"Leave shooting to us!" The next problem was to draw away from the Greeks the attention of the askari at the cross-roads.

We could not see him, for it was one of those black African nights when the stars look like tiny pin-pricks and there are no shadows because all is dark.

To go out and look what he was doing would have been to arouse his suspicion.

Yet there was always a chance that he might be patrolling down near the Greek camp; doubtless acting on orders, he had a trick of approaching their tents very closely once in a while.
So when Lady Waldon had slipped out into the darkness we lit half a dozen lamps and started a concert, Fred playing and we singing the sort of tunes that black men love.

He took the bait, hook, sinker, and all; in the silence at the end of the first song we heard his butt ground on the gravel just beyond the cactus hedge in front of us; and there he stayed, we entertaining him for an hour.