After their defeat on the 18th of October, in which they lost the greater part of the spoil taken at Luluabourg, Kabinda, and Gandu, the Batetelas broke up into small bands, and sought refuge in a forest, into which it was impracticable for the State’s forces to pursue them. The latter had now become nearly a thousand strong, and numbered among its officers the brave Michaux, Svensson, De Besche, Jürgens, Konings, and Droeven—a force sufficient, it was believed, to deal with any recrudescence of the trouble. A few days later an incident occurred which rudely dispelled this notion. The scattered bands of mutineers again united, to make safe their retreat, and were probably about to march to the Manyema country, when they accidentally met a Belgian column. Both were surprised. The Batetelas, by far the more numerous, at once attacked the Belgians. At the very opening of the fight, the four Belgian officers who were leading the Congo force were shot dead. The bands which had to the present refrained from joining the main body of the Batetelas now hastened to do so. Perceiving that their power would continue to grow so long as they were left unmolested, Commandant Lothaire determined to attack the Batetelas again with all the force at his command. The battle took place November 6th, at Gongo Machoffe, and resulted in a complete victory for the State forces. The Batetelas lost heavily in killed and prisoners, while such of them as survived fled for protection to various local chiefs, who soon, however, handed them over to Commandant Lothaire. Again, notwithstanding their bitter experience, the Congo State and its advisers, military and civil, permitted themselves to be lulled into the confidence of security. Nearly two years of quietude on the part of the Batetelas led the Belgians to believe that that fierce race had forgiven, if they had not forgotten, the injury unwittingly inflicted upon them—that the trouble had been fought out, and the incident from which it originated relegated to its proper place among the unfortunate happenings of a bygone period. [Sidenote: The Second Revolt.] The awakening from this dream came in 1897. Commandant Chaltin had driven the Dervishes as far as the Nile, and Baron Dhanis, with a larger force than Chaltin’s, had been sent to take possession of the Lado territory to found posts there, and to fortify it against possible Dervish inroads. With a column of more than three thousand men, a third of whom were Batetelas, Dhanis set out from Avakubi towards the Nile.