"I must solve this mystery," Royce said to himself. "The men are scared out of their wits, and if this sort of thing is to happen their courage will melt away. There must be a secret entrance somewhere. To-morrow I'll search the place thoroughly again, though, upon my word, we have been through it so often that I can't for the life of me conceive where the rat's hole can be."
He gave the wounded man a sleeping-draught, did his best to calm the fears of the rest, and remained on guard all night, in case another alarm should create a panic.
CHAPTER XXI
A BLOW FOR LIBERTY
Challis grudged every day spent in training, lest the fort should be stormed by the Tubus before he had come to the relief. But he saw clearly that only by training his little army would he have the slightest chance of effecting a diversion in favour of the beleaguered garrison.
The odds, in any case, were enormously against him. But at the end of the fifth day he had unexpected encouragement. About nightfall, just as John was lighting the bonfires, he caught sight of a crowd of armed negroes rounding a hillock some distance away.
"Bad fellas coming, sah!" he shouted excitedly.
Challis blew a whistle he had shaped out of a piece of wood, and his eighty men came pouring out of the cave, and formed up in something resembling the line which he had been at such pains to teach.
They howled with disappointment at not receiving the order to attack at once. Challis got the chief to send one of his men forward to hail the strangers and ask the meaning of their coming.
It turned out that they were the fighting men of a village about ten miles off, nearly a hundred strong. The story of the killing of the lions had reached them, with the addition of all sorts of wonderful details gathered in its course through the countryside. They had heard rumours also of the marvellous medicine which the white man was preparing for the Tubus, and they desired to see these marvels for themselves.