They walked on for about fifty yards, and there, sure enough, over a rocky slope to their left, and at the foot of a crag about three hundred yards away, could be seen the bright and fitful glow from a fire which was hidden from their view by a low ridge of piled-up rocks.

Whitson stood still and questioned Ghamba: 

“Now tell me,” he asked, through Langley as interpreter, “how we are to approach.”

“The pathway leads up on the left side,” replied Ghamba.  “We will walk close up to the crag, where there is a narrow passage between it and that big black rock which you see against the light.  You two can lead, and I will be close behind.  I have just seen him.  He is sitting at the fire, eating, and only the women are with him.”

The last words were hardly out of the speaker’s mouth before Whitson had seized him by the throat with a vice-like grasp.

“Seize his hands and hold them,” he hissed to Langley.

Ghamba struggled desperately, but could not release himself.  Whitson compressed his throat until he became unconscious, and then gagged him with a pocket-handkerchief.  Ghamba’s hands were then tied tightly behind his back with another pocket-handkerchief, and his feet were firmly secured with a belt.  An empty sack (from which they had removed their provisions) was then drawn over his head and shoulders, and secured round the waist.

“Come on now, quickly,” whispered Whitson, and he and Langley started off in the direction of the fire, after first taking off their boots.

They did not approach by the course which Ghamba had indicated, but made their way quietly up the slope, straight against the face of the crag.  They reached the heap of rocks, and crept in among them by means of another narrow passage, close to the inner end of which the fire was; and this is what they saw through the twigs of a scrubby bush which effectually concealed them: 

A large cave opened into the side of the mountain, and just before the mouth was an open space about twenty yards in diameter, surrounded on all sides, except that of the mountain itself, by a wall of loosely piled rocks, through which passages led out in different directions.  Just in front of the cave burned a bright fire, around which crouched four most hideous and filthy-looking old hags, and against which were propped several large earthenware pots of native make, full of water.  Standing behind rocks, one at each side of the inner entrance to the passage, which was evidently that communicating with the pathway indicated by Ghamba as the one they were to approach by, were two powerful-looking men, stark naked, and as black as ebony, their skins shining in the light of the fire.  Each man held a coiled thong in his hands, after the manner of a sailor about to heave a line.  While they were looking, a woman, somewhat younger in appearance than any of those who sat by the fire, came out of the cave carrying a strong club about three feet long.  She crouched down close to the man standing on the left-side of the passage, who, as well as his companion, stood as still as a marble statue, and in an expectant attitude.