Another idea suggested itself which, hazardous as it seemed, had a certain attractiveness that commended it to Tom's sense of sport He called up Mwesa.
"What does Reinecke do when he comes back from Bismarckburg with askaris?" he asked.
"Him eat all too much," replied the boy.
"Yes, but I mean what does he do before that? Where does he dismiss the askaris?"
"Dey all go to house, sah; stand outside; den he make um say one, two, three; den dey go home."
Tom gathered that Reinecke was accustomed to hold a sort of inspection parade before dismissing the men to their shed several hundred yards away. From his own experience he knew the method of procedure with the porters. These brought their loads to the bungalow; the goods were checked off by Yakoub, the native clerk, then carried to the store-sheds.
"Very good, Mwesa.... Here come my scouts--without prisoners. See what they say."
The twelve men he had sent in pursuit of the runaways reported that they had run almost to Bismarckburg--a typical native exaggeration at which Tom smiled. They had seen Reinecke and his party coming slowly up the road: neither the overseers nor the sergeant were with them. Since the African has no measure either of time or distance Tom could not discover exactly how far away Reinecke was when the men saw him; but on his asking when the party would arrive, the spokesman pointed to the sun and then stooped and moved his hand along just above the ground.
"At sunset, as I thought," said Tom to himself. "Then we have about two hours."
An hour later the second contingent of the people left, well loaded up. Tom locked the gate behind them, then set forty men whom he had retained to remove all litter and other traces of the exodus from that portion of the road which must be traversed in approaching the bungalow. This done, he gave rifles and a round or two of ammunition to twenty of the men, and ordered the other twenty to arm themselves with implements of their daily work. It still wanted half an hour of sunset. Tom allowed the men twenty minutes to make a good meal; then he divided each band, posting ten riflemen and ten of the others in the bushes near the gate, and the rest under cover in the grounds of the bungalow, where they commanded the open space in front of the entrance. This last disposition was made very stealthily, in order to avoid attracting the attention of the household servants, who, however, were busy in their outbuildings at the back, making final preparations for their master's dinner.