"It's queer nobody knowing where he really comes from."
"You may be sure he doesn't play his tricks anywhere near his own headquarters. More likely than not, he and his cut-throat lot start out disguised as peaceful merchants, in separate bands, and join up when they reach the seat of operations. There are vast tracts of Senegal practically unexplored. They would give endless cover to one of his kidney."
"If you had the luck to bag him, what should you do?"
"Shoot him straight off, knowing the earth was well rid of a villain."
"But what's his idea in coming as far south as this? He's never been heard of on this side of the Senegal River before."
"Plunder. Guns, most likely. He's heard we're none too welcome, and hardly settled here, and thinks we shall prove an easy prey."
However, the little English force was not to prove quite the easy prey the Sultan had imagined when he came south in quest of new weapons.
The next night, without any warning, he attacked Barclay's headquarters.
He struck at an hour when all was darkest; not with his usual swoop of wild horsemen, but stealthily.
Unchallenged and unmolested, he and his following scaled the stockade and crept towards the tiny fort, vague shadows moving silently in the purple darkness.