"I cannot tell you our precise positions yet until scouts have been up and down the river and reported on the nature of the ground. Meanwhile, Lister, you will send forward, say, five scouts over the bridge, and the rest of us will move slowly behind you."
Tom's pulse quickened as he listened to these plain directions. He wished he could change places with Captain Lister, as that officer went forward with the advance-guard to perform the task allotted him. In less than fifteen minutes the bulk of the force reached the bridge head. The scouts had already crossed, and were disappearing into the wooded country beyond. Other scouts had been sent out on each flank to examine the country up and down stream, and the captain, with two sergeants, was inspecting the bridge with a critical eye. On reaching the river-bank the major found that the water ran deep and the sides were precipitous. The bluff was inaccessible except from the rear, rising sheer up from the bed of the river and the path. Both up and down stream the country was dotted with scrub, and at the distance of about a hundred yards on each side of the path began a belt of forest, through, which the scouts were picking their way in skirmishing order.
"We have less than three hours of daylight left," said the major to Captain Lister at the bridge head, "so that we must put this business through as rapidly as possible. I hope you ordered the scouts to proceed cautiously, and not go too far. Half a mile will suit our book."
"Yes, and here are the down-stream fellows returning." A sergeant came up to the major and reported that, having skirted the bluff and crossed a belt of thin forest, he had come within six minutes to an open space, with a frontage of about two hundred yards and a breadth of some four hundred and fifty. This was absolutely free from trees or bush, but on the other side of it the forest was much thicker.
"Depend upon it, then, the Arabs, if here at all, are hiding in the forest beyond the clearing. We have them, Lister. If there are any up-stream they are evidently farther away. As the forest is much denser in that direction I think a hundred men with you will suffice to beat off any attack on that side; you must get your men to cut down some trees and form a rough abattis. The rest of the force will come northwards with me. We must take advantage of that clearing. Now it's time to send up the bluff and account for the log-rollers; that will prove conclusively how far these men have told the truth. I think we understand each other."
Captain Lister nodded. In a few minutes his men were busy felling the trees with the thickest foliage. They cut a wedge in the trunks with their axes, then toppled them over in the same direction as the strokes had fallen, so that they formed a high and almost impenetrable barrier.
Meanwhile Tom had already arranged the baggage in a semicircle about the bridge head, hidden by a jutting rock from anyone who might be at the summit of the bluff. Within the enclosure thus formed the carriers were assembled, and the rampart itself was defended by twenty-five men.
Fifteen of the most trustworthy of the Askaris, under Sergeant Abdullah, were by this time scaling the bluff from the rear, darting from tree to tree with wonderful celerity, their feet bare, their right hands clutching their rifles with bayonets fixed. They drew nearer and nearer to the summit, maintaining as even a line as the nature of the ground permitted, each man being about two yards from the next. When they came within a few yards of the top, and saw by the growing light that beyond them the trees had been felled, they moved still more warily. Thus they advanced to the very edge of the forest, and halted. Peeping from behind the trees they saw nine Arabs in front of them, not twenty paces away. Some were talking in low excited whispers, two were lying flat on their faces, peering over the three shaven tree-trunks that lay in readiness at the very edge of the precipice, and turning occasionally to make some comment on the proceedings.
Plan of the Battle of Imubinga.