THE RUSH OF THE SLAVES Well, we did all that we could in the way of making ready.

After we had strengthened the thorn fence of our _boma_ as much as possible and lit several large fires outside of it to give us light, I allotted his place to each of the hunters and saw that their rifles were in order and that they had plenty of ammunition.

Then I made Stephen lie down to sleep, telling him that I would wake him to watch later on.

This, however, I had no intention of doing as I wanted him to rise fresh and with a steady nerve on the occasion of his first fight.
As soon as I saw that his eyes were shut I sat down on a box to think.
To tell the truth, I was not altogether happy in my mind.

To begin with I did not know how the twenty bearers would behave under fire.