Arrangements for pursuing the enemy, and sudden change of plans.  
“You seem to be taking it easy, old boy,” said a voice close to my elbow.
 
I started, and looked up hastily.
 
“Ah! Peterkin. You there?”
 
“Ay; and may I not reply, with some surprise, you here?”
 
“Truly you may,—but what could I do? The men ran away from me, whether I would or no; and you are aware I could not make myself understood, not being able to— But where is Jack?”
 
I asked this abruptly, because it occurred to me at that moment that he and Peterkin should have been together.
 
“Where is Jack?” echoed Peterkin; “I may ask that of you, for I am ignorant on the point. He and I got separated in endeavouring to escape from the scrimmage caused by your valiant attack. You seem to have scattered the whole force to the winds. Oh, here he is, and Mak along with him.”
 
Jack and our guide came running into the camp at that moment.
 
“Well, Ralph, what of Okandaga?”
 
“Ah! what of her indeed?” said Peterkin. “I forgot her. You don’t moan to say she was not in the camp?”
 
“Indeed she was,” said I, “and so were Mbango, and his wife Njamie, and one or two others whom I did not know; but my men went at them with such ferocity that they fled along with our enemies.”
 
“Fled!” cried Jack.
 
“Ay; and I fear much that it will fare ill with them if they are overtaken, for the men were wild with excitement and passion.”
 
“Come, this must be looked to,” cried Jack, seizing his rifle and tightening his belt; “we must follow, for if they escape our hands they will certainly be retaken by their former captors.”
 
We followed our comrade, without further remark, in the direction of the fugitives; but although we ran fast and long, we failed to come up with them. For two hours did we dash through bush and brake, jungle and morass, led by Makarooroo, and lighted by the pale beams of the moon. Then we came to a halt, and sat down to consult.
 
“Dem be gone,” said our wretched guide, whose cup of happiness was thus dashed from his hand just as he was about to raise it to his lips.
 
“Now, don’t look so dismal, Mak,” cried Peterkin, slapping the man on the shoulder. “You may depend upon it, we will hunt her up somehow or other. Only let us keep stout hearts, and we can do anything.”
 
“Very easily said, Master Peterkin,” observed Jack; “but what course do you propose we should follow just now?”
 
“Collect our scattered men; go back to the village; have a palaver with King Jambai and his chiefs; get up a pursuit, and run the foxes to earth.”
 
“And suppose,” said Jack, “that you don’t know in which direction they have fled, how can we pursue them?”
 
“It is very easy to suppose all manner of difficulties,” retorted Peterkin. “If you have a better plan, out with it.”
 
“I have no better plan, but I have a slight addition to make to yours, which is, that when we collect a few of our men, I shall send them out to every point of the compass, to make tracks like the spokes of a wheel, of which the village shall be the centre; and by that means we shall be pretty certain to get information ere long as to the whereabouts of our fugitives. So now let us be up and doing; time is precious to-night.”
 
In accordance with this plan, we rapidly retraced our steps to the dell, which had been appointed as our place of rendezvous. Here we found the greater part of our men assembled; and so well-timed had Jack’s movements been, that not one of them all had been able to overtake or slay a single enemy. Thus, by able generalship, had Jack gained a complete and bloodless victory.
 
Having detached and sent off our scouts—who, besides being picked men, travelled without any other encumbrance than their arms—we resumed our journey homeward, and reached the village not long after sunrise, to the immense surprise of Jambai, who could scarcely believe that we had routed the enemy so completely, and whose scepticism was further increased by the total, and to him unaccountable, absence of prisoners, or of any other trophies of our success in the fight. But Jack made a public speech, of such an elaborate, deeply mysterious, and totally incomprehensible character, that even Makarooroo, who translated, listened and spoke with the deepest reverence and wonder; and when he had concluded, there was evidently a firm impression on the minds of the natives that this victory was—by some means or in some way or other quite inexplicable but highly satisfactory—the greatest they had ever achieved.
 
The king at once agreed to Jack’s proposal that a grand pursuit should take place, to commence the instant news should be brought in by the scouts. But the news, when it did come, had the effect of totally altering our plans.
 
The first scout who returned told us that he had fallen in with a large body of the enemy encamped on the margin of a small pond. Creeping like a snake through the grass, he succeeded in getting near enough to overhear the conversation, from which he gathered two important pieces of information—namely, that they meant to return to their own lands in a north-easterly direction, and that their prisoners had escaped by means of a canoe which they found on the banks of the river that flowed past King Jambai’s village.
 
The first piece of information decided the king to assemble his followers, and go off in pursuit of them at once; the second piece of news determined us to obtain a canoe and follow Mbango and his companions to the sea-coast, whither, from all that we heard, we concluded they must certainly have gone. As this, however, was a journey of many weeks, we had to take the matter into serious consideration.
 
“It is quite evident,” said Jack, as we sat over our supper on the night after receiving the above news—“it is quite evident that they mean to go to the coast, for Mbango had often expressed to Mak a wish to go there; and the mere fact of their having been seen to escape and take down stream, is in itself pretty strong evidence that they did not mean to return to their now desolated village, seeing that the country behind them is swarming with enemies; and of course they cannot know that we have conquered the main body of these rascals. I therefore propose that we should procure a canoe and follow them: first, because we must at all hazards get hold of poor Okandaga, and relieve the anxiety of our faithful guide Makarooroo; and second, because it is just as well to go in that direction as in any other, in order to meet with wild animals, and see the wonders of this land.”
 
“But what if King Jambai takes it into his black woolly head to decline to let us go?” said Peterkin.
 
“In that case we must take French leave of him.”
 
“In which case,” said I, in some alarm, “all my specimens of natural history will be lost.”
 
Jack received this remark with a shake of his head and a look of great perplexity; and Peterkin said, “Ah, Ralph, I fear there’s no help for it. You must make up your mind to say good-bye to your mummies—big puggies and all.”
 
“But you do not know,” said I energetically, “that Jambai will detain us against our will.”
 
“Certainly not,” replied Jack; “and for your sake I hope that he will not. At any rate I will go to see him about this point after supper. It’s of no use presenting a petition either to king, lord, or common while his stomach is empty. But there is another thing that perplexes me: that poor sick child, Njamie’s son, must not............