and get ready to safari

"It seems so foolish!" she complained to him. "You are making yourself blind for always; and you are going to be a prisoner for long! If you would go back, you would not be captured and held by Winkleman when you reach M'tela!" But such expostulations she knew to be vain, even as she uttered them. At about nine o'clock of the third day Cazi Moto reported a file of warriors, many warriors--"like the leaves of grass!" armed with spears and shields, wearing black ostrich plumes, debouching from the grove a mile across the way. At the same instant the Leopard Woman, her alarm causing her to violate her instructions, came to Kingozi's camp. "They attack us!" she cried. "They come in thousands! How can we resist so many--and you blind! Tell me what I shall do!" "There is no danger," Kingozi reassured her. "This is undoubtedly an escort. No natives ever attack at this hour of the day. Their time is just at first dawn." She sighed with relief. Then a new thought struck her. "But if they had wished to attack--at dawn--we have had no extra guards-- we have not fortified! What would prevent their killing us all?" "Not a thing," replied Kingozi calmly. "We are too weak for resistance. That is a chance we had to take. Now please go back to your tent. Cazi Moto, strike camp, and get ready to safari." The warriors of M'tela debouched on the open plain, seemingly without end. The sun glinted from their upraised, polished spears; their ostrich plumes swayed gently as though a wind ruffled a field of sombre grain tassels; the anklets and leg bracelets clashed softly together to produce in the aggregate a rhythmic marching cadence. Their front was nearly a quarter of a mile in width. Rank after rank in succession appeared: literally thousands. Drums roared and throbbed; and the blowing of innumerable trumpets, fashioned mostly from the horns of oryx and sing-sing, added to the martial ensemble. The members of the safari were gathered in little knots, staring, wide eyed with apprehension. Upon them descended zealous Cazi Moto. Even his _kiboko_ had difficulty in breaking up the groups, in setting the men at the commonplace occupations of breaking camp. Yet that must be done, in all decent dignity; and at length it was done.