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Updated: June 28, 2025
"Take cover, all of you!" shouted the subaltern, loath to hamper his task by additional casualties. The Haussas obeyed with one exception Bela Moshi. The sergeant, slipping a clip into the magazine, stood right in the centre of the path along which the second bush-cow was tearing, eager to avenge its mate. Wilmshurst made no further attempt to order Beta Moshi to take refuge.
The rest of "A" Company were not engaged, so it appeared to the still hopeful Haussas that their foes had effected a retreat in a different direction from that expected. With the fall of night a large hostile detachment might easily slip through the scantily-held lines, and that accounted for the uneasy glances that the Waffs gave at the declining orb of day. "Hist, sah!" exclaimed Beta Moshi.
So, getting ready for a good kick, he held his breath and looked on. What terrible perversion man can allow his heart to come to! Môshi has said that man by nature is good; but although not a particle of fault can be found with what he has said, when the evil we have learned becomes a second nature, men reach this fearful degree of wickedness.
Before he could deliver the stroke Bela Moshi grasped his officer by the shoulders and unceremoniously jerked him aside; then lifting a rifle to his shoulders the Haussa sergeant pressed the trigger. Down in a convulsive heap fell Spofforth and the lioness, the brute frantically pawing both her antagonist and the dust in her death agonies.
The sergeant saluted smartly, replying, with a broad smile, that everything was in order. A child by nature, Bela Moshi had developed into a smart and efficient soldier without losing the simple characteristics of the African native.
Bela Moshi was a mere child in certain respects, and the mild threat had its effect. "Den me tink me lib, sah," he said. With this assurance Wilmshurst left to snatch a few hours' much-needed rest. The bulk of the white men comprising the garrison were behind the earthworks. Occasional sharp bursts of rifle firing came from the bush, but no reply was made by the defenders of the kraal.
It seemed as if he had only just dozed off when he was awakened by Sergeant Beta Moshi, who informed him that the men were already standing to and that the brief tropical dawn was stealing across the sky.
"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.
Lifting the weapon and resting it upon the top of the stockade Bela Moshi shouted to the corporal to jump on his shoulders. In this difficult position the machine-gun reopened fire, but before twenty-five rounds had been fired the weapon jammed. The gun was served by three men only the Rhodesian sergeant and corporal and Bela Moshi.
"Me go, sah," replied the sergeant, and promptly he set off towards the baobab, keeping his eyes fixed upon the ground. Arriving at the tree Bela Moshi rested his rifle against the trunk and with the agility of a cat swarmed up to one of the lowermost branches. Both Laxdale and Danvers could see that it was a different part of the tree from that in which they had taken refuge.
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