Tom was in the highest spirits. He felt confident now that the resources at his command were sufficient to defend the village against all attacks in force, and he hoped that the enemy would appreciate the situation and relinquish their enterprise.
The rest of that day passed uneventfully. At night sentries were posted as usual, and none of the precautions were relaxed; but there was no attack. The day slipped by with the same tranquillity. Parties of the enemy were seen at times, but they were always out of range, and, so far as could be ascertained from the village, were not making any preparations for renewing the assault. That night Tom, walking round by the stockade the last thing before turning in, noticed that at short intervals from the north gate round the western and southern sides to the extreme south-east corner, where the ground shelved down rapidly to the foot of the precipice, large watch-fires were burning, which had not previously been the case.
"What does that mean?" he thought. "Are they going to make a regular siege of it? I hope not, for to be cooped up here for another week would be awful. I'd give something for a newspaper, or Ranjy's cricket book, or even Euclid--yes, by Jove, even old _quod erat demonstrandum_--to help pass the time away. By the by, I'll be forgetting all my maths out here, and if I'm to stick to engineering that'll never do. Well, if it turns out a siege, I'll set myself a few stiff problems and correct the solutions experimentally, eh?--besides teaching these beggars something of infantry drill. Heigh-ho! 'the heathen in his blindness'--who'd have thought I should ever be living among 'em, and a blood-brother too!"
And as he walked back to his hut, in a fit of abstraction he began to whistle the tune of "From Greenland's icy mountains," to the great contentment of the katikiro lying awake.
The Arab Camp--A Balista--A Vain Appeal--Eureka--Cutting a Channel--The Eleventh Hour--Barega's Last Fight--After the Battle
Tom's premonitions were well founded; on awaking next morning he saw that the whole accessible part of the village was blockaded by a chain of posts extending from the north gate to the south-east corner. The banana plantations on the south side appeared to be occupied in force, and the object of the enemy was clearly to prevent any going in or coming out, and so to starve the villagers into submission. Naturally Tom congratulated himself on his foresight in stocking the village with food, and expressed to the chief his confident hope that the besiegers would tire.