The firing went on more or less fitfully for nearly an hour, and Tom could see that his persistent refusal to reply caused first surprise and then anger among the Arabs. A general movement began on their part. Some fifteen hundred men detached themselves from the main body and marched northwards; a similar body, not quite so numerous, moved to the south; and Tom instantly concluded that a combined attack was to be made simultaneously on each face of the zariba. Taking advantage of some scrub, the northern party was able to advance safely to within two hundred yards of the earthwork, while the southern force in the open halted at a rather greater distance, out of range of all but the Winchesters. Owing to lack of ammunition for these, Tom was unable to touch the enemy, and had perforce to await developments. As soon as the flanking forces had taken up their positions, a compact body of five hundred Arabs advanced to join the skirmishers in his immediate front, and the whole force there, some fifteen hundred men in all, formed up in four ranks over a frontage of about two hundred and fifty yards. Of the whole Arab host only five hundred men remained in the rear, stationed on a knoll selected as their head-quarters during the fight. Among these Rumaliza and Ahmed were conspicuous.
Tom, watching every move of the enemy with lynx-eyed keenness, imperturbably gave his orders. He recognized that it was this time to be a hand-to-hand struggle, with all the odds against him. He divided his reserve into three portions; one, under Mwonda's command, to reinforce any point threatened on the northern face; the second, under the kasegara, to watch the southern face; and the third, under his own direction, to stand in readiness to lend any assistance required at the eastern face. He cast his eye round the position; the men stood to their arms, expectant, eager, confident; there was not a sign of timidity or cowardice.
From the knoll, five hundred yards away, came the roll of a drum. Raising their weapons aloft and uttering a fierce war-cry, the three divisions of Arabs and Manyema sprang forward at the same moment upon the three sides of the zariba. The lesson taught by their former mishap had been well learned; this time they avoided the stakes at the corners, and charged in directions perpendicular to the three fronts. For the first hundred and fifty yards they fired as they came, and though, when well within range, they were met by a murderous discharge of bullets and grenades from the earthwork, they pressed on regardless of their many casualties, and within half a minute had reached the thorn-protected zariba.
Then began a desperate and mortal struggle. With the exception of the reserve, still held by Tom as in a leash within the inner entrenchment, every man was at grips with the enemy. Firearms were useless. It was pike and bayonet against scimitar, clubbed musket, and spear. So fierce was the onset that in many places the thorn hedge was cut or torn down, and through the gaps a wild horde of black and turbaned warriors struggled to force a way. The defenders had lost heavily during the enemy's advance, and Tom's anxious eye had noted many weak spots in the double rank of musketeers and pikemen. He himself stood in the middle of the square, to outward appearance impassive, the target for snap-shots still fired, when opportunity offered, by the assailants. A half-spent bullet struck him on the left forearm, inflicting a slight wound which he hardly felt. He mechanically took off his turban and handed it to one of his men to bind tightly about the arm, all the time having his eyes fixed on the thin line of troops fighting gallantly against such desperate odds. No detail of the fight escaped him. On the northern face the enemy were making but little headway; their force there consisted mainly of Manyema, and as yet the screen of mimosa and cactus was almost intact. But on the eastern face, where tall Arabs were led by the gigantic negro, the strength of the garrison was taxed to the uttermost. Most of the Arabs were attacking with scimitar in their right hand and clubbed musket in their left. At first the Bahima's long pikes, thrust out through interstices in the fence, were too much for them, but as the combat progressed they instinctively adapted their method of fighting to the new conditions. Approaching just out of reach of the pikes, they tempted the pikemen to lunge, and then with a sharp stroke of their keen blades either severed the head from the shaft or so weakened it as to render it useless. Tom saw the trick, and was about to give instructions how to meet it when he was delighted to perceive that his men, after one or two of them had been caught, had themselves seen how to avoid the danger by shortening their lunge. Even when the heads of their pikes were knocked off, however, they still made good use of the shafts, bringing them down with tremendous force upon the heads and bodies of all who came within reach.
So far, though the Arabs fought like tigers, they had been kept outside the wall of the zariba. But suddenly, at the eastern face, a portion of the fencing collapsed as though it were made of paper. Through the gap instantly poured a gang of yelling Arabs headed by the negro captain, before whose huge two-handed sword pikemen and musketeers went over like grass before the mower.
"Bahima, with me!" shouted Tom, springing from his boulder, and dashing forward at the head of his reserve company to stem the torrent. He saw that there was not a moment to lose; if the breach was not instantly dammed the invading horde would carry all before them and sweep the garrison into the swamp.
Among the nine thousand men on that stricken field, Tom alone had, until this moment, been unarmed; but stooping now as he ran, he snatched from the ground the weapon of a dead musketeer, just in time to parry a sweeping stroke of the negro captain that fell upon his musket and cleft the wood to the barrel. He saw the look of exultation in the negro's fierce eyes, but the force of the blow caused the assailant to recoil; before he could recover, Tom was in under his guard and with the butt of the musket struck him square between the eyes. No skull but a negro's could have survived the force of the blow; he did not fall, but halted, dazed. His arm hung for a brief moment helpless at his side, and then Tom, dropping his broken musket, dealt him a body blow with the bare fist which from school experience he knew must be conclusive. The negro swayed, reeled, and dropped like a log; Tom was swept on over his prostrate body and saw him no more. The fight had occupied but a few seconds. Tom's men had thrown themselves furiously upon their opponents; the Arabs, missing the inspiriting presence and voice of their gigantic leader, faltered; in a few seconds more they were overpowered, and now tried to regain the outside of the square.
"Guard the gap, my men!" cried Tom, and seeing that there was no immediate danger of another irruption in this quarter he extricated himself from the mêlée, and made his way towards his post of observation to see how the fight was going elsewhere. Before he reached the centre he knew that the whole of his reserve was now engaged. Two breaks had been made on the southern face and one on the northern, and a small band of Manyema was threatening the flank of the defence by wading some yards into the swamp. On the south, as Tom knew by soundings that he had taken, the ooze was so deep that any man venturing into it would speedily be sucked down and submerged, but on the north there was a fordable though difficult approach, and it was important to repel this attack once for all. Calling, therefore, a few of his best musketeers, he stationed them at the north-western corner, and assured himself that by keeping up a steady fire there they could prevent a dangerous assault in that quarter.
Turning again, he saw, with a pang, that his force had already suffered very heavily. On every face of the zariba the ground was strewn with prone bodies, and it was a harrowing thought that, in the heat of the fight, nothing could be done for the wounded men, whose groans mingled with the yells of the combatants.
"Where is Mbutu?" was the unspoken question that ever and anon formed itself in Tom's mind. It was past nine o'clock; there had been ample time, surely, for the eight hundred men to arrive from the village, and Tom more than once looked anxiously towards the forest in the hope of seeing Mbutu appear with the reinforcements so urgently needed. Would he never come? On the knoll the five hundred Arabs were still held in reserve; so confused had been the contest hitherto that it must have been impossible for the Arab leaders to form a just idea as to how the fight was going; but they had seen at any rate that their men had not yet been driven away; and if they threw their reserve into the scale, as they might do at any moment, Tom felt that it would be impossible to maintain his ground.
But though he was anxious he was not yet dismayed. He saw that his men, fighting with unquenchable ardour, were slowly getting the better of their assailants. Several times he was moved to utter cries of commendation and encouragement as he witnessed some skilful feat of arms. Mwonda was bearing his huge bulk resistless into the thick of the fight, and largely by his individual prowess and contagious recklessness the enemy were at last driven off pell-mell at all points. But while some ran to a safe distance and threw themselves exhausted on the ground, others clung tenaciously to their position outside the zariba, deriving almost as much protection from the earthwork as the garrison inside. For some minutes there was a strange lull, like that which occasionally interrupts the fiercest hurricane. The war-cries were hushed; the clash of arms was stilled; nothing could be heard but the moans of the wounded. Both sides were gathering strength for a renewed struggle. The sun was rising hot in the heavens, and Tom's men in the glare and heat were too much fatigued even to reload their muskets. Tom allowed them to go in small batches to the water-pitchers, where they gulped down a few mouthfuls, then returned to their posts. The enemy all the time were exposed to the fierce pangs of unassuageable thirst, and many lay panting on the ground, while some crept away to the extreme edge of the swamp, and lapped up the foul scum-cloaked death-dealing water there.
"Will Mbutu never come?" was Tom's unuttered cry.
The restful interval was not of long duration. Tom, whose attention never flagged, noted a movement on the knoll. He saw the gaunt figure of the veteran leader stand before his men, draw his sword from its scabbard, and wave it above his head, while the gestures of his other hand showed that he was addressing the warriors in a fervid harangue. These were doubtless the flower of his army. With the insight born of long experience he had recognized that a supreme effort was necessary to turn the scale, and he was resolved to play his last card.
"Bahima and Bairo and all you my brothers," said Tom, "the great Rumaliza himself is preparing to come against us. You have done well; you have fought valiantly, and fulfilled my highest hopes; but now still more is required of you. Play the man, my brothers. The great chief who has enslaved your people for so many years must not escape. Every man of you must fight like three men this day; every man of you must say within himself: 'Rumaliza shall not return to his stronghold, nor take slaves any more for ever.' He is advancing now, my brothers; be strong, be strong and brave!"
Kuboko's bold words infused fresh spirit into his men. They sprang to their places; the musketeers reloaded their weapons, and every man of them, for all his weariness, stood with a grim look of obstinate resolution. Away on the plain Rumaliza had put himself at the head of his men; Ahmed was at his side. They marched slowly to within a hundred and fifty yards of the eastern face of the zariba, and were received with an irregular volley from the musketeers. Even Tom's stout heart sank for an instant as he saw that the desperate fighting of the past two hours had rendered his men's aim so unsteady that, though the advancing mass offered an easy mark, there were now but few casualties in their ranks. The Arabs shouted as they too observed this fact; they halted, and summoned to them the men who still clung to the earthwork, along with those who had scattered after their repulse. Already Tom had seen what was impending. He massed the whole of his reserve on the eastern face, placing the hardiest and least-wearied men alternately with the others so as to equalize the strength of the fighting line. He was himself pale with anxiety; his whole body seemed to him a bundle of tingling nerves; and as he contrasted his worn-out troops with the fresh and buoyant Arabs advancing, their unstained swords and spears gleaming in the sunlight, he prayed that Mbutu with the missing eight hundred might still come in time to redress the balance. He had so often looked in vain towards the forest that he was scarcely disappointed when, turning in that direction for the last time before the impending shock, he saw no sign of aid. And now with shouts of "Allah-il-Allah!" the Arabs came forward at the charge, Rumaliza himself, whom the breath of battle seemed to have infused with the vigour of youth, maintaining his place unfalteringly at the head of his men for many yards until he was distanced by them. It was a matter of seconds. Then, as Tom turned his head finally from the forest whence no help came, with the stern determination to hold out till the last gasp, his eye caught a glint of light little more than half a mile distant. It was just above the swamp itself. His heart leapt, his eye gleamed with hope. A second instantaneous glance showed him that it was the sunlight reflected from a spear-head; dropping his gaze, he descried a number of small dark objects moving on the very surface of the swamp--the heads of a band of men wading almost breast-deep in the ooze. There were no turbans, no white garments; they were coming from the north-west; surely they must be no other than the long-expected eight hundred! A glad cry broke spontaneously from Tom's lips; despondency went to the winds; and at that instant the onrushing force of the enemy fell like a thunderbolt upon the staggering parapet. Slashing, hacking, hewing, the fierce-eyed Arabs surged into the gaps made in the last attack. An almost audible shudder passed through the ranks of the defenders as they braced themselves for the last dread struggle. Not a man blenched; they all knew that they could expect no quarter; and Tom, looking at them, felt that with the battle fever in their veins they would dare all.
"Mbutu is with us!" he shouted, knowing that the news would act upon their spirits as a tonic.
The Arabs, with Ahmed, wounded as he was, at their head, were cutting their way steadily through the gaps, enlarging them as they did so, and pressing the defenders backwards by sheer weight of numbers. Behind them Rumaliza raised his shrill voice in encouragement. Every now and then a desperate rally regained a few yards for the garrison, but they were unable to maintain their advantage, and Tom began to dread lest all should be over before Mbutu could arrive. Standing in the centre of the square he felt like the man in the iron room of old fable, with a wall approaching inch by inch to crush him. His last hope rested on the men he had placed at the corners of the zariba. Protected from external assault by the stakes, they had faced inwards at his order, and taken the encroaching Arabs in flank. But Tom saw that they were too few to delay the invaders for more than a minute or two. Could Mbutu arrive in time? Fierce shouts rent the air all around him; the heavy clash of weapons, the flash of scimitars in the hot sunbeams, the gleaming eyes and distorted features, the pants and cries of the warriors, the shrieks of the wounded, made up a terrible scene that well-nigh broke down his nerve. Arabs were still springing into the zariba; the Bahima were engaged on every face, fighting an unequal fight, doing manfully, but receding foot by foot, inch by inch. Tom felt that he must throw himself into the fray. He sprang from his boulder; seizing a bayoneted musket, he leapt to the side of Mwonda as he smote thick and fast upon the serried mass, and shoulder to shoulder with him tried desperately to beat back the overwhelming tide.
Suddenly a tremendous shout rang out to the north. Tom, at that moment beset by three Arabs, thrilled with relief as he recognized the familiar battle-cry of the Bahima. Unperceived by the enemy, Mbutu and his eight hundred had waded through the swamp, formed up, a shivering miry crowd, under cover of the thick growth of rushes fringing the swamp, and darted out upon the rear of the Manyema attacking the northern face of the zariba. Taken completely by surprise, the bewildered negroes turned about, were seized with panic, and without a thought of resistance broke and fled, Mbutu's men pouring after them with jubilant shouts, and taking with their long spears a terrible toll of the fugitives. The pressure in front of Tom was immediately eased, for without knowing exactly what had happened the whole Arab force seemed to have become aware that the tide was turning. But Rumaliza behind his men lifted his quavering yet penetrating voice in adjuration, and the throng immediately about him threw themselves again into the fray. Tom would gladly have recalled Mbutu's troops to take the main Arab force in flank, but, intoxicated with their success, they were streaming away to the north-east after the fleeing enemy. It was not an opportunity to be lost, however, and Tom seized the moment by the forelock. He saw that the defenders of the northern face, finding themselves suddenly without an enemy, were hesitating what to do. Ordering Mwonda to continue his exertions with even double energy--an appeal to which the weary Titan nobly responded--Tom instructed the commander of the northern line to bring his pikemen to the support of the eastern contingent. Then, gathering about him the panting musketeers who remained on this side of the square, Tom led them out rapidly by the northern gate towards the right rear of the Arab main body. This movement, being covered by the wall of the zariba, was not perceived by the Arabs until the sallying party, skirting the stakes, emerged into the open. Of the four hundred and fifty musketeers who had originally been posted at the northern face less than three hundred remained to follow Kuboko, but coming unexpectedly on the Arabs' flank and rear they were more than sufficient to throw consternation into their ranks. Too late Ahmed saw the peril threatening him. His men were already disheartened by the sudden strengthening of the resistance in their front, due to the reinforcement of pikemen; they had been startled by the joyous shouts of Mbutu's men, informing them that in that quarter the fight was going against them. Before Ahmed could make any disposition to meet the new attack, the exultant Bahima, flushed with the anticipation and assurance of victory, flung themselves with a fierce yell upon the Arab right. At once it crumbled to pieces; there was a general sauve-qui-peut. Away into the open plain swarmed Arabs and Manyema; arms, ammunition, everything that might impede their flight was flung away by the panic-stricken mob. Away and away, heedless of direction, trampling on fallen men, stumbling over obstacles, on they sped, some dropping and dying of exhaustion and fright, others flinging themselves on the ground and whining for mercy as the pursuers overtook them.
"Thank God!" murmured Tom, as he stood still a few yards from the zariba. "The fight is won."
There was no need to order his captains to continue the pursuit; they were leading on their men with fresh ardour, and would not return until they had thoroughly dispersed the remnant of the hostile force. Thankful to the bottom of his heart, yet pitying the wretches who lay all around him, Tom returned with a few men to the zariba to do what could be done for the wounded. The square presented a terrible sight--a sight that Tom could not banish from his memory for many a long day. The ground was strewn thick with the bodies of the slain. More than five hundred of his own men had fallen, and at least twice as many of the enemy. As he surveyed the scene, and set some of his men, tired as they were, to tend the wounded, friend and foe alike, only one thought consoled him for the suffering and the loss of life that day's work had entailed. "It is a retribution and a promise," he said to himself; "retribution on the Arabs for the years and years of untold misery they have inflicted on the people, and a promise of long years of freedom and peaceful industry. It is worth the price."
While the men fulfilled his orders he mounted his boulder once more, and looked across the field. Away in front, on the knoll whence they had started on their last fatal charge, a band of some twenty turbaned warriors had taken up their position, and in a roughly-formed square stood at bay, to defend their aged chief. All around them surged a throng of Bahima, among whom Mwonda was conspicuous. The Arabs were armed with rifles, and as they grouped themselves closely about Rumaliza they did deadly execution among the assailants. But the cordon was gradually closing around them. Calling one of his men, Tom despatched him with a message to Mwonda.
"Spare all who surrender," he said.
The man hastened on his mission. He delivered the message. Mwonda, with instant obedience at which Tom rejoiced, ordered his men to halt, and in a loud voice, audible at the zariba, called on the Arab chief to surrender. The only answer was a rifle-shot that killed the man by Mwonda's side. With a yell of rage the giant sprang forward at the head of his men. He had obeyed Kuboko; his duty was done; the Arabs gave no quarter, nor should they receive any. Rushing on, heedless of bullets, heedless of the men dropping around him, he forced his way up the knoll, his men pressing on knee to knee. They reached the top; there was a short hand-to-hand fight; then, bursting through the devoted body-guard that encircled the gaunt figure of the chief, Mwonda swung the huge two-handed sword he had taken from the prostrate negro captain earlier in the day, and with one blow cleft Rumaliza to the chine.
Then Mwonda lifted his wet sword towards the sun and shouted; and instantly, from hundreds of voices over that reeking field, rose a vast echo of his cry:
"RUMALIZA IS DEAD!"
On the Trail--A Picked Force--Through the Great Forest--The Last of Mabruki--On the Lake Shore--Building a Flotilla--Floating Forts--The Island in the Lake--Forcing a Landing--A Parley--De Castro Expresses Himself--Preparing for the Attack--Mwonda the Dauntless--Fire and Sword--Rumaliza's House--De Castro's Last Shot
It was now one o'clock in the afternoon. For nine hours Tom and all his men had been afoot, engaged in one of the most arduous struggles that native Africa had known. The great fight so long anticipated was over; the dreaded power of Rumaliza, the centre of the hateful slave-traffic, was broken; Rumaliza himself, with his lieutenant Ahmed and many other of his principal coadjutors, lay on the field, and the shattered remnant of the force that left its distant stronghold in such warlike ardour and confidence was routed beyond hope of rallying. But Tom saw that his work was not yet completed. The fortress in the forest still remained. It was no doubt strongly garrisoned; the fugitives would naturally betake themselves thither; the survivors of De Castro's force and De Castro himself would gather there, and in course of time, though they could never expect to recover their old strength and prestige, they might repair their disaster sufficiently to menace for years to come the security and happiness of the weaker tribes. "I must destroy their scorpions' nest," said Tom to himself wearily; "when shall I see home again?"
He saw that his force was too much exhausted to carry operations further that day. Of less than four thousand men, at least five hundred lay dead and wounded; and their exertions had been so violent and so long-continued that the living and unwounded were fit for nothing but rest. Mbutu and the eight hundred who had so opportunely arrived with him were still apparently keeping up the pursuit, and it was impossible to make any detailed arrangements until they returned. Tom, therefore, sent off a messenger to the village with news of the victory, and with orders to the katikiro to bring up two hundred men with a stock of ammunition. He then went with a few of his body-guard to the Arabs' camp, where their vast horde of slave carriers must now be dealt with.
He found that the slaves, at least five thousand in number, had risen and overpowered their guards, and were working havoc among the effects of their late masters. At Tom's appearance they crowded round him, some of them recognizing him as the prisoner who had escaped months before from the clutches of Mustapha. The poor creatures were wild with delight at the discomfiture of the Arabs, and many of them threw themselves at Tom's feet and vowed that they were his, body and soul, to do with as he pleased. Seeing on them unmistakeable evidences of terrible suffering during their recent march--open sores, mutilated features, scars and weals made by the lash--Tom lost all compassion for the Arabs who had perished in the fight, and was strengthened in his resolve to visit the Arab stronghold and there complete the work he had begun.
He ordered his men to knock off the chains from their necks and ankles, and those who were thus liberated to assist in the work with their fellows. He ordered them also to collect the ammunition, stores, and camp furniture and carry them to the zariba, and then to dig deep trenches and bury the dead. The slaves were suffering greatly from want of water, and Tom informed them of the stream two miles to the south, and allowed them to go and refresh themselves at it, commanding them to report themselves before nightfall at the zariba, where he intended to camp for the night.
Two hours later Mbutu returned, accompanied by a portion of his force. They gave a great shout when Tom welcomed them, and Mbutu, his face beaming with joy, informed his master of his recent movements. With a quickness for grasping a military situation with which Tom had not credited him, he had seen the importance of preventing any considerable concentration of the fugitives, and sent small bodies of men to the right and left to guard the approaches to the forest, and thus prevent any junction of the scattered bands of Arabs and Manyema who had spread out fanwise in the course of their retreat.
"You have done splendidly, Mbutu," said Tom, patting him on the shoulder. "But why were you so late in bringing up the eight hundred men? We were almost at our last gasp."
Mbutu explained that when his brother reached the volcano he found the eight hundred men in a state of great perplexity at the non-appearance of Kuboko. They had waited and waited, expecting to be engaged in some enterprise of moment, and when hour after hour passed away, and day followed day, without their receiving any orders, they had grown angry. Some of them had wandered miles away to the south of the mountain to see if there was anything in that direction that seemed to call for them. When Mboda appeared and ordered them to return, it took some time to collect the dispersed bands, and though they had made all haste, they had found it impossible to march with any great speed over the broken country between the volcano and the village. Mbutu had met them, indeed, a few miles north of the village, and had brought them on, with the fresh men drawn from the garrison, as rapidly as possible. He was thankful "too much, too much," he said, that he had arrived at such a critical moment. To save time, he had chosen to risk wading across the swamp in preference to taking the longer circuit round it through the forest.
"And you did well," said Tom. "If you had gone the farther way we should have been overpowered, I fear. It was a stroke of genius, Mbutu. The art of generalship is to know when to take risks. Some people call it luck, but I can't see myself why luck should have such a happy knack of favouring the incapable."
Mbutu did not understand this speech, but he saw that his master was pleased with him, and he went with all cheerfulness and contentment to superintend the camping arrangements for the night, receiving willing assistance from Msala, who came up presently in a state of great delight, tempered by regret at his own enforced absence from the scene of the great battle. To please Mbutu, Tom then sent his brother Mboda with a small force into the forest to build a new stockade on the farther bank of the fordable stream, so as to block the way of any Arabs who might endeavour to retrace their steps over the central path.
Next morning, before returning to the village, Tom sent eight hundred of his best men, divided into several bands under trusty leaders, to dog the fugitive Arabs. Some were to scour the country on the outskirts of the forest, others to penetrate the forest itself, press forward beyond the new stockade, and watch every narrow cross-track, every possible alley, so as effectually to bar the retreat of the Arabs except by long circuitous routes on which, as the news of their defeat spread, they would be exposed to the attacks of the tribes they had ill-treated and oppressed. These scouting bodies were to carry with them sufficient food for three days, and at the end of that time to return.
Tom's march to the village was a triumphal progress. The people came out in their thousands to meet him, and in a great glad throng, amid the din of drums and loud songs of victory, escorted him to his head-quarters. Mwonga ordered several of his finest oxen to be killed for the victor's feast, and extensive preparations were made for high jubilation. Tom could not but be sympathetic towards the people's rejoicings, but he recognized the danger of their imagining that nothing remained to be done, and he determined at once to make the situation clear to them. Early in the afternoon he summoned all the chiefs to a council at some distance from the village, where they could deliberate without interrupting, or being interrupted by, the festal proceedings. When they were assembled he made a short address to them, in which he reviewed what had been accomplished, and clearly stated what had yet to be done.
"True, the Arabs are scattered," he said. "You have all done nobly. But many of your men have been killed; many of your women are widows and your children fatherless to-day. If your sacrifices, your toils, your wounds, are not to be useless, you must not stay your hands until this nest of venomous snakes is utterly destroyed. You must make one more effort, my brothers. It may not be a great one. The flower of the Arab army is destroyed; there cannot be more than a handful at their stronghold. Our successes hitherto will have encouraged you, and you will not fail to see that by one final blow you may destroy your enemies for ever. If, however, you let slip this opportunity, the Arabs will in time recover even from this great defeat, as they have recovered from defeats in the past, and by and by the old evil work of raiding for ivory and slaves will begin again. I myself will lead you to this Arab stronghold, and in a few weeks the impregnable fortress of which they boast shall be a heap of smoking ruins."
The majority of the chiefs shouted an instant assent to Kuboko's proposal, but some murmured discontentedly, and declared that they had done enough; the Arab stronghold was far away, and they wished to get back to their own villages and resume their ordinary life. Tom accepted the position good-humouredly.
"Let those who wish to go to their homes go," he said. "I understand their feeling. I myself long ardently to see my own home again. Let them go, then; and I thank them for their brave and willing services. But for the rest--I ask you, brothers, shall we sacrifice a little more, and make the Arabs drink to the dregs the bitter cup they have so often brewed for you their victims?"
"We will! we will!" cried most of the chiefs.
"It is well. Now, we have a long march before us, my brothers, but 'tis a long track that has no end. We shall reach their stronghold; we shall capture it, and if perchance a great booty, stores of ivory stolen from you, should fall into our hands, I promise you it shall be divided among you in proportion to the number of men you severally furnish."
The prospect of booty, conjoined with their deep-seated hatred of the Arabs and their exultation at their recent victory, made the chiefs all eagerness to attempt the new enterprise. Many of the murmurers were now among the most anxious to volunteer, and Tom was intensely amused as they tried with every appearance of artlessness to explain away their previous reluctance. He went on to say that he would not need all their men; he asked for only twelve hundred fighting men and as many carriers. But both carriers and warriors must be of the very best; he needed men who were strong and active, and, above all, prompt to obey. He arranged with the chiefs to make a selection during the next few days from among their contingents, and was secretly pleased when he found, as the work of selection proceeded, that the men who were not picked went about with dejected faces, and openly envied their comrades' good fortune.
From prisoners who had fallen into his hands Tom learnt that when the Arab force left, a garrison of about five hundred men remained in the island fortress. They were all Arabs, well armed, under the command of his old enemy Mustapha, and secure in their possession of a post which they deemed impregnable. Before he could reach it, Tom had no doubt that the garrison would be increased by the arrival of De Castro with the survivors from his luckless expedition, and also by a certain number of Rumaliza's force, who would succeed in evading pursuit and escaping the perils of the forest. He might also have to reckon with the overdue raiding-party from the north. But even though the defenders of the fortress should number nearly a thousand, Tom was confident that twelve hundred of his disciplined and seasoned men would suffice to reduce the place.
Several days were spent in choosing men and collecting stores. Tom could not resist Msala's plea to be allowed this time to take an active part by his side. Mwonda was one of his lieutenants as a matter of course, and Mbutu begged that his brother Mboda might accompany the expedition. There was no lack of arms and ammunition; the chief difficulty that faced Tom was that of provisioning his force during the march through the forest, which he expected, from information received from the prisoners, to occupy nearly a month. While the resources of the village and the surrounding country were being taxed to the uttermost, Tom sent a force of five hundred men into the forest to build a strong redoubt three days' march within its borders, and arranged with one of his allies, the chief of a small village still farther in the forest, destroyed by the Arabs in their advance, to return and rebuild his village, with entrenchments and fortifications. Both these places he decided to make depots for large stores of grain, in order to reduce the work of the carriers with the expedition, and to form reserves in case of a check.
It was a fine day in December, a week after the battle, when the expedition started. Tom was convinced that in point of physique no finer force ever set out on any military enterprise. During the week all that good food and regular drill could do had been done to bring the men into perfect condition, and, looking at their well-developed muscular frames and clear bright eyes, Tom felt proud to command them.
The redoubt was already built and stocked when the column reached it at the end of the third day's march. Two days later, on reaching the native chief's village, Tom was surprised to see what progress had been made with its reconstruction. Men, women, and children were hard at work, running up grass huts and stockading the whole enceinte. When the force resumed their march next morning, Tom felt that the expedition was beginning in earnest.
Then began the long march towards the Arab fortress, a march to which Tom always looked back with mingled pleasure and pain. His previous acquaintance with the great Congo Forest had been made in a time of such stress, anxiety, and illness that he had missed many things which now, as he marched with a large confident force of warriors, he had more leisure to notice. The column was led by a company of pioneers to clear the path where it was overgrown with creepers and bush. Then came a company of musketeers, followed by pikemen, among whom Tom kept his place, accompanied by the ever-faithful Mbutu. Behind these trudged the carriers, strong straight men with no lumber about them, tramping along steadily beneath their burdens, poking fun at each other and at the men in front of them, laughing at any slight mishap that occurred during their progress. After these came the rest of the force, the officers placed among the men at intervals, big Mwonda being in command of the rearguard. The march began each day at 6.30 and continued until 11, when the column halted for dinner and rest; it was resumed at 12.30, and ended about 4 o'clock, to allow time for forming a camp before dark, and for stragglers to rejoin. Ten miles a day was the longest distance that could be traversed through the denser undergrowth, and Tom learnt from the Arab prisoners whom he had brought with him as guides that, allowing for delays caused by rivers to be crossed, felled trees to clamber over, detours to be made to avoid other obstacles, it would take him nearly three weeks to reach the lake in the midst of which the island-fortress stood.
Tom realized now for the first time what the worst difficulties of forest marching were. The ground was rank with vegetable corruption, the atmosphere with exhalations from myriads of dead insects, leaves, plants. At every pace his head, neck, arms, or clothes were caught by a tough creeper, a calamus thorn, a coarse brier, or a giant thistle-like plant, scratching and rending whatever portion they hooked on. Innumerable insects lent their aid to embarrass and worry him, especially the polished black ants, which dropped upon him from the leaves of trees as he passed, and inflicted bites worse than the wasp's sting, till his skin was swollen up in large white blisters. Yellow ants and termites also seemed to have an insatiable appetite, nibbling, gnawing, prowling all day long. There was the mantis, too, a strange insect five inches long, gaunt, weird, mysterious; and numbers of ladybirds, their brilliant red spotted with black. Tom heard the rustling of millions of tiny wings, the garrulous chirp of crickets, the buzz of ant-lions, the dull roar of bull-frogs. And over all the lower sounds was the crackle of twigs, the crash of falling branches, the creaking of the huge, thick-clad stems as they were brushed by the wind. There were leopard-scratches on the boles; a genet cat was occasionally seen; rhinoceroses and crocodiles were met at the broader streams; Tom was told several marvellous stories of the incredible strength of the sokos; once or twice some of his men assured him that they had caught sight of pigmies, who instantly disappeared as soon as they were observed. They gave no sign of hostility, and Tom congratulated himself on the fact that his saving of the pigmy woman's child seemed to have won for him the freedom of the forest.
There was very little to indicate that the path had already been traversed by a large Arab force. Occasionally the advance-guard came upon the remains of a human body, sometimes a mere skeleton with chains still about the neck and ankles--some poor slave left by the Arabs to die of starvation or by the more merciful agency of the wild beasts that haunted the forest shades. The native habit was to walk round these horrible obstructions in the path, but Tom had ordered his men to remove them into the forest.
On the sixth day of the march his foremost pioneer came running back to him in great excitement. He had come upon a dead body lying across the path, and he declared positively that it was the corpse of Mabruki.
Tom was at first incredulous, but on reaching the spot he saw that the figure stretched on the path was unmistakeably that of the medicine-man. He lay face downwards, and innumerable insects were already at work on his body; but he could not have been dead long, for there was no sign of mutilation by any wild beast. One of the men turned the body over, and then Tom saw a pigmy spear transfixing the traitor's breast. The weapon was evidently poisoned, for the twisted limbs and contorted features indicated that the hapless man had tasted death in one of its most terrible forms.
"Put him out of sight!" said Tom, shuddering as he passed on. He surmised that on escaping from the village to avoid the penalty due to his treason, Mabruki had struck due north and had used his knowledge of the forest to make his way by side tracks into the depths far from the main path. He had struck into that path when all fear of meeting Tom's men was gone, and then, while on his way to join the Arabs, or perhaps to foist his false magic upon some lesser chief, he had met with swift death at the hands of the Bambute.
The tragic end of the medicine-man made a deep impression on the natives. Many of them had believed that he was invulnerable to everything but superior magic, such as Kuboko's, and his death by so paltry a weapon as a pigmy's spear destroyed the last shred of their faith in him. Hearing now for the first time the story of his treason, they were quick to connect his fate with his crime, and said among themselves that white man's medicine certainly reached far and never failed.
Day followed day, and the march was little varied. Once or twice the column passed the sites of what had been small villages, now waste and desolate. The Arabs had burnt and destroyed every human habitation upon or near their path. There were streams here and there to be crossed, sometimes by fords, sometimes by tall trunks thrown across from bank to bank, once on a bridge consisting of a large tree submerged two feet below the surface. Whenever a temporary thinness in the foliage overhead allowed the sunlight to stream fully on the path, the spirits of the men seemed to respond, and they broke into song. Tom noticed the leader in these choruses, a tall handsome young fellow with a fine mellow voice, clearly a prime favourite with the men. His songs were composed on the spur of the moment, but they were picked up at once by his comrades, who raised the chorus in strange wild harmony, Tom had become so accustomed to the ingenuous adulation of the negroes that it no longer caused a pang to his modesty to hear himself made the subject of their pæans. One of their songs, roughly rendered in English, ran:--
"Sing, O friends, sing!We are all warriors bold, and Kuboko is king.Aha! Aha!Strong is his arm and invincible; sing, brothers, sing!Blithely we march. Ah! what will the enemy say?On to the fortress; long is the way.Then we will eat and drink, dance all the livelong day.Aha! Aha!"
Thanks to the slow rate of marching, regulated by the pace of the carriers, to the good food-supply, and to the physical fitness of the men when they started, there had not been more than fifty cases of sickness in the column, when, after twenty days' marching, Tom learnt from his prisoners that he was but half a day from the lake in which the Arab fort was situated. He pitched his camp that evening with even more care than usual, and gave strict orders that no member of the force was to stir beyond its bounds without permission. He sent forward a few scouts to reconnoitre, and one of these reported, on his return to camp, that he had caught sight of several Arabs making their way rapidly towards the lake.
"The enemy's scouts!" thought Tom. "Well, we could not hope to surprise them."
He posted extra sentries that night, though he hardly expected an attack, and the hours of darkness passed without incident. By ten o'clock next morning, Tom, with the head of the column, had reached the lake side. It was a larger sheet of water than he had expected to see, extending as far as the eye could reach in a north-westerly direction, bordered to the very edge with dense forest and extensive banks of reeds. Some miles off, almost equidistant between the east and west shores, rose the island, a mass of dark green in the blue water. As the warriors came in sight of it they raised great shouts. Not one of them had seen it before, for the escape of a slave was an almost unknown event. Tom himself felt a strange thrill as he looked over the placid water and realized that that distant forest-covered islet was to be the scene of a stern fight. He stood gazing at it in silence, thinking of the long years during which it had been a hot-bed of cruelty and wrong, and he felt a thrill of joy at having attained the desire of his heart--the opportunity to strike at the head of the slave-dragon. "And," he said to himself, "please God, I will strike hard!"
No well-trodden path led to the lake side. The men had had to make a way for themselves through the underwood. On reaching the edge they came upon clear signs of human activity--a rough landing-stage of boards, litter and debris of all kinds. But no human being except Tom's own men was in sight, nor, so far as could be ascertained, was any boat moored along the shore, though the banks of reeds might well conceal many craft.
"Mbutu," said Tom, "clamber up that tall tree and tell me what you see."
Mbutu, agile as a monkey, was soon swarming up a straight trunk.
"I see a boat!" he cried, when he came near the top. "Long, long way; go dis way"--he waved his arm from east to west. "Go from shore to island. Small canoe; four men. No more, sah."
Tom called up a prisoner, and, questioning him, learnt that the canoe was probably crossing at the shortest passage, requiring only half the time that would be taken from the point at which the expedition had struck the lake.
"Anything more to be seen, Mbutu?"
"No, sah, nuffin."
"Come down, then; we'll have to do a little scouting."
A path ran round the lake close to the edge, narrow and much overgrown, but evidently leading to the spot from which the canoe had started for the island. Tom sent fifty of his best scouts, under Mboda, to explore this path.
"If you come across any canoes, seize them," he said. "Don't fight if they are defended in force; they probably won't be worth losing lives for."
While the scouts were gone he ordered the men to form an entrenched camp. For all he knew the enemy might be lurking in the forest ready to take advantage of any slip, any sign of unwariness; and until he had located the Arabs, and, if possible, discovered what their strength was, it was impossible to form definite plans for an attack on the fortress.
Towards dusk Mboda returned with his men and reported that the path grew wider and less obstructed as it bent northward. They had seen one canoe, manned by a crew of half a dozen Manyema, who had shipped their paddles and jeered when they caught sight of the scouts. The best marksmen among these had tried a shot at the canoe, which, though it had fallen short, had been sufficient to set the men hastily paddling towards the island. Mboda had tried to see exactly where their landing-place was, but the shore of the island appeared to be an impenetrable wall of jungle.
When the evening meal had been eaten, and the camp-fires were lit, Tom sent for his prisoners again and subjected them to a further interrogation. He learnt that the lake was fed by a small river flowing from the north-east, as well as by numerous rivulets at other points. The surplus water escaped on the left, where it formed a fairly large stream. The mouth of the river on the north-east was fringed with dense clumps of reeds.
"Since there are apparently no canoes to be captured we shall have to make some," said Tom to himself; "and that will take time. I hope our stock of food will last till we capture the Arabs' stores. Dug-outs will be the easiest to make, I suppose. These men of mine have never made a canoe in their lives, I suspect. Msala," he said aloud to the katikiro, "could you make a canoe, do you think?"
Msala looked doubtful, but at length said that he thought he could if Kuboko would show him the way!
"Like the genius who had never played the fiddle, but thought he could if he tried!" thought Tom. "O wise man!" he said. "That's a good answer. I'll try to show you the way, though I've done nothing of the sort since I broke a dozen pen-knives carving a sailing-boat when I was a boy of twelve. The first question is, where are these canoes to be made, eh?"
Msala could give no assistance towards solving this problem, but Tom soon thought it out for himself. The outlet on the west was wide, the prisoner had said, and comparatively free from reeds. Operations there would run the risk of being disturbed, for no doubt the enemy possessed a considerable flotilla on the island. But the reeds at the mouth of the river on the north-east would serve as a screen, and a few sharpshooters carefully posted would easily defend the position against attack.
"That's the place, evidently," said Tom. "To-morrow morning, Msala, we'll start building our fleet. Now for sleep, my men--we must be up early in the morning."
Next day he ordered his men to build a block-house where he had emerged from the forest, so as to intercept any fugitive Arabs who might have found their way back to the lake, and to keep a general look-out. Leaving a garrison of two hundred men there, he started with the rest towards the north-east corner, which they reached after an arduous march of fifteen miles, the path having to be cut after they left the principal landing-stage opposite the eastern shore of the island. It happened to be a particularly bright and clear day, and at different points along the route Tom caught glimpses of the island, which enabled him to form a fairly good idea of its character and extent. He judged it to be about a mile long; it was covered with vegetation of the nature of jungle, tall forest-trees being conspicuously absent. The prisoners pointed out the exact spot, near the centre of the island, where the fort was situated, but so dense was the thicket that not a corner of it was visible. They explained that, while the forest-growth at the shore was allowed to remain in its pristine wildness, within this fringe and behind some plantations the ground had been cleared, and the fort, capable of containing two thousand men, had been built on a slight eminence in the very centre of the island. It consisted of a double row of palisades, fifteen feet in height, the exterior palisade being defended throughout its whole circuit by a glacis, with a slope of one foot in four.
"So there are two difficulties to surmount," thought Tom. "First, the difficulty of reaching the island and landing my men; then the difficulty of storming a fort defended by such high outworks and a glacis to boot. It's a case of scaling-ladders as well as canoes. A great piece of luck that I thought of bringing so many artificers among the carriers."
When the force reached the mouth of the river, it was too late to begin the work of constructing canoes. Tom ordered his men to make an entrenched camp, and to throw up a special earthwork behind the screen of reeds, where a company of picked marksmen could easily defend the canoe-makers from attack. Early next morning Tom set all his men who had axes to fell the largest and straightest teak in the forest, a few hundred feet from the shore. When the trees were felled, another band of men was set to strip off the foliage and bark, and so quickly did they work that by nightfall a large number of huge logs lay ready for scooping out, varying in length from forty to sixty-five feet. Tom saw that he would need a fleet of about forty-five canoes if he intended to convey all his force to the island at one time, as would probably be necessary. He therefore selected the requisite number of trees himself, and while the carriers were felling these he instructed the warriors how to dig them out. He divided them into gangs of twenty to thirty, each gang to form one canoe crew, and he set these to fashion their own craft. He marked off equal lengths along the logs, and gave each man his own portion to scoop out with knife or pike-head, encouraging them to work hard by the promise of a reward to the man who finished his portion first. They all worked with a will, driving their tools into the wood with unfaltering zeal, and showing much interest in their novel work.
While the digging-out was in progress, Tom employed other men in making thwarts and rough paddles, and the best carpenters in constructing scaling-ladders. After ten days' work he was in possession of forty-five dug-outs, with their due equipment of paddles, and fifty ladders ten feet high. The canoes were, of course, keelless, and Tom knew that they were bound to sway and roll with the slightest movement of the body; but fortunately there was little likelihood of their having to encounter rough weather, and he hoped that they would suffice to convey his men across the four miles separating the lake shore at this point from the island. "They'll do as well as Napoleon's flat-bottom boats, I expect," he thought; "or better, for his invasion never came off, and mine will."
The work had not been carried on for ten days without molestation. Every day canoes came from the island, filled with armed men, evidently curious to learn what was going on out of sight. On the first day they paddled towards the mouth of the river, and Tom ordered his men behind the earthwork to allow them to approach well within gunshot, and then to let them have a sharp volley. The canoes came within fifty yards of the concealed marksmen without suspecting their danger, and at least half the men on board were hit when the Bahima opened fire. The survivors paddled away in frantic haste, and ever after that the canoes kept out of harm's way, the Arabs contenting themselves with patrolling the lake, in cheerful assurance that their fortress was impregnable. All this time Tom sent scouting-parties regularly along the shore, from whom he learnt that at several points on the western side there were large clearings, which appeared to have been slave settlements, and he concluded that the slaves had either been withdrawn into the island or sent deeper into the forest.
His preparations so far being complete--and none too soon, for the stock of food was running low,--Tom decided to make a reconnaissance towards the island. He first tested some of his canoes on the river, out of sight from the Arabs, employing a few men who knew how to paddle, and found to his great pleasure that, though clumsy and incapable of being propelled swiftly, they rode the water fairly upright, and were safe enough in a calm. He therefore ordered his men to launch half a dozen of the canoes at the mouth of the river, and with these fully manned with riflemen he moved slowly towards the island. The movement was instantly observed; hardly a minute had elapsed before a fleet of twenty light, swift canoes, filled with armed Manyema, shot out from the island and made towards him. Recognizing that he could not hope to vie with them in speed, and that he could not approach the island so closely as he wished without running great risks, Tom ordered his men to paddle back, and regained his camp. A tremendous yell of delight from the Arabs' canoes, ringing clear over the still water, bore witness to the enemy's confidence, but Tom only smiled. He remembered reading, in one of Stanley's books, an account of how that great explorer had defended some canoes from attack in precisely similar circumstances, and once more he found his recollection serve him well. He sent his men into the forest, some to cut long poles an inch thick, others to cut poles three inches thick and seven feet long, a third band to cut straight long trees four inches thick, and a fourth to remove the bark from all these and make bark-rope. While this was being done Tom selected three of the longest canoes, and had them drawn up parallel to one another near the water's edge, and four feet apart. As the stripped trees were brought up they were laid across the canoes, and lashed firmly to the thwarts with the bark-rope. Then the seven-foot poles were lashed in an upright position to the thwarts of the outer canoes at the extreme edge, and the inch-thick rods were twisted in and out among these uprights, just as gipsies make baskets. After this, thin saplings were woven in through any remaining interstices, and at the end of the day the structure resembled a huge oblong stockade of basket-work, sixty-five feet long and twenty-seven feet wide. A gap having been cut in one of its faces, and a rough gate made, the contrivance was complete.
Next morning Tom went to a distance of three hundred yards and tried a shot at the stockade with one of his men's rifles. The bullet penetrated the wall, but fell dead inside. He then ordered his men to collect reeds and large leaves from the toughest plants they could find, and with these to line the inside of the palisade. When this was done he tried another shot, and found that the bullet embedded itself in the lining. Delighted with the assurance that the structure was practically bullet-proof, he next instructed his men to make loopholes at intervals along the sides, and then ordered eight hundred of the carriers to haul and push the strange, awkward-looking fort to the water. He then sent sixty paddlers to take their places on the thwarts, and a hundred and fifty musketeers to find room among them. He was in some anxiety lest with its full complement of men the fort should be too heavy to float, but a few moments' paddling convinced him that, unwieldy as it was, it would ride the water, though to propel it with any speed was out of the question. A great shout of applause burst from the onlookers as the floating fort moved a few yards towards the lake. Tom ordered it back, stepped on board, closed the gate, and started on his reconnaissance.
The warriors left on shore watched the progress of the strange craft across the lake. It went on slowly and steadily towards the island, and reached the middle of the channel before any sign of movement was made by the enemy. Then forty canoes swept out swiftly from the island's green bank, and in one of the foremost, as it came more clearly in sight, Tom, spying through one of the loopholes, saw his old enemy De Castro. The canoes came on rapidly; when within four hundred yards they stopped dead, and the men on board of them opened fire. The worst marksman could hardly have missed so huge a target, and the exposed wall of the redoubt rang with the impact of hundreds of bullets, only a few of which penetrated, to fall quite harmlessly in the water between the canoes. Tom then ordered the paddlers to slew the fort round, so that it presented one of its longer sides to the enemy, and a few moments later a volley burst from the loopholes, doing considerable damage among the crowded craft of the Arabs. Seeing that the inventiveness of the English lad had once more proved too much for him, De Castro, with a curse, ordered his men to paddle back to the island, and Tom was left to make his reconnaissance unmolested.
Slowly the unwieldy mass moved round the island--slowly, steadily, like some uncouth leviathan. Even Tom's own men on shore, who had seen it made, watched it with awe, and some of them cried out that it was a spirit in monstrous shape. As he circumnavigated the island, Tom kept a keen look-out towards it, and found that there were several possible landing-places, the shore being comparatively low. Deciding that the most convenient point of debarkation was a sparsely wooded tongue of land at the south-east corner, Tom made a careful mental note of the whole position, and returned to his own quarters, well satisfied with his day's work.
The next two days were spent in constructing two similar floating redoubts, and in practising the men in paddling, for the majority of them were helpless on the water. Tom was loth to delay his attack, and feared that De Castro might make an attempt to escape. He therefore withdrew half the men from the block-house at the edge of the forest, and kept them, along with men from his force, constantly patrolling the shores of the lake, to watch for any movement from the island. His fears were groundless, as he afterwards discovered. De Castro did indeed suggest to Mustapha that the principal men should decamp with the treasure, leaving the fort to its fate, but the Arab curtly refused. He had sworn an oath on the Koran before Rumaliza's departure to defend the treasure till the last, and he himself had a bone to pick with the audacious English youth who had tied him up with his own rope in his own hut. He was, besides, so positive that the enemy, even if he effected a landing, would fling himself in vain against the defences, that he scoffed at De Castro's fears and taunted him with cowardice.
At dawn on a bright January day Tom set forth on his momentous enterprise. The three redoubts, each with two hundred men on board, led the way, followed by thirty canoes fully manned, these last containing the worst marksmen in the force. Tom half expected that the enemy, having already proved their helplessness against the floating forts, would make no attempt to oppose his landing; but he soon saw that his passage was not to be uncontested. Forty-five canoes came out to meet him. At a distance of a thousand yards the Arabs' flotilla divided into two squadrons, and, rowing three strokes to the one of Tom's paddlers, evidently intended to sweep behind the cumbrous redoubts and fall upon the canoes, a design which Tom at once took steps to defeat. He was himself in the centre redoubt. He ordered the other two to move off to right and left until there was a clear quarter of a mile between him and them. The formation of his flotilla had then roughly the shape of a bent bow, the three redoubts representing the arc and the canoes the angle formed by the stretched string. By thus extending his front, Tom compelled the Arabs to make a wide circuit. Even then they passed within range of the loopholed faces of the floating forts, and suffered severely from the merciless volleys poured out by the Bahima. Drawing out of range, they had just begun to converge behind the redoubts when Tom ordered these to stop, thus allowing time for his canoes behind to close up and pass between them. The position was now reversed, the bow being pointed in exactly the opposite direction, Tom's canoes nearest the island, and the Arabs' farthest away. Within his redoubt Tom could distinctly hear the wild threats and cries of De Castro as he ordered his men to swing round and paddle back to the island.
"He's afraid we shall be there first," said Tom with a smile to Mbutu.
His move had completely disconcerted the enemy, who abandoned outright the attempt to delay the progress of the flotilla, and made off at full speed to the island. There most of the armed men disembarked, and the unarmed paddlers, with a few Arab marksmen as guard, withdrew the canoes towards the north.