"You speak French?"
"Yes."
Then, speaking rapidly in that language, De Castro suggested that Tom should give him a safe-conduct for himself and his property. In that case he promised to deliver up the fort; he cared nothing, he said, what then became of the Arabs. Tom looked at the traitor with silent scorn. The Portuguese quailed for a moment; then, his face livid with rage and mortification, he glared at Tom's accusing face, and burst out in Swahili, clearly for the benefit of Mustapha, who was looking at him with suspicion:
"Have you your answer, puppy? Will you go? To-morrow I will have you in the fort, tied to a post, and you shall not escape me again. Now I make you my bow."
With a low mocking inclination he turned away. Tom bowed to the Arabs, and also turned. At that instant De Castro wheeled round, whipped a revolver from his pocket, and fired point-blank at Tom. The shot missed, but struck Mwonda, immediately in front of Tom, and wounded him in the shoulder. The giant turned round with a roar like a bull's, and sprang towards his treacherous assailant. De Castro pointed his revolver again at Tom; the bullet whistled past his ear. Cursing his ill-luck, the Portuguese turned just in time to elude the raised arm of Mwonda, and at that moment a volley rang out from the camp; one of the bullets sped past Tom and hit De Castro's left arm. The revolver fell from his right hand, and with a howl of agony and rage he bolted up the field into the fort. Mustapha disdained to run; he walked back in his stately way, and escaped. The hakim was not so fortunate. As he was returning to the fort, a little behind Mustapha, he was shot through the back, and fell. Tom sprang to the fallen man, and at the same moment Mbutu, at the head of a hundred musketeers, came running out of the camp in desperate fear for his master's safety. Tom reached the hakim, lifted him in his arms, carried him a few steps, called Mboda to assist him, and hurried with the heavy burden towards his own camp just as a volley flashed from the fort. The shots were hasty and ill-directed, and, covered by Mbutu's company, who halted and poured a steady fire towards the fort, Tom and his two companions safely reached the shelter of their entrenchments, and, panting with their exertions, laid the unconscious hakim on the ground. Mbutu returned with his men immediately afterwards, the whole incident having occupied little more than a minute. Tom had much trouble in restraining his infuriated troops from rushing upon the fort without further delay.
"Wait, my men," he cried; "they shall pay to-morrow." And he turned to examine the hakim's wound.
Mahmoud died at dawn, having recovered consciousness for but one brief moment, during which he pressed Tom's hand, smiled at him with the same grave, wise smile, and murmured: "It is the will of Allah; all is well."
Tom buried him on a little hillock at the lake side. Then he set about his preparations for the final struggle, with a fierceness foreign to his nature. His heart was filled with bitter resentment against the dastard whose treachery had brought unnecessary death upon an innocent man. "Within twenty-four hours it shall be finished," he said to himself with grim resolution.
He did not underrate the difficulty of the task before him. From the number of canoes that had met him on the lake, and the number of men in them, he calculated that the garrison in the fort amounted to at least a thousand men. The five hundred left by Rumaliza had been increased by fugitives from his own and from De Castro's force, and further by a completely equipped force of two hundred and fifty men who had returned, a few days before Tom's arrival, from an expedition northwards. With such a garrison, and the advantage of a strong position behind a glacis which could be swept from end to end by rifle fire, the fort was obviously secure against direct attack with a force of only eleven hundred and fifty men. Investment, again, would not only be a very protracted affair, but was likely to fail, for the Arabs were no doubt well provisioned, while Tom had only a scanty stock of food. If they could have been deprived of water a siege would soon terminate, but Tom had learned from the prisoners that a constant supply was obtained from a deep well within the fort. The only method left was a night-attack, and after his previous experience De Castro would unquestionably be on his guard against surprise. Still, it seemed the only possible course, and Tom, after breakfast, sat down to think out the points involved.
The most common danger attending a night-attack--the risk of losing the way and stumbling on the enemy unawares--was absent. Further, the attackers could approach the palisade under cover of darkness with less risk of suffering serious loss by rifle fire than if the assault were made by daylight. By making feints in two or three quarters Tom could throw his main force in overwhelming strength on the real point of attack. And, last consideration of all, the Arabs had an inveterate repugnance to fighting by night, whereas his own troops had by repeated successes gained confidence in this respect. The only great disadvantage was that, unfamiliar as he was with the interior of the fort, he could not be sure in the darkness of directing the attack towards the most vulnerable points; but this drawback might be neutralized by a simple means he had at hand.