Instantly a thick cloud of missiles flew from the stockade, arrows whizzed, spears hurtled through the air. At the same moment, Tom, with his hundred, sallied out from the southern gate, the men raising a fierce whoop of exultation. From the northern gate, after a barely perceptible interval, came an answering cry; and within the stockade the warriors, hurling their weapons at the centre of the Arab line, added their shouts to the din. The confusion of the Arabs was too great to permit of their firing a volley; a few separate slugs fell among the Bahima, and ill-aimed spears struck down a few. But the troops of Tom and Barega were pressing hard upon the extremities of their line; they were driven in towards the centre. An attempt was made by their leaders to rank them in some sort of order, but the necessity of facing two ways at once baffled their efforts; the Bahima were upon them in a wild charge, and with cries of mingled fright and disappointment they broke and ran.
With yells of triumph the Bahima dashed in pursuit. But the sun was now peeping, large and red, over a distant ridge, and by its light Tom saw a fresh and well-ordered body of men advancing to the support of the fugitives. Divining that this was the Arab reserve, he ordered his drummer to beat the recall, at the very instant when the enemy, even at the risk of killing their own men, opened fire. The command was timely, for the Bahima, unaccustomed to the fire of muskets, already showed signs of trepidation. His drum was answered by the chief's, and the two bands retreated to their several gates, followed by the hostile force, their return being covered by a hot discharge of missiles from the stockade. After some hesitation, the enemy drew off to reconsider their plan of attack, pursued by a loud chorus of derisive yells.
Tom had not the heart to check the self congratulation of the people, who celebrated their victory with song and dance. Victorious, certainly, had they been, but Tom, cool in the midst of the excitement, had carefully scanned the opposing forces to estimate their strength, and he saw that Barega's warriors were greatly outnumbered. They were no more than six hundred fighting men all told, while the enemy, as nearly as he could tell, consisted of at least three times that number, some ninety of them being Arabs, and the rest Manyema. The success of the Bahima was evidently due solely to the surprise and confusion of the enemy, for, even with the advantage of the stockade, they could scarcely hope to outmatch a force so much larger, armed, moreover, as two hundred and fifty of them were, with muskets and rifles. The Bahima losses so far had been few; two men had been killed and five wounded, of whom two died later. Of the enemy, six Arabs and about thirty Manyema had been left upon the field, and others, doubtless, lay drowned at the bottom of the ditch. It was with some anxiety that Tom awaited the dawn of the next day. He passed a sleepless night, framing many conjectures as to the enemy's further operations, and thinking out plans for their discomfiture. But morning broke in silence; Tom wondered whether spear and shield were to remain idle. Looking over the stockade about ten o'clock, he saw a movement amid a clump of trees about half a mile up the slope to the south-west, and, carrying his eye downwards to the north-west, he observed similar evidences of activity in the thicker woods in that direction also. Before he had quite realized what this might portend, a large body of the enemy emerged from each clump, many of the men carrying what appeared to be a kind of trellis-work. Their object flashed instantly into Tom's mind; they were going to bridge the trench. Drums beat, and Bahima and Bairo rushed to the points threatened; but the enemy halted just out of range of their arrows, and, under cover of a phalanx of native shields, prepared to rush their extemporized bridge across the ditch.