There was nothing new about the mannikins themselves. They were merely the things that their own uncles and their grandfathers carved for a purpose which they themselves knew better than did that tricky white man with the red head who had doubtless put them there. But then each of these mannikins was perched on a pedestal made of one or more green gin cases, and that in itself looked suspicious--or, in other words, smacked of ju-ju. And, moreover, each was garlanded with those infernal green cylinders which they had just been informed officially were in truth not orthodox ju-ju, but which they knew from their own painful experience could, upon occasion, vomit forth the most horrible flames. They crouched in the edge of the cover once more thoroughly shaken, and it only required the final portent to fray their courage utterly. In the factory, tucked snugly out of sight in the mess-room, Laura Slade, Carter and White-Man's Trouble lay stretched out wearily upon the floor. A length of match boarding had been stripped away from the wall, and only a paling of vertical bamboos stood between them and the external world. It was the code message of the monkey-skin drums, as read by White-Man's-Trouble, that first gave them the news that the Okky-men had rewound up their courage and were returning once more to the attack; and so they promptly retired out of sight. Guns and defenders would have been a reassuring touch to the enemy, who had seen such things before. But for them to find no guns, and no human beings in view, would accentuate the effect of the graven images which gazed woodenly upon them from the green gin-box pedestals. For long enough they lay there in the sickly heat, staring out over the litter of the morning's battlefield, which danced up and down in the shimmering sunlight. The factory lizards came out in full numbers for their daily sun-baths, and most of the flies of Africa seemed to be congregated in the clearing. Laura caught the first note of invasion. "Do you see," she asked, "those two swallow-tailed butterflies flittering about by that big silk cotton-wood that lost his top in the tornado? They were feeding contentedly enough on that stuff like meadow-sweet, but someone or something disturbed them, and they flew up. If you notice, they dare not go back, so that rather hints that the someone is still hidden in the meadow-sweet." "Which said clump," observed Carter, "is just two yards off the graven image which commands bush road number three. Oh, assistant conjurer, canst thou swear?" "Oh, Carter," said the Krooboy with simple dignity, "I no bush-boy. I speak English. I learn him on steamah. I work up to position of stand-by-at-crane boy before I lib for come ashore to work at factory. Ah, Carter, I savvy swear-palaver plenty-much-too-good. You fit for hear me?"