Page:In Desert and Wilderness (Sienkiewicz, tr. Drezmal).djvu/427

 Rh perceived two dark bodies lying near each other and two Remington barrels glistening in the moonlight.

"The negroes are always the same," he thought; "they were to watch over the water, more precious now to us than anything in the world, and both went to sleep as though in their own huts. Ah! Kali's bamboo will have some work to do to-morrow."

Under this impression he approached and shook the foot of one of the sentinels, but at once drew back in horror.

The apparently sleeping negro lay on his back with a knife sticking in his throat up to the handle and beside him was the other, likewise cut so terribly that his head was almost severed from the trunk.

Two bags with water had disappeared; the other three lay in the littered grass, slashed and sunken.

Stas felt that his hair stood on end.