So strange a procession, at dead of night--the lights flickering on the trees, the negroes chattering in loud tones to keep their courage up--must have startled the furred and feathered inhabitants of the forest. Birds clattered out of the foliage, insects swarmed around the lanterns; no four-footed beast came within sight. It was about midnight when they arrived at the camp, pitched on one of those wide bare spaces which break the continuity of the upland forest. Fires had been kindled at several points of the circuit. Within was a scene of great confusion--women, children, and bales of goods lying helter-skelter. Hopeless of evolving order at this hour, Tom contented himself with posting three sections of six men each as sentries on the southern border of the camp, where alone danger might be feared. An attack seemed to him improbable. The plantation had been cleared of men; and even if the fugitive Germans and Arabs had succeeded in reaching a German post, there was little chance of an armed force coming up while night lasted. Nevertheless, the sense of responsibility and the need of keeping a close watch on Reinecke, whom, out of respect for the white man’s dignity, he had left unbound, prevented Tom from getting any sleep. Indeed, few of all those there encamped, except the children, closed their eyes. The negroes, for all their weariness, talked excitedly, hour after hour, of the wonderful change that the m’sungu had wrought in their lives, and speculated on the fate in store for their late master. Watching them, Tom could not help questioning within himself whether he had done right, whether they would be able to defend and maintain their new-won freedom; but with the hopefulness of buoyant youth he dismissed his doubts, resolving that, so far as lay in him, nothing should be left undone to safeguard them. After all, British territory was only forty miles away. An hour before dawn the camp was astir. Everybody was fed: then, just as light was stealing over the scene, the women and children were sent off under escort, scouting parties dispatched southward; the unarmed men gathered their loads and departed. Mirambo and a score of the elder men with rifles accompanied the latter, with orders not to allow the askaris to approach within half an hour’s march of the nullah. They were to drop their loads at a convenient spot and return under guard for more. Tom remained at the camp, keeping the prisoners and the remainder of his armed men.