Chapter Twelve.An Exciting Night among the Reeds.The task of cutting out the ivory and the ponderous horn of the rhinoceros occupied the five men for the remainder of the day, at the end of which the voyagers dined luxuriously upon the novel and dainty dish of baked elephant’s foot. When the spoils had at length been safely stowed away, theFlying Fishwas removed to a respectful distance from the huge carcases—over which there would assuredly be much snarling and fighting during the impending hours of darkness—and berthed in the midst of a dense clump of bush about half a mile to leeward of the small shallow lake already mentioned. It was the intention of the professor and Mildmay to lay up for an hour or two during the coming night among the rushes on its margin, in the hope of securing a shot at a unicorn, or, failing that, anything else worth shooting that might happen to present itself. They spent the quarter of an hour that preceded nightfall in carefully reconnoitring the position, and then retired to their cabins to make the necessary changes into shooting rig before dinner, it being an understood thing that there was no obligation upon any one to don evening dress if there were good and sufficient reasons against it, as in the present case, although the ladies made a point of doing so.The meal over and the after-dinner cigar duly smoked, Sir Reginald and his companion elephant-hunters having declared that they were too tired to enjoy any further sport that day, the professor and Mildmay bade the rest of the party good-night, and, taking their rifles, set out for the margin of the lake. As a matter of fact, they ought to have started nearly three hours earlier than they did, and taken up their position before nightfall, for many animals drink almost immediately after sunset, and before the light has entirely gone out of the sky; but they hoped to be still in time to get a shot, and hurried on, encouraged by the sounds that floated down to them from the lake telling of animals still there, drinking and bathing. The bathers were most probably elephants, but the pair decided not to interfere with them, arguing that, after all, they were not ivory hunters, and that their object was the acquisition of new or rare trophies, rather than an indiscriminate collection of skins, horns, tusks, and what not. Von Schalckenberg, indeed, declared that if he could not get a unicorn he did not want anything.Their progress was slow, for although the sky was cloudless and studded with stars that beamed with a clear, mellow radiance and brilliancy unknown in the more humid atmosphere of the temperate zones, the light that they afforded was sufficient only to reveal to the two men the clumps of bush and other objects close at hand. Moreover the grass was long and matted enough to demand the expenditure of a considerable amount of exertion to force a passage through it, and the night was close and very hot. To traverse the half-milebetween the ship and the margin of the lake cost them, therefore, nearly twenty minutes of toilsome walking. At length, however, the professor, who, as the more experienced hunter, was leading the way, murmured—“Ah! there is the water at last, thank goodness! And now, my friend, we must ‘go slow,’ as you say, and be careful where we put our feet, or we may stumble unawares over something that we have no desire to meet at quite such close quarters.”The next moment the precise thing of which he had spoken happened. His foot encountered something bulky and firm that yielded and moved at the contact, and before the unfortunate man could utter a cry of warning there occurred a sudden and violent rustling and switching of the long grass in front of him, something struck him a violent blow on the shoulder, and in an instant he found himself enveloped in the coils of an enormous python, the great head of which towered threateningly above him, as it opened wide its gaping jaws within a foot of his face and emitted a loud, sibilant, angry hiss. Its hot, foetid breath struck him full in the face and, in conjunction with the overpowering musky smell of its body, affected him with a deadly nausea that, of itself, was quite sufficient to rob him of all power of resistance, apart from the fact that his arms were bound to his body so tightly by one of the immense convolutions of the serpent’s body—which it seemed to him was nearly as thick as his own—that it was impossible to move them by even so little as a single inch. And those deadly coils were tightening round him, too; he could feel the pressure increasing more rapidly than he could draw the breath into his already painfully labouring lungs; and he vainly strove to utter a cry to his companion for help. His elbows were being forced into his ribs with such irresistible pressure that he momentarily expected to feel and hear the bones crack beneath it, while the compression of his chest was rapidly producing a feeling of suffocation, when, above the loud singing in his ears, he caught the faint click of Mildmay’s weapon. Then the great threatening head suddenly drooped, the constricting coils relaxed their pressure and opened out, allowing the professor to struggle free of their encircling folds, the huge body writhed convulsively, the great tail threshing down the grass during the space of a full minute or more; then the writhings gradually subsided, and finally the great reptile lay stretched almost at full length before them, dead, with a bullet from Mildmay’s rifle through its brain.“Thanks!” gasped the professor, as he wrung Mildmay’s hand, “that was a narrow escape for me, my friend, and I am indebted to you for my life. I could do nothing for myself, and even your companionship would have been of but little avail had you not acted so promptly. Another fifteen seconds in those great coils would have finished me off altogether. I thank you, Captain, and if ever the opportunity should occur I will do the same for you.”“Of course you will, old chap, I know that,” answered Mildmay, heartily; “and likely enough the opportunity may occur ere long. One never knows. What a monster! Why, he must measure at least five and thirty feet, if an inch. He is the biggest I have ever seen. Now, how do you feel? Would you rather go back to the ship, or shall we go on?”“Oh, we will go on, of course,” answered von Schalckenberg. “I am not a penny the worse for my little adventure, except that I feel bruised all over, and I expect I shall be too stiff to move to-morrow. The greater the reason why I should move to-night. Is not that so, my friend?”“That, of course, is for you to say,” laughed Mildmay. “Such a narrow squeak as you have had is enough to try any man’s nerves. But, if you would rather go on, I am your man.”“Come, then,” said the professor; “but let us pick our steps. One adventure of that kind, in a single night, is enough for any man.”After walking a few yards further the two men found themselves at the edge of the dip in which lay the lake, with the tall reeds that fringed the margin of the water rising some half a dozen yards ahead of them. The surface of the lake was just visible in the soft sheen of the starlight, and here and there, at no great distance, could be descried certain bulky forms standing in the water, which, from their size, could only be those of elephants; while a small pattering sound, as of falling rain, told the watchers that the great brutes were treating themselves to the luxury of a shower-bath. The elephants were well out from the shore, standing apparently knee-deep in the water; hence their visibility; but the reeds were too tall to permit of animals being seen if they happened to be drinking at the extreme edge of the water. The hunters had made what Mildmay characteristically designated “a bad landfall.” What they desired was, to find a spot where there was a gap in the bed of reeds through which they could at least catch a glimpse of the various beasts drinking, and they were in the very act of turning to seek such a spot when von Schalckenberg laid his hand on Mildmay’s arm, whispering excitedly—“My friend, look there.”Mildmay glanced in the direction indicated and saw, standing on the very crest of the bank over which they had just passed, a lion, that in the deceptive starlight appeared to be of enormous proportions. He was within fifteen feet of them, but it is doubtful whether he saw them, for they were below him and within the shadow of the reeds; but if he did not see them it was quite certain that he winded them, for he was gazing straight toward them, his eyes shining in the darkness like twin moons, and he was slowly sweeping his tail from side to side, as though asking himself what strange beings were these whose scent now greeted his nostrils for probably the first time in his life. But there was no time to be lost, for even as von Schalckenberg whispered to Mildmay, “You take him!” the beast crouched in preparation for a spring.Mildmay wasted no time in argument upon questions of hunting etiquette; he quite understood that the professor was offering him first shot as some trifling recognition of the service so lately rendered, and, throwing up his rifle to his shoulder, he aimed, as well as the darkness would permit, immediately between but an inch or two above the level of the eyes, and pulled the trigger. The click of the hammer was instantly followed by the thud of the bullet; a bulky body hurtled through the air, knocking Mildmay and the professor right and left backward among the reeds, and there lay the great beast, stone dead, between them.“Just in the nick of time!” murmured the professor. “Another second, and he would have had one of us.”“Yes,” agreed Mildmay, with zest. “We are not having such bad sport, are we, Professor, considering that we have only just come on the ground?”“Quite as good as could be expected,” assented von Schalckenberg. “But the sport has not been all on our side. Our friend, here, has at least had the excitement ofstalking us.”“Why, you surely do not mean to say that this beggar has been stalking us?” ejaculated the sailor.“As surely as that we are standing here,” answered the professor. “He was standing exactly in our tracks, and has undoubtedly been following our scent, which he probably crossed on his way down here to the water. It is lucky for us both that he did not come up while we were engaged with the python. Had he done so, there would probably have arisen a very awkward complication. Well, let us get on. We shall have to leave the skinning of him and the snake until to-morrow morning; and I only hope that the jackals will not spoil the pelts meanwhile.”Feeling their way carefully, they skirted the margin of the lake for some distance until they came to what they were seeking, namely, a break in the belt of encircling reeds. It was a good wide break, too, nearly a hundred yards across, as nearly as they could guess in the uncertain light; and from the down-trodden appearance of the grass leading to it, it appeared to be a favourite drinking-place. This conjecture was confirmed when the two hunters had forced their way into cover, by the sight of several vaguely defined forms showing at the edge of the water, about fifty yards away.Settling themselves comfortably in their bed of dry reeds and grass, the two hunters now concentrated their attention upon these indistinct and stealthily moving objects, with the result that, as their eyes gradually adapted themselves to the new conditions of light—or darkness, rather—it became possible for them to form some sort of opinion as to the species of the different animals there congregated together. They appeared to be chiefly bucks of various kinds, with a zebra or two, none of which the sportsmen thought worth a cartridge; they were therefore permitted to pass to and fro unmolested. Gradually the number of animals coming down to drink grew less and less, until at length no more came at all, and the spot seemed to be completely deserted. And then, with the cessation of the coming and going, the vigilance of the watchers gradually relaxed, and the thought occurred to Mildmay that they might as well be getting back to the ship. He made the suggestion to von Schalckenberg, but the latter pleaded so earnestly for an hour or two longer, urging the possibility of a visit from the unicorns, that the good-natured sailor readily gave way, with the remark—“All right, Professor. ‘In for a penny, in for a pound;’ I don’t mind. Only—I suppose a fellow mustn’t smoke?”“Smoke! oh no,” answered the professor, in keen distress at thus being obliged to deny his companion the solace of a pipe. “Do you think I am not pining for a smoke, too?” argued the scientist. “But were we to do so, the smell of the burning tobacco would scare everything away. Nothing would come near us. We will fill ourselves up with smokes when by-and-by we walk back to the ship.”So Mildmay settled himself down as comfortably as he could once more, and never knew when sleep overtook him. As for the professor, he was quite determined to remain where he was until daylight, if need were. He told himself that the unicornsmustdrink somewhere, and why not here? It was as likely a place as any, and quite worth watching, and—and—yes—um! The professor’s eyes closed, his thoughts wandered, and presently he, too, was asleep.The grey light of dawn was in the sky when the slumbering pair were startled into instant and broad wakefulness by the sound of a curious barking kind of neigh. They had heard it but once in their lives before this, but they both recognised it in a moment.“By Jove!” gasped the professor, laying his hand upon Mildmay’s arm and compressing it in a vice-like grasp, “the unicorns!”Mildmay nodded, and seizing their rifles, the pair, with infinite caution, parted the veiling reeds just sufficiently to afford them a glimpse in the direction from which the sound had proceeded. And there, within half a dozen yards of them, their eager gaze fell upon a troop of some thirty—horses? Well, they were, in appearance, like the horses one sees represented in Greek sculpture; rather short in the body, round in the barrel, with slim, elegantly shaped, but apparently very strong legs, and they carried their heads high upon thick, muscular, arching necks. They stood about fourteen hands high, and were of a beautiful deep cream colour, with short black manes, black switched tails similar to that of the gemsbok, and their legs were black from the knee downward. But their most remarkable characteristic was that the stallions were provided with a single, straight, black, sharply pointed horn, some three feet in length, projecting from the very centre of the forehead, two or three inches above the level of the eyes. They were descending the slope that led down to the water, and were advancing at a walk, their paces being singularly graceful and easy. Their leader, an exceedingly fine and handsome animal, was a yard or two in advance of the rest, and, with arching neck and head carried somewhat low, he came on, peering alertly right and left, evidently on the watch for possible enemies.“We must get a pair—two pairs if we can,” murmured von Schalckenberg in a low tone, rendered hoarse by excitement and anxiety. “You take the leader and another stallion, I will look out for the mares. Aim for just behind the shoulder. Are you ready?”“Yes,” breathed Mildmay.“Thenfire!” whispered the professor. And, as the rifle-hammers softly clicked, the thud of the bullets was heard, and the leader and a handsome mare dropped, shot through the heart. The troop halted instantly, snorting nervously and glancing quickly to right and left, clearly puzzled at this sudden and unaccountable fall of two of their number. Quick as thought the hidden sportsmen each selected a fresh victim, and ere one could count ten another pair of the beautiful creatures were down. This was enough; the unicorns now realised that some mysterious deadly influence was at work among them, and, throwing up their heads, they swerved short round and dashed off up the slope again, over the ridge of which they vanished the next moment, uttering shrill neighs of alarm.The two hunters rose to their feet and shook hands in mutual congratulation at their splendid luck ere they stepped out from their ambush to inspect and admire this magnificent and unique addition to their “bag.” The animals were all superb specimens, in perfect condition, without a blemish; their coats smooth and glossy as satin, the horns of the males long, straight, tough, and with points as sharp as that of a bayonet. The professor was in a perfect ecstasy of delight; he declared that this was the supreme moment of his life; and then corrected himself by saying that that moment would arrive when, in the fulness of time, he would confront his brother Fellows of the Zoological Society with the skins of a pair of unicorns, properly prepared and set up by Ward, in confutation of the thinly veiled doubts and scepticism with which certain of them had dared to receive a former statement of his that unicorns actually existed, and that he had beheld them with his own good eyes. They had not scrupled to suggest that possibly he might have been mistaken! Donner und Blitzen! would they still think so when they saw those skins? Ha, ha! When he, von Schalckenberg, next made a definite statement, they would, perhaps, be less ready to discredit it!The next question was, would Mildmay be so very obliging as to go back to the ship and bring her to the spot where the fallen unicorns lay? The remainder of the party, and especially the ladies, would doubtless like to see them, just as they were, ere the process of flaying had been begun; moreover, they would need the assistance of the other men in securing the skins, to say nothing of that of the lion and, possibly, the python. As for him, von Schalckenberg, he would remain there on guard to protect those priceless trophies from depredation and injury by vultures or wild beasts; they should never leave his sight until they were safely removed and stowed away. Danger? Ach! what was danger compared with the saving of those skins in perfect condition? Besides, he had his rifle and an abundant supply of cartridges; he was not afraid.“Very well,” said Mildmay, “I shall go.” And away he started up the slope forthwith, leaving the professor full in the open, seated upon the body of one of the unicorns, with his pipe in his mouth and his rifle in his hand, glaring round him warily through his gold-framed spectacles, keenly on the watch for any predatory creature that should dare to dispute the right of himself and his friend to their lawful spoils.When Mildmay reached the ship he found Sir Reginald, Lethbridge, and Sziszkinski already astir and taking their coffee in the dining-saloon. They greeted his appearance with a shout.“Hillo, Mildmay,” exclaimed the baronet, “where have you sprung from? Surely you have not been out all night? And yet you look as though you had. Any luck?”“Rather,” answered Mildmay, with emphasis. “Yes, thanks, George,” to the steward, “I’ll take a cup of coffee. Yes, the professor and I have been out all night, although I don’t think we really meant to stay so long, but—”“Well, but where is von Schalckenberg, then? Did he not come in with you?” interrupted Sir Reginald.“No,” answered Mildmay; “I left him by the margin of the lake, mounting guard over four unicorns, and—”“Unicorns?” ejaculated Lethbridge; “you lucky sailor-man! Surely you do not seriously mean to say that you have bagged any unicorns?”“Four unicorns—two males and two females; one lion, and a python. Not so bad for one night’s work, is it? And I came in, Sir Reginald, at the professor’s request, to suggest that we should move the ship over to the lake forthwith, to give you all a chance to see the beasts before we start to flay them, and also to place them under the protection of the ship, so to speak. For now that we have them, the professor is afraid to take his eyes off them for a moment lest something should get at them and spoil the pelts.”“I should say so,” concurred Sir Reginald. “All right, Mildmay, you cut away and get your bath. I will take the ship over at once. Whereabouts shall I find von Schalckenberg?”“Right at the southern end of the lake,” said Mildmay. “You can’t very well miss him. Look for a gap in the reeds, and steer for that. You will find him there.”And, as Mildmay retired to his cabin to prepare for a bath, the other three men hurried off to the pilot-house, eager to get a sight of the professor and his interesting “bag.”As theFlying Fishrose into the air, the occupants of her pilot-house levelled their powerful binoculars upon the margin of the lake, and almost immediately Lethbridge cried out—“I see him! There he is, away to the left, proudly mounting guard over his spoils. Starboard your helm a trifle, Elphinstone. So; steady as you go. Do you see him?”“Ay,” said Sir Reginald, “I see him now,” as he again raised his glasses to his eyes. “And, by Jove, he seems to be busy too. Surely he is using his rifle, isn’t he?”“He seems to be,” observed Sziszkinski. “Yes; he is down on one knee, aiming at something. Ha! look at that! Lucky man! he is getting all the sport. Surely that was a lion that sprang into the air and fell back among the rushes!”
The task of cutting out the ivory and the ponderous horn of the rhinoceros occupied the five men for the remainder of the day, at the end of which the voyagers dined luxuriously upon the novel and dainty dish of baked elephant’s foot. When the spoils had at length been safely stowed away, theFlying Fishwas removed to a respectful distance from the huge carcases—over which there would assuredly be much snarling and fighting during the impending hours of darkness—and berthed in the midst of a dense clump of bush about half a mile to leeward of the small shallow lake already mentioned. It was the intention of the professor and Mildmay to lay up for an hour or two during the coming night among the rushes on its margin, in the hope of securing a shot at a unicorn, or, failing that, anything else worth shooting that might happen to present itself. They spent the quarter of an hour that preceded nightfall in carefully reconnoitring the position, and then retired to their cabins to make the necessary changes into shooting rig before dinner, it being an understood thing that there was no obligation upon any one to don evening dress if there were good and sufficient reasons against it, as in the present case, although the ladies made a point of doing so.
The meal over and the after-dinner cigar duly smoked, Sir Reginald and his companion elephant-hunters having declared that they were too tired to enjoy any further sport that day, the professor and Mildmay bade the rest of the party good-night, and, taking their rifles, set out for the margin of the lake. As a matter of fact, they ought to have started nearly three hours earlier than they did, and taken up their position before nightfall, for many animals drink almost immediately after sunset, and before the light has entirely gone out of the sky; but they hoped to be still in time to get a shot, and hurried on, encouraged by the sounds that floated down to them from the lake telling of animals still there, drinking and bathing. The bathers were most probably elephants, but the pair decided not to interfere with them, arguing that, after all, they were not ivory hunters, and that their object was the acquisition of new or rare trophies, rather than an indiscriminate collection of skins, horns, tusks, and what not. Von Schalckenberg, indeed, declared that if he could not get a unicorn he did not want anything.
Their progress was slow, for although the sky was cloudless and studded with stars that beamed with a clear, mellow radiance and brilliancy unknown in the more humid atmosphere of the temperate zones, the light that they afforded was sufficient only to reveal to the two men the clumps of bush and other objects close at hand. Moreover the grass was long and matted enough to demand the expenditure of a considerable amount of exertion to force a passage through it, and the night was close and very hot. To traverse the half-milebetween the ship and the margin of the lake cost them, therefore, nearly twenty minutes of toilsome walking. At length, however, the professor, who, as the more experienced hunter, was leading the way, murmured—
“Ah! there is the water at last, thank goodness! And now, my friend, we must ‘go slow,’ as you say, and be careful where we put our feet, or we may stumble unawares over something that we have no desire to meet at quite such close quarters.”
The next moment the precise thing of which he had spoken happened. His foot encountered something bulky and firm that yielded and moved at the contact, and before the unfortunate man could utter a cry of warning there occurred a sudden and violent rustling and switching of the long grass in front of him, something struck him a violent blow on the shoulder, and in an instant he found himself enveloped in the coils of an enormous python, the great head of which towered threateningly above him, as it opened wide its gaping jaws within a foot of his face and emitted a loud, sibilant, angry hiss. Its hot, foetid breath struck him full in the face and, in conjunction with the overpowering musky smell of its body, affected him with a deadly nausea that, of itself, was quite sufficient to rob him of all power of resistance, apart from the fact that his arms were bound to his body so tightly by one of the immense convolutions of the serpent’s body—which it seemed to him was nearly as thick as his own—that it was impossible to move them by even so little as a single inch. And those deadly coils were tightening round him, too; he could feel the pressure increasing more rapidly than he could draw the breath into his already painfully labouring lungs; and he vainly strove to utter a cry to his companion for help. His elbows were being forced into his ribs with such irresistible pressure that he momentarily expected to feel and hear the bones crack beneath it, while the compression of his chest was rapidly producing a feeling of suffocation, when, above the loud singing in his ears, he caught the faint click of Mildmay’s weapon. Then the great threatening head suddenly drooped, the constricting coils relaxed their pressure and opened out, allowing the professor to struggle free of their encircling folds, the huge body writhed convulsively, the great tail threshing down the grass during the space of a full minute or more; then the writhings gradually subsided, and finally the great reptile lay stretched almost at full length before them, dead, with a bullet from Mildmay’s rifle through its brain.
“Thanks!” gasped the professor, as he wrung Mildmay’s hand, “that was a narrow escape for me, my friend, and I am indebted to you for my life. I could do nothing for myself, and even your companionship would have been of but little avail had you not acted so promptly. Another fifteen seconds in those great coils would have finished me off altogether. I thank you, Captain, and if ever the opportunity should occur I will do the same for you.”
“Of course you will, old chap, I know that,” answered Mildmay, heartily; “and likely enough the opportunity may occur ere long. One never knows. What a monster! Why, he must measure at least five and thirty feet, if an inch. He is the biggest I have ever seen. Now, how do you feel? Would you rather go back to the ship, or shall we go on?”
“Oh, we will go on, of course,” answered von Schalckenberg. “I am not a penny the worse for my little adventure, except that I feel bruised all over, and I expect I shall be too stiff to move to-morrow. The greater the reason why I should move to-night. Is not that so, my friend?”
“That, of course, is for you to say,” laughed Mildmay. “Such a narrow squeak as you have had is enough to try any man’s nerves. But, if you would rather go on, I am your man.”
“Come, then,” said the professor; “but let us pick our steps. One adventure of that kind, in a single night, is enough for any man.”
After walking a few yards further the two men found themselves at the edge of the dip in which lay the lake, with the tall reeds that fringed the margin of the water rising some half a dozen yards ahead of them. The surface of the lake was just visible in the soft sheen of the starlight, and here and there, at no great distance, could be descried certain bulky forms standing in the water, which, from their size, could only be those of elephants; while a small pattering sound, as of falling rain, told the watchers that the great brutes were treating themselves to the luxury of a shower-bath. The elephants were well out from the shore, standing apparently knee-deep in the water; hence their visibility; but the reeds were too tall to permit of animals being seen if they happened to be drinking at the extreme edge of the water. The hunters had made what Mildmay characteristically designated “a bad landfall.” What they desired was, to find a spot where there was a gap in the bed of reeds through which they could at least catch a glimpse of the various beasts drinking, and they were in the very act of turning to seek such a spot when von Schalckenberg laid his hand on Mildmay’s arm, whispering excitedly—
“My friend, look there.”
Mildmay glanced in the direction indicated and saw, standing on the very crest of the bank over which they had just passed, a lion, that in the deceptive starlight appeared to be of enormous proportions. He was within fifteen feet of them, but it is doubtful whether he saw them, for they were below him and within the shadow of the reeds; but if he did not see them it was quite certain that he winded them, for he was gazing straight toward them, his eyes shining in the darkness like twin moons, and he was slowly sweeping his tail from side to side, as though asking himself what strange beings were these whose scent now greeted his nostrils for probably the first time in his life. But there was no time to be lost, for even as von Schalckenberg whispered to Mildmay, “You take him!” the beast crouched in preparation for a spring.
Mildmay wasted no time in argument upon questions of hunting etiquette; he quite understood that the professor was offering him first shot as some trifling recognition of the service so lately rendered, and, throwing up his rifle to his shoulder, he aimed, as well as the darkness would permit, immediately between but an inch or two above the level of the eyes, and pulled the trigger. The click of the hammer was instantly followed by the thud of the bullet; a bulky body hurtled through the air, knocking Mildmay and the professor right and left backward among the reeds, and there lay the great beast, stone dead, between them.
“Just in the nick of time!” murmured the professor. “Another second, and he would have had one of us.”
“Yes,” agreed Mildmay, with zest. “We are not having such bad sport, are we, Professor, considering that we have only just come on the ground?”
“Quite as good as could be expected,” assented von Schalckenberg. “But the sport has not been all on our side. Our friend, here, has at least had the excitement ofstalking us.”
“Why, you surely do not mean to say that this beggar has been stalking us?” ejaculated the sailor.
“As surely as that we are standing here,” answered the professor. “He was standing exactly in our tracks, and has undoubtedly been following our scent, which he probably crossed on his way down here to the water. It is lucky for us both that he did not come up while we were engaged with the python. Had he done so, there would probably have arisen a very awkward complication. Well, let us get on. We shall have to leave the skinning of him and the snake until to-morrow morning; and I only hope that the jackals will not spoil the pelts meanwhile.”
Feeling their way carefully, they skirted the margin of the lake for some distance until they came to what they were seeking, namely, a break in the belt of encircling reeds. It was a good wide break, too, nearly a hundred yards across, as nearly as they could guess in the uncertain light; and from the down-trodden appearance of the grass leading to it, it appeared to be a favourite drinking-place. This conjecture was confirmed when the two hunters had forced their way into cover, by the sight of several vaguely defined forms showing at the edge of the water, about fifty yards away.
Settling themselves comfortably in their bed of dry reeds and grass, the two hunters now concentrated their attention upon these indistinct and stealthily moving objects, with the result that, as their eyes gradually adapted themselves to the new conditions of light—or darkness, rather—it became possible for them to form some sort of opinion as to the species of the different animals there congregated together. They appeared to be chiefly bucks of various kinds, with a zebra or two, none of which the sportsmen thought worth a cartridge; they were therefore permitted to pass to and fro unmolested. Gradually the number of animals coming down to drink grew less and less, until at length no more came at all, and the spot seemed to be completely deserted. And then, with the cessation of the coming and going, the vigilance of the watchers gradually relaxed, and the thought occurred to Mildmay that they might as well be getting back to the ship. He made the suggestion to von Schalckenberg, but the latter pleaded so earnestly for an hour or two longer, urging the possibility of a visit from the unicorns, that the good-natured sailor readily gave way, with the remark—
“All right, Professor. ‘In for a penny, in for a pound;’ I don’t mind. Only—I suppose a fellow mustn’t smoke?”
“Smoke! oh no,” answered the professor, in keen distress at thus being obliged to deny his companion the solace of a pipe. “Do you think I am not pining for a smoke, too?” argued the scientist. “But were we to do so, the smell of the burning tobacco would scare everything away. Nothing would come near us. We will fill ourselves up with smokes when by-and-by we walk back to the ship.”
So Mildmay settled himself down as comfortably as he could once more, and never knew when sleep overtook him. As for the professor, he was quite determined to remain where he was until daylight, if need were. He told himself that the unicornsmustdrink somewhere, and why not here? It was as likely a place as any, and quite worth watching, and—and—yes—um! The professor’s eyes closed, his thoughts wandered, and presently he, too, was asleep.
The grey light of dawn was in the sky when the slumbering pair were startled into instant and broad wakefulness by the sound of a curious barking kind of neigh. They had heard it but once in their lives before this, but they both recognised it in a moment.
“By Jove!” gasped the professor, laying his hand upon Mildmay’s arm and compressing it in a vice-like grasp, “the unicorns!”
Mildmay nodded, and seizing their rifles, the pair, with infinite caution, parted the veiling reeds just sufficiently to afford them a glimpse in the direction from which the sound had proceeded. And there, within half a dozen yards of them, their eager gaze fell upon a troop of some thirty—horses? Well, they were, in appearance, like the horses one sees represented in Greek sculpture; rather short in the body, round in the barrel, with slim, elegantly shaped, but apparently very strong legs, and they carried their heads high upon thick, muscular, arching necks. They stood about fourteen hands high, and were of a beautiful deep cream colour, with short black manes, black switched tails similar to that of the gemsbok, and their legs were black from the knee downward. But their most remarkable characteristic was that the stallions were provided with a single, straight, black, sharply pointed horn, some three feet in length, projecting from the very centre of the forehead, two or three inches above the level of the eyes. They were descending the slope that led down to the water, and were advancing at a walk, their paces being singularly graceful and easy. Their leader, an exceedingly fine and handsome animal, was a yard or two in advance of the rest, and, with arching neck and head carried somewhat low, he came on, peering alertly right and left, evidently on the watch for possible enemies.
“We must get a pair—two pairs if we can,” murmured von Schalckenberg in a low tone, rendered hoarse by excitement and anxiety. “You take the leader and another stallion, I will look out for the mares. Aim for just behind the shoulder. Are you ready?”
“Yes,” breathed Mildmay.
“Thenfire!” whispered the professor. And, as the rifle-hammers softly clicked, the thud of the bullets was heard, and the leader and a handsome mare dropped, shot through the heart. The troop halted instantly, snorting nervously and glancing quickly to right and left, clearly puzzled at this sudden and unaccountable fall of two of their number. Quick as thought the hidden sportsmen each selected a fresh victim, and ere one could count ten another pair of the beautiful creatures were down. This was enough; the unicorns now realised that some mysterious deadly influence was at work among them, and, throwing up their heads, they swerved short round and dashed off up the slope again, over the ridge of which they vanished the next moment, uttering shrill neighs of alarm.
The two hunters rose to their feet and shook hands in mutual congratulation at their splendid luck ere they stepped out from their ambush to inspect and admire this magnificent and unique addition to their “bag.” The animals were all superb specimens, in perfect condition, without a blemish; their coats smooth and glossy as satin, the horns of the males long, straight, tough, and with points as sharp as that of a bayonet. The professor was in a perfect ecstasy of delight; he declared that this was the supreme moment of his life; and then corrected himself by saying that that moment would arrive when, in the fulness of time, he would confront his brother Fellows of the Zoological Society with the skins of a pair of unicorns, properly prepared and set up by Ward, in confutation of the thinly veiled doubts and scepticism with which certain of them had dared to receive a former statement of his that unicorns actually existed, and that he had beheld them with his own good eyes. They had not scrupled to suggest that possibly he might have been mistaken! Donner und Blitzen! would they still think so when they saw those skins? Ha, ha! When he, von Schalckenberg, next made a definite statement, they would, perhaps, be less ready to discredit it!
The next question was, would Mildmay be so very obliging as to go back to the ship and bring her to the spot where the fallen unicorns lay? The remainder of the party, and especially the ladies, would doubtless like to see them, just as they were, ere the process of flaying had been begun; moreover, they would need the assistance of the other men in securing the skins, to say nothing of that of the lion and, possibly, the python. As for him, von Schalckenberg, he would remain there on guard to protect those priceless trophies from depredation and injury by vultures or wild beasts; they should never leave his sight until they were safely removed and stowed away. Danger? Ach! what was danger compared with the saving of those skins in perfect condition? Besides, he had his rifle and an abundant supply of cartridges; he was not afraid.
“Very well,” said Mildmay, “I shall go.” And away he started up the slope forthwith, leaving the professor full in the open, seated upon the body of one of the unicorns, with his pipe in his mouth and his rifle in his hand, glaring round him warily through his gold-framed spectacles, keenly on the watch for any predatory creature that should dare to dispute the right of himself and his friend to their lawful spoils.
When Mildmay reached the ship he found Sir Reginald, Lethbridge, and Sziszkinski already astir and taking their coffee in the dining-saloon. They greeted his appearance with a shout.
“Hillo, Mildmay,” exclaimed the baronet, “where have you sprung from? Surely you have not been out all night? And yet you look as though you had. Any luck?”
“Rather,” answered Mildmay, with emphasis. “Yes, thanks, George,” to the steward, “I’ll take a cup of coffee. Yes, the professor and I have been out all night, although I don’t think we really meant to stay so long, but—”
“Well, but where is von Schalckenberg, then? Did he not come in with you?” interrupted Sir Reginald.
“No,” answered Mildmay; “I left him by the margin of the lake, mounting guard over four unicorns, and—”
“Unicorns?” ejaculated Lethbridge; “you lucky sailor-man! Surely you do not seriously mean to say that you have bagged any unicorns?”
“Four unicorns—two males and two females; one lion, and a python. Not so bad for one night’s work, is it? And I came in, Sir Reginald, at the professor’s request, to suggest that we should move the ship over to the lake forthwith, to give you all a chance to see the beasts before we start to flay them, and also to place them under the protection of the ship, so to speak. For now that we have them, the professor is afraid to take his eyes off them for a moment lest something should get at them and spoil the pelts.”
“I should say so,” concurred Sir Reginald. “All right, Mildmay, you cut away and get your bath. I will take the ship over at once. Whereabouts shall I find von Schalckenberg?”
“Right at the southern end of the lake,” said Mildmay. “You can’t very well miss him. Look for a gap in the reeds, and steer for that. You will find him there.”
And, as Mildmay retired to his cabin to prepare for a bath, the other three men hurried off to the pilot-house, eager to get a sight of the professor and his interesting “bag.”
As theFlying Fishrose into the air, the occupants of her pilot-house levelled their powerful binoculars upon the margin of the lake, and almost immediately Lethbridge cried out—
“I see him! There he is, away to the left, proudly mounting guard over his spoils. Starboard your helm a trifle, Elphinstone. So; steady as you go. Do you see him?”
“Ay,” said Sir Reginald, “I see him now,” as he again raised his glasses to his eyes. “And, by Jove, he seems to be busy too. Surely he is using his rifle, isn’t he?”
“He seems to be,” observed Sziszkinski. “Yes; he is down on one knee, aiming at something. Ha! look at that! Lucky man! he is getting all the sport. Surely that was a lion that sprang into the air and fell back among the rushes!”
Chapter Thirteen.In the Heart of the Great African Forest.As theFlying Fishsettled down quite close to the spot where the carcases of the four unicorns were lying, von Schalckenberg waved his hand and shouted to the little group on deck—“Ach! my friends, I am glad to see you. Unicorns’ flesh must be an especially choice morsel with the carnivora in this part of the country, for I have been literally beset since Mildmay left me. I have had no fewer than three lions, one leopard, and a whole pack of wild dogs disputing with me the possession of these carcases.”“And how have you dealt with the disputants, Professor?” laughed Lethbridge.“Oh! there was but one way to deal with them, and I took it,” answered the professor. “I shot them, and they are among those rushes. The dogs were the worst, because there were so many of them, and they were so persistent. But I drove them off at last.”“You appear to have had a busy time, to judge by the look of things!” exclaimed Sir Reginald.And indeed there was abundant evidence of this when the new arrivals came to look more closely; for the carcases of eight wild dogs—creatures as big as Siberian wolves, and quite as formidable-looking—were in plain view, showing how determinedly they had attempted to “rush” the professor, while others could be seen partially hidden among the reeds, together with those of the leopard and one of the lions.“Well, you have richly earned your breakfast, so come aboard and have it,” exclaimed Lethbridge. “Nothing is likely to interfere with your unicorns, now that this big ship is so close alongside. But to make quite sure that no accident happens, I will get a rifle and mount guard up here if you like, while you get your bath and breakfast.”So it was arranged; and half an hour later von Schalckenberg entertained the other occupants of the breakfast-table with a lively and graphic account of the adventures of himself and Mildmay during the night, from the moment of their departure from the ship.That was a busy day for the five male members of the party, for of course the professor insisted that the skins of the unicorns must be removed with the utmost care, and the observance of every precaution against stretching or otherwise injuring the rather thin and delicate hides, which made the task of removal a somewhat protracted one. And when at length this was successfully achieved, there still remained the carcases of four lions, one leopard, and a python to be dealt with. It was consequently well on in the afternoon ere the somewhat disagreeable task was over, and the men were free to bathe, change their clothing, and generally make themselves presentable. This done, theFlying Fishwas taken back to her former berth on the bush-encircled area of open ground, it having been unanimously agreed to spend a few days longer in so splendid a game country as this seemed to be. But all were agreed that, after their exertions of the day, they were rather too tired to enjoy a night’s watching among the reeds of the lake. The entire party therefore adjourned to the music-room for an hour or two after dinner, and retired early to their cabins to recuperate in readiness for whatever the morrow might have in store for them.For a full week the party hunted this grand game-producing district, accumulating such a pile of lion and leopard skins, ostrich feathers, ivory, rhinoceros-horns, and other trophies of the chase, that at length Sir Reginald laughingly protested against any further slaughter, declaring that unless an immediate move were made, theFlying Fishwould be unable to carry away the accumulated cargo, which, he reminded his companions, would doubtless be largely added to ere they turned their faces homeward. But although the sport was good, it was uneventful; there were no thrilling adventures or hairbreadth escapes to record, due, so Mildmay half-grumblingly asserted, to the fact that their weapons were so perfect that the poor animals had no chance to show sport. Accordingly, on the morning of a certain day, the great ship once more rose into the air, and in leisurely fashion headed away to the southward and eastward, on her way toward the ruins of ancient Ophir, discovered by the baronet and his companions during the course of their previous voyage of exploration in theFlying Fish.Proceeding at the slow rate of one hundred miles per day, with occasional pauses where game happened to be sighted that it was thought worth while to hunt, the party arrived on a certain evening within sight of a vast stretch of forest-land, extending east and west as far as the eye could see, from the moderate elevation of three hundred feet at which they were travelling. This, von Schalckenberg declared, was the Great Central African Forest discovered by Stanley, covering an area of several thousand square miles of unexplored country, the home of the pygmies, the gorilla, and heaven alone knew what other new, strange, and interesting inhabitants, and offering innumerable possibilities to a party of determined explorers.“Well,” said Sir Reginald, “weare a party of determined explorers; and I think I may say that if the element of personal risk is likely to enter into the act of exploration, it would but add to the attractiveness of the idea. But we must not forget that we are not now alone, as we were upon the occasion of our last cruise; we have two women and a child with us now, who are absolutely dependent upon us for protection. It is true that, so long as they remain shut up in this ship, little harm can happen to them; and there is also the fact that, in case of emergency, my wife knows enough to be able to raise the ship into the air and navigate her beyond the reach of a pressing danger; but I am not so sure that, in the event of such an occasion arising, she would be able to find her way back again to the starting-point after the danger had passed. And this, as I need scarcely point out, might prove exceedingly awkward, both for them and for us—especially for us, who would, in such an event, find ourselves stranded, without resources, and with no possibility of knowing in which direction to look for the missing ship. Whatever we decide to do, therefore, I think we shall be wise to act circumspectly. I am quite willing to face anylegitimatedanger that may be involved in our hunting or exploring undertakings; but I confess that I should not be inclined to regard as legitimate any such danger as that of these ladies being driven away from a given spot, and lost.”“You are perfectly right, Elphinstone,” concurred Lethbridge, gravely. “The presence of the ladies and little Ida necessarily imposes certain limitations upon our movements; and it is quite easy to imagine a dozen or more undertakings that we might quite justifiably undertake, if we were alone, that are not permissible under present circumstances. A way out of the difficulty that you have indicated would, of course, be for one of us men who understand the working of the ship to remain with the ladies; and it will afford me the greatest possible pleasure to do so.”“No, no, certainly not; by no manner of means, old chap,” struck in Mildmay, with quite unwonted eagerness. “If anybody is to remain aboard this ship I, obviously, am the man to do so. For, in the first place, I am such a confoundedly lazy beggar that it would be no pleasure to me to go toiling and groping my way mile after mile through the thick undergrowth of a forest like that, purely upon the off-chance of stumbling up against something interesting enough to shoot or look at; while you would enjoy nothing better.”“Excuse me, gentlemen,” interposed Sir Reginald; “but a moment’s reflection, I think, will serve to convince you that, as your host,Iam the man who—”“No, no,” interrupted Mildmay, “that plea won’t do at all, my dear fellow; it is altogether too thin! You, like Lethbridge and the professor—to say nothing of Colonel Sziszkinski—would be in your element prowling through that forest; while, as for me—well, I should not go from choice, in any case. So there you are!”“Do you really mean that, Mildmay?” demanded Sir Reginald.“Yes, upon my honour, I do,” assented the skipper. “I must confess,” he continued, “that I have a very strong predilection for a clear horizon and an unimpeded view of the sky overhead, whether I happen to be ashore or afloat. Besides, it is not as though you needed me, you know; in that case it would be very different, of course. But—well, I think I have fully made out my contention that, if it is necessary for either of us to remain aboard, I am the man.”“Very well; then that is settled,” agreed Sir Reginald. “Now, the question that next suggests itself is this: Are we to leave the ship here, and endeavour to penetrate the forest from this point; or should we take the ship into the heart of the forest, and use her as our headquarters from which to make short day excursions? There is something to be said in favour of either plan. For example, in considering the first plan I mentioned, we all noticed a number of native villages as we came along. Two or three of these are only a few miles distant; and it might be possible for us to engage any number of those fellows to serve as bearers, to carry ourimpedimentafor us, cut a path through the undergrowth, and so on. Under such conditions we should certainly see far more of the forest than we can possibly hope to do by adopting the other plan. Plan number two, on the other hand, appears to offer us the better chance to reach the heart of the forest. Now, what say you, gentlemen? Which plan appeals to you the more strongly? Or has either of you an alternative to suggest?”“Let us try the second plan; and if that proves unsatisfactory we can always fall back upon the first,” said the professor. And so it was arranged.Accordingly, on the following morning, the first streaks of dawn saw von Schalckenberg astir, and on his way to the pilot-house, where he first of all manipulated the lever that controlled the grip-anchors, drawing it back, and thus causing the anchors to relinquish their hold upon the ground. Then he turned a sufficient stream of vapour into the air-chambers to create a partial vacuum and cause the ship to rise in the air to a height of about two hundred feet above the tops of the most lofty trees; and finally to set the engines going ahead at a speed of about fifty miles an hour, in accordance with an arrangement between himself and Sir Reginald, made the last thing before turning in on the previous night. Then, the morning being perfectly calm, he set the course due south, and returned below to get his bath and dress.For the first three hours or so of this comparatively rapid flight the forest was found to be by no means dense. The trees grew more or less in clumps, with plenty of open spaces between, many of which were occupied by native villages, the inhabitants of which turned outen masseto gaze in awe at the wonderful sight of the huge ship rushing through the air overhead, and to greet her appearance with weird, blood-curdling cries and the beating of their great war drums. Then they crossed the Aruwimi River—an important tributary of the great Congo, shortly afterward sighting the snow-crowned summit of Ruwenzori, glistening in the sun. And here the villages abruptly ceased, and the forest growth rapidly thickened, until, with the arrival of noon, they found themselves floating over a mass of foliage so dense that it was impossible to see anything of the ground beneath. They had by this time traversed some two hundred and fifty miles of forest, and they came to the conclusion that they were now near enough to the heart of it for all practical purposes. They therefore slowed the ship down to a speed of ten knots, and rose to a height of two thousand feet, with the object of searching for some opening in the great mass of multi-tinted green beneath them large enough to receive the ship and allow her to come to earth. This they eventually found some ten miles farther south, on the banks of an almost dry stream, flowing in a westerly direction. Four mountain peaks were then in sight to the eastward, at an estimated distance of between forty and fifty miles.By the time that the ship was moored luncheon was on the table; and at the conclusion of the meal Sir Reginald Elphinstone, Colonel Lethbridge, the professor, and Colonel Sziszkinski took their rifles and left the ship upon what they termed a preliminary exploration of the forest in their immediate vicinity.They very soon discovered that any attempt to penetrate the forest without the aid of axes and bush-knives would be utterly useless. Let them go in what direction they would, a few yards of laborious struggling through the dense undergrowth was certain to bring them to a spot where the thicket became so dense and so inextricably tangled that further progress became impossible. As a last resource, therefore, they tried the river, and here they got on very much better, the water being so low that much of the bed was dry; and by scrambling over boulders and great piles of drifted tree-trunks and tangled scrub that were encountered at frequent intervals, with, here and there, a few yards of clear gravel or sand, upon which the going was perfectly easy, they eventually reached an open space of some twenty acres in extent. This during the rainy season was undoubtedly a pool; but it was now merely a chaotic agglomeration of rocky outcrop, boulders, coarse shingle, and sand, in which lay, half buried, further tangled masses of tree-trunks, branches, and undergrowth, with thread-like streams of water twisting hither and thither through it and occasionally widening out into broad, shallow pools. The important fact in connection with this spot, however, was that, upon careful examination, it was discovered that several well-defined tracks through the forest converged here, the imprints upon the soil of which showed that the various denizens of the forest, for many miles round in every direction, used this spot as their regular drinking-place. It was obvious at once to them all that this was the most favourable spot for an ambush that they could possibly wish for; and at length, after careful examination of several promising positions, they chose a pile of rocks near the centre of the open space, and against which a great heap of tangled débris had been piled during flood-time, as the spot where they would lie in wait for such game as might come down to drink. They improved the natural advantages of the place so far as they could in the limited time at their disposal, and then hastened back to theFlying Fishto report themselves and make their preparations for the coming night.It was within an hour of sunset when, having snatched a hasty impromptu meal and provided themselves with a few sandwiches and a well-filled pocket-flask each, as well as a liberal supply of cartridges, the four hunters left theFlying Fishon their way to the ambush which they had arranged. The golden light of evening still gleamed brilliantly upon the topmost boughs of the forest trees, but down below in the river bed the twilight was already deepening as the quartette made their laborious way over the many obstacles that impeded their progress; and the sight of a deer or two that had already made their way down to the river to drink was a reminder to them that they had no time to spare, and an incentive to avoid dawdling on the way. The multitudinous insect-life of the forest was already awake and stirring, the hum and chirp of the myriad winged things causing the air fairly to vibrate with softly strident sound, to which was added the rolling chorus of innumerable frogs inhabiting the marshy low-lying patches contiguous to the river margin. Great gorgeously winged dragon-flies swept hither and thither; a few belated butterflies—some of which were so large and so magnificently marked as to excite the professor’s most enthusiastic admiration—fluttered here and there in the more open spaces; birds of various descriptions and of more or less brilliant plumage—some of the smaller kinds being veritable winged jewels—flitted from tree to tree uttering weird and startling cries, while an occasional soft rustling sound in the adjoining thicket betrayed the movement of some larger creature.It was so nearly dark when the four hunters at length reached their chosen hiding-place that they experienced some little difficulty in satisfactorily bestowing themselves within it; and when at length they had done so, there ensued a weary wait that was exceedingly trying to their patience. For the darkness soon became so profound that although from time to time there came to their ears certain slight sounds, such as the sudden swish of a bough, or the crackling of withered leaves and twigs, betraying the stealthy movements of some wild creature, they could see nothing, strain their eyes as they might.At length, however, a soft, silvery radiance brightening the topmost branches of the trees encircling them proclaimed the rising of the moon, then well advanced toward her second quarter; and as the light gradually brightened, they became aware of certain shadowy forms indistinctly seen moving hither and thither in the deeper shadow of the trees, their whereabouts betrayed by the momentary rattle of a displaced pebble, or the soft plash of their feet in the shallow pools from which they drank.At length there came a moment when, perhaps from some subtle atmospheric change, affecting the quality of the light, they suddenly became aware that the open space in the midst of which they were ambushed was teeming with animal life. The forest seemed to be pouring out its denizens from every quarter, and all of them were flocking to this spot to quench their thirst. Yonder, for example, was a crowd of buck, of a dozen or more different kinds, all congregated together in one spot, and more or less vigorously hustling each other in their endeavours to get at the most desirable pool, while, some distance away, three leopards, flattened out upon a low overhanging ledge of rock until they were scarcely distinguishable, lapped the water from a tiny streamlet that trickled past them. Here, quite close at hand, a troop of monkeys of various kinds and sizes were softly yet fiercely chattering at each other as they squabbled for the best places, while others, with quick, excited gestures, ladled up the water in the palms of their hands, from which they drank. None of these creatures, however, were deemed by the lurking hunters as worthy of their attentions, although Sziszkinski would fain have had a shot at the leopards; but von Schalckenberg explained, in a scarcely audible whisper, that everything in sight belonged to well-known species, while they were avowedly out after only rare specimens. The leopards, therefore, were, like the bucks, allowed to drink their fill and retire unmolested.But now a sound of deep grunting and snorting, accompanied by the occasional snap of a dried branch, gradually separated itself from and became audible above the other noises of the forest, betraying the approach of some beast that scorned concealment, and presently there emerged into the opening a huge red buffalo, shaggy of hide, ferocious of aspect, and with a pair of enormous, deep-curving horns. He clattered down the narrow, shingly, boulder-strewn bed of the river—so noisily that the monkeys fled precipitately, with loud shrieks of alarm—and stood fully revealed in a small patch of brilliantly white moonlight, tossing his head, and sniffing the air suspiciously as he turned it from side to side.“Now, Boris, my friend, you may shoot, if you will,” whispered the professor, eagerly, to his Russian friend. “That fellow is new to me; I know him not. His head is—but, ach! you would not understand if I explained. Wait until he turns his broadside to us, and then aim behind the shoulder.”A few breathless moments followed, for the huge brute persisted in facing the little party as he drank; but, at length, having quenched his thirst, he turned to retreat into the forest depths again, and, as he did so, Sziszkinski’s hammer clicked, and, with a low, deep moaning sigh, the great beast sank to the earth, kicked convulsively for a few seconds, and was still.“Good!” ejaculated von Schalckenberg; “that is a very valuable addition to—”He was silenced by the light pressure of Sir Reginald Elphinstone’s hand upon his arm, and turning, he saw the baronet raise his hand and point. He looked in the direction indicated, and in a moment his frame seemed to stiffen with eagerness as he gazed. For there, standing knee-deep in a pool, some two hundred yards away, and quite alone, was an animal not unlike a giraffe, but very much smaller, and with a neck that, although not so long in proportion to its body as that of a giraffe, was still very long. The creature was strongly silhouetted against a patch of moon-lighted vegetation, and therefore stood out black against its lighter background, with no indication of its markings. The outline of it, however, was clear-cut and distinct, and as the professor continued to gaze at it he became an interesting study of growing excitement and agitation. He felt feverishly for the binocular glasses that he had not brought with him, and held his breath until he could do so no longer, letting it out suddenly with a gasp that he as suddenly checked, glaring through his spectacles, meanwhile, as though he would fain hypnotise the creature. Then, as it bowed its head to drink, he turned to Sir Reginald and whispered huskily—“Shoot, my friend, shoot! But, as you love me, don’t miss; for, as I am a sinful man, it is none other than theokapi!”
As theFlying Fishsettled down quite close to the spot where the carcases of the four unicorns were lying, von Schalckenberg waved his hand and shouted to the little group on deck—
“Ach! my friends, I am glad to see you. Unicorns’ flesh must be an especially choice morsel with the carnivora in this part of the country, for I have been literally beset since Mildmay left me. I have had no fewer than three lions, one leopard, and a whole pack of wild dogs disputing with me the possession of these carcases.”
“And how have you dealt with the disputants, Professor?” laughed Lethbridge.
“Oh! there was but one way to deal with them, and I took it,” answered the professor. “I shot them, and they are among those rushes. The dogs were the worst, because there were so many of them, and they were so persistent. But I drove them off at last.”
“You appear to have had a busy time, to judge by the look of things!” exclaimed Sir Reginald.
And indeed there was abundant evidence of this when the new arrivals came to look more closely; for the carcases of eight wild dogs—creatures as big as Siberian wolves, and quite as formidable-looking—were in plain view, showing how determinedly they had attempted to “rush” the professor, while others could be seen partially hidden among the reeds, together with those of the leopard and one of the lions.
“Well, you have richly earned your breakfast, so come aboard and have it,” exclaimed Lethbridge. “Nothing is likely to interfere with your unicorns, now that this big ship is so close alongside. But to make quite sure that no accident happens, I will get a rifle and mount guard up here if you like, while you get your bath and breakfast.”
So it was arranged; and half an hour later von Schalckenberg entertained the other occupants of the breakfast-table with a lively and graphic account of the adventures of himself and Mildmay during the night, from the moment of their departure from the ship.
That was a busy day for the five male members of the party, for of course the professor insisted that the skins of the unicorns must be removed with the utmost care, and the observance of every precaution against stretching or otherwise injuring the rather thin and delicate hides, which made the task of removal a somewhat protracted one. And when at length this was successfully achieved, there still remained the carcases of four lions, one leopard, and a python to be dealt with. It was consequently well on in the afternoon ere the somewhat disagreeable task was over, and the men were free to bathe, change their clothing, and generally make themselves presentable. This done, theFlying Fishwas taken back to her former berth on the bush-encircled area of open ground, it having been unanimously agreed to spend a few days longer in so splendid a game country as this seemed to be. But all were agreed that, after their exertions of the day, they were rather too tired to enjoy a night’s watching among the reeds of the lake. The entire party therefore adjourned to the music-room for an hour or two after dinner, and retired early to their cabins to recuperate in readiness for whatever the morrow might have in store for them.
For a full week the party hunted this grand game-producing district, accumulating such a pile of lion and leopard skins, ostrich feathers, ivory, rhinoceros-horns, and other trophies of the chase, that at length Sir Reginald laughingly protested against any further slaughter, declaring that unless an immediate move were made, theFlying Fishwould be unable to carry away the accumulated cargo, which, he reminded his companions, would doubtless be largely added to ere they turned their faces homeward. But although the sport was good, it was uneventful; there were no thrilling adventures or hairbreadth escapes to record, due, so Mildmay half-grumblingly asserted, to the fact that their weapons were so perfect that the poor animals had no chance to show sport. Accordingly, on the morning of a certain day, the great ship once more rose into the air, and in leisurely fashion headed away to the southward and eastward, on her way toward the ruins of ancient Ophir, discovered by the baronet and his companions during the course of their previous voyage of exploration in theFlying Fish.
Proceeding at the slow rate of one hundred miles per day, with occasional pauses where game happened to be sighted that it was thought worth while to hunt, the party arrived on a certain evening within sight of a vast stretch of forest-land, extending east and west as far as the eye could see, from the moderate elevation of three hundred feet at which they were travelling. This, von Schalckenberg declared, was the Great Central African Forest discovered by Stanley, covering an area of several thousand square miles of unexplored country, the home of the pygmies, the gorilla, and heaven alone knew what other new, strange, and interesting inhabitants, and offering innumerable possibilities to a party of determined explorers.
“Well,” said Sir Reginald, “weare a party of determined explorers; and I think I may say that if the element of personal risk is likely to enter into the act of exploration, it would but add to the attractiveness of the idea. But we must not forget that we are not now alone, as we were upon the occasion of our last cruise; we have two women and a child with us now, who are absolutely dependent upon us for protection. It is true that, so long as they remain shut up in this ship, little harm can happen to them; and there is also the fact that, in case of emergency, my wife knows enough to be able to raise the ship into the air and navigate her beyond the reach of a pressing danger; but I am not so sure that, in the event of such an occasion arising, she would be able to find her way back again to the starting-point after the danger had passed. And this, as I need scarcely point out, might prove exceedingly awkward, both for them and for us—especially for us, who would, in such an event, find ourselves stranded, without resources, and with no possibility of knowing in which direction to look for the missing ship. Whatever we decide to do, therefore, I think we shall be wise to act circumspectly. I am quite willing to face anylegitimatedanger that may be involved in our hunting or exploring undertakings; but I confess that I should not be inclined to regard as legitimate any such danger as that of these ladies being driven away from a given spot, and lost.”
“You are perfectly right, Elphinstone,” concurred Lethbridge, gravely. “The presence of the ladies and little Ida necessarily imposes certain limitations upon our movements; and it is quite easy to imagine a dozen or more undertakings that we might quite justifiably undertake, if we were alone, that are not permissible under present circumstances. A way out of the difficulty that you have indicated would, of course, be for one of us men who understand the working of the ship to remain with the ladies; and it will afford me the greatest possible pleasure to do so.”
“No, no, certainly not; by no manner of means, old chap,” struck in Mildmay, with quite unwonted eagerness. “If anybody is to remain aboard this ship I, obviously, am the man to do so. For, in the first place, I am such a confoundedly lazy beggar that it would be no pleasure to me to go toiling and groping my way mile after mile through the thick undergrowth of a forest like that, purely upon the off-chance of stumbling up against something interesting enough to shoot or look at; while you would enjoy nothing better.”
“Excuse me, gentlemen,” interposed Sir Reginald; “but a moment’s reflection, I think, will serve to convince you that, as your host,Iam the man who—”
“No, no,” interrupted Mildmay, “that plea won’t do at all, my dear fellow; it is altogether too thin! You, like Lethbridge and the professor—to say nothing of Colonel Sziszkinski—would be in your element prowling through that forest; while, as for me—well, I should not go from choice, in any case. So there you are!”
“Do you really mean that, Mildmay?” demanded Sir Reginald.
“Yes, upon my honour, I do,” assented the skipper. “I must confess,” he continued, “that I have a very strong predilection for a clear horizon and an unimpeded view of the sky overhead, whether I happen to be ashore or afloat. Besides, it is not as though you needed me, you know; in that case it would be very different, of course. But—well, I think I have fully made out my contention that, if it is necessary for either of us to remain aboard, I am the man.”
“Very well; then that is settled,” agreed Sir Reginald. “Now, the question that next suggests itself is this: Are we to leave the ship here, and endeavour to penetrate the forest from this point; or should we take the ship into the heart of the forest, and use her as our headquarters from which to make short day excursions? There is something to be said in favour of either plan. For example, in considering the first plan I mentioned, we all noticed a number of native villages as we came along. Two or three of these are only a few miles distant; and it might be possible for us to engage any number of those fellows to serve as bearers, to carry ourimpedimentafor us, cut a path through the undergrowth, and so on. Under such conditions we should certainly see far more of the forest than we can possibly hope to do by adopting the other plan. Plan number two, on the other hand, appears to offer us the better chance to reach the heart of the forest. Now, what say you, gentlemen? Which plan appeals to you the more strongly? Or has either of you an alternative to suggest?”
“Let us try the second plan; and if that proves unsatisfactory we can always fall back upon the first,” said the professor. And so it was arranged.
Accordingly, on the following morning, the first streaks of dawn saw von Schalckenberg astir, and on his way to the pilot-house, where he first of all manipulated the lever that controlled the grip-anchors, drawing it back, and thus causing the anchors to relinquish their hold upon the ground. Then he turned a sufficient stream of vapour into the air-chambers to create a partial vacuum and cause the ship to rise in the air to a height of about two hundred feet above the tops of the most lofty trees; and finally to set the engines going ahead at a speed of about fifty miles an hour, in accordance with an arrangement between himself and Sir Reginald, made the last thing before turning in on the previous night. Then, the morning being perfectly calm, he set the course due south, and returned below to get his bath and dress.
For the first three hours or so of this comparatively rapid flight the forest was found to be by no means dense. The trees grew more or less in clumps, with plenty of open spaces between, many of which were occupied by native villages, the inhabitants of which turned outen masseto gaze in awe at the wonderful sight of the huge ship rushing through the air overhead, and to greet her appearance with weird, blood-curdling cries and the beating of their great war drums. Then they crossed the Aruwimi River—an important tributary of the great Congo, shortly afterward sighting the snow-crowned summit of Ruwenzori, glistening in the sun. And here the villages abruptly ceased, and the forest growth rapidly thickened, until, with the arrival of noon, they found themselves floating over a mass of foliage so dense that it was impossible to see anything of the ground beneath. They had by this time traversed some two hundred and fifty miles of forest, and they came to the conclusion that they were now near enough to the heart of it for all practical purposes. They therefore slowed the ship down to a speed of ten knots, and rose to a height of two thousand feet, with the object of searching for some opening in the great mass of multi-tinted green beneath them large enough to receive the ship and allow her to come to earth. This they eventually found some ten miles farther south, on the banks of an almost dry stream, flowing in a westerly direction. Four mountain peaks were then in sight to the eastward, at an estimated distance of between forty and fifty miles.
By the time that the ship was moored luncheon was on the table; and at the conclusion of the meal Sir Reginald Elphinstone, Colonel Lethbridge, the professor, and Colonel Sziszkinski took their rifles and left the ship upon what they termed a preliminary exploration of the forest in their immediate vicinity.
They very soon discovered that any attempt to penetrate the forest without the aid of axes and bush-knives would be utterly useless. Let them go in what direction they would, a few yards of laborious struggling through the dense undergrowth was certain to bring them to a spot where the thicket became so dense and so inextricably tangled that further progress became impossible. As a last resource, therefore, they tried the river, and here they got on very much better, the water being so low that much of the bed was dry; and by scrambling over boulders and great piles of drifted tree-trunks and tangled scrub that were encountered at frequent intervals, with, here and there, a few yards of clear gravel or sand, upon which the going was perfectly easy, they eventually reached an open space of some twenty acres in extent. This during the rainy season was undoubtedly a pool; but it was now merely a chaotic agglomeration of rocky outcrop, boulders, coarse shingle, and sand, in which lay, half buried, further tangled masses of tree-trunks, branches, and undergrowth, with thread-like streams of water twisting hither and thither through it and occasionally widening out into broad, shallow pools. The important fact in connection with this spot, however, was that, upon careful examination, it was discovered that several well-defined tracks through the forest converged here, the imprints upon the soil of which showed that the various denizens of the forest, for many miles round in every direction, used this spot as their regular drinking-place. It was obvious at once to them all that this was the most favourable spot for an ambush that they could possibly wish for; and at length, after careful examination of several promising positions, they chose a pile of rocks near the centre of the open space, and against which a great heap of tangled débris had been piled during flood-time, as the spot where they would lie in wait for such game as might come down to drink. They improved the natural advantages of the place so far as they could in the limited time at their disposal, and then hastened back to theFlying Fishto report themselves and make their preparations for the coming night.
It was within an hour of sunset when, having snatched a hasty impromptu meal and provided themselves with a few sandwiches and a well-filled pocket-flask each, as well as a liberal supply of cartridges, the four hunters left theFlying Fishon their way to the ambush which they had arranged. The golden light of evening still gleamed brilliantly upon the topmost boughs of the forest trees, but down below in the river bed the twilight was already deepening as the quartette made their laborious way over the many obstacles that impeded their progress; and the sight of a deer or two that had already made their way down to the river to drink was a reminder to them that they had no time to spare, and an incentive to avoid dawdling on the way. The multitudinous insect-life of the forest was already awake and stirring, the hum and chirp of the myriad winged things causing the air fairly to vibrate with softly strident sound, to which was added the rolling chorus of innumerable frogs inhabiting the marshy low-lying patches contiguous to the river margin. Great gorgeously winged dragon-flies swept hither and thither; a few belated butterflies—some of which were so large and so magnificently marked as to excite the professor’s most enthusiastic admiration—fluttered here and there in the more open spaces; birds of various descriptions and of more or less brilliant plumage—some of the smaller kinds being veritable winged jewels—flitted from tree to tree uttering weird and startling cries, while an occasional soft rustling sound in the adjoining thicket betrayed the movement of some larger creature.
It was so nearly dark when the four hunters at length reached their chosen hiding-place that they experienced some little difficulty in satisfactorily bestowing themselves within it; and when at length they had done so, there ensued a weary wait that was exceedingly trying to their patience. For the darkness soon became so profound that although from time to time there came to their ears certain slight sounds, such as the sudden swish of a bough, or the crackling of withered leaves and twigs, betraying the stealthy movements of some wild creature, they could see nothing, strain their eyes as they might.
At length, however, a soft, silvery radiance brightening the topmost branches of the trees encircling them proclaimed the rising of the moon, then well advanced toward her second quarter; and as the light gradually brightened, they became aware of certain shadowy forms indistinctly seen moving hither and thither in the deeper shadow of the trees, their whereabouts betrayed by the momentary rattle of a displaced pebble, or the soft plash of their feet in the shallow pools from which they drank.
At length there came a moment when, perhaps from some subtle atmospheric change, affecting the quality of the light, they suddenly became aware that the open space in the midst of which they were ambushed was teeming with animal life. The forest seemed to be pouring out its denizens from every quarter, and all of them were flocking to this spot to quench their thirst. Yonder, for example, was a crowd of buck, of a dozen or more different kinds, all congregated together in one spot, and more or less vigorously hustling each other in their endeavours to get at the most desirable pool, while, some distance away, three leopards, flattened out upon a low overhanging ledge of rock until they were scarcely distinguishable, lapped the water from a tiny streamlet that trickled past them. Here, quite close at hand, a troop of monkeys of various kinds and sizes were softly yet fiercely chattering at each other as they squabbled for the best places, while others, with quick, excited gestures, ladled up the water in the palms of their hands, from which they drank. None of these creatures, however, were deemed by the lurking hunters as worthy of their attentions, although Sziszkinski would fain have had a shot at the leopards; but von Schalckenberg explained, in a scarcely audible whisper, that everything in sight belonged to well-known species, while they were avowedly out after only rare specimens. The leopards, therefore, were, like the bucks, allowed to drink their fill and retire unmolested.
But now a sound of deep grunting and snorting, accompanied by the occasional snap of a dried branch, gradually separated itself from and became audible above the other noises of the forest, betraying the approach of some beast that scorned concealment, and presently there emerged into the opening a huge red buffalo, shaggy of hide, ferocious of aspect, and with a pair of enormous, deep-curving horns. He clattered down the narrow, shingly, boulder-strewn bed of the river—so noisily that the monkeys fled precipitately, with loud shrieks of alarm—and stood fully revealed in a small patch of brilliantly white moonlight, tossing his head, and sniffing the air suspiciously as he turned it from side to side.
“Now, Boris, my friend, you may shoot, if you will,” whispered the professor, eagerly, to his Russian friend. “That fellow is new to me; I know him not. His head is—but, ach! you would not understand if I explained. Wait until he turns his broadside to us, and then aim behind the shoulder.”
A few breathless moments followed, for the huge brute persisted in facing the little party as he drank; but, at length, having quenched his thirst, he turned to retreat into the forest depths again, and, as he did so, Sziszkinski’s hammer clicked, and, with a low, deep moaning sigh, the great beast sank to the earth, kicked convulsively for a few seconds, and was still.
“Good!” ejaculated von Schalckenberg; “that is a very valuable addition to—”
He was silenced by the light pressure of Sir Reginald Elphinstone’s hand upon his arm, and turning, he saw the baronet raise his hand and point. He looked in the direction indicated, and in a moment his frame seemed to stiffen with eagerness as he gazed. For there, standing knee-deep in a pool, some two hundred yards away, and quite alone, was an animal not unlike a giraffe, but very much smaller, and with a neck that, although not so long in proportion to its body as that of a giraffe, was still very long. The creature was strongly silhouetted against a patch of moon-lighted vegetation, and therefore stood out black against its lighter background, with no indication of its markings. The outline of it, however, was clear-cut and distinct, and as the professor continued to gaze at it he became an interesting study of growing excitement and agitation. He felt feverishly for the binocular glasses that he had not brought with him, and held his breath until he could do so no longer, letting it out suddenly with a gasp that he as suddenly checked, glaring through his spectacles, meanwhile, as though he would fain hypnotise the creature. Then, as it bowed its head to drink, he turned to Sir Reginald and whispered huskily—
“Shoot, my friend, shoot! But, as you love me, don’t miss; for, as I am a sinful man, it is none other than theokapi!”
Chapter Fourteen.Lost!The okapi! That strange new animal of which so much had been heard of late in zoological and scientific circles, the existence of which had been so absolutely asserted, and the creature itself so definitely described, by certain travellers; but of which, thus far, not so much as a single bone, or even a fragment of skin, had been forthcoming!Sir Reginald instantly recognised the supreme importance of securing so pricelessly valuable a specimen, and carefully levelled his rifle. Kneeling on one knee, and resting his elbow on the other, with nerves as firm and steady as steel, he brought the two sights of his weapon in one upon a spot immediately behind the shoulder of the creature, as nearly as he could guess at it in that awkward light, and pressed the trigger. And at that precise moment a small stone under his heel slipped, and the jar of the movement, slight as it was, communicated itself to the weapon, causing the sights to swerve slightly out of line! An expression of intense annoyance escaped his lips. Had he missed? No; as the question presented itself to him he saw the animal throw up its head, give a single bound forward, and roll over. But, as an irrepressible shout of triumph was raised by the excited von Schalckenberg, the watchers saw the quarry scramble to its feet and limp off into the darkness of the forest, evidently pretty badly hurt.“We must follow it up!” cried the professor, eagerly; “we must secure it, at all costs. An okapi is worth a hundred other animals of any kind that one can name. And that one is wounded; we have but to follow it, and we are certain to find it, sooner or later. Come, my friends, let us lose not a moment in pursuing it.”And utterly ignoring any further idea of concealment, forgetting also, in the excitement of the moment, the imprudence, to say the least of it, of attempting to pursue a wounded animal through the intricacies of a dense forest, at night, and communicating his excitement to his companions by his eager exclamations, the professor led the way out of their ambush, dashing recklessly over rocks, loose boulders, and other obstructions in his anxiety to arrive quickly at the spot where he hoped to pick up the trail.It took them but a few minutes to find the spot at which the okapi had left the water, for the rocks were splashed with blood, leaving a clear trail toward one of the innumerable alleys or “runs” through the forest that debouched upon the drinking-place. But they had no sooner left the open and entered the particular alley along which the animal had retreated than they recognised the absolute hopelessness of attempting to follow the blood-marks without artificial light of some sort. Sir Reginald and Lethbridge, indeed, with a partial return to reasonableness, suggested the abandonment of the chase for the night, and a return to theFlying Fishuntil the morning, when they could come back to the spot, provided with everything necessary to enable them to carry the pursuit to a successful issue. But von Schalckenberg protested so vehemently against this course, urging with so much plausibility the likelihood that the creature would drop exhausted before it had run a mile, and that, if the search for it were left until the morning, all that they would find of it would probably be its mangled remains, so torn and mauled by other animals as to be utterly valueless, that at length the others allowed themselves to be persuaded against their better judgment. So gathering together such dry rushes and other matters as could be converted into torches, they lighted these, and with the illumination thus obtained, proceeded upon their quest.The fresh blood spoor was easily followed for the first half-mile or so, at which point their hopes of success were stimulated by a sudden scrambling sound at no great distance ahead of them, as though some heavy animal had been startled by the light of their torches and the noise of their approach, and had hastily betaken itself to flight. Encouraged by the sounds, they hurried forward, and presently came upon a small puddle of blood and a “form” in the thick carpet of ferns and fallen leaves, with which the soil was covered, that plainly pointed to the fact that the wounded animal had here sunk down to rest, and had only just moved on again. This last impression was clearly borne out by the circumstance that, even as the party bent over the spot, examining it, the crushed ferns were slowly raising themselves again.“Ah!” ejaculated von Schalckenberg, as he commented upon this, “the chase will soon be over; we shall come up with him again within the next ten minutes, and then he will not escape us.”The ten minutes, however, became twenty, and the twenty lengthened out to forty, and still they had not overtaken the okapi, although they frequently heard sounds at no great distance ahead which led them to believe that they were close upon its heels. But they had been greatly delayed by the constant necessity to pause while they renewed their torches; and latterly the blood spoor had been steadily growing less distinct. It appeared that the wound had almost ceased to bleed, and this had greatly added to the difficulty of pursuit. Finally, the blood-marks ceased altogether, and thenceforward they could do nothing but press forward along what, in the uncertain light of their torches, seemed to be the most well-defined track, finding encouragement for their persistency in those occasional rustlings ahead of them. At length, however, these also ceased, and when they had been plodding doggedly forward for at least a quarter of an hour without hearing a sound save that made by themselves, Lethbridge called a halt.“Look here, you fellows,” he said, “I don’t want to discourage you—and especiallyyou, Professor—but don’t you think this affair has gone quite far enough? I am bitterly sorry and disappointed to be obliged to say it, but I think there can be no doubt that we have lost that okapi. Whether the poor beast has recovered sufficiently to have been enabled to out-distance us, or whether, on the other hand, finding himself hard pressed, he has made a dash ahead and then quietly slipped into cover somewhere, I am not prepared to say, but I am morally convinced that we shall not see him again. Now, if your opinion upon this matter is the same as mine, I would suggest that we turn back forthwith, since nothing is to be gained by going any farther forward, while there is just a possibility that we may experience some difficulty in finding our way back out of this maze.”It appeared that Sir Reginald was of the same opinion as Lethbridge. Von Schalckenberg, on the other hand, was so absolutely certain that they were still upon the track of the okapi, and that they would soon come up with it, also that there would be no difficulty whatever in the matter of finding their way back, that, as he explained, he felt quite justified in urging the others to continue the pursuit, pleading at the same time the folly of giving up, now that they had come so far, and done so much. The result was that Sir Reginald and Lethbridge ultimately yielded to the professor’s entreaties, the baronet with a certain amount of inward misgiving, and Lethbridge with a resigned shrug of the shoulders.The trail—or rather, what von Schalckenberg believed to be the trail—was accordingly followed for another half-hour, but without the discovery of any further sign of the okapi. And then a difficulty arose in connection with the torches. There was nothing now available for these but such dry twigs and branches as they could gather from the ground, or the adjacent scrub, as they went; and while the small twigs were so exceedingly combustible that they were consumed in a minute or two, the larger ones refused to burn at all. And finally even the professor himself at length very reluctantly came to the conclusion that the okapi was irretrievably lost, and that to seek further for it would but be a useless expenditure of time and energy.With the arrival of the professor at this conclusion, and his admission thereof, the party at once turned back and began to retrace their steps; the difficulty with the torches increasing as they went. They struggled on for a considerable time, however, von Schalckenberg leading the way, until at length they came to a small open space in the centre of which grew an enormous mahogany tree. With one accord the four men came to a dead halt, regarding each other with an expression very nearly approaching to consternation.“We have missed our way,” exclaimed Sir Reginald, with decision; “I am certain that we never passed that tree on our outward journey.”The others were equally convinced of the truth of this, as also of Lethbridge’s terse statement that there was nothing for it but to try back by the way that they had come until they again hit the right path. But they decided that, before doing so, they would endeavour to provide themselves with a good supply of torches, a large quantity of dry twigs and branches from the mahogany tree offering them the opportunity to do so, and the professor blaming the inadequacy of the light for his mistake in having led them into a wrong path.They accordingly spent the best part of an hour in this manner, by the end of which they had as many torches—of a sort—as they could conveniently carry. During this period the four men had been wandering round and round the open space in which they had so unexpectedly found themselves, seeking the most suitable material for their purpose; and when at length they were ready to make a fresh start a question arose as to the precise whereabouts of the spot at which they had entered. Each, it appeared, had his own opinion, which differed from that of the others; and when, in order to settle the question, they decided to search for their own footprints as a guide, they made the disconcerting discovery that the imprints were altogether too faint to be traceable by such comparatively inexperienced trackers as themselves. Furthermore, although before entering this open space it had appeared to them that they had been following a tolerably well-defined path, or “run,” now that they came to look for such a thing it proved impossible to find anything of the kind, an experimental advance of a few yards in any given direction yielding a precisely similar impression. The final conclusion arrived at was that, having once got out of the proper track, they had not been following a path at all, but simply making their way at haphazard between the innumerable patches of underscrub.At this point Sziszkinski interposed with a remark that offered a possible solution of the difficulty.“I know not, gentlemen,” he said, “whether any of you took particular notice of the appearance of that mahogany tree at the moment when we entered this enclosure; but my recollection of it is that, as we first became aware of its presence, that big lower limb extended almost at right angles to our track, pointing to our left. Carrying my memory back to that moment, I think I must have been standing here, or hereabout,”—placing himself in position to illustrate his remark—“and facing this way. And if I am correct, that,”—as he faced right about and pointed—“must be about the point at which we entered.”With their memories thus jogged, the other three men presently came to the conclusion that the Russian was right; and starting afresh, upon this assumption, they instituted a further and still closer search for their own spoor, eventually finding certain faint and indefinite indentations in the carpet of withered leaves which they agreed must be their own footprints. Following these faint indications as well as they could, they now pushed forward eagerly; for Sir Reginald had by this time become seriously apprehensive that they might not get back to theFlying Fishby breakfast-time, in which case he knew that those left behind on board her would quickly become alarmed, and suffer much distress at the non-appearance of the absentees. And a gratifying assurance that they were going right was afforded the wanderers, about half an hour after their departure from the mahogany tree, by the discovery of the charred remains of one of the torches that had helped to light them on their way.This discovery put fresh heart into the little party; for if they had come thus far all right there was no reason, they told themselves, why they should not keep right, and soon hit the track back to the drinking-place. Then they found another charred brand, and another; and now, quite happy in the assurance that they were passing back over ground that they had already traversed, they pressed forward light-heartedly enough until, after the lapse of nearly another half-hour, Lethbridge again damped their ardour by saying—“Look here, you fellows, doesn’t it strike you that we are going a little too fast? It must be nearly half an hour since we passed the remains of that last torch; and I have not yet seen another. Have any of you? Because, if you haven’t, we are going wrong again! The best of those things only lasted about ten minutes, you know.”This was perfectly true, and the inference drawn by the ex-colonel was so obvious that, without pausing to discuss the matter, they at once wheeled round and proceeded to retrace their steps. But although each one of them felt convinced that they were really going back again over precisely the same ground that they had already traversed, that last relic of a torch was not again encountered; and at length, having wandered on for another hour or more, in the hope of getting back to the mahogany tree, from which to make a fresh start, the alarming conviction forced itself upon them that they werelost—utterly lost in this great illimitable African forest!“I am afraid there is no doubt about it,” said Lethbridge, when, a little later, the party had come to a halt in their perplexity, and the grim truth had found expression in words, “and, that being the case, I think the best thing we can do is to sit down—for I imagine that we are all beginning to feel a trifle fagged—and nibble a sandwich or two, washing it down with a nip from our flasks, as we discuss the situation.”“Of course,” remarked Sir Reginald, when they had seated themselves and produced their refreshments, “although this is a rather awkward adventure, there is no need for us to feel any alarm or apprehension. We are certain to extricate ourselves sooner or later, and I think we may take it for granted that we are not likely to starve, so long as we have any cartridges left. The thing that worries me is the anxiety that our friends aboard theFlying Fishwill suffer when we fail to turn up in decent time.”“Yes, certainly, that is the worst feature of the case,” agreed Lethbridge, “because, of course, they will know that something has happened to detain us, but they will not know what it is; and there is always a tendency among women to imagine the worst. It would not matter so much if we possessed a means of communicating with them, for although we could not, perhaps, direct Mildmay how to find us, we could, at all events, keep them advised of our welfare. I suppose,” he continued, turning with a smile to von Schalckenberg, “you do not happen to possess the power of telepathy, do you, Professor?”“No,” answered the professor, “unhappily I do not. But your remark has suggested to me the idea of a little experiment which I will attempt when we get back to the ship. If it should prove successful it may help us on some subsequent occasion similar to the present. But the question is, how are we to get back to the ship?”“Well,” remarked Sir Reginald, “it appears to me that we cannot do anything more until daylight. We are lost in this forest, and have not at present the slightest notion as to the direction we ought to take. That, I think, is indisputable, and it is useless to shut our eyes to the fact. We may, therefore, as well stay here as anywhere, and rest until daylight. It is now just half-past four; we shall, therefore, not have very long to wait. Now, as to our position. We know that we left the river by way of its south bank; and, since we have not again touched it, we must still be somewhere to the southward of it. Therefore, if, when daylight comes, we head northward, we are certain to strike the river before long; and, once there, we ought not to meet with much difficulty in finding our ambush again, from which, of course, we can easily find our way back to the ship.”“Excellent, and thoroughly well reasoned out,” remarked Lethbridge. “I quite agree with you, Elphinstone. We cannot do better than remain here until daylight, as you say; and then, with the coming of sunrise, we shall get at the points of the compass and know which way to steer in order to hit off the river again.”The professor and Colonel Sziszkinski also agreed that Sir Reginald’s plan was a good one. They therefore settled themselves comfortably, and, with the aid of their pipes and chat, beguiled the time as best they could.The moon had set some hours before this, and the forest was consequently plunged in darkness so profound that it was impossible to see anything beyond their immediate surroundings, which were illuminated for the space of some four or five yards by the flickering light of their torches. The silence also was profound, for the buzzingchirrof the insect-life of the place had long since ceased, and only the occasional crackle of dry leaves or twigs betrayed the fact that the great solitude held other denizens than themselves. At length, however, when their watches marked the hour of seven a.m. they became aware of a dim, ghostly light filtering down upon them from above and stealthily revealing the presence of tree-trunk, twisted creepers, and tangled underscrub at gradually widening distances from them. Whereupon they charged and lighted their pipes afresh, extinguished their torches, and, after allowing themselves a few minutes longer to enable their eyes to become accustomed to the dim, sombre twilight that alone pervaded those illimitable forest aisles, set out upon a course which they agreed would ultimately lead them back to the river.Their course was anything but a straight one, for they were obliged to wind hither and thither between and around enormous masses of tangled, impenetrable undergrowth; and there were many occasions when they were compelled to go some little distance in a direction the very opposite of that which they wished to follow, ere they could again hit off a practicable path leading northward. Yet notwithstanding this, they began to feel some disappointment and recurrence of anxiety when, at eleven o’clock in the forenoon, they still seemed as far off as ever from finding the river. There was nothing for it, however, but to press forward as they were going; and this they did, in somewhat noisy fashion—for there seemed to them to be no very especial reason for silence—until there suddenly broke upon their ears a deep, hollow, drumming sound, speedily followed by a series of loud, fierce roars. The sounds emanated from somewhere close at hand, and after a moment’s instinctive pause to listen, they all with one accord hastened forward to investigate, with the result that they suddenly found themselves emerging from the cramped and gloomy environment of the forest depths into a comparatively open arena, roughly circular in shape, and nearly a mile in diameter, thickly carpeted with rich, lush grass, and but sparsely dotted with trees.As the wanderers entered this space, they saw, about a dozen yards away, a very fine gorilla, upreared, with his back toward them, fiercely beating his chest with his huge fists, and giving vent to a succession of savage, barking roars. The exciting cause of this exhibition of anger was not at first apparent. But presently the little party of interested witnesses caught sight of a dark object nearly hidden in the grass; and as they watched this object, its details gradually revealed themselves, and they recognised it as an animal of the leopard species, of about the same size as the ordinary leopard, and similarly, marked, save that the tint of the skin, instead of being tawny yellow, was a rich brown, approaching very nearly to chocolate.“Look! what animal is that?” ejaculated the professor, in a husky whisper. “I do not know him. He is new to me—a new species! And the gorilla, too; what a splendid specimen!—”Von Schalckenberg fell suddenly silent, constrained thereto by his interest in the impending drama, for it was evident that the leopard meditated an attack upon the gorilla. The great cat was crouching low in the grass, with its ears laid back flat to its head, its savage eyes gleaming with hate as it watched every movement of its antagonist, and its tail twitching jerkingly now to this side, now to that. The gorilla, meanwhile, as fully alert as the leopard, was advancing craftily toward it, a single pace at a time, with the apparent intention of getting within leaping distance, and then suddenly springing upon its foe. The leopard, however, appeared to be fully aware of its enemy’s intention, and also of how to frustrate it; for it remained patiently crouching until the gorilla was in the very act of pulling itself together for a leap, and then, at the psychological moment, sprang high into the air, leaping clear and clean over the gorilla’s head, and landing a yard or so in his rear; then, before the huge creature had time to recover from his astonishment at such extraordinary tactics, the leopard again gathered itself together for a spring, and was in a moment on the gorilla’s back, with its teeth deeply sunk in the back of the creature’s neck, while with its terrible claws it dug and tore at the gorilla’s throat. So completely was the latter taken by surprise, that he seemed utterly incapable of striking a blow in self-defence. Instead he simply threw up his long, hairy, tremendously muscular arms, staggered backward a pace or two, and fell to the earth, moaning and groaning horribly as he clasped his terribly lacerated throat with both hands, the leopard having meanwhile leaped nimbly aside and crouched afresh as its enemy fell. It was evident, however, that there was no more fight left in the gorilla; the creature was, beyond doubt, mortally injured, and lay there moaning piteously, with the blood streaming through his fingers, making no attempt to regain his feet. His enemy at length seemed to realise this, for after remaining crouched and watching for some three or four minutes, it rose to its feet and began to slink away, but was promptly stopped and laid low by a shot from Sir Reginald’s rifle; while Lethbridge, cautiously approaching the prostrate gorilla, sent a bullet through his skull, and thus put him out of his misery.“Now we must push on again,” exclaimed Sir Reginald. “I don’t know, Professor, whether or not you wish to have either of those skins; but, if you do, we must wait until we get back to the ship, and then come and look for them. We cannot spare the time to take them now, or cumber ourselves with them when taken. Now, gentlemen, it is noon, and there is the sun. He is on the meridian, and consequently due north of us. He certainly does not cast a very long shadow, but he casts enough to show that yonder lies our path; so, forward!”Their path happened to lead almost directly through the centre of this wide, open space, and the going being easy they quickly traversed it, and plunged again into the forest shadows on the other side, where their slow, toilsome, groping style of progress was resumed. For three long hours they struggled on, weary, now, beyond power of expression, often in grave doubt as to whether or no they were pursuing the right direction, and every moment growing more seriously disconcerted at the extraordinary circumstance that, although during the day they must have journeyed many more miles than they had during the previous night, they still failed to reach the river for which they were aiming.At length, quite late in the afternoon, they again unexpectedly emerged from the forest into another open space, very similar in size and appearance to the one in which they had witnessed the combat between the gorilla and the leopard. As they stood for a moment in the open, blinking their dazzled eyes in the strong and unaccustomed sunshine, in a vain effort to classify the several objects, moving and motionless, that they saw dotted about the plain, a shout reached their ears, answered by another and another, and half a dozen more. Then they became aware of the sound of lowing cattle, and presently, as their eyes adjusted themselves to the sudden change in the light conditions, they recognised that they were on the outskirts, so to speak, of a native village, and that the inhabitants, whose quick eyes had detected their presence upon the instant of their emergence from the forest, were already mustering, with spear and shield, in unquestionably menacing fashion.
The okapi! That strange new animal of which so much had been heard of late in zoological and scientific circles, the existence of which had been so absolutely asserted, and the creature itself so definitely described, by certain travellers; but of which, thus far, not so much as a single bone, or even a fragment of skin, had been forthcoming!
Sir Reginald instantly recognised the supreme importance of securing so pricelessly valuable a specimen, and carefully levelled his rifle. Kneeling on one knee, and resting his elbow on the other, with nerves as firm and steady as steel, he brought the two sights of his weapon in one upon a spot immediately behind the shoulder of the creature, as nearly as he could guess at it in that awkward light, and pressed the trigger. And at that precise moment a small stone under his heel slipped, and the jar of the movement, slight as it was, communicated itself to the weapon, causing the sights to swerve slightly out of line! An expression of intense annoyance escaped his lips. Had he missed? No; as the question presented itself to him he saw the animal throw up its head, give a single bound forward, and roll over. But, as an irrepressible shout of triumph was raised by the excited von Schalckenberg, the watchers saw the quarry scramble to its feet and limp off into the darkness of the forest, evidently pretty badly hurt.
“We must follow it up!” cried the professor, eagerly; “we must secure it, at all costs. An okapi is worth a hundred other animals of any kind that one can name. And that one is wounded; we have but to follow it, and we are certain to find it, sooner or later. Come, my friends, let us lose not a moment in pursuing it.”
And utterly ignoring any further idea of concealment, forgetting also, in the excitement of the moment, the imprudence, to say the least of it, of attempting to pursue a wounded animal through the intricacies of a dense forest, at night, and communicating his excitement to his companions by his eager exclamations, the professor led the way out of their ambush, dashing recklessly over rocks, loose boulders, and other obstructions in his anxiety to arrive quickly at the spot where he hoped to pick up the trail.
It took them but a few minutes to find the spot at which the okapi had left the water, for the rocks were splashed with blood, leaving a clear trail toward one of the innumerable alleys or “runs” through the forest that debouched upon the drinking-place. But they had no sooner left the open and entered the particular alley along which the animal had retreated than they recognised the absolute hopelessness of attempting to follow the blood-marks without artificial light of some sort. Sir Reginald and Lethbridge, indeed, with a partial return to reasonableness, suggested the abandonment of the chase for the night, and a return to theFlying Fishuntil the morning, when they could come back to the spot, provided with everything necessary to enable them to carry the pursuit to a successful issue. But von Schalckenberg protested so vehemently against this course, urging with so much plausibility the likelihood that the creature would drop exhausted before it had run a mile, and that, if the search for it were left until the morning, all that they would find of it would probably be its mangled remains, so torn and mauled by other animals as to be utterly valueless, that at length the others allowed themselves to be persuaded against their better judgment. So gathering together such dry rushes and other matters as could be converted into torches, they lighted these, and with the illumination thus obtained, proceeded upon their quest.
The fresh blood spoor was easily followed for the first half-mile or so, at which point their hopes of success were stimulated by a sudden scrambling sound at no great distance ahead of them, as though some heavy animal had been startled by the light of their torches and the noise of their approach, and had hastily betaken itself to flight. Encouraged by the sounds, they hurried forward, and presently came upon a small puddle of blood and a “form” in the thick carpet of ferns and fallen leaves, with which the soil was covered, that plainly pointed to the fact that the wounded animal had here sunk down to rest, and had only just moved on again. This last impression was clearly borne out by the circumstance that, even as the party bent over the spot, examining it, the crushed ferns were slowly raising themselves again.
“Ah!” ejaculated von Schalckenberg, as he commented upon this, “the chase will soon be over; we shall come up with him again within the next ten minutes, and then he will not escape us.”
The ten minutes, however, became twenty, and the twenty lengthened out to forty, and still they had not overtaken the okapi, although they frequently heard sounds at no great distance ahead which led them to believe that they were close upon its heels. But they had been greatly delayed by the constant necessity to pause while they renewed their torches; and latterly the blood spoor had been steadily growing less distinct. It appeared that the wound had almost ceased to bleed, and this had greatly added to the difficulty of pursuit. Finally, the blood-marks ceased altogether, and thenceforward they could do nothing but press forward along what, in the uncertain light of their torches, seemed to be the most well-defined track, finding encouragement for their persistency in those occasional rustlings ahead of them. At length, however, these also ceased, and when they had been plodding doggedly forward for at least a quarter of an hour without hearing a sound save that made by themselves, Lethbridge called a halt.
“Look here, you fellows,” he said, “I don’t want to discourage you—and especiallyyou, Professor—but don’t you think this affair has gone quite far enough? I am bitterly sorry and disappointed to be obliged to say it, but I think there can be no doubt that we have lost that okapi. Whether the poor beast has recovered sufficiently to have been enabled to out-distance us, or whether, on the other hand, finding himself hard pressed, he has made a dash ahead and then quietly slipped into cover somewhere, I am not prepared to say, but I am morally convinced that we shall not see him again. Now, if your opinion upon this matter is the same as mine, I would suggest that we turn back forthwith, since nothing is to be gained by going any farther forward, while there is just a possibility that we may experience some difficulty in finding our way back out of this maze.”
It appeared that Sir Reginald was of the same opinion as Lethbridge. Von Schalckenberg, on the other hand, was so absolutely certain that they were still upon the track of the okapi, and that they would soon come up with it, also that there would be no difficulty whatever in the matter of finding their way back, that, as he explained, he felt quite justified in urging the others to continue the pursuit, pleading at the same time the folly of giving up, now that they had come so far, and done so much. The result was that Sir Reginald and Lethbridge ultimately yielded to the professor’s entreaties, the baronet with a certain amount of inward misgiving, and Lethbridge with a resigned shrug of the shoulders.
The trail—or rather, what von Schalckenberg believed to be the trail—was accordingly followed for another half-hour, but without the discovery of any further sign of the okapi. And then a difficulty arose in connection with the torches. There was nothing now available for these but such dry twigs and branches as they could gather from the ground, or the adjacent scrub, as they went; and while the small twigs were so exceedingly combustible that they were consumed in a minute or two, the larger ones refused to burn at all. And finally even the professor himself at length very reluctantly came to the conclusion that the okapi was irretrievably lost, and that to seek further for it would but be a useless expenditure of time and energy.
With the arrival of the professor at this conclusion, and his admission thereof, the party at once turned back and began to retrace their steps; the difficulty with the torches increasing as they went. They struggled on for a considerable time, however, von Schalckenberg leading the way, until at length they came to a small open space in the centre of which grew an enormous mahogany tree. With one accord the four men came to a dead halt, regarding each other with an expression very nearly approaching to consternation.
“We have missed our way,” exclaimed Sir Reginald, with decision; “I am certain that we never passed that tree on our outward journey.”
The others were equally convinced of the truth of this, as also of Lethbridge’s terse statement that there was nothing for it but to try back by the way that they had come until they again hit the right path. But they decided that, before doing so, they would endeavour to provide themselves with a good supply of torches, a large quantity of dry twigs and branches from the mahogany tree offering them the opportunity to do so, and the professor blaming the inadequacy of the light for his mistake in having led them into a wrong path.
They accordingly spent the best part of an hour in this manner, by the end of which they had as many torches—of a sort—as they could conveniently carry. During this period the four men had been wandering round and round the open space in which they had so unexpectedly found themselves, seeking the most suitable material for their purpose; and when at length they were ready to make a fresh start a question arose as to the precise whereabouts of the spot at which they had entered. Each, it appeared, had his own opinion, which differed from that of the others; and when, in order to settle the question, they decided to search for their own footprints as a guide, they made the disconcerting discovery that the imprints were altogether too faint to be traceable by such comparatively inexperienced trackers as themselves. Furthermore, although before entering this open space it had appeared to them that they had been following a tolerably well-defined path, or “run,” now that they came to look for such a thing it proved impossible to find anything of the kind, an experimental advance of a few yards in any given direction yielding a precisely similar impression. The final conclusion arrived at was that, having once got out of the proper track, they had not been following a path at all, but simply making their way at haphazard between the innumerable patches of underscrub.
At this point Sziszkinski interposed with a remark that offered a possible solution of the difficulty.
“I know not, gentlemen,” he said, “whether any of you took particular notice of the appearance of that mahogany tree at the moment when we entered this enclosure; but my recollection of it is that, as we first became aware of its presence, that big lower limb extended almost at right angles to our track, pointing to our left. Carrying my memory back to that moment, I think I must have been standing here, or hereabout,”—placing himself in position to illustrate his remark—“and facing this way. And if I am correct, that,”—as he faced right about and pointed—“must be about the point at which we entered.”
With their memories thus jogged, the other three men presently came to the conclusion that the Russian was right; and starting afresh, upon this assumption, they instituted a further and still closer search for their own spoor, eventually finding certain faint and indefinite indentations in the carpet of withered leaves which they agreed must be their own footprints. Following these faint indications as well as they could, they now pushed forward eagerly; for Sir Reginald had by this time become seriously apprehensive that they might not get back to theFlying Fishby breakfast-time, in which case he knew that those left behind on board her would quickly become alarmed, and suffer much distress at the non-appearance of the absentees. And a gratifying assurance that they were going right was afforded the wanderers, about half an hour after their departure from the mahogany tree, by the discovery of the charred remains of one of the torches that had helped to light them on their way.
This discovery put fresh heart into the little party; for if they had come thus far all right there was no reason, they told themselves, why they should not keep right, and soon hit the track back to the drinking-place. Then they found another charred brand, and another; and now, quite happy in the assurance that they were passing back over ground that they had already traversed, they pressed forward light-heartedly enough until, after the lapse of nearly another half-hour, Lethbridge again damped their ardour by saying—
“Look here, you fellows, doesn’t it strike you that we are going a little too fast? It must be nearly half an hour since we passed the remains of that last torch; and I have not yet seen another. Have any of you? Because, if you haven’t, we are going wrong again! The best of those things only lasted about ten minutes, you know.”
This was perfectly true, and the inference drawn by the ex-colonel was so obvious that, without pausing to discuss the matter, they at once wheeled round and proceeded to retrace their steps. But although each one of them felt convinced that they were really going back again over precisely the same ground that they had already traversed, that last relic of a torch was not again encountered; and at length, having wandered on for another hour or more, in the hope of getting back to the mahogany tree, from which to make a fresh start, the alarming conviction forced itself upon them that they werelost—utterly lost in this great illimitable African forest!
“I am afraid there is no doubt about it,” said Lethbridge, when, a little later, the party had come to a halt in their perplexity, and the grim truth had found expression in words, “and, that being the case, I think the best thing we can do is to sit down—for I imagine that we are all beginning to feel a trifle fagged—and nibble a sandwich or two, washing it down with a nip from our flasks, as we discuss the situation.”
“Of course,” remarked Sir Reginald, when they had seated themselves and produced their refreshments, “although this is a rather awkward adventure, there is no need for us to feel any alarm or apprehension. We are certain to extricate ourselves sooner or later, and I think we may take it for granted that we are not likely to starve, so long as we have any cartridges left. The thing that worries me is the anxiety that our friends aboard theFlying Fishwill suffer when we fail to turn up in decent time.”
“Yes, certainly, that is the worst feature of the case,” agreed Lethbridge, “because, of course, they will know that something has happened to detain us, but they will not know what it is; and there is always a tendency among women to imagine the worst. It would not matter so much if we possessed a means of communicating with them, for although we could not, perhaps, direct Mildmay how to find us, we could, at all events, keep them advised of our welfare. I suppose,” he continued, turning with a smile to von Schalckenberg, “you do not happen to possess the power of telepathy, do you, Professor?”
“No,” answered the professor, “unhappily I do not. But your remark has suggested to me the idea of a little experiment which I will attempt when we get back to the ship. If it should prove successful it may help us on some subsequent occasion similar to the present. But the question is, how are we to get back to the ship?”
“Well,” remarked Sir Reginald, “it appears to me that we cannot do anything more until daylight. We are lost in this forest, and have not at present the slightest notion as to the direction we ought to take. That, I think, is indisputable, and it is useless to shut our eyes to the fact. We may, therefore, as well stay here as anywhere, and rest until daylight. It is now just half-past four; we shall, therefore, not have very long to wait. Now, as to our position. We know that we left the river by way of its south bank; and, since we have not again touched it, we must still be somewhere to the southward of it. Therefore, if, when daylight comes, we head northward, we are certain to strike the river before long; and, once there, we ought not to meet with much difficulty in finding our ambush again, from which, of course, we can easily find our way back to the ship.”
“Excellent, and thoroughly well reasoned out,” remarked Lethbridge. “I quite agree with you, Elphinstone. We cannot do better than remain here until daylight, as you say; and then, with the coming of sunrise, we shall get at the points of the compass and know which way to steer in order to hit off the river again.”
The professor and Colonel Sziszkinski also agreed that Sir Reginald’s plan was a good one. They therefore settled themselves comfortably, and, with the aid of their pipes and chat, beguiled the time as best they could.
The moon had set some hours before this, and the forest was consequently plunged in darkness so profound that it was impossible to see anything beyond their immediate surroundings, which were illuminated for the space of some four or five yards by the flickering light of their torches. The silence also was profound, for the buzzingchirrof the insect-life of the place had long since ceased, and only the occasional crackle of dry leaves or twigs betrayed the fact that the great solitude held other denizens than themselves. At length, however, when their watches marked the hour of seven a.m. they became aware of a dim, ghostly light filtering down upon them from above and stealthily revealing the presence of tree-trunk, twisted creepers, and tangled underscrub at gradually widening distances from them. Whereupon they charged and lighted their pipes afresh, extinguished their torches, and, after allowing themselves a few minutes longer to enable their eyes to become accustomed to the dim, sombre twilight that alone pervaded those illimitable forest aisles, set out upon a course which they agreed would ultimately lead them back to the river.
Their course was anything but a straight one, for they were obliged to wind hither and thither between and around enormous masses of tangled, impenetrable undergrowth; and there were many occasions when they were compelled to go some little distance in a direction the very opposite of that which they wished to follow, ere they could again hit off a practicable path leading northward. Yet notwithstanding this, they began to feel some disappointment and recurrence of anxiety when, at eleven o’clock in the forenoon, they still seemed as far off as ever from finding the river. There was nothing for it, however, but to press forward as they were going; and this they did, in somewhat noisy fashion—for there seemed to them to be no very especial reason for silence—until there suddenly broke upon their ears a deep, hollow, drumming sound, speedily followed by a series of loud, fierce roars. The sounds emanated from somewhere close at hand, and after a moment’s instinctive pause to listen, they all with one accord hastened forward to investigate, with the result that they suddenly found themselves emerging from the cramped and gloomy environment of the forest depths into a comparatively open arena, roughly circular in shape, and nearly a mile in diameter, thickly carpeted with rich, lush grass, and but sparsely dotted with trees.
As the wanderers entered this space, they saw, about a dozen yards away, a very fine gorilla, upreared, with his back toward them, fiercely beating his chest with his huge fists, and giving vent to a succession of savage, barking roars. The exciting cause of this exhibition of anger was not at first apparent. But presently the little party of interested witnesses caught sight of a dark object nearly hidden in the grass; and as they watched this object, its details gradually revealed themselves, and they recognised it as an animal of the leopard species, of about the same size as the ordinary leopard, and similarly, marked, save that the tint of the skin, instead of being tawny yellow, was a rich brown, approaching very nearly to chocolate.
“Look! what animal is that?” ejaculated the professor, in a husky whisper. “I do not know him. He is new to me—a new species! And the gorilla, too; what a splendid specimen!—”
Von Schalckenberg fell suddenly silent, constrained thereto by his interest in the impending drama, for it was evident that the leopard meditated an attack upon the gorilla. The great cat was crouching low in the grass, with its ears laid back flat to its head, its savage eyes gleaming with hate as it watched every movement of its antagonist, and its tail twitching jerkingly now to this side, now to that. The gorilla, meanwhile, as fully alert as the leopard, was advancing craftily toward it, a single pace at a time, with the apparent intention of getting within leaping distance, and then suddenly springing upon its foe. The leopard, however, appeared to be fully aware of its enemy’s intention, and also of how to frustrate it; for it remained patiently crouching until the gorilla was in the very act of pulling itself together for a leap, and then, at the psychological moment, sprang high into the air, leaping clear and clean over the gorilla’s head, and landing a yard or so in his rear; then, before the huge creature had time to recover from his astonishment at such extraordinary tactics, the leopard again gathered itself together for a spring, and was in a moment on the gorilla’s back, with its teeth deeply sunk in the back of the creature’s neck, while with its terrible claws it dug and tore at the gorilla’s throat. So completely was the latter taken by surprise, that he seemed utterly incapable of striking a blow in self-defence. Instead he simply threw up his long, hairy, tremendously muscular arms, staggered backward a pace or two, and fell to the earth, moaning and groaning horribly as he clasped his terribly lacerated throat with both hands, the leopard having meanwhile leaped nimbly aside and crouched afresh as its enemy fell. It was evident, however, that there was no more fight left in the gorilla; the creature was, beyond doubt, mortally injured, and lay there moaning piteously, with the blood streaming through his fingers, making no attempt to regain his feet. His enemy at length seemed to realise this, for after remaining crouched and watching for some three or four minutes, it rose to its feet and began to slink away, but was promptly stopped and laid low by a shot from Sir Reginald’s rifle; while Lethbridge, cautiously approaching the prostrate gorilla, sent a bullet through his skull, and thus put him out of his misery.
“Now we must push on again,” exclaimed Sir Reginald. “I don’t know, Professor, whether or not you wish to have either of those skins; but, if you do, we must wait until we get back to the ship, and then come and look for them. We cannot spare the time to take them now, or cumber ourselves with them when taken. Now, gentlemen, it is noon, and there is the sun. He is on the meridian, and consequently due north of us. He certainly does not cast a very long shadow, but he casts enough to show that yonder lies our path; so, forward!”
Their path happened to lead almost directly through the centre of this wide, open space, and the going being easy they quickly traversed it, and plunged again into the forest shadows on the other side, where their slow, toilsome, groping style of progress was resumed. For three long hours they struggled on, weary, now, beyond power of expression, often in grave doubt as to whether or no they were pursuing the right direction, and every moment growing more seriously disconcerted at the extraordinary circumstance that, although during the day they must have journeyed many more miles than they had during the previous night, they still failed to reach the river for which they were aiming.
At length, quite late in the afternoon, they again unexpectedly emerged from the forest into another open space, very similar in size and appearance to the one in which they had witnessed the combat between the gorilla and the leopard. As they stood for a moment in the open, blinking their dazzled eyes in the strong and unaccustomed sunshine, in a vain effort to classify the several objects, moving and motionless, that they saw dotted about the plain, a shout reached their ears, answered by another and another, and half a dozen more. Then they became aware of the sound of lowing cattle, and presently, as their eyes adjusted themselves to the sudden change in the light conditions, they recognised that they were on the outskirts, so to speak, of a native village, and that the inhabitants, whose quick eyes had detected their presence upon the instant of their emergence from the forest, were already mustering, with spear and shield, in unquestionably menacing fashion.