"Hey, General!" called Charlie. "Come back here a minute!" The explorer, who was filling his bandolier, came over to their side, and Charlie pointed to the stream. "This river seems to run west out of the lake, and then turn south. Now, she's running north and south right here, isn't she?" The explorer, glancing at his compass, nodded. "Then instead of keeping close to the stream, why couldn't we strike off northeast and head straight for the lake? The river only leads us every which way."
"Good idea," exclaimed the General. "I had forgotten all about that map, to tell the truth. The only question is whether we can depend on it."
"That fellow Selim," put in the interested doctor, "was a man of brains, my friends. He would not send his camels and partner where he did not know. There is too much game beside this river, also. I like it not."
"Very well," said Schoverling. "Then we will simply cut around those hills ahead and march by compass. No lack o' water here, fortunately."
So, much to the relief of the boys, they left the dangerous vicinity of the river and struck across country. Except on the very banks of the stream there was no jungle, but open and well-wooded country that seemed well able to support a population of natives, had there been any to support. An hour after inspanning they came to another and larger village, which had fallen to decay as had the first. Monkeys were everywhere, grinning and chattering among the ruined huts, and in the center of the old village, fastened to a still sturdy post, they came upon a pair of heavy iron hand-cuffs, which were simply a mass of rust.
"There's an indication of the slave-trade," and Schoverling pointed. "Probably a refractory slave was tied up there and whipped. I suppose those Arabs found this a thickly populated, happy country and simply made a clean sweep, men, women and children. Those that weren't killed or carried off north no doubt perished miserably in the wilderness. Poor devils! It's a tremendously good thing for Africa that the British put down the slave-trade."
"If they'd only conserved their resources," declared von Hofe, "they might be running out slaves yet. But it was more than slavers, my friend." He had advanced to the door of a hut and now drew back. "It is not a good place to stay. There are skeletons—perhaps of the plague."
"That's more like it," exclaimed Charlie, as they rode on. "Mowbray said that he had found the Arab place plague-swept, and had burned the whole thing, prob'ly for fear of infection. That would account for the absence of human life a whole lot better than by laying it all on the slavers."
There was another thought running through Charlie's head, however—something of which no one had yet spoken openly. He wondered if Schoverling had paid any attention to Mowbray's narrative of the big cache of ivory "underneath the left gate-post." He had been long enough in Africa to know the tremendous value of tusks, and resolved to talk things over with Jack at the first opportunity. Von Hofe, meanwhile, had been thinking along more practical lines.
"If we had a large party, Schoverling, and plenty of time, we could make money," he announced suddenly, and pointed to the hills on their left. "Those hills must be of old volcanoes. Why should the Arabs have come so far to settle here in a terrible land? Not for slaves or ivory alone. No. In these lakes and rivers there is gold."