When they had gone a couple of hundred yards Alan also heard something, and to him it sounded like a man crying out in pain.
Then suddenly they passed round some great trees and reached a glade in the forest where there was a spring of water which Alan remembered.

In this glade the camp had been built, surrounded by a "boma" or palisade of rough wood, within which stood two tents and some native shelters made of tall grass and boughs.

Outside of this camp a curious and unpleasant scene was in progress.
To a small tree that grew there was tied a man, whom from the fashion of his hair Alan knew to belong to the Coast negroes, while two great fellows, evidently of another tribe, flogged him unmercifully with hide whips.
"Ah!" exclaimed Jeekie, "that the kettle I hear sing.

Think you better taken him off the fire, my Lord, or he boil over.

Also his brothers no seem to like that music," and he pointed to a number of other men who were standing round watching the scene with sullen dissatisfaction.
"A matter of camp discipline," muttered Aylward.