Our carriers stirred up the embers and laid on them the few remaining plantains to roast for the midday meal, and while this simple cooking was proceeding they sat round the fire and talked earnestly with Annan, taking no notice of me; but I caught the word _broni_ several times, and from this and from occasional glances in my direction I surmised that I was the subject of their conversation. This debate received a sudden and violent interruption, for in one of the pauses in their conversation there was heard the sound of something moving softly through the underwood behind them. The startled carriers all sprang up together, and instantly the woods rang with a loud explosion and the shriek of scattering slugs, and one of our men leaped into the air with a loud yell and fell to the ground. A perfect pandemonium followed. Annan and the remaining carriers danced about, screeching and gesticulating like maniacs, while an almost equal hubbub came from the unseen foe. After a time the yells subsided into mere shouting, and I gathered that our people were giving an explanation to their invisible assailants, for they pointed first to the wounded carrier--who lay on the ground groaning, with his hand clapped on to his thigh--and then to me; and the explanation appeared to satisfy the warriors, for presently, as the shouting ceased, we could hear the men moving away through the undergrowth, and a minute later I saw them, nine in number, cross the path at a little distance, each with his long musket muzzle downwards over his shoulder. They had hardly disappeared when our carriers gathered round me with an angry clamour, and Annan strode up and shook his fist in my face, showing his teeth and gibbering like an excited monkey. “You dam ogly white nigger!” he shouted. “You make all dis palaver. All dis country people want to kill us cos you come wid us to spy deir country. But you no fit trouble us much more. Soon de hasses pick your bones and den palaver finish.” He spat on the ground, and the carriers, who understood not a word of this excepting that it was abuse of me, groaned in chorus. Suddenly the wounded man, forgetting his injury, sprang up and, grabbing a lump of quartz, rushed at me, roaring and gnashing his teeth; but I received him with such a poke in the chest from my pointed stick that he dropped the stone and fell, bellowing louder than ever, with a thin trickle of blood flowing from the spot where the point had penetrated. On this the others fell back a pace or two, not liking my looks, and stood round, grinning and chattering like apes, while I paused for an instant undecided whether to charge them or remain on the defensive. At this moment Annan came to his senses and interfered. “Dis no good,” he exclaimed. “Softly, softly you catch de monkey. Finish palaver and come on.”