Unslinging their rifles, they went slowly on, oppressed with a sense of tragedy; and a few steps more disclosed a scene for which their discovery of the dead man had partly prepared them. The absence of the well-known conical roofs was explained. The site of what had once been a flourishing village was now desolate, a black waste. Great heaps of ashes marked the spots where the cane huts had stood, and here and there lay bodies stiff in death, from which a number of sated carrion birds rose noisily into the air at the approach of men. Their hearts sank as they contemplated the pitiful scene. It was a new thing in their experience, though it represented one of the commonest of tragedies in that region. The village had recently been raided by a more powerful neighbour; its men had been killed, its women and children carried off into slavery. Happily, such raids are becoming less frequent as the Great Powers strengthen their grip on the areas marked on the maps as their spheres of influence. But in the remoter parts of those vast territories, life still proceeds much as it has done for hundreds or thousands of years past. The horror of the scene, the misery it represented, sank deep into the hearts of the two Englishmen. And mingled with the distress which every humane person must have felt, was their consciousness of the bearing this discovery would have upon their own situation. They had hoped to make this village their resting-place, to give their men time to recover from the sickness which had crept upon them of late, to renew their store of fresh provisions. But it was now late in the afternoon; the next village marked on the map was fifteen or twenty miles away; the fatigue and weakness of the carriers rendered it impossible for the expedition to advance so far. "We are indeed down on our luck," said Challis gloomily. "This will just about be the finishing stroke for our boys." "They can't move another step, that's certain," said Royce. "We shall have to camp somewhere about here for the night. Here they are. Look at their faces! I never saw fright so clearly expressed. We must put the best face on it with them." The carriers had halted at the edge of the village clearing, and stood like images of terror and despair. Royce went up to them. "This is very bad, John," he said to the head-man. "Keep the boys as cheerful as you can. They had better put down their loads against those palm-trees yonder. Find the village well, and get some water; then the strongest of them must build a zariba for the night. Get up our tent, and then we'll talk things over." "Boys 'fraid of Tubus, sah." "Tubus?" "Yes, sah--Tubus done dat." "How do you know?" "Savvy cuts on black fella's face, sah. Tubus' knives done dat." "Well, they needn't be afraid. The Tubus won't come again; if they did, they wouldn't face our rifles. Fix things up, and then come back. We'll see what can be done." CHAPTER II THE FIGHT AT DAWN