"We'll have to lie up to-night, I suppose, or else we shall overrun the spot where we are to meet Muata."
"It cannot be very far. I take it we are now travelling on the short leg of a triangle, the long leg being the track we made through the forest, and the other leg the tributary stream down which Hassan went to pick up his cannibal allies."
"All we want, then," said Compton, "is a few hours' start, for we can show a clean pair of heels to any canoe afloat."
"That is right enough; but you have to reckon with a cunning foe, and it is more than probable that Hassan has left some of his men ahead to keep watch. We'll hug the shore, and keep on as long as possible."
The levers clanked merrily, the little screw lashed up the dark waters. One reach of the river was very much like another, but the silence and the absence of life which at first had depressed them now gave them comfort, for in this gloomy waterway a strange human being meant a possible enemy.
CHAPTER XVI
ACROSS THE LAGOON
As the night came stealthily creeping over wood and water, sending hosts of birds with loud scoldings to their chosen roosting-places— for out of those myriads of trees only certain trees were selected— the boat was put in near the right bank. The levers were muffled, and the "lookout," with a bill-hook ready to fend off any snag, and a bull's-eye lantern to shoot a sudden light, took up his position in the bows. She crept on slowly through the pitch darkness, the crew easing off at times to listen as some loud noise broke the silence—the plunge of a hippo, the snort of an angry bull, the swirl of a fish, or the cry of an otter from the bank. In one of these silences a whisper came from the bows.
"Look," said Venning; and he flashed the bull's-eye on the bank.
The others, glancing along the streamer of light, saw reflected two bright eyes, a gleaming muzzle, and the tips of curved horns.