"The village. What are you smiling at? Snakes, I forgot they’ve run off with all my "trade." I’ve nothing to pay porters with. That’s bad. Still, the chief has known us some time, and perhaps he’ll trust us. I’ll see, first thing in the morning." "Who will you leave in charge of the farm? Not the Bengali?" "Rather not. He may be a very Nimrod in the Sunderbunds, but he’s a funk-stick here. No; Coja’s a better man." "But you’ll want him to interpret." "’M. Afraid I shall. I can rub along pretty well with Swahili by this time, but we may come across a tribe who don’t know it, and that would certainly be awkward. Well, Coja must come with us, then." "What I suggest is that you should send a note to Mr. Gillespie and ask him to send up a respectable European to take charge. He might come himself; he hasn’t paid you the visit he promised, and if you tell him what you’re after I’m sure he’ll do what he can. Besides, if we get bowled over, you know, it would be just as well he should have heard about the business beforehand, for your father’s sake. And I’d send a note to the Commissioner at Fort Hall too; he may be inclined to stretch a point." "I’ll do both. A good idea to get Gillespie up here, or some one he can trust. Of course if we’re lucky we shall get our rifles and things and be back here long before he could arrive. But then we mayn’t. I’ll write before we turn in. That’s settled." "Don’t you think we ought to have some sort of a plan before we start?" "Our plan is to go straight after the raiders, and march two miles or more to their one." "That’s all right; but what if they reckon on being pursued and lay a trap for us? You see, they were pursued last time, and they hadn’t done nearly so much damage then." "That’s true," said John; "but on the other hand there’s such a lot of them this time--we can divide Mohammed’s five hundred by five--there’s such a lot that they may think we’ll not attempt to bring them to book. Still, we ought to be on our guard. The worst of it is that if we have to go carefully we shall have to go slowly, and time’s everything in this job. Hand me a cigarette and let’s think it over." "Any good asking Bill?" "Not a bit. He can do tracking, follow his nose, but that’s about all. Besides, he’s so cranky just now that he’s fit for nothing. I wonder how much truth there is in this ivory yarn of his? We may get to the bottom of it by and by. But this plan of ours--any ideas, Charley?" "Not a ghost of one. We _must_ follow the track, and that may lead us into an ambush." "Wait a bit, though. If we could march on a line parallel to it we might go as fast as we liked without much danger." "How could we do that--far enough away from it not to be spotted, and yet near enough not to lose it?" "Of course we couldn’t all go together; some one must keep on the track, and that must be Bill for one."