Reinecke was patently surprised. The young cub, as he might have put it, seemed to have suddenly grown up. Even at that last dinner in the bungalow Tom had not taken quite this tone with him. He said no more at the moment: his thoughts were his own. In a few minutes he was punted across the lake on the raft, and left on the shore of the island to introduce himself to his fellow captives. Tom smiled as he watched them salute him, then step hastily aside as, without returning their salute, he pushed his way into the hut. In a few moments he came out and, gnawing his moustache, gazed across at the village, and up the side of the nullah. His lips moved: then he wheeled round and re-entered the hut, whence he emerged no more that day. It was a busy day for Tom. He saw that the failure of Reinecke’s expedition was sure to provoke the Germans to a serious attempt to deal with him. They would no longer hold him lightly, and suppose that he could be snuffed out by a handful of Askaris. When they came, they would come in force. It might be in a day or two; it might be perhaps after a week or more; much would depend on the state of the weather. Were the interval long or short, it must be utilised to the full in strengthening his position. An obvious precaution was to establish scouting posts between Bismarckburg and the scene of the previous day’s adventures. Tom went over the ground with some of M’setu’s men who were in his regular service as scouts, and fixed on two well-wooded knolls that commanded the track leading to the ravine. He surveyed the ravine itself with a view to fortifying it--or rather of blocking the way to the cleft--and came to the conclusion that this would involve too much labour, even if it could be achieved with any success. A more feasible scheme was to form barricades of rocks and trees at various points on the narrow cleft. These, held by a few men, would interpose awkward obstacles to any force that attempted to attack by the newly discovered back door. Tom set some of his men to work at once in erecting three barricades, some thirty yards apart. Then he clambered down by the ladder, and realising that that ingenious contrivance would hardly bear the strain of frequent use, gave directions that it should be strengthened. By this means communication between the nullah and the cleft above would always be safe: while in the event of his men being forced back and followed by the enemy, the ladder could be cut away, leaving the attackers in the air, so to speak, nearly twenty feet above the ground.