“Good,” said Otter, “but how about the woman here?”
“We will leave her hidden in the bush; she could be of no help in the camp and might hinder us.”
“No, White Man,” broke in Soa, “where you go I go also; moreover my mistress is yonder and I would seek her.”
“As you like,” answered Leonard, then went on: “we must get between the hut, there is only one, and the low wall that borders the canal separating the Nest from the slave camp, and, if the drawbridge is up and no other means can be found, we must swim the dike, dispose of the sentry there also and gain the slave camp. Then we must try to free some of the slaves and send them round through the garden into the morass to fire the reeds, should the wind blow strong enough. Meanwhile I propose to walk boldly into the camp, salute Pereira, pass myself off as a slaver with a dhow at the mouth of the river, and say that I have come to buy slaves, and above all to bid for the white girl. Luckily we have a good deal of gold. That is my plan so far as it goes, the rest we must leave to chance. If I can buy the Shepherdess I will. If not, I must try to get her off in some other way.”
“So be it, Baas, and now let us eat, for we shall need all our strength to-night. Then we will go down to the landing-place and take our chance.”
They ate of the food they had with them and drank sparingly of the slave-dealers’ brandy, saying little the while, for the shadow of what was to come lay upon them. Even the phlegmatic and fatalistic Otter was depressed, perhaps because of the associations of the place, which, for him, were painful, perhaps because of the magnitude of their undertaking. Never had he known such a tale, never had he seen such an adventure as this—that two men and an old woman should attack an armed camp. Indeed, although he was not acquainted with the saying, Otter’s feelings would have been correctly summed up in the well-known phrase, “C’est magnifique, mais ce n’est pas la guerre.”
As yet the night was intensely dark, and its gloom did not tend to improve their spirits; also, as Otter had predicted, the wind was rising and soughed through the reeds and willows in melancholy notes.
So the time passed till it was nine o’clock.
“We must move down to the landing-place,” said Leonard; “there will soon be some light, enough for us to work by.”
Then Otter took the lead and slowly, step by step, they crept back to the road and followed it down the shore of the canal opposite the water-gate. Here was a place where boats and canoes were tied, both for convenience in crossing the canal to and from the camp and for the use of the slave-dealers when they passed to the secret harbour six miles away, where the dhows embarked their cargoes.