The dust of the raiders was still a long distance away. Mugambi
could not know positively that it hid an enemy; but he had spent a
lifetime of savage life in savage Africa, and he had seen parties
before come thus unheralded. Sometimes they had come in peace and
sometimes they had come in war--one could never tell. It was well
to be prepared. Mugambi did not like the haste with which the
strangers advanced.

The Greystoke bungalow was not well adapted for defense. No
palisade surrounded it, for, situated as it was, in the heart of
loyal Waziri, its master had anticipated no possibility of an attack
in force by any enemy. Heavy, wooden shutters there were to close
the window apertures against hostile arrows, and these Mugambi was
engaged in lowering when Lady Greystoke appeared upon the veranda.

"Why, Mugambi!" she exclaimed. "What has happened? Why are you
lowering the shutters?"

Mugambi pointed out across the plain to where a white-robed force
of mounted men was now distinctly visible.

"Arabs," he explained. "They come for no good purpose in the
absence of the Great Bwana."

Beyond the neat lawn and the flowering shrubs, Jane Clayton saw
the glistening bodies of her Waziri. The sun glanced from the tips
of their metal-shod spears, picked out the gorgeous colors in the
feathers of their war bonnets, and reflected the high-lights from
the glossy skins of their broad shoulders and high cheek bones.