occurred—he had lightly leaped the protecting boma in the rear of the camp and disappeared into the jungle beyond.
For a moment Jane Clayton stood reeling as one stunned by an unexpected blow, and then, with a stifled moan, she sank sobbing to the ground, her face buried in her arms.
It was thus that Luvini and his warriors found her as they crept stealthily over the boma and into the camp in the rear of the defenders upon the opposite side of the beast fire. They had come for a white woman and they had found one, and roughly dragging her to her feet, smothering her cries with rough and filthy palms, they bore her out into the jungle toward the palisaded village of the ivory raiders.
Ten minutes later the white men and the Waziri saw the west coast blacks retire slowly into the jungle, still yelling and threatening, as though bent on the total annihilation of their enemies—the battle was over without a shot fired or a spear hurled.
“Blime,” said Throck, “what was all the bloomin’ fuss about anyhow?”
“Hi thought they was goin’ to heat hus hup, an’ the blighters never done nothin’ but yell, an’ ’ere we are, ’n that’s that.”
The Jew swelled out his chest. “It takes more as a bunch of niggers to bluff Adolph Bluber,” he said pompously.
Kraski looked after the departing blacks, and then, scratching his head, turned back toward the campfire. “I can’t understand it,” he said, and then, suddenly, “Where are Flora and Lady Greystoke?”
It was then that they discovered that the two women were missing.
The Waziri were frantic. They called the name of their mistress aloud, but there was no reply. “Come!” cried Usula, “we, the Waziri, shall fight, after all,” and running to the boma he leaped it, and, followed by his fifty blacks, set out in pursuit of the west coast boys.
It was but a moment or two before they overtook them, and that which ensued resembled more a rout than a battle. Fleeing in terror toward their palisade with the Waziri at their heels the west coast blacks threw away their rifles that they might run the faster, but Luvini and his party had had sufficient start so that they were able to reach the village and gain the safety of the palisade before pursued and pursuers reached it. Once inside the gate the defenders made a stand for they realized that if the Waziri entered they should all be massacred, and so they fought as a cornered rat will fight, with the result that they managed to hold off the attackers until they could close and bar the gate. Built as it had been as a defense against far greater numbers the village was easy to defend, for there were less than fifty Waziri now, and nearly two hundred fighting men within the village to defend it against them.
Realizing the futility of blind attack Usula withdrew his forces a short distance from the palisade, and there they squatted, their fierce, scowling faces glaring at the gateway while Usula pondered schemes for outwitting the enemy, which he realized he could not overcome by force alone.
“It is only Lady Greystoke that we want,” he said; “vengeance can wait until another day.”
“But we do not even know that she is within the village,” reminded one of his men.
“Where else could she be, then?” asked Usula. “It is true that you may be right—she may not be within the village, but that I intend to find out. I have a plan. See; the wind is from the opposite side of the village. Ten of you will accompany me, the others will advance again before the gate and make much noise, and pretend that you are about to attack. After awhile the gate will open and they will come out. That I promise you. I will
