"But what about the other camps?" asked Royce.
"We must tackle them when we have joined forces," Challis replied. "I fancy the Tubus are so unaccustomed to meet organised attack that they won't put up much of a fight. At any rate, I hope they won't, for everybody's sake, though we shan't have done our work properly unless we teach them a lesson."
"Well, old man, we shall owe a lot to you. I've wondered and wondered what you were doing, wished you hadn't gone, feared I should never see you again; in short——"
"In short, you're an old ass, so shut up. You've had much the harder task in keeping your end up here. Now, don't argue, or we shall have to toss for it, and I won last time."
A little later Challis left the fort by the ladder as he had entered it, and crawled down the hill, pausing every now and again to listen for signs of the enemy. Several times he was deceived by the movement of bushes stirred by a light breeze. Once or twice rabbits or other small animals scurried away almost from beneath him, giving him a momentary start until he realised the nature of these harmless disturbances.
He reached the foot of the hill, and directed his course under cover of occasional bushes in a line between south-west and south.
A strange feeling of uneasiness held him, in spite of his efforts to shake it off. Though he moved with the utmost caution, his progress was not so silent as he could have wished. Once he stepped on a dry twig, which snapped with a report that, in his nervousness, he felt sure must be heard by the enemy.
Not until he had reached the shelter of the woodland did he breathe more freely.
There was now little chance, he thought, of his being intercepted by the Tubus, whose camp fires he had left behind him and on either hand. But there was always the risk of coming upon some wild animal, or perhaps a serpent like that which had disturbed Royce's night's rest in the tree, and in his watchfulness he strained eyes and ears painfully.
He passed safely through the thin belt of woodland, and hurried across open ground towards a thicker belt which he saw looming up before him, dark in the starlight. Just as he had come within about fifty yards of it, there was a slight sound immediately in his front. Halting, he heard the patter of bare feet on both sides, and a number of figures darted dimly into view from left and right.