When a little time had elapsed he got up and peeped over the palisade, and saw crowds of Manyema eating, drinking, gambling about the camp-fires. Beyond them was another palisade defended by a trench, and within this he guessed that the Arabs of the force were camped. Finding that he could obtain no further information except by venturing among the enemy, which was out of the question, he stole back to the watercourse, made his way up it, then under cover of the darkness cut across the country, passing within a few hundred yards of the village. For a moment he thought of going in at the southern gate and arranging for the co-operation of the katikiro and his force in the movements he contemplated, but on consideration saw that to do so might arouse a commotion in the village and awaken suspicion among the Arabs. Proceeding, therefore, on his way, he saved more than two miles of his former journey, and reached his men about half-past seven. He was then dead-beat, but he had made up his mind what his course of action was to be. Mbutu, he was glad to observe, had not allowed the men to light fires. Giving orders that the men were to continue to rest until half-past eleven, and that unbroken silence must be maintained, he ate ravenously the food provided for him, wrapped himself in the rug Mbutu had carried, and threw himself on the ground to snatch a brief sleep.
Long usage enabled him to wake at any moment. At half-past eleven he rose, and ordered Mbutu to go quietly about among the sleeping men and rouse them. In a few minutes they were all on foot, and, looking at them as they stood, bright-eyed, eager, confident, Tom adopted a well-known saying and declared inwardly that they "were ready to go anywhere and do anything".
"Men," said Tom in their own tongue, "the Arabs are encamped beyond the village there. I am going to lead you to attack them. We shall surprise them if you walk silently. There must be no talking, no noise of any kind. The musketeers will leave all their ammunition behind; this will be a job for bayonets, spears, and pikes alone."
His plan was to make a wide detour and come upon the enemy from the north-west, the absence of sentries on that side having convinced him that if they were keeping watch at all it was directed towards the village. It was natural that they should take precautions against a direct sortie without looking for an attack from the quarter in which they had themselves come. Leaving fifty carriers, picked up at the block-houses, to take charge of the food and ammunition, Tom started with his men at a quarter to twelve.
It was pitch dark; the sky was evidently clouded, and the air had a nipping rawness that seemed to forebode rain. Tom was rather anxious about the possibility of keeping the proper direction; but his men were all natives of the district, and the man he had appointed as guide marched on with confidence, finding the way apparently rather by instinct than by the sense of sight. Soon a dull glow on their right, the reflection of the village watch-fires, served as a landmark, and in half an hour they were abreast of it, sufficiently near to hear the occasional howl of one of the village curs, or the lowing of one of the cattle. They marched in dead silence. Now and then a pike would catch in some obstruction, such as a bush, a creeper, a branch of a low tree; once or twice the butt of a musket carelessly held struck against an ant-hill or a rock, or a man would trip over a stone and cause a momentary break in the even progress of the column; but not an ejaculation came from the mouths of the men. Tom was proud of the splendid results of the discipline they had undergone, and ready to avouch that under proper training anything could be made of the Bantu negro. On and on they went, the narrow column crawling like a black snake over grass-land, swamp, and almost bare rock. They passed the village, began the ascent to the south of it, skirting the spot where the flourishing banana plantation had once stood, crossed the stream a mile and a half above the village, and then arrived at a point whence they could see the glow from the fires in the Arab camp.
Here Tom halted the men, and quietly told them his plans. The attack was to be made at two points, the north-west and south-west corners of the encampment. Tom himself would lead one body of his men; the other he entrusted to a gigantic negro named Mwonda, who had distinguished himself on many occasions during the siege of the village and in the forest fight. He stood six feet two in height, with extraordinary muscular development and great physical strength. He was absolutely fearless. His besetting sin was a habit of boasting, which, however, was so naïve and inoffensive that his mates were more amused by it than irritated. He was accustomed to assert loudly that he was a pure Muhima, though his features and his whole physical organization proved him to be incontestably one of the Bairo. But his valour was so pre-eminent that no one was hurt when Tom appointed him captain of the pikemen, and his skill with the weapon was unmatched. His pike was several inches longer, and proportionately thicker, than those of the rank and file, and on this night he also carried, slung round his waist, a scimitar taken from an Arab whom he had killed in single fight in the forest. His men had unlimited confidence in him, and Tom had marked him from the first as the ideal leader when any deed of desperate courage not demanding tactical skill was in question.
Half the force, then, was put under Mwonda's command, and he was to lead the assault from the north-west. It was essential to the thorough success of the plan that the two attacks should be simultaneous, and Tom was for a time greatly exercised as to how the necessary signal could be given when the two bodies were separated by the whole length of the Arab camp. It was important that nothing should be done to give the alarm there, and Tom, to avoid risks, had even left his revolver behind, and carried only a musket. Suddenly he remembered Mbutu's faculty for imitating the cries of animals. Why not make use of that now?
"You can mock the jackal's cry?" he said.
"Oh yes, sah! berrah good jackal."
"Very well."