As yard after yard of the ground was covered, he became more and more hopeful of gaining the shelter of the walls unmolested. But when the party was within less than half a mile of their goal there were shouts in the distance. Immediately afterwards, from the forest on the left, a cloud of horsemen dashed out and galloped straight towards them. At the same time a smaller party, farther ahead, rode diagonally across the open ground to cut them off. It was a critical moment. There was just time, Royce thought, to reach the small belt of woodland below the hillock. Calling on the carriers to hurry, he placed the Hausas to guard their flank. "Tell the men to go straight up to the fort," he said to John, adding to Challis: "We must try to keep the enemy off until the men are safe." Spurred on by fear, the carriers quickened their pace. The Tubus, uttering fierce yells, dashed on, firing their guns aimlessly. Tense with anxiety, Royce measured with his eye the distances between his party, the woodland, and the horsemen, and it was with a gasp of relief that he gained the trees while the Tubus were still a hundred yards away. The two bands of horsemen closed in, and rode towards the woodland. At the edge of the belt Royce had drawn up his little party of riflemen. They fired two volleys in quick succession at the charging crowd. Remembering what they had suffered in the previous attacks, the Tubus, seeing several of their numbers fall, checked their horses and withdrew a short distance. "Goruba isn't with them," said Royce. But at that moment the tall negro came galloping from the rear, and, brandishing a huge scimitar, began to harangue his hesitating men. "Come!" said Royce quietly. Without waiting to see the inevitable result of Goruba's furious words, he withdrew his men quickly through the wood, splashed through the little stream that bathed the foot of the hillock, and climbed up to the fort. The carriers had already disappeared within the walls. "Only by the skin of our teeth!" panted Challis, as he stumbled into the entrance. "And this is only the beginning of things!" returned Royce. "What is to follow?" CHAPTER XIV AT BAY Tired out by their long march on insufficient food, the men were in no condition to withstand a determined attack; and Royce felt that all was lost if Goruba pushed on at once at the head of his men. But apparently Goruba had no such intention. He led his men, indeed, almost to the base of the hillock; but then, discovering that the retiring party had entered the fort, he swung round to the left, rode along the bank of the stream, and disappeared among the trees a quarter of a mile away.