midnight
About an hour after sunset Zinti crept into the camp and asked for food to eat , for he had travelled far and was hungry ; moreover , he had been chased by some Pondo soldiers to whom , feigning the fool he was commonly supposed to be , he would make no answer when they questioned him . When he had eaten he made his report to Sigwe , Suzanne , and Sihamba , and the gist of it was that he had found a good road by which men might safely ascend the cliffs , though not so easily as they could travel through the gorge . Following this road , he added , they could pass round the Pondo town , avoiding its fortifications , and coming out at the cattle kraals at the back of the town , for he had climbed a high tree and mapped out the route with his eye . Then followed a council of war , and the upshot of it was that , under the leadership of Zinti , the army marched off in silence an hour before midnight , leaving its cooking fires burning to deceive the Pondos . They climbed the cliffs by the path he showed them , and , travelling all night , at dawn found themselves before the cattle kraals , which , as no enemy was expected , were unguarded except by the herds . These they cleared of the cattle , some thousands of them , and marched on at speed , sending a message back to the town by the herds that this was the luck which those must expect who attempted to trap the Swallow in a snare set for a rock-rabbit . The Pondos were very angry at their loss , and , gathering their strength , followed them for some days , but before they could come up with them Sigwe and his army had reached country so difficult and so far away that the Pondo chief thought it wisest to leave them alone .