I AM LEFT ON THE BATTLE-FIELD 



329 



us. About mid-day we came to a good-sized brook, where we 

 had to unload the donkeys, and here, as usual, difficulties arose. 

 The Count was well on the alert, as his guide had said a little 

 before we came to the water that he did not feel well and 

 would go home. From our position we could see a tussle 

 going on between the natives and the first men to cross, but 

 Count Teleki's appearance was enough here, as so often before, 

 to settle the dispute, inspiring more awe than all the muzzles 

 of the loaded guns. 



We crossed the brook uninjured, and were waiting in the 

 shade of the few trees on the further brink for some of the 

 donkeys to be saddled and loaded, our long line of men standing 

 with a perfect wall of natives, numbering from 800 to 1,000, 

 close behind them, whilst on the other side of the water were 

 about an equal number. An unnatural silence prevailed, and 

 it seemed as if the Wakikuyu were waiting for a signal. That 

 signal came. Silently half a dozen arrows whizzed through the 

 air and fell amongst us. Neither the Count nor I saw them 

 coming, and the first note of alarm was the cry of a man at 

 whose feet one of them fell. In a moment every other sound 

 was drowned in the noise of the guns fired simultaneously by 

 all our men. We were suddenly enveloped in a cloud of smoke, 

 and were being roughly hustled about, chiefly by our own men, 

 without knowing what it all meant. We were, in fact, in much 

 more danger from the wild firing of our porters than from the 

 natives, but presently the latter broke up and fled, hotly pur- 

 sued by our men, and I was left behind with Jumbe Kimemefca 

 and a few of the sick on a battle-field strewn with shields, 

 spears, &c, but with few dead or wounded. 



The whole thing was over so quickly that I only managed 

 to fire one shot, after which something went wrong with my 

 weapon, a sixteen-shot Colt's repeating rifle. 



The firing soon ceased, and our men came trooping back, some 



