No trace of Mabele could be found, either. And it seemed likely that he had, indeed, been lost in the storm which swept Lake Victoria the day his stolen canoe was found overturned offshore. As to the radio set of which he had robbed the boys, it still is in all likelihood mouldering in its hiding place near Chief Ungaba’s village. But as they never again passed that way, they could not very well organize an expedition to hunt for it.
A month more the party spent in the Mountains of the Moon, photographing the volcanoes and obtaining some very excellent pictures of lions, leopards, Uganda cobb, elephants, herds of topi, reed-buck, hippopotami and wart-hog. Their bag of animals shot by rifle instead of camera also grew apace.
As for the natives, they could not do enough to display hospitality toward the expedition. For the story of the voice from the sky which had condemned The Prophet to his doom passed from mouth to mouth throughout the vast district faster than if it had been telegraphed, it seemed. At any rate, it had preceded the party wherever they went. And it grew in the telling, so that before long the natives were telling of how after the voice from the sky had spoken, The Prophet was seized by red demons and hurried away into the bowels of Tamlagira, which opened to admit them, displaying the eternal fires of hell leaping high.
Toward the end of their stay, the members of the expedition made their way to Lake Kivu, cupped gem-like amidst the mountains of the mighty Ruwenzori range. And here, in what is perhaps the only considerable body of water in all equatorial Africa which is free of crocodiles, the boys spent their days mainly in or on the water until finally the last leg of their wonderful trip was made to a little port on the western shore of Lake Victoria, whence they were carried by steamer to Kisumu and by rail to Nairobi.
There, after assembling their thousands of feet of film and their many trophies of hide and horn, they went by rail to Mombasa and after shipping by coastal steamer to Zanzibar, transshipped to a larger vessel which carried them up through the Suez Canal to Marseilles. And so at length, aboard a great trans-Atlantic liner, the Radio Boys returned to New York.
Historic though their trip had been, never had they been so glad to see the Goddess of Liberty. As they moved slowly up the harbor in the tow of puffing, busy little tugs, all three lined the rail and solemnly saluted her.
With this, we shall bid farewell to the Radio Boys for the time being, feeling assured that, no matter what their future adventures, if they acquit themselves as well as in Darkest Africa they will be doing well, indeed.
THE END.