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Updated: May 20, 2025
The Arabs were reluctant to fire, and would have avoided further bloodshed, but the enraged savages continued to press forward, and finally let fly a shower of spears that wounded one of the Arabs, and unfortunately killed a camel. The Arabs at once retaliated with a rifle-volley, and to such good effect that three or four of the Somalis were killed. This brought them to their senses.
"I don't know," replied Melton, "unless they intend to separate, the Arabs going on to Harar, the Somalis to their own country, which lies to the south of Harar."
We fell into easy chairs, and seized books and magazines. The Somalis brought us trays with iced and fizzy drinks in thin glasses. When the time came we crossed the veranda in the rear to enter a spacious separate dining-room. The table was white with napery, glittering with silver and glass, bright with flowers.
McMillan, some Somalis and Captain Duirs came along in another similar rig. Our driver was a Hottentot half-caste from South Africa. He had a flat face, a yellow skin, a quiet manner, and a competent hand. His name was Michael. At his feet crouched a small Kikuyu savage, in blanket ear ornaments and all the fixings, armed with a long lashed whip and raucous voice.
But, after this, I don't think any one thought of loading or firing again, save one or two of the fellows astern and the coxswain of the boat, being too busy guarding the slashes the Somalis made at us with their long scimitar-like swords that were curved like reaping-hooks, and the blows they dealt us with their unwieldy matchlocks, which they used in club fashion.
A close observer might have detected traces of suppressed curiosity on the faces of the Arabs and Somalis, but they were evidently deceived by the careless manner of the new arrivals, for after a keen scrutiny they settled back into lazy attitudes. "I don't like the looks of those fellows," said Melton, "and another thing I don't like is the presence of those Arab dhows in the harbor.
It was over in a moment; a cry of pain, a low groan, followed by the sound of bars dropped in their sockets, and then into the room burst three Hindoo soldiers, grimy with blood and powder. "Sahib colonel," cried the foremost, "we are lost. The Arabs and Somalis have revolted. Hundreds of them surround the residency. Yonder in the hall lies a dead Somali.
He came to the end of it whisk! he sank to the deck; the turban, spread open by the resistance of the air, fluttered down to cover him from head to foot. Apparently he fell asleep at once, for he did not again move nor alter his position. He, as well as an astonishingly large proportion of the other Somalis and Abyssinians we saw, carried a queer, well-defined, triangular wound in his head.
Avoiding the town of Malindi, our object being to surprise a stockade, where the Somalis were reported to have established themselves, some five miles off in the bush, in the rear of the outposts of the settlers, we shaped a course south by west under the guidance of one of the natives, who had been sent to us by one of the principal merchants of the place on hearing of our landing, so as to make our way easy for us, steering by compass in the jungle ashore being very different to what it is on the open sea.
With his fall, all opposition now ceased, and we took possession of our prize; some twenty odd Somalis only remaining in our hands as prisoners, the others having been all slain in open combat, or drowned when they tumbled over the side.
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