"Bahima and Bairo," he said, "you are all my brothers and sisters. I believe that I am doing right in helping you to defeat the enemy who has caused so much misery to you and to all your race. Please God, we shall defeat them. We must all do our best--some to give orders, others to obey. My sisters, you will stay with your children in the middle of the village. The Arabs will have fire-sticks, and there is no need for any of you to run into danger. Your husbands will defend you, and strike hard for their homes."
Speeches at greater length were delivered by the chief and the katikiro. The people were deeply impressed; never had they gone to war in any such way before; and Tom on his side was struck with their intelligence, and the eagerness they showed to follow instructions so novel to them. He was a little uncertain of the steadiness of the Bairo, who were more impetuous and less docile than the Bahima; but they had been divided into companies under Bahima officers, and Tom himself had put them through a little drill in the brief intervals left by their task of fortifying the village. All that he feared was that they might break out in wild rushes, after the undisciplined negro's manner, and leave the stockade insufficiently defended.
Next morning, just as light was breaking, the sentries gave word that the enemy was advancing. Tom, waked by Mbutu out of a long quiet sleep, hastened to his post at the southern gate. For days he had been hammering it home into the negroes' heads that silence was a strong weapon on their side, but the negro cannot change his nature in a week, and as soon as the news had run through the camp, the eager warriors came clamorously out of their huts to the stockade. Tom bade them keep out of sight, and the enemy, advancing rapidly in crescent-shaped formation stretching from south-east to north-west, must have believed that the noise was merely the usual morning bustle in a large village. On they came, Arabs mingled with Manyema, in perfect silence and fair order, confident of finding easy access to their expected prize. The horns of the crescent reached the trench; twenty men at each extremity stepped heedlessly on to it, and instantly they were in the water, floundering beyond their depth. Loud cries of dismay filled the air; the rest of the force halted in amazement, scarcely able in the faint light to perceive what had happened. Then the deep boom of a drum rolled from the village, over the precipice, into the wooded plain.