All this time Tom had been gleaning various items of information as to the routes by which the enemy might be expected to come. There was, of course, the path through the forest, along which he himself had been carried to the village, but he learnt that there were two other possible ways, to the west and east of the direct route. These, however, would involve the crossing of at least two broad rivers, and the rainy season being barely over, the streams would be so swollen as to render fording impossible.
He would gladly have fortified the approaches to the village had this been possible, but after carefully weighing the pros and cons he reluctantly decided that he must be content to extemporize stockades when the approach of the Arabs was announced. Until the peril was imminent he could not count upon sufficient assistance from his allies to enable him to construct defensive works on all the paths by which the expected invasion might be made, and his own troops were clearly insufficient for the purpose.
The long-awaited signal came at length. On the night of November 28, a date which Tom carefully marked in the pocket-diary he had obtained from Herr Schwab, the faint taps of a drum were heard far away to the north. A few minutes later a distinct roll came from the nearest post. At distances of six and three miles the signal drummers had passed on the message received by them from posts farther afield. Reading the message by the prearranged code, Tom made out that a small force had been sighted sixty miles from the village. Surmising that this was merely the advance-guard, he calculated that the main body would take at least five or six days to arrive, and he resolved to wait until the morning before calling up his levies.
Soon after daybreak a courier came panting into the village, and announced that the line of runners had transmitted to him the news that a huge force of Arabs was advancing along the forest-path a mile or two in the rear of the advance-guard.
The village drummers were at once called on to signal the news to the allied chiefs, and runners were despatched to them all confirming the intelligence. The chiefs were each to send their women and children into Mwonga under a small escort, with not less than six weeks' supply of food. The warriors who were used to forest fighting were to muster at the edge of the forest, and await orders from Kuboko. The remainder, men of the plain, with no special skill in woodcraft, and dreading the forest as an unknown region of unimaginable terrors, were to concentrate to the north-east of the village, and hold themselves in readiness to move in any direction at a moment's notice. By making forced marches, all the fighting-men of the allies had arrived at their appointed places by the morning of the next day. It was a glorious morning, and, looking round from the village on the eager host, their spear-heads glittering in the sunlight, Tom drew good augury, and felt his heart leap within him.