Yes, a rifle shot, half a mile or so away, followed by the roaring murmur of a great camp unexpectedly alarmed at night.
"Who can have fired that ?" I asked.

"The Black Kendah have no guns." He replied that he did not know, unless some of my fifty men had left their posts.
While we were investigating the matter, scouts rushed in with the intelligence that the Black Kendah, thinking apparently that they were being attacked, had broken camp and were advancing towards us.

We passed a warning all down the lines and stood to arms.

Five minutes later, as I stood listening to that approaching roar, filled with every kind of fear and melancholy foreboding such as the hour and the occasion might well have evoked, through the gloom, which was dense, the moon being hidden behind the hill, I thought I caught sight of something running towards me like a crouching man.

I lifted my rifle to fire but, reflecting that it might be no more than a hyena and fearing to provoke a fusilade from my half-trained company, did not do so.
Next instant I was glad indeed, for immediately on the other side of the wall behind which I was standing I heard a well-known voice gasp out: "Don't shoot, Baas, it is I." "What have you been doing, Hans ?" I said as he scrambled over the wall to my side, limping a little as I fancied.
"Baas," he puffed, "I have been paying the Black Kendah a visit.