"Look here," he whispered to Jeekie in English, and Jeekie looked, then
without saying a word, lifted the shotgun that lay at his side and fired
straight at the bush. Instantly there arose a squeaking noise, such as
might be made by a wounded animal, and the four porters sprang up in
alarm.
"Sit down," said Jeekie to them in their own tongue, "a leopard was
stalking us and I fired to frighten it away. Don't go near the place,
as it may be wounded and angry, but drag up some boughs and make a fence
round the fire, for fear of others."
The men who dreaded leopards, looking on these animals, indeed, with
superstitious reverence, obeyed readily enough, and as there was plenty
of wood lying within a few yards, soon constructed a _boma_ fence that,
rough as it was, would serve for protection.
"Jeekie," said Alan presently as they laboured at the fence, "that was
not a leopard, it was a man."
"No, no, Major, not man, little dwarf devil, him that have poisoned
arrow. I shoot at once to make him sit up. Think he no come back
to-night, too much afraid of shot fetish. But to-morrow, can't say. Not
tell those fellows anything," and he nodded towards the porters, "or
perhaps they bolt.
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