“Then we will consult with the chief. Fetch him along, Johnnie.”
Dick strolled out into the compound, and having made sure that all was quiet and that the men were alert, he took his seat close to the gate, with Johnnie and the two chief miners beside him. It was a strange place and a stranger hour to have a meeting, and as remarkable, too, was the fact that Dick could only just make himself understood and gather the meaning of the natives, while Johnnie was useless at the task. Still, Dick was able to act as interpreter, for he could speak a little Fanti, and there is only slight difference between that and the Ashanti dialect. Tersely the young leader of the party told his news, how he had overheard the half-caste, and how two hundred Ashanti warriors were expected.
“They will eat us up,” said the chief, with an involuntary shudder when he heard what Dick had to say. “They will pour like a river up to the gates of the stockade, and we shall not stop them. They will swarm over, and we shall be slain.”
“While if we are successful during the day they would certainly succeed at night, chief. Then there is the question of the water.”
The chief shook his head dolefully.
“We are as good as dead,” he said, “and glad I am that one can meet with death only once. As well sally out now and end the matter.”
“And be shot down like birds,” was Dick’s answer. “But I agree that the situation is serious. We should be better off were we out in the forest, for there we could divide and scatter. Again, we could make for the launch and steam down the river.”
“If it were possible,” cried the chief, with a look of hope in his face. “But how to get away? These foxes close round us. They know that we are secure, for who could leave the stockade now?”
“I got in safely, thanks to your rush. Why can we not get out again? Can you think of nothing? Come, man, we must make an effort.”
But it was useless. The chief of the miners could make no suggestion. He and his men were ready to follow their leader to the death, and he could rely upon their courage. But they could offer no plan of escape. They came of a race noted for its ferocity and courage, a race trained to arms, but they were more inclined to the ways of peace.