Men beat upon the drums and yelled and yelled, closing their eyes and surrendering themselves to the ecstasy of the rhythm until they became all but unconscious of the words they reiterated. Slowly and surely the blacks were nerving themselves to lift their hands against their masters. Given time, a drum and a rhythmic phrase, a native can convince himself of anything simply by pounding on the drum and yelling over and over the phrase that contains the idea. He will luxuriate in the rhythm, he will hypnotize himself by the monotony of the drum beats. He will go into an ecstasy, simply yelling over and over the one phrase. Dinner that night was a repetition of breakfast and lunch. We sat down to the table, our rifles by our sides, our movements jerky and uncertain from the strain of waiting for we knew not what. The dogs lay about on the floor, watching us anxiously. The single servant waited on us, her face dull with apathy, though flickers of panic lighted her eyes from time to time. And always we heard the drums beating far off in the bush. I caught myself sitting with a fork full of food in mid-air, listening to their sullenly menacing rumble. Arthur, Evan, and myself divided the night into watches. I took the first, and waited tensely until after one o'clock. I heard nothing but the muffled drumming to the northeast, northwest, and south. The moon shone brightly down and made the clearing about the casa like a lake of molten silver. I heard the noises of insects--the loud-voiced African insects--and the cries of the night birds. I heard nothing else. The night was quiet and peaceful, save for the ceaseless throbbing of the drums all about. Evan relieved me. He came out on the porch and lit a cigarette. "That drumming gets monotonous." He yawned. "I wish they'd come on and have the suspense over with." "If they come," I remarked, "we're done for." "Not necessarily. If we hold them off for a week and kill enough of them, they'll get tired and go away." "That wouldn't help us much. I hardly see how we could make a hundred and fifty miles through the bush with two women and no carriers." "We might try, anyway. Some of us would get through. You've heard nothing?" "No," I replied. "Just the drums." I went indoors and lay down to sleep. When I surrendered myself to the rhythm of the drumming, it put me quickly into a deep slumber. I knew what the sound meant, that naked savages yelled and danced themselves into a frenzy of hatred against us, but if one allowed it to become so, it was very soothing. At one time I half started from my sleep. Some sound within the house aroused me, but a moment later I heard Evan's footstep on the veranda and recognized the sound of his shoe soles on the flooring. He was humming a little tune to himself. I was reassured and slept again. I heard when Arthur relieved Evan, too. Their voices came clearly in to me as they exchanged greetings. "Nothing new?" asked Arthur nervously.