Much pombe was drunk; many palavers took
place; a constant drumming of gongs and tom-toms disturbed their ears
by day and by night. The Englishmen concluded some big marauding
expedition was in contemplation. And they were quite right.
King Khatsua was about to concentrate his forces for an attack on
a neighbouring black monarch, as powerful and perhaps as cruel as
himself, Montisive of the Bush Veldt.
Slowly the preparations went on all around. Then the great day came
at last, and King Khatsua set forth on his mighty campaign, to the
sound of big drums and the blare of native trumpets.
When the warriors had marched out of the villages on their way
northward to the war, Guy saw the two prisoners' chance of escape
had arrived in earnest. They were guarded as usual, of course;
but not so strictly as before; and during the night, in particular,
Guy noticed with pleasure, little watch was now kept upon them. The
savage, indeed, can't hold two ideas in his head at once. If he's
making war on his neighbour on one side, he has no room left to
think of guarding his prisoners on the other.
"To-night," Guy said, one evening, as they sat together in their
hut, over their native supper of mealie cakes and springbok venison,
"we must make a bold stroke.
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