Chapter Fifteen.
A Troop of Unicorns.
A week later, the four friends once more found themselves beneath the roof of “The Migrants’”, where it had been arranged that they were to meet and take luncheon together prior to their journey down to Portsmouth to rejoin the Flying Fish. On comparing notes it was found that each had, according to his own views, made the best possible use of his time, the professor having not only placed the mammoth’s skin in the hands of an eminent taxidermist, but also prepared and read before the Royal Society a paper on “The Open Polar Sea,” which had created a profound impression on the collective mind of that august body; Lethbridge and Mildmay had seized the opportunity for paying a too-long-deferred visit to their respective mothers; and Sir Reginald had, acting upon the best obtainable advice, conveyed the four parcels of diamonds belonging to the party over to Amsterdam, where they had been left in the care of a thoroughly trustworthy diamond merchant, with instructions that certain of the jewels were to be cut and set in the handsomest possible manner, whilst the rest were to be disposed of as opportunity might offer. The furs were also satisfactorily got rid of; some of them having been sold, and the remainder (consisting of all the choicest skins) placed in the hands of the furriers to be cured and taken care of until their owners should return to claim them.
The luncheon was a very lively meal; the conversation naturally turning to the last occasion upon which the travellers had met there; and upon its conclusion the four friends chartered a couple of hansoms, which conveyed them to Waterloo station in good time for the Portsmouth express.
On their arrival at the Harbour station they found George and his French friend, the cook (both of whom had been granted a week’s leave), dutifully awaiting them on the platform. The boats, under the care of the man who had been placed in charge of them, were lying alongside the adjacent slipway, in accordance with a telegraphed arrangement which had preceded the travellers; and, entering these, the party at once proceeded down the harbour, past Southsea and its castle, and out toward Nettlestone Point. It was by this time quite dark, save for the light of the young moon, which was already near her setting, and the boats were consequently at once urged to their full speed in the direction where the Flying Fish had been left.
Having originally taken their cross bearings wholly from the shore lights, the voyagers had now no difficulty whatever in placing the boats in their proper position. Arrived on the spot, a sounding-line was dropped over the side, and the first cast showed that they were floating exactly over the submerged ship. The boats were therefore allowed to drift with the tide until they were clear of the Flying Fish, when Sir Reginald dropped his anchor and ladder, and the professor, who had already routed out from the stern locker and donned his diving armour, stepped over the side, adjusted his weights, and quietly disappeared beneath the surface of the water. A lapse of perhaps a minute occurred, when the ladder was found to be hanging limp and loose; a bright white light flashed upward through the water for a moment, as a signal from the professor that he had reached the bottom all right; and then the luminous beam was seen moving slowly forward over the bottom in the direction of the submerged ship. Suddenly the light vanished.
“He has reached the ship,” the baronet reported to those in the other boat, who were alternately drifting with the tide and moving up against it to maintain an easy speaking distance from their consort. A quarter of an hour passed, and then a brilliant, dazzling flood of light streamed out for about ten seconds at apparently no great distance below the surface, then vanished again.
“All right,” remarked Sir Reginald as soon as he saw this; “he has reached the pilot-house. Now, George, up with the anchor, my good fellow, and we will back off a few yards out of harm’s way.”
The boats accordingly did so, von Schalckenberg allowing them ten minutes for the operation; then, with a sudden rush and swirl of water, the huge bulk of the Flying Fish appeared above the surface, looming black, vast, and mysterious against the faintly luminous horizon. A moment more, and the windows of the pilot-house shone out a series of luminous discs against the darkness, showing that the professor had lighted up the interior, and that individual himself appeared on deck hailing the invisible boats with:
“It is all right; everything is just as we left it, and you may come on board as soon as you like.”
Ten minutes later the boats had been hoisted in and stowed away, and the Flying Fish, at an elevation of some three hundred feet above the sea-level, was moving to the southward and eastward across the placid waters of the Channel, at the moderate rate of some five-and-twenty miles per hour. At midnight, however, after a little music and conversation, the pace was quickened to about one hundred miles per hour; the altitude was at the same time increased to ten thousand feet; the course was set to south, by compass, and the travellers, with a feeling of perfect security, retired to rest, confident that the professor’s clever automatic devices would not only maintain the ship at her then elevation, but would also steer her straight in the required direction.
On the following morning at daybreak the travellers found themselves hovering over the blue Mediterranean, with the African coast at no great distance, and a town of considerable size directly ahead. This town was soon identified as Tunis (near which is the site of ancient Carthage), and they shortly afterwards passed over it, not unnoticed by the inhabitants, who, with the aid of the telescope, could be seen pointing upward at the ship in evident consternation. Then on over the chain of hills beyond the town, and they once more found themselves with the sea beneath them, the ship’s course causing her to just skirt the Gulf of Hammamet, whilst they obtained a splendid view of Lake Kairwan and the three streams which it absorbs. Then past Capes Dimas and Kadijah, across the Gulf of Cabes, and so on to Tripoli, which was reached and passed soon after the party had risen from breakfast. At this point the Mediterranean was finally left behind, and the ship’s speed was shortly afterwards reduced to a rate of about fifteen knots through the air; her altitude being also decreased to about one thousand feet above the ground level.
The course was now altered to about south by west (true), and the travellers passed slowly over the Fezzan country, the borders of the Libyan Desert, the Soudan, and Dar Zaleh; the prospect beneath and around them varying with every hour of their progress, from the most fertile and highly cultivated district, dotted here and there with straggling villages, to the most sterile and sandy wastes. They saw but little game during this portion of their journey, and only descended to the ground at night, when the vessel was secured by her four grip-anchors during the hours which her crew devoted to rest.
This uneventful state of affairs continued until they arrived in ten degrees of north latitude and twenty degrees of east longitude, when they found themselves fairly beyond the limits of even the most rudimentary civilisation, and in a country of alternating wooded hill and grassy, well-watered plain, which had all the appearance of a very promising hunting district. The country was very thinly populated, the native villages being in some cases as much as fifty or sixty miles apart, whilst in no instance were two villages found within a shorter distance than twenty miles. The inhabitants were, as far as could be seen, fine stalwart specimens of the negro race, evidently skilled in the chase and, presumably, also in all the arts of savage warfare; but it was not very easy to form a reliable opinion upon their habits and mode of life, as whenever the Flying Fish appeared upon the scene they invariably took to their heels with yells of terror and sought shelter in the thickest covert they could find.
As the travellers penetrated further in toward the heart of this district, their anticipations in the matter of game became ever more abundantly realised; vast herds of antelope of various descriptions, and including more than one new species, being constantly visible from the ship’s deck whenever she was raised a few hundred feet in the air. And, in addition to antelope, a few elephants, an occasional herd of buffalo, a troop or two of wild horses, a rhinoceros, a family of lions, a skulking leopard, or a gorilla, was a by no means unusual sight; to say nothing of the countless troops of monkeys and other unimportant game with which the country seemed to be literally swarming.
Such a district seemed to be the very realisation of a sportsman’s or a naturalist’s dream of paradise; and it was quickly decided that a halt should be called, and at least a few days devoted to the pursuit of game and the collection of natural history specimens. A suitable spot in which to bring the Flying Fish to earth was accordingly sought for, and found in a small open space of about thirty acres, almost entirely surrounded by bush, and in close proximity to a tiny streamlet which emptied itself into a small shallow lake about half a mile distant from the selected site.
Here they hunted with moderate success for a week, not killing any very large amount of game—for they soon discovered that they could do very little without horses—but managing, by patient stalking and the secreting of themselves in artfully devised ambushes, to secure a few choice and rare skins and horns, besides the tusks of eight elephants and the plumage of over a dozen ostriches.
On the day of their departure from this temporary halting-place, however, a piece of surprising and wholly unexpected good fortune befell them. It was one of those especially glorious mornings which are never encountered anywhere but in the tropics. A very heavy dew had fallen during the night, revivifying the vegetation parched by the fervid heat of the previous day, and causing the foliage and flowers to glow for a brief period in their brightest and freshest tints, whilst they exhaled their choicest odours; and a light cool northerly breeze imparted a temporary freshness to the early morning air, as yet uninfluenced by the scarcely risen sun.
They had “broken camp,” and had risen to a height of about one thousand feet above the ground level, preparatory to the resumption of their southward journey. An awning was spread over the deck, fore and aft, under the protecting shade of which they proposed to take breakfast; and whilst waiting for the meal to be served, the travellers, each seated in a deck chair, were amusing themselves by inspecting the magnificent prospect which lay spread out around and beneath them, the more distant parts of which were being diligently investigated with the aid of their telescopes.
They were thus engaged when George announced that breakfast was served; and the professor was just on the point of laying down his instrument, preparatory to seating himself at the table, when a small group of animals, which were grazing upon the crest of a distant eminence, swept for a moment across his field of view. A certain something of peculiarity and strangeness in the appearance of the creatures caused the motion of the telescope to be arrested in mid-sweep, and in another instant von Schalckenberg, deaf to the calls of his companions and the respectful reminder of the faithful steward, had his instrument focused full upon the group of animals. They were, however, a long way off, and the mist was now rising so thickly from the surface of the ground that it was impossible to clearly distinguish them; so the professor contented himself by going to the pilot-house and directing the ship’s head straight toward the point occupied by the animals. After which he carefully noted the time, made a little mental calculation, and seated himself at the breakfast table, with his watch carefully propped up before his plate.
His friends were, by this time, so accustomed to the professor’s little peculiarities that no one thought of asking any questions, feeling sure that an explanation would come all in good time. Neither did they make any remark or evince any surprise, beyond a shrug of the shoulders and an amused elevation of the eyebrows, when the savant, glancing at his watch, hastily rose from the table, and, in his absent-mindedness carrying with him a fork with a morsel of venison-steak impaled upon its prongs, hurried away to the pilot-house. A moment or two later a gentle jar was felt as the ship came to the ground; but the mist was by this time so thick that it was difficult to see objects more than a couple of hundred feet distant, and all that could be clearly made out was that they had stopped close to a clump of bush of considerable extent.
By the time that breakfast was over, the morning mist, true to its proverbially evanescent character, had completely passed away, and the travellers found that they had come to earth on the crest of a slight eminence, from which an uninterrupted view, of several miles extent over the surrounding plains, could be obtained in every direction save one, namely, that between which and the ship stretched the belt of bush.
And now came the professor’s explanation:
“You have, doubtless, wondered, gentlemen,” said he, “why I have thus early, and without warning, interrupted our journey. I will now tell you. I have lately been glancing through the book which, you will remember, I succeeded in recovering from the wreck of the Daedalus, and therein I met with a passage of a most surpassingly interesting character. This passage related to the rumoured penetration into this region of a certain unnamed traveller who is stated to have positively asserted that he here saw, on more than one occasion, an animal absolutely identical with the fabled unicorn. This remarkable statement at once reminded me that I had, many years ago, seen a paragraph in a Berlin paper to a similar effect. The statement was accompanied by an expression of strong doubt, if not of absolute incredulity, as to its veracity; an expression which impressed me at the time as being most cruel and unfair to the claimant for the honours of a new discovery in natural history; since the discovery was alleged to have been made in a region which had never before—nor, indeed, has since, until now—been penetrated by civilised man; or from which, at all events, no civilised traveller has ever again emerged, if indeed he had been successful in penetrating it. Such being the case, as the course we were pursuing would take us through the very heart of this unknown and unvisited region, I resolved to maintain a most careful watch for these creatures. I have done so, and I am sanguine that I have this morning actually seen a troop of them. Unfortunately, the mist and the distance together prevented a clear and distinct view of the animals to which I refer; but, whatever they may be, I have an idea that they are at this moment feeding at no great distance on the other side of this belt of bush. Should such be the case, we have the wind of the animals and ought to have no great difficulty in stalking them; a proceeding which, if patiently and cautiously executed, ought to enable us not only to secure a specimen or two, but also to obtain a slight insight into the habits of the creature.”
The trio addressed felt, one and all, slightly incredulous as to the realisation of von Schalckenberg’s sanguine surmises; but, remembering the mammoths, they prudently kept their own counsel, and hastened away to secure their rifles and to make their preparations for a possibly long and tedious stalk. They exchanged their suits of dazzling white nankeen for others of a thin, tough serge of a light greenish-grey tint, which admirably matched the colour of the long grass through which the stalk would have to be performed; and, in about a quarter of an hour from the commencement of their preparations, found themselves standing outside the huge hull of the ship, and in its shadow, making their final dispositions for the chase. These arrangements were soon made. Sir Reginald and the professor were to constitute one contingent, Lethbridge and Mildmay the other; these last being impressively instructed by von Schalckenberg to take up the most advantageous position possible for intercepting the flight of the game, but on no account to shoot until the others had first opened fire.
The two parties then went their several ways, reaching, at about the same moment, the opposite extremities of the bush belt. The utmost caution now became necessary in order to avoid startling the game, if indeed the professor was right in his conjectures, and the hunters sank down upon their knees and began a slow and tedious progress through the long grass. The professor was fairly quivering with excitement, and all his companion’s efforts were ineffectual to prevent his rising cautiously to his feet as soon as they had cleared the bush sufficiently to allow of his obtaining a view beyond. For a moment or two he glared anxiously around him, then dropped to his knees again as if shot.
“They are there,” he gasped almost inarticulately, “sixteen of them; not more than half a mile away.”
“And what do ‘they’ actually prove to be?” murmured the baronet. “Not unicorns, of course?”
“Yes, unicorns! Animals with only one horn—the males, that is to say. Some have no horns, and those I take to be females.”
This was too much for Sir Reginald’s curiosity. He, in his turn, rose to his feet, ignoring the professor’s agonised entreaties for caution, and, sure enough, within half a mile of where he stood was a herd of animals so closely resembling the unicorn which figures as one of the supporters of the royal arms of England that he could hardly credit his eyes. He counted the creatures, and found that, as the professor had stated, there were sixteen of them, all apparently full-grown. They very closely approached the zebra in general shape, but were considerably larger animals, standing about fourteen hands high. They were of a beautiful deep cream colour, their legs black below the knee, and they had short black manes, black switched tails very similar to that of the gemsbok, and, in the case of four of the animals then in view, were provided with a single straight black pointed horn projecting from the very centre of the forehead, just above the level of the eyes.
At length, yielding to the professor’s entreaties and remonstrances, the baronet again sank to his knees and the stalk was resumed.
Soon, however, it became apparent that, from some cause or other, the animals were growing restless and uneasy. They frequently ceased feeding suddenly and gazed about them with an anxious, inquiring look, as though suspicious of but unable to detect the approach of danger, and instead of steadily cropping at the grass in one particular spot they would snatch a few hasty mouthfuls and then move on some ten or a dozen yards. And, as it unfortunately happened, their progress was directly away from the hunters, so that the latter soon found they were booked for a very long, tedious, and wearisome task. The stalkers were at first disposed to regard the uneasiness of the game as due to their own presence, yet, upon further reflection, this seemed scarcely possible, for, in the first place, they were all, even to Mildmay and the professor, tolerably experienced hunters, and were conducting the stalk in the most approved and sportsmanlike manner, and, in the next place, they were dead to leeward of the animals, and it was consequently impossible that the creatures could have scented them. Both Sir Reginald and the colonel were thoroughly puzzled; and at length they—almost simultaneously, as it afterwards appeared—arrived at the same conclusion, namely, that the unicorns were being stalked by somebody or something besides themselves, or else that a storm was brewing.
In support of the first idea there was no evidence beyond the mere fact of the animals’ restlessness; but the aspect of the heavens soon became such as to strongly favour the second. Whilst the hunters had been sedulously pursuing their task the sky had gradually lost its pristine purity of blue and had become a pale colourless grey, in which the sun seemed to hang like a ghastly white radiant ball, shorn of his beams. The distant landscape first became unnaturally clear and distinct in all its details and then became veiled in a sort of murky haze. Presently a sharply defined ridge of cloud made its appearance above the south-western horizon, spreading rapidly toward the zenith, and the hunters began to realise that they were in for a thorough wetting, if for nothing worse. Mildmay, indeed, who was perhaps better acquainted than anyone else in the party with the character of the tropics, strongly urged upon his companion, Lethbridge, the desirability of abandoning the chase and returning with all speed to the ship; and the latter, impressed by the lieutenant’s earnestness, once rose cautiously to his feet with the intention of signalling a return to the other contingent, but the baronet and the scientist were at that moment invisible, so the colonel sank once more on all-fours and the chase went on.
Suddenly a sound like a low growling roar, closely followed by a shrill scream, came floating down to the hunters upon the wings of the almost stagnant breeze, and, springing hastily to their feet, they saw that a magnificent leopard had sprung upon the back of one of the hornless unicorns, and was tearing savagely at its neck and throat with its teeth and claws, the rest of the herd, with one exception, being in full flight. The exception was a fine male unicorn, which, with bristling mane and half-averted body, stood motionless save for a quick angry stamping of his fore-feet upon the ground, watching the unavailing struggles of his hapless companion. These were of very short duration, a staggering gallop of a few yards sufficing to exhaust the victim’s strength, when she reeled and fell headlong to the ground with her savage rider still clinging tenaciously to her back. This, apparently, was the moment which the male unicorn had been waiting for. Bounding forward at lightning speed and with lowered head he charged full upon the prostrate pair, and, as the leopard faced round toward him with an angry snarl, the long straight pointed horn was levelled and in another instant the great cat was hurled ruthlessly from the quivering body of his victim, transfixed through eye and brain by the formidable weapon of his vengeful antagonist. The unicorn stood for a moment tossing his head, apparently half stunned with the tremendous shock; but he quickly recovered, and was evidently preparing to renew his terrible onslaught when his quick eye detected the presence of the hunters, who, completely carried away by the exciting spectacle they had just witnessed, were standing at their full height in the long grass, fully exposed from their waists upward, and with the light glancing brightly from the polished silver-like barrels of their rifles. A moment’s pause was sufficient for the unicorn; some subtle instinct doubtless taught him that in the strange beings who had thus unexpectedly revealed themselves he beheld enemies more dangerous than the most deadly of his four-footed foes; and, wheeling quickly about, he uttered a curious barking kind of neigh and dashed off at a headlong gallop in the direction already taken by the rest of his companions.
“Good Heavens, we have lost them!” groaned the professor in a perfect agony of despair.
“Yes,” assented the baronet, who next turned to his more distant companions and hailed them with:
“We have had our trouble for nothing, after all. The best thing we can now do is to make our way back to the ship with all speed, when we can renew the pursuit, unless, as seems only too probable, we are about to have our hands full with the coming storm. We have not a moment to lose, I should say; so I would suggest that each of us put his best foot foremost.”
“Ay, ay,” replied Mildmay, “crowd sail we must; for, unless I am greatly mistaken, we are about to have a regular tornado.”
“A tornado!” gasped the professor. “Run—run for your lives; I verily believe I forgot to moor the ship!”
Forgot to moor the ship! Could such fatal carelessness be possible? If so, they must indeed run for their lives; for should the storm burst before they reached the ship she would be whirled away over the plain like an empty bladder before the blast, to what distance and with what results it was difficult just then to foreshadow; but among the possibilities which instantly presented themselves to the mind was that of death to the two inmates of the ship, irreparable damage to the craft herself, and four persons left to shift for themselves in the very centre of Africa, with nothing but the clothes they wore, the rifles they carried, and about a dozen rounds of ammunition apiece. The prospect was appalling enough to send a momentary spasm of horror thrilling through the stoutest heart there, but it also at the same time endowed them with a temporary access of almost supernatural energy; and the four men at once started for the ship at a speed which, even at the moment and to themselves, seemed incredible.
The distance they had to traverse was but short, a mere half-mile or so perhaps; but to the runners it seemed, notwithstanding their speed, as though they would never reach their goal. The grass was long and tangled, and rapid progress through it was possible only by a series of leaps or bounds; any other mode of progression would simply have resulted in their being tripped up at every other step. This, to men unaccustomed to such exercise, was in itself a sufficiently fatiguing process; but in addition to this they had to contend with the stifling heat of the stagnant atmosphere, which had been oppressive enough even whilst they had been in a condition of comparative inactivity; now it seemed to completely sap their strength and cause their limbs to hang heavy as lead about them. Then, too, the air had become so rarefied that it seemed impossible to breathe, whilst the blood rushed to their heads, and their hearts thumped against their ribs until it seemed as though nature could bear the tremendous exertion no more, and that the runners must drop dead upon the plain. Still, however, the men sped on, the portentous aspect of the heavens serving as an effectual spur to their flagging energies. The dark slate-coloured cloud had already reached the zenith, deepening in tint meanwhile until it had grown almost literally as black as ink. Presently a few great drops of hot rain splashed down upon the panting runners; and, as they rounded the end of the bush clump and came within view of the Flying Fish, a blinding flash of lightning blazed out from the sable canopy overhead, accompanied by a deafening peal of thunder which rattled and crashed and boomed and rumbled and rolled until its echoes gradually died away in the distance. A perfect deluge of rain almost immediately followed, wetting the runners to the skin in an instant as effectually as though they had been plunged into the sea. This lasted for perhaps ten seconds, during which every object, even to the racing figures of their companions, was hidden from view by the dense volume of falling water. Then the rain ceased as abruptly as it had begun, the travellers finding themselves at the same instant close to the towering hull of the Flying Fish.
“Last man in, close the trap!” gasped the baronet as he dashed up first to the opening in the ship’s bottom. The others were only a few yards behind him and heard his command; so he wasted no more time in conversation, but bounded up the long spiral staircase leading to the pilot-house, having reached which he laid his hands upon the engine lever and tiller, and gaspingly awaited the signal shout which should tell him he might move the ship, gazing anxiously out through the windows meanwhile on the watch for some sign of the bursting of the hurricane.
He had not long to wait. Almost before he had found time to remove his hat and wipe the perspiration from his brow a shout came echoing up the staircase shaft from the bottom of the ship, announcing the fact that the trap-door was securely closed; and Sir Reginald instantly raised the ship from the ground, sending the engines gently ahead at the same moment, and putting the helm hard over so as to bring the Flying Fish stem-on to the direction from which he expected the hurricane.