The fort was built on the left bank of the stream just above the cataract, so that the steep cliffs formed an effective defence to its southern side. Before falling over the precipice, the stream ran through a gully some twelve feet deep. The western side of the fort rested on the gully, and was thus with difficulty accessible in this quarter. Only on the north and east was it necessary to provide strong defensive works. These faces were each about a hundred yards long. At the western extremity of the northern face, where it rested on the stream, Jack placed a solid blockhouse of logs. He constructed a similar blockhouse at the eastern extremity of this face, and a third at the south-east corner where the stone wall abutted on the precipice. All three blockhouses were constructed as bastions, so as to enfilade the northern and eastern faces.
When the outer defences were thus completed, the negroes were set to work to build the necessary habitations within. Hundreds of tall stems, thousands of climbers, vines, and creepers, piles of palm and phrynia leaves, were collected, and in an amazingly short time the space so lately bare was covered with neat huts built in native fashion for the negroes, with three more substantial dwellings, somewhat apart from the rest, for Mr. Martindale, Jack, and Barney. A wide open space was left in the middle. At one point a great heap of boulders was collected for repairing the wall if necessary; and Jack placed his ammunition securely in an underground magazine.
In two months from the departure of Elbel Jack was able to transfer his stores to the new settlement. The crops in the cultivated area were already far advanced. Jack was amazed to see how quickly in this teeming soil the bare brown face of the earth became covered with the tender shoots of green, and how rapid was the progress to full maturity. Clearly the new village, to which the natives had given the name Ilombekabasi, "the house by the water," would be in no straits for its food supply.
It was Barney who suggested a doubt about the water. Jack found him as a rule a good commentator, but a poor originator; he could very prettily embroider an idea, but very rarely had an idea of his own. But on this occasion he had a flash of insight.
"By the powers, sorr," he said one morning, as Jack and he were walking along the stream, "I do remimber just this very minute two lines uv poethry, out uv a poethry book I was made to learn whin I was a bhoy an' they talked uv sendin' me in for 'zamination by the Intermaydiate Board. It never come to anything, to be sure, because by the time I was old enough to sit for the 'zamination I was too old, sorr."
"Well, what are the lines?"
'"Water, water iverywhere,
An' not a dhrop to dhrink.'"
'Twas about some poor sailor man that shot a bird at sea, an 'twas a holy bird, an' whin 'twas dead the wind did not blow, an' the sailors dropped down dead, an' ghosts came aboard, an' the sky was like a hot copper, an' this poor divil uv a fellow was alone, all, all alone, as the book said, wid the dead bird slung round his neck, an' his lips parched, an' water all about, but as salt as a herring, so that he couldn't drink it; bedad, sorr, I remimber how mighty bad I felt meself whin my ould tacher—rest his sowl!—read out those lines in a sort uv whisper, an' me lips went as dhry as an old boot, sorr."
The idea, you perceive, was by this time pretty well smothered under its embroidery.
"You mean that the enemy might try to divert the stream if they attacked our camp?"