"Splendid!" said John. "It would be a stunning sport if----"
But before he could complete the sentence Ferrier was running hard up-stream. There was a shout from the fort; the raft had been discovered; the second raft was still to be brought down. John instantly set the men to load up the first raft. Every movement was visible to the men in the fort. There were loud shouts; a few shots were fired; but the range was too long for inefficient marksmen. To John's consternation and alarm there came an echo to these shouts from up-stream. The warriors from the village were evidently within striking distance. Had they discovered Ferrier? Urging the men to hasten with the work of loading, he ran along the bank to see whether the second raft was on the way. Yes; it was sweeping down like the first, and on the opposite bank a crowd of yelling negroes rushed along, dodging the trees, and trying to keep pace. Ferrier paid no attention to them, his whole energy absorbed in his task. John sent a warning shot among the enemy, and they darted out of sight. The raft leapt and dashed and jolted down, and in little more than a minute after it passed John it lay moored beside the other at the shore of the pool.
The men having not yet finished the loading of the first raft, Ferrier had leisure to observe what the enemy were about. The warriors from the village, who had marched along the left bank of the river, were rushing round the northern shore of the pool towards the causeway. It was impossible to see what they would do when they reached it, and, to judge by the uproar in the fort, there was more excitement than cool calculation among Juma's party. But by the time the rafts were loaded, the breastworks replaced, and the ropes attached, the enemy's intention became clear. Before the rafts were loosed from their moorings and poled into the gentle current of the pool, a large number of negroes, with one or two Swahilis, emerged into view from behind the intervening island, and were seen hastening along the path which led from the causeway up the bluff.
"They've got a good start of us," Ferrier called from the leading raft. "We must run the gauntlet."
But now that the critical moment had arrived, John was setting his wits to work. In all the encounters with the enemy hitherto, success had been gained by the exercise of superior intelligence rather than superior force. Was there not a chance of outwitting them even now at the eleventh hour? Could they not be withdrawn from their threatening position above the gorge? An idea suggested itself: to let the rafts drift on until they came opposite the fort, and then to change their direction and pole them across the pool as if with the intention of landing on the western shore of the island and storming the fort. If the ruse succeeded, the enemy would rush back and swarm within the walls again.