In Search of the Okapi / A Story of Adventure in Central Africa

by Ernest Glanville

"Yes; and we'll get him. You go to the left, and I'll keep him away from the river."

The two dashed off, each on his own line, and for several minutes the stricken animal led them through fairly open country, with every promise of a speedy run, for it was evidently hard hit. Then, taking advantage of an old watercourse, it turned to the right, and when Compton recovered the track he had lost touch with Venning. He gave a "coo-ee," and then getting a view of the antelope making down to the water, he turned it with another shot, and sprinted to overtake it. Yard by yard he gained in this final burst, and shifted his rifle to his left hand in order to have his right free to use the hunting-knife. Another effort and he was almost within touch; but the buck also had a reserve of power, and, gathering its quarters, it made a couple of bounds, which carried it into the shelter of a thin sprinkling of reeds. Compton responded, and in a few strides was so near that he flung himself forward in an effort to get astride the animal's back. The buck slipped forward, letting him down, and, when he rose he saw the white tail whisking round a corner in the reeds. On he dashed down a narrow path, which twisted and turned so sharply that he could only see a few yards ahead; but he was never in fault, as when he could not see the game he could hear it plainly, so he never slackened. The chase went on always with the prospect of success tantalizingly before him, until at last he was at fault in a little clearing where the reeds had been beaten down, and from which there branched several lanes. He stopped to listen, but the buck had stopped too. Then he searched for the blood-trail, and, finding it, set off once more, and this time, after another chase lasting about ten minutes, the buck was overtaken and despatched. Then he threw himself on his back and panted for breath. When he had recovered he sat up and wondered, for his hands and bare arms were bleeding from a number of cuts that began to smart most painfully. The sharp saw-like edges of the reeds bad cut into his flesh, and in the excitement he had not noticed the injuries. Thanks, however, to the regulations enforced by Mr. Hume, he carried in the pouches of his belt a little store of quinine, vaseline, and meat lozenges. He rubbed the vaseline on the cuts, mopped his face, and felt all right. Then he put his hand to his mouth and gave a "coo-ee." The call was strangled in the reeds. He called again, fired off his gun, and waited, but he could hear nothing but a soft whispering. The reeds reached above his head, and he could see nothing but the matted stems around him and the blue sky overhead. He gave a grunt of impatience, lifted the buck, hoisted the body on his shoulder, brought the fore legs round on one side, the hind legs on the other side, and secured them before him with his handkerchief. Then he stooped for his rifle, and plunged into a path with the object of tramping straight through to the outer edge, when he would get his bearings for the camp.

This was more easily intended than carried out; for the reeds closed in so as to hamper his movements, and in a short time the path ran into other tracks, which doubled here and there without any decided direction, and led him into little dens. In one of these there was the bleached skull of a buffalo, and he sat down on this to consider.

He got the direction of the sun from the shadows, made a rough guess at the points of the compass, and then started off again, picking out a path that seemed wider than the others, and which led in the right way. After steady tramping, he found himself back at the very spot where he had killed the antelope. It was a nasty shock, but, in no way dismayed, he tried to pick up his old spoor, and after a patient search he hit it off, and went on with a little laugh. He hesitated when he entered another little open space, but finally kept on in the same direction, and finding the way easier, stepped out confidently, although the weight of the buck was beginning to tell, combined with the closeness of the air in these long aisles. At last the reeds thinned, and he stepped out into the open. He slipped the legs of the buck over his head to stretch himself, and then a little cry of disgust broke from his lips, for the place he had come to was not the outskirts of the reeds at all, but merely an open space, larger than any he had met before, with a little grass mound in the centre. Mounting this, he could see a run of trees in the distance, and in between a sea of green leaves, giving back myriad points of light under the rays of the sun. Queer soft noises came out of the white rows of reeds all around, and from the vast expanse a continual murmur that was something like the moaning of the wind in the pines.

He fired his gun off and listened. A faint far-off answer he thought he heard; but when he fired again he could detect no sound but the whispering murmur. He cut a couple of stout reeds, fitted one into the other, tied his handkerchief to the top, and planted the pole on the mound. Then he placed the buck at the foot of the pole, covered it with an armful of reeds, took a long look around, and started off once more. He was resolved to keep straight on, path or no path, but after a tussle with the serried ranks of reeds, with their razor- like leaves, he soon gave up that idea as hopeless, and took again to the paths—going very slowly, and taking his direction at intervals. But, try as he would, there were the kinks and twists in the paths which turned him out of his course. The endless game- tracks formed a worse snare than any he had been in of human contrivance; and at places, moreover, the ground was boggy, catching hold of his feet, and exhausting him by the heavy going. Several times animals broke cover and crashed away unseen. At one spot in the ooze he saw the form of a huge crocodile, and at another place the menacing head of a python was reared above the tops of the reeds, with his forked tongue flickering about the blunt nose. These sights, and the sudden snorts from unseen beasts, bred in him a growing feeling of uneasiness, which in turn weakened his powers of reasoning, so that he blundered hither and thither in a sort of reckless fury, until he went flat, face downwards, in black mud, that gripped him at every point. If he had struggled he would have been hopelessly bogged, but luckily he recovered his wits, and set himself slowly to extricate himself. His left foot was in up to the knee, and his left arm was sinking each moment, when he steadied himself and drew his knife. Beaching out, he cut a swathe of reeds, drew them towards him with the knife-blade, packed them under his chin and breast, then rolled over on to this firmer support, after a strong and steady pull. Repeating the performance, he managed to get one knee on to a bedding of reeds, then with one violent effort freed himself and reached hard ground.

This incident shook him up so, that coming, after another effort, to the open where he had left the buck, he gave up the struggle, seeing that he must think of some other plan if he wished to get alive out of this prison.

First he rested until his strength came back, then he cleaned his mud-covered rifle, and scraped the black ooze off his clothes with the knife. Then he heard a murmur in the reeds—a snap, then a rustle; a long pause, then a rustling again. He stood up with rifle ready, and he saw a reed shake about ten yards away, then heard it snap. He shouted, and the rustling ceased, to break out after an interval on the other side. Again it was resumed in the front, and in a little while it seemed to him that the reeds were alive with the stealthy rustlings of beasts and reptiles, all moving towards him. A reed bent again a little way off, and he fired in the direction. There was a crash and a growl, followed by a peculiar moaning from the opposite side. From somewhere deep in the sea of green there came the hoarse bellow of a bull crocodile. Nothing now could have induced him to enter that bewildering labyrinth again, and he looked about with a shudder, for the day was sinking to its close, and the night would soon be upon him. There was only one thing that could protect him in the night, and that was fire. With a feverish energy, regardless now of the rustlings about his little island, he began to cut the tallest of the reeds that were hard and sapless, and these he banked in six heaps round the base of the mound; and when the task was done he reared a bigger pile in the centre as a reserve.

Then the black of the night swept over the reeds quick almost as the shadow of a cloud, and with the dark came a sad rustling, as of a thousand whisperings. It was still and not still. Up in the sky was the quietness of a still night, the stars watching and brooding over the silence; but down below, in and out of the miles and miles of avenues, stretching every way through the millions of smooth gleaming stems, came a whispering as if creatures were moving tip- toe, moving up nearer and nearer, treading carefully, watching and listening. An owl brushed like a shadow overhead, and his loud "whoo-whoo" floated away in sadness and sorrow.

He sat with his back to the reserve heap of reeds, and waited with his rifle over his knees for the signal to fire his first pile. There was as yet no clear meaning in those mysterious whisperings. What he listened for was a sound that he could interpret, and it came very soon in the grunt of a leopard, harsh and grating. The reeds rustled just before him, and then there came a sound, regular and strange—a thump and a swish, then a thump and a swish. Creeping forward, he put a match to the heap, then went back; and as the red flame crackled through the hard shining stems, he saw a dark form crouching beyond, the green eyes blinking in the reflection, and the tufted tail nervously jerking from side to side. It was that made the strange noise. As the flame grew, the leopard sprang up and turned away, stopping for a long stare over its shoulder.

Light fragments from the burning pile floated high up like fire- flies, and far over the white sea of leaves shone the reflection. Others saw it from the far outer edge, and through the night came the report of a gun, and then faintly the echo of a "coo-ee." He shouted back hoarsely, and though he knew his friends could not possibly force the way to him through that barrier, impenetrable except by the devious game-tracks, he was greatly cheered.