We ate supper.

The Greeks and the Goanese subsided into temporary quiet, and our own boys, squatting by a fire they had placed so that they could watch the Greeks' encampment, began humming a native song.

Their song reminded Fred of Will's earlier suggestion, and he unclasped the concertina.
Then for three-quarters of an hour he played, and we sang all the tunes we knew least likely to make Germans happy, repeating The Marseillaise and Rule Britannia again and again in pious hope that at least a few bars might reach to the commandant's house on the hill.
Whether they did or not--whether the commandant writhed as we hoped in the torture of supreme insult, or slept as was likely from the after-effect of too much bottled beer with dinner--there were others who certainly did hear, and made no secret of it.
To begin with, the part of the township nearest us was the quarter of round grass roofs, where the aborigines lived; and the Bantu heart responds to tuneful noise, as readily as powder to the match.

All that section of Muanza, man, woman and child, came and squatted outside the cactus hedge.

(It was streng politzeilich verboten for natives to enter the European camping-ground, so that except when they wanted to steal they absolutely never trespassed past the hedge.) Enraptured by the unaccustomed strains they sat quite still until some Swahili and Arabs came and beat them to make room.