Beyond the slave camp, lay the garden that could only be approached through it. This also was fortified by water and earthworks, but not so strongly.
Such is a brief description of what was in those days the strongest slave-hold in Africa.
Chapter X.
LEONARD MAKES A PLAN
The road which Leonard and his companions were following led them to the edge of the main and southernmost canal, debouching exactly opposite the water-gate that gave access to the Nest. But Otter did not venture to guide them to this point, for there they should be seen by the sentries, and, notwithstanding their masquerade dress, awkward questions might be asked which they could not answer. Therefore when they had arrived within five hundred yards of the gate, he struck off to the left into the thick bush that clothed the hither side of the canal. Through this they crawled as best they might till finally they halted near the water’s edge, almost opposite to the south-west angle of the slave camp, and under the shadow of a dense clump of willows.
“See, Baas,” said the dwarf in a low voice, “the journey is accomplished and I have brought you straight. Yonder is the house of the Yellow Devil—now it remains only to take it, or to rescue the maiden from it.”
Leonard looked at the place in dismay. How was it possible that they—two men and a woman—could capture this fortified camp, filled as it was with scores of the most wicked desperadoes in Africa? How was it possible even that they could obtain access to it? Viewed from far off, the thing had seemed small—to be done somehow. But now! And yet they must do something, or all their labour would be in vain, and the poor girl they came to rescue must be handed over to her shameful fate, or, if she chose it in preference and could compass the deed, to self-murder.
“How on earth!” said Leonard aloud, then added, “Well, Otter, I can tell you one thing. I have come a long way on this business, and I am not going to turn my back to it now. I have never yet turned my back on a venture and I will not begin with this, though I dare say that my death lies in it.”
“It is all in the hand of to-morrow,” answered Otter; “but it is time that we made a plan, for the night draws on. Now, Baas, here is a thick tree shaded by other trees. Shall we climb it and look down into the camp?”
Leonard nodded, and climbing the tree with ease, they peeped down through the leafiest of its boughs. All the camp lay beneath them like a map, and Otter, clinging monkey-wise to a branch, pointed out its details to Leonard. He had been a prisoner there, and the memories of prisoners are long.
The place was peopled by numbers of men in strange costumes, and of different nationalities; dealers in “black ivory” of various degree. Perhaps there may have been more than a hundred of them. Some were strolling about in knots smoking and talking, some were gambling, others were going on their business. One group—captains, to judge from the richness of their attire—were standing round the arms-house and peeping through a grating in the wall, which they reached by sitting upon each other’s shoulders. This amusement lasted them for some time, till at length a man, of whom at that distance they could see only that he was old and stout, came and drove them away, and they broke up laughing.