"And I say, I’ve another idea. We want food badly: why shouldn’t I go out at night with Bill and a few others and shoot something?" "Are you quite mad, my dear chap? Your shots would bring them on you in no time." "Of course I shouldn’t attempt to shoot anything until we were miles away from the camp. We could cover five or six miles before it was light, and if we take care not to go to windward they won’t hear a single rifle-shot. A volley would be a different thing, I grant you." "I doubt whether the reeds on that side of the pool are thick enough to hide the canoe, and if they discover it----" "There’s no need to hide it," John interrupted. "One of the men can paddle it back, and come for us again when we give you a hail. We shall have to return by night, of course." "Well, you bowl over my objections one after another, so I suppose you must go. Can’t I come too?" "We can’t both leave the place." "Well, why shouldn’t I go and you stay?" "You see, I understand Bill better than you do, and he’ll be the one to find the game. I really think, Charley, this time----" "Oh, all right!" said Ferrier, interrupting. "This time, and that time, and all the other times!" "But you fired the boma!" "Is that to last me for ever?" "And came to find me, fighting: what about that? Still, if you want to go----" "Not a bit of it, old man. It’s your idea; you go; I’ll run over in my mind all the poetry I know and see if I can get a happy thought like Said Mohammed." Two hours before dawn the canoe was gently lowered by ropes over the wall at the end of the fort opposite the gate. Here, it will be remembered, the slope of the ground immediately beneath the wall was steep, but the island jutted out, in a fairly level spit, for some distance into the pool. John, the Wanderobbo, and five other men were let down in the same way, four of them to accompany John as carriers of any game he might obtain, the fifth to paddle the canoe back when they had landed. The night was very dark; they moved with scarcely a sound; and having gained the further shore John and his companions struck off across country. John’s intention had been to go directly north, but when Bill told him that the banks of the river would be the most likely quarter in which to find game at sunrise, when the animals came down to drink, he resolved to strike off in a north-westerly direction, from which quarter the wind blew, and gain the river somewhere north of the rapids. They marched very quickly, the plain on this side of the river being open, came to the river-bank in about half-an-hour, and then tramped along up-stream, careful not to approach the water too closely for fear of crocodiles. At dawn they were, John thought, at least five miles from the fort, but he decided to go a mile or two farther before beginning operations, to lessen any risk of shots being heard in the camp.