From the slaves themselves, now they had prospects of regaining their freedom, we had many valuable suggestions. One of the most important was that, instead of sending them all off at once, they should go away by twos and threes, and so no notice would be taken of their absence. As they very truly said, the escape of a slave or two was far too ordinary an occurrence to occasion any surprise; and small parties of men would be able to travel through the country with less fear of discovery than larger ones.
This was all agreed to, and three of them were allowed to go at once, bearing with them tokens from Hatibu, and a few words scratched on a banana leaf--for paper we had none--acquainting Tipolo with our position, and begging him to come to our assistance without delay.
This having been done, it was wonderful to see how the spirits of all of us, which had been much depressed, seemed to revive. Instead of the conversation round the camp-fires turning, as it usually had done, upon when we might expect to be attacked, and how long we might hold out, it was now principally of how much ivory and how many slaves might fall to the share of each of us in the war with Mona Mkulla. Some indeed went so far as to speak of the way in which they would set up as independent traders, and how, after making much money, they would build a stone house in their much-loved Unguja.
For the next few days nothing of importance occurred. The slaves whom we liberated got away without any apparent notice being taken by our enemies; but we found that the collecting and storing of provisions became more and more difficult, and that we were constantly subjected to insults by the natives. At last one day one of our men was struck by one of the smaller chiefs who had been most hostile to us at the great meeting where we had first seen Mona Mkulla. Our man retaliated, and he and four others who were with him were set on by the people, and escaped only by showing a firm front and by using their muskets. When they came into camp they reported that they had killed some of the natives, among them the principal aggressor, and had themselves been wounded by spears and arrows.
Fortunately none of the wounds was serious, and they would not prevent the men from assisting to repel the attack on our camp, which had now become imminent. On the same evening we heard the drums of all the neighbouring villages beating, and just before sunset we heard the sound of musketry. This could only proceed from people who would be our friends, and most probably from the men we had left at the other camp, so, though our ammunition was very precious, we fired two shots, and two more about five minutes after. This Hatibu said was a signal that any of Tipolo’s men would understand if they heard it.