CHAPTER XV
THE MAN WHO WOULD GO ON
David Livingstone
(Dates born 1813, died 1873)
There was a deathly stillness in the hot African air as two bronzed Scots strode along the narrow forest path.
The one, a young, keen-eyed doctor,[44] glanced quickly through the trees and occasionally turned aside to pick some strange orchid and to slip it into his collecting case. The other strode steadily along with that curious, "resolute forward tread" of his.[45] He was David Livingstone. Behind them came a string of African bearers carrying in bundles on their heads the tents and food of the explorers.
Suddenly, with a crunch, Livingstone's heel went through a white object half hidden in the long grass—a thing like an ostrich's egg. He stooped—and his strong, bronzed face was twisted with mingled sorrow and anger, as, looking into the face of his younger friend, he gritted out between his clenched teeth, "The slave-raiders again!"