Sam watched all night, without hearing any sound of vehicles, but in the morning he saw that several more guerillas had come in during the night. In the morning parties of twos and threes began to come in from the direction of Vittoria, and it was evident from the shouting and noise in the village that these brought satisfactory news of some kind. In the afternoon most of them went out again in a body to the wood at the foot of the hill, and soon afterwards Sam saw a cart coming along across the plain. Two men walked beside it, and Sam could see one, if not two more perched upon the top of the load. Three others walked along at a distance of some fifty yards ahead, and as many more at about the same distance behind. He could see others making their way through the fields. "Dis berry bad job," Sam said to himself; "me berry much afraid dat Massa Tom he not get back in time. Der's too many for Sam to fight all by himself, but he must do someting." Whereupon Sam set to to think with all his might, and presently burst into a broad grin. "Sure enough dat do," he said; "now let me arrange all about what dey call de pamerphernalia." First, he emptied out the contents of a couple of dozen pistol cartridges; he wetted the powder and rolled it up in six cartridges, like squibs, three short ones and three much longer. Then he opened Tom's kit, and took out a small box of paints, which Tom had carried with him for making dark lines on his face, and in other ways to assist his disguise. Taking some white paint, Sam painted his eyelids up to his eyebrows, and a circle on his cheeks, giving the eyes at a short distance the appearance of ghastly saucers. "Dat will do for de present," he said; "now for business. If dey wait till it get dark, all right; if not, Sam do for Nunez and two or three more, and den go down with Massa Peter!" Then carefully examining the priming of the pair of pistols, which he carried--the very pistols given to Peter by the passengers of the Marlborough coach--he prepared to set out.