Sitting thus, meditating, pen in hand, he heard sounds: the sound of the night wind, the sound of one of the soldiers singing as he cleaned his rifle—the men always sang over this business, as if to propitiate the gun god—the scratch of the scorpion and the “creak, creak” of a joist warping and twisting to the heat.
But the sound of the wind was the most arresting. It would come over the forest and up the slope and round the guest house with a long-drawn, sweeping “Ha-a-a-r,” and sob once or twice, and then die away down the slope and over the forest and away and beyond to the east, where Kilimanjaro was waiting for it, crowned with snow on his throne beneath the stars.
But the wind was almost dead now—the heat of the night had stifled it. The faintest breathing of air took the place of the strong puffs that had sent the flame of the lamp half up the glass chimney. As Meeus listened, on this faint breath from the forest he heard a sound—
“Boom—boom”—very faint, and as if someone were striking a drum in a leisurely manner.
“Boom—boom.”
A great man-ape haunted this part of the forest of M’Bonga like an evil spirit. He had wandered here, perhaps from the west coast forests. Driven away from his species—who knows?—for some crime. The natives of the fort had caught glimpses of him now and then; he was huge and old and gray, and now in the darkness of the forest was striking himself on the chest, standing there in the gloom of the leaves, trampling the plantains under foot, taller than the tallest man, smiting himself in the pride of his strength.
“Boom—boom.”
It is a hair-lifting sound when you know the cause, but it left Meeus unmoved. His mind was too full of the business of writing his report to draw images or listen to imagination; all the same, this sinister drum-beat acted upon his subconscious self and, scarcely knowing why he did so, he got up from the table and came outside to the fort wall and looked over away into the dark.
There was not a star in the sky. A dense pall of cloud stretched from horizon to horizon, and the wind, as Meeus stepped from the veranda into the darkness, died away utterly.
He stood looking into the dark. He could make out the forest, a blackness humped and crouching in the surrounding blackness. There was not a ray of light from the sky, and now and again came the drum—