"Yes, indeed, you have brought me to exactly the right spot."
But he grinned again maliciously, pointing down to the fort, and said:—
"Yes, but that is the best view of all, I think."
He seemed to grasp my intentions most fully. Far below the forts lay the straits which they were designed to protect for the vessels steaming through them. I started at once to make a sketch of the panorama, carefully omitting that ground where the forts lay, partly in order to disarm my friend's suspicions, and partly to protect me in the event of my arrest.
Presently my companion volunteered to go down to the fort and bring up his brother, who, he said, was a gunner stationed there, and could give me every detail that I could wish about their guns, etc.
This sounded almost too good to be true, but with the greatest indifference I said I should be glad to see him, and off went my friend. The moment that he was out of sight I took care to move off into a neighbouring kopje where I could hide myself in case of his bringing up a force of men to capture me.
From here I was able to make a pretty accurate sketch of the fort and its gun emplacements on the inside of the lining of my hat, and when I had replaced this I went on as hurriedly as possible with my sketch to show that I had been fully occupied during the guide's absence.
Presently I saw him returning, but as he was only accompanied by one other man, I crept down again to my original position and received them smiling.
The gunner was most communicative, and told me all about his guns and their sizes and what were their powers as regards range and accuracy. He told me that once a year an old vessel that was about to be broken up was towed along behind a steamer down the straits to afford a target to the defence forts as she passed on. He said regretfully:—
"We are number three fort, and so far, no vessel has ever successfully passed one and two—they always get sunk before they reach us"—and he gave me the exact range and the number of rounds fired, which showed that their shooting was pretty good.