This was the Unknown. This was the World as it Had Been, before man was on the earth. These animals are the relics that bind us to the Past, to the cave-men and the old primordial days. There was a silence on the river that seemed somehow overpowering, rising superior to the ceaseless droning of the insects and the soft gurgling of the water, which formed little shifting eddies in the lee of fallen trees.
A long canoe shot through the water like some great, questing beast. Therein were twelve natives from Loango, all but naked as they came into the world. Their paddles flashed in the reflected light of the furnace overhead; for all that, the canoe came forward without noise except for the gentle rippling sound of the water under the bows. In the stern were seated two men side by side, and one of these was Edward Harden, and the other his nephew Max. In the body of the canoe was a great number of "loads": camp equipment, provisions, ammunition and cheap Manchester goods, such as are used by the traders to barter for ivory and rubber with the native chiefs. Each "load" was the maximum weight that could be carried by a porter, should the party find it necessary to leave the course of the river.
In the bows, perched like an eagle above his eyrie, was Captain Crouch. His solitary eye darted from bank to bank. In his thin nervous hands he held a rifle, ready on the instant to bring the butt into the hollow of his shoulder.
As the canoe rounded each bend of the river, the crocodiles glided from the mud-banks and the hippopotami sank silently under the stream. Here and there two nostrils remained upon the surface--small, round, black objects, only discernible by the ripples which they caused.
Suddenly a shot rang out, sharp as the crack of a whip. The report echoed, again and again, in the dark, inhospitable forest that extended on either bank. There was a rush of birds that rose upon the wing; the natives shipped their paddles, and, on the left bank of the river, the two-horned rhinoceros sat bolt upright on its hind-legs like a sow, with its fore-legs wide apart. Then, slowly, it rolled over and sank deep into the mud. By then Crouch had reloaded.
"What was it?" asked Harden.
"A rhino," said Crouch. "We were too far off for him to see us, and the wind was the right way."
A moment later the canoe drew into the bank a little distance from where the great beast lay. Harden and Crouch waded into the mire, knives in hand; and that rhino was skinned with an ease and rapidity which can only be accomplished by the practised hunter. The meat was cut into large slices, which were distributed as rations to the natives. Of the rest, only the head was retained, and this was put into a second canoe, which soon after came into sight.
After that they continued their journey up the wide, mysterious river. All day long the paddles were never still, the rippling sound continued at the bows. Crouch remained motionless as a statue, rifle in hand, ready to fire at a moment's notice. With his dark, overhanging brow, his hook nose, and his thin, straight lips, he bore a striking resemblance to some gaunt bird of prey.
A second shot sounded as suddenly and unexpectedly as the first, and a moment after Crouch was on his feet.