Tom was in the highest spirits. He felt confident now that the resources at his command were sufficient to defend the village against all attacks in force, and he hoped that the enemy would appreciate the situation and relinquish their enterprise.
The rest of that day passed uneventfully. At night sentries were posted as usual, and none of the precautions were relaxed; but there was no attack. The day slipped by with the same tranquillity. Parties of the enemy were seen at times, but they were always out of range, and, so far as could be ascertained from the village, were not making any preparations for renewing the assault. That night Tom, walking round by the stockade the last thing before turning in, noticed that at short intervals from the north gate round the western and southern sides to the extreme south-east corner, where the ground shelved down rapidly to the foot of the precipice, large watch-fires were burning, which had not previously been the case.
"What does that mean?" he thought. "Are they going to make a regular siege of it? I hope not, for to be cooped up here for another week would be awful. I'd give something for a newspaper, or Ranjy's cricket book, or even Euclid--yes, by Jove, even old quod erat demonstrandum--to help pass the time away. By the by, I'll be forgetting all my maths out here, and if I'm to stick to engineering that'll never do. Well, if it turns out a siege, I'll set myself a few stiff problems and correct the solutions experimentally, eh?--besides teaching these beggars something of infantry drill. Heigh-ho! 'the heathen in his blindness'--who'd have thought I should ever be living among 'em, and a blood-brother too!"
And as he walked back to his hut, in a fit of abstraction he began to whistle the tune of "From Greenland's icy mountains," to the great contentment of the katikiro lying awake.
CHAPTER XIV: The Siege of Barega's
The Arab Camp--A Balista--A Vain Appeal--Eureka--Cutting a Channel--The Eleventh Hour--Barega's Last Fight--After the Battle
Tom's premonitions were well founded; on awaking next morning he saw that the whole accessible part of the village was blockaded by a chain of posts extending from the north gate to the south-east corner. The banana plantations on the south side appeared to be occupied in force, and the object of the enemy was clearly to prevent any going in or coming out, and so to starve the villagers into submission. Naturally Tom congratulated himself on his foresight in stocking the village with food, and expressed to the chief his confident hope that the besiegers would tire.
That their intentions were serious was soon evident. Early in the morning a large gang of Manyema were observed, nearly half a mile up the hill, engaged in damming up the stream, and diverting its course from the village away to the left Tom turned to the katikiro, who happened to be by his side, and smilingly pointed out what the enemy were doing. The katikiro was never loth to laugh, and he fairly bubbled over, slapping his thighs and chuckling with infinite enjoyment.
"How mad they will be," thought Tom, "when they find that we can manage without water! The man who planted this village round a constant spring was a genius. Besides, they must know there's plenty of water in the ditch at present, not very palatable, perhaps, but enough to keep us alive."
He wondered where the enemy had fixed their main camp. Those of them who came within sight were for the most part Manyema, and it occurred to Tom that perhaps the Arabs had departed for a time, to return with reinforcements of their own race. However, on the third night of the siege a Muhima managed to creep out without attracting the attention of the besiegers, and returned after being absent about three hours, with information that relieved Tom's mind on that point. He discovered that the Arabs had formed an entrenched camp in a green hollow at the foot of the precipice at the north-east corner of the village. They had evidently noticed that by moving in close to the base of the cliffs they were protected by the overhanging spur from the weapons of the Bahima, as well as from any other missiles, such as rocks or fireballs, that might be hurled from above. They had placed their camp so that any projectiles thus cast at them would fall outside their eastern boundary, and their rampart and trench were sufficiently formidable to secure them against assault. The position had the further advantage that the cliff protected them from the prevailing wind, while they had a good supply of water from a stream that joined the village stream a few hundred yards below the precipice. Some little distance to the south, where the ground rose steeply, a large body of their slave carriers had been penned like cattle, under a strong guard. The Muhima said that the chief camp contained some fifteen hundred Arabs, a number which Tom thought might safely be divided by three.