s on the
mainland, while reeds suitable for the shafts of arrows grew in
inexhaustible quantities along the margin of the lake; and when once a
pattern bow and arrow had been made, and a sufficiency of wood and reeds
provided, the furnishing of every man with a good bow and quiverful of
arrows was speedily accomplished. There had at first been a difficulty
in the matter of arrowheads, but this had been overcome by the discovery
of an enormous deposit of flints--in searching for which a rich mine of
diamonds had come to light.

The construction of his fleet and the training of their crews having
been accomplished, Grosvenor next took the army in hand and proceeded to
train it in the use of the bow, succeeding at length, by dint of
indefatigable perseverance, in converting the soldiers into an army of
really brilliant marksmen.

This achievement brought the time on to nearly nine months from the date
of the adventurers' arrival in Izreel, during the first eight months of
which information had come in from time to time which left no room to
doubt that the savages of the adjoining nations had combined together
and were making the most elaborate preparations for a simultaneous
attack upon Izreel from all sides. Then the sources of information
seemed to suddenly dry up, and no news of any description relative to
the movements of the savages could be obtained.

The Izreelites were disposed to regard this as a favourable omen, many
even asserting their conviction that the savages had quarrelled among
themselves, and that attack from them was no longer to be feared; but
Dick and Grosvenor took quite another view of the matter. They regarded
the cessation of news as ominous in the extreme, and dispatched
imperative orders to the frontier for the maintenance of the utmost
vigilance, night and day. They also organised strong relays of swift
runners, radiating from various points along the shore of the lake to
those points where attack might first be expected, in order that
intelligence of an invasion might be brought to the capital with the
utmost promptitude. The strength of the garrisons in the outlying
blockhouses was also doubled, which were put under the command of the
most resolute and intelligent captains that could be found, with
instructions that each post was to be stubbornly defended until the
enemy should threaten to surround it, when it was to be abandoned, and
the garrison--or what might remain of it--was to r