About midnight he must have crossed the Letsitela. Here he made a grave blunder. If he had tried the Berg by one of the faces he might have got on to the plateau and been at Inanda’s Kraal by the dawning. But he over-estimated the size of the commandoes, and held on to the north, where he thought there would be no defence. About one o’clock Arcoll, tired of inaction and conscious that he had misread Laputa’s tactics, resolved on a bold stroke. He sent half his police to the Berg to reinforce the commandoes, bidding them get into touch with the post at Blaauwildebeestefontein. A little after two o’clock a diversion occurred. Henriques succeeded in crossing the road three miles east of Main Drift. He had probably left the kraal early in the night and had tried to cross farther west, but had been deterred by the patrols. East of Main Drift, where the police were fewer, he succeeded; but he had not gone far till he was discovered by the Basuto scouts. The find was reported to Arcoll, who guessed at once who this traveller was. He dared not send out any of his white men, but he bade a party of the scouts follow the Portugoose’s trail. They shadowed him to Dupree’s Drift, where he crossed the Letaba. There he lay down by the roadside to sleep, while they kept him company. A hard fellow Henriques was, for he could slumber peacefully on the very scene of his murder. Dawn found Laputa at the head of the Klein Letaba glen, not far from ’Mpefu’s kraal. He got food at a hut, and set off at once up the wooded hill above it, which is a promontory of the plateau. By this time he must have been weary, or he would not have blundered as he did right into a post of the farmers. He was within an ace of capture, and to save himself was forced back from the scarp. He seems, to judge from reports, to have gone a little way south in the thicker timber, and then to have turned north again in the direction of Blaauwildebeestefontein. After that his movements are obscure. He was seen on the Klein Labongo, but the sight of the post at Blaauwildebeestefontein must have convinced him that a _korhaan_ could not escape that way. The next we heard of him was that he had joined Henriques. After daybreak Arcoll, having got his reports from the plateau, and knowing roughly the direction in which Laputa was shaping, decided to advance his lines. The farmers, reinforced by three more commandoes from the Pietersdorp district, still held the plateau, but the police were now on the line of the Great Letaba. It was Arcoll’s plan to hold that river and the long neck of land between it and the Labongo. His force was hourly increasing, and his mounted men would be able to prevent any escape on the flank to the east of Wesselsburg.