AN ANXIOUS PERIOD. 
197 
withdrew stolidly to repeat it to his master, and I 
was left alone with my men to discuss the further 
proceedings to be taken. Of course only the leading 
men of the caravan were consulted; the rank and file 
were supposed to be left in ignorance of our danger, 
lest panic should seize them. They knew well enough, 
however, having questioned the Gaga soldier, and now 
sat in a melancholy group discussing the probability 
of having their throats cut, and rueing openly the day 
that their ill fortune brought them to such a country. 
However, I had finished my confabulations, and there¬ 
fore ordered the men to be about their work as if 
nothing had happened, or was going to happen. One 
man was told to go and get firewood. He took an axe, 
and reluctantly left the timorous group of gossipers, 
but behold! he had scarcely got a hundred yards 
from the cleared ground of the settlement, when we 
saw him turning about and hastily retracing his steps, 
while from the brushwood and fern rose the glinting 
spears and white head-dresses of Mandara’s soldiers. 
It was then, on going to investigate, that I found we 
were regularly invested by an irregular ring of armed 
warriors, who were squatted in the grass and fern, 
without, however, any attempt at concealment. They 
had formed a cordon which they intimated must not 
be broken until the demands of the fiC Mange 99 were 
satisfied. Though firm in their language they were 
not uncivil, and were evidently only performing their 
duty. They were even respectful to me personally, 
evidently assuming that a quarrel between the white 
man and their chief was not their affair. We learned 
from them that Mandara meant to try and starve 
us into submission, that he intended to place these 
soldiers here to cut us off from all further food 
