"But don’t you think we’ve done for Juma? To-night’s work will damage his prestige, and I shouldn’t wonder if the ’bad men,’ as Bill calls them, round on him now." "I don’t know. It will take him some time to recover from the blow, of course, but you see he still has some of our rifles and a certain amount of ammunition, I should think, and they’ll go a long way in this country of bows and arrows. No: I confess I’d like to follow him up. The chief difficulty is our natives. They’ve recovered their property, which is what they came for, and I rather doubt whether they’ll be willing to go any farther from home. If they won’t there’s no more to be said." "In any case we aren’t strong enough to storm the fort, if it is a fort." "I shouldn’t propose to do that. My idea is to start at sunrise or before, and get to the fort in advance of Juma. His men are quite demoralized: they’ll take some time to rally. They’ll probably hide in trees during the night, and they’ll have to find one another in the morning, so that if we start early we can easily outstrip them." "We don’t know the way." "But we’ve got some prisoners, my boy. No, we haven’t though; I called our men off before they caught them. That’s awkward." "I wonder if the fellow who tried to pot me is still alive." "You didn’t tell me of that. When was it?" Ferrier related the incident that happened outside the boma. John at once accompanied him to the spot, which they reached just in time to see the wounded man limping towards the outer hedge. They ran after him and caught him, taking him back to the camp, where John examined his leg, and did what he could by bathing and bandaging. Meanwhile he questioned the man, and learnt from him that the fort lay a long day’s march to the north. It was held by about forty men, of whom several were Swahilis and had rifles. The fort was built on an island in the river--not the stream flowing past the camp, but a broader river into which that emptied itself a day’s march to the south. To find it would be easy. They had only to follow the stream for a short distance, and then strike across country directly to the north. They would soon come upon the river, and the surrounding country being hilly, the easiest way to the fort was to follow its course. "Now we’ll tackle our natives," said John.