The chief of them answered that it was to advance halfway down the right-hand ridge to a spot where there was a narrow flat piece of ground, and there await attack, since at this place their smaller numbers would not so much matter, whereas these made it impossible for them to assail the enemy.
“But suppose that Rezu should choose to come up to the other ridge and get behind you. What would happen then?” I inquired.
He replied that he did not know, his ideas of strategy being, it was clear, of a primitive order.
“Do your people fight best at night or in the day?” I went on.
He said undoubtedly at night, indeed in all their history there was no record of their having done so in the daytime.
“And yet you propose to let Rezu join battle with you when the sun is high, or in other words to court defeat,” I remarked.
Then I went aside and discussed things for a while with Umslopogaas and Hans, after which I returned and gave my orders, declining all argument. Briefly these were that in the dusk before the rising of the moon, our Amahagger must advance down the right-hand ridge in complete silence, and hide themselves among the scrub which I saw grew thickly near its root. A small party, however, under the leadership of Goroko, whom I knew to be a brave and clever captain, was to pass halfway down the left-hand ridge and there light fires over a wide area, so as to make the enemy think that our whole force had encamped there. Then at the proper moment which I had not yet decided upon, we would attack the army of Rezu.
The Amahagger captains did not seem pleased with this plan which I think was too bold for their fancy, and began to murmur together. Seeing that I must assert my authority at once, I walked up to them and said to their chief man,
“Hearken, my friend. By your own wish, not mine, I have been appointed your general and I expect to be obeyed without question. From the moment that the advance begins you will keep close to me and to the Black One, and if so much as one of your men hesitates or turns back, you will die,” and I nodded towards the axe of Umslopogaas. “Moreover, afterwards She-who-commands will see that others of you die, should you escape in the fight.”
Still they hesitated. Thereon without another word, I produced Zikali’s Great Medicine and held it before their eyes, with the result that the sight of this ugly thing did what even the threat of death could not do. They went flat on the ground, every one of them, and swore by Lulala and by She-who-commands, her priestess, that they would do all I said, however mad it seemed to them.