“Dem be gone,” said our wretched guide, whose cup of happiness was thus dashed from his hand just as he was about to raise it to his lips.
“Now, don’t look so dismal, Mak,” cried Peterkin, slapping the man on the shoulder. “You may depend upon it, we will hunt her up somehow or other. Only let us keep stout hearts, and we can do anything.”
“Very easily said, Master Peterkin,” observed Jack; “but what course do you propose we should follow just now?”
“Collect our scattered men; go back to the village; have a palaver with King Jambai and his chiefs; get up a pursuit, and run the foxes to earth.”
“And suppose,” said Jack, “that you don’t know in which direction they have fled, how can we pursue them?”
“It is very easy to suppose all manner of difficulties,” retorted Peterkin. “If you have a better plan, out with it.”
“I have no better plan, but I have a slight addition to make to yours, which is, that when we collect a few of our men, I shall send them out to every point of the compass, to make tracks like the spokes of a wheel, of which the village shall be the centre; and by that means we shall be pretty certain to get information ere long as to the whereabouts of our fugitives. So now let us be up and doing; time is precious to-night.”
In accordance with this plan, we rapidly retraced our steps to the dell, which had been appointed as our place of rendezvous. Here we found the greater part of our men assembled; and so well-timed had Jack’s movements been, that not one of them all had been able to overtake or slay a single enemy. Thus, by able generalship, had Jack gained a complete and bloodless victory.
Having detached and sent off our scouts—who, besides being picked men, travelled without any other encumbrance than their arms—we resumed our journey homeward, and reached the village not long after sunrise, to the immense surprise of Jambai, who could scarcely believe that we had routed the enemy so completely, and whose scepticism was further increased by the total, and to him unaccountable, absence of prisoners, or of any other trophies of our success in the fight. But Jack made a public speech, of such an elaborate, deeply mysterious, and totally incomprehensible character, that even Makarooroo, who translated, listened and spoke with the deepest reverence and wonder; and when he had concluded, there was evidently a firm impression on the minds of the natives that this victory was—by some means or in some way or other quite inexplicable but highly satisfactory—the greatest they had ever achieved.
The king at once agreed to Jack’s proposal that a grand pursuit should take place, to commence the instant news should be brought in by the scouts. But the news, when it did come, had the effect of totally altering our plans.