_In the copse there is a whispered word of command; the negro soldiers spring silently to their feet, line up as best the broken ground permits, and then, at the heels of their white officers, charge out into the sunlight. No yell nor cheer, as they dash towards the open gate; the overseer, ere he can give the alarm, is bayoneted while his finger is on the trigger; the slaves, listless, apathetic, have scarcely time to realize their taskmaster's doom before the thin line has swept past them and through the gates. Then there is a sudden sharp crackle of musketry; cries of startled fear and savage triumph; and by ones and twos and threes, turbaned figures pour out of the far side of the town, a scanty remnant of the Arab garrison. One by one they drop as they cross the open; only a few gain the shelter of the forest. The heirs of Tippu Tib are broken and dispersed. The struggle has been long, the issue doubtful; but now, after years of stern fighting, the great Arab empire, founded upon murder, rapine, and slavery, is scattered to the winds. One thing only is wanting to make this last victory complete. Rumaliza, the Arab commander, Tippu Tib's ablest lieutenant, has escaped the net. Whether to live and build anew the dread fabric raised by his late chief; or whether to die in the gloomy depths of the Great Forest by starvation or disease, or by the poisoned arrow of the Bambute--who can say?_
The Major--A New Friend--By Rail to Uganda--Dr. O'Brien Introduces Himself--The Major Orders a Retreat--Left Behind
A suit of boating flannels and a straw hat are no doubt a convenient, cool, and comfortable outfit for a July day on the Thames, but they fail miserably to meet the case on an average hot morning in Central Africa. So Tom Burnaby found as he walked slowly through Kisumu, stopping every now and again to mop his face and wish he were well out of it. If his dress had not betrayed him, his undisguised interest in the scene would in itself have bespoken the "griffin" to the most casual observer. The few Europeans whom he met eyed him with looks half of amusement, half of concern. One advanced as if to address him, then repented of the impulse and passed on.
Suddenly his attention was arrested by a noise ahead, gradually increasing in intensity as he approached. "The queerest noise you ever heard in your life," he wrote in a letter to a chum at home. "Imagine some score of huge ginger-beer bottles turned topsy-turvy and the fizz gurgling out, with a glug, glug, glug, and a sort of gigantic fat chuckle at the end,--then more glugging and chuckling, and chuckling and glugging. I was wondering what it meant, when suddenly I came to a huge shed, and then I saw the cause of all the row. About a hundred natives, as black as your hat, their skins shining like polished bronze, were working away at baggage and packages of all sorts, rolling up canvas, packing boxes and bales, tugging at ropes, and all the time jabbering and cackling and laughing and glug-glugging like a cageful of monkeys.