The return march was not so hurried as the pursuit, and it was the afternoon of the fifth day after their departure when the little party arrived at the farm. Mr. Halliday was surprised that none of the Wakamba had come to meet him, thinking that they must have descried him from afar; and still more surprised when, on entering the enclosure, he could not see any of his people. Surely they had not all deserted! Passing through the second boma, however, he heard a howl, and immediately afterwards the natives came rushing pell-mell towards him out of their grass huts, Wasama and Lulu, Juma’s wife, leading the way. They crowded about him, all shouting together, and making such a din that Coja himself could not at once distinguish what they were saying. But when Mr. Halliday had sternly called for order, Coja made out that the people were in a terrible state of fright, because a cow had been carried away during the night without a sound. They declared that the robber must be the devil whom Mr. Halliday had professed to slay. "Nonsense!" said Mr. Halliday. "It must have been a lion." But no--Wasama declared it could not have been a lion, for he had not heard a lion’s roar, and there was no breach in the outer boma: only a devil could have passed through it without forcing a gap. When Mr. Halliday set Coja to question the man, however, he learnt that neither he nor any other of the natives had stirred outside the inner enclosure that day, so that they were hardly in a position to know whether the boma had been broken or not. An examination of it soon revealed a gap in the western side, and bits of tawny hide were sticking to the thorns. Mr. Halliday insisted on Wasama following up the tracks which even his inexperienced eye discovered, and within a quarter of a mile he came upon some bones and a few remnants of a carcase, from which a couple of vultures flew away. Wasama, however, persisted in his assertion that the track was not that of a lion, and the others backing him up, Mr. Halliday sent John and Coja to the wood to fetch the Wanderobbo, determined to clear up the point before dark. The Wanderobbo came bringing a small gourd of wild honey which he offered to Mr. Halliday. The little man threw one glance on the blood-bespattered ground, and then said that the tracks were undoubtedly those of two lions, which would probably return to the spot during the coming night. "Then we’ll stay and wait for them, John," said Mr. Halliday. "We mustn’t be molested in this way, and the sooner we teach the beasts a lesson, the better."