"Softly," warned Hal, as the men passed by him. "You're inside the enemy's lines."
Then, as the last man passed him, Hal whispered:
"Fall out, Gleason. Remain here to warn the rear guard when it arrives."
"All right, Sergeant. But this kind of work in the dark makes one creepy. I feel as though I were robbing a judge's chicken-roost."
Hal laughed softly and hurried after the vanishing troops. Within a few minutes more the rear guard had arrived.
By this time the rain had begun to come down again in torrents, but this favored the work of the American troops.
Led by the two young scouts, the entire command managed to advance, undetected, to a point from which Captain Freeman could dimly make out the mud walls of the datto's fort.
"Take the same twelve men of the advance guard, Sergeant Overton," whispered Captain Freeman, after he had given directions regarding the carrying of the wounded so that they would be as well protected as possible from slashing by Moro swords or creeses during the attack about to be made. "With your men, Sergeant, gain the gate of the fort. Remember, at no matter what cost, you must get your party inside and hold the gate. We'll be on the spot the moment we hear the first sound of your attack."
"Now, then, men," Hal instructed his own detachment, "we won't march forward, and we won't skulk, either. We'll simply stroll along. The instant that I hear any sound showing that we're discovered, I'll give the order to charge. When that order comes—remember that we simply must fight our way through the gate of the fort."
Then he gave the order for the forward movement. Hal placed himself at the head of his detachment, the post of greatest danger.