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"What d'you call this?" holding up the cartridge case. "If it isn't circumstantial evidence, what is?" At that moment an orderly put in an appearance. "Macgreg him horse am come back, sah," he reported, saluting. The adjutant, picking up a sheaf of papers and putting on his sun-helmet, hurried to the lines where the horses were picketed, Wilmshurst following and the orderly bringing up the rear.
"Me tink MacGreg him come," replied Tan Barl after a brief survey. "No; me no tink me know." Wilmshurst waited inactive. Until the approaching hostile column had descended from the high ground and the men were deep in the bush, attempt on the part of the Haussas to advance from the ridge would result in the latter's detection.
The Haussa chuckled audibly, and holding his rifle obliquely with the bayonet thrust into the ground, placed his ear to the butt. "Macgreg him go and go," he answered, meaning that the Rhodesian was still on the move. In vain Wilmshurst tested the sound-conducting properties of the rifle. Normally of good hearing he failed to detect what to Private Brass Pot was an accepted and irrefutable fact.
"Has Macgreg returned, Bela Moshi?" asked Wilmshurst, stretching his cramped limbs, for he had not removed his boots during the last forty-eight hours, and with the exception of a brief interval had been on his feet practically the whole of that time. "MacGregor?" exclaimed Laxdale, who happened to overhear his brother-officer's question. "Yes rather.
"Macgreg, him go," declared one of the Haussas, Macgreg being the name by which the Rhodesian was known to the black troops. Wilmshurst was astonished. He had heard nothing of the scout's movements, yet the sentry, fifty yards away, had declared quite blandly that MacGregor had passed the outlying post. "How do you know that, Brass Pot?" asked the subaltern.
"Very good," said the subaltern, without admitting his failure. "If you hear foot of Macgreg come this way before sergeant come for reliefs then you send and tell me. Savvy?" "Berry good, sah," replied the Haussa. Having twice visited the sentries Wilmshurst returned to the bivouac to snatch a few hours' sleep.
A man might say, "I've finished eating," for example, and yet in a few hours he will be again satisfying his hunger, but "maquisha" signifies finished in the penultimate sense the final extermination of a certain person or thing. "No, no, Bela Moshi," said Wilmshurst decidedly. "We want MacGreg taken prisoner. That's important.
"MacGreg him make for maquisha," declared Bela Moshi grimly, as he carefully blacked the foresight of his rifle. "Maquisha" in the Haussa language signifies something more than finished.
By this time the scrub was well alight, fanned by the strong south-easterly breeze. The fire was also working against the wind, but the concerted efforts of the Haussas prevented it approaching the derelict aircraft. In vain a search was made for the traitor who was known to the Haussas as MacGreg.
Wending their way down a bare kloof were about two hundred armed blacks and three men in European garb riding in the centre of the column. "MacGreg him dar, sah!" exclaimed Bela Moshi. "Nonsense!" replied Wilmshurst, yet in his heart he was not at all sure but that the Haussa was right. "MacGreg him make palaver with Bosh-bosh," declared the sergeant.
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