Up to the present Mr. Martindale had met with nothing but friendliness from the natives, and a hut had always been at his disposal. But he had now reached a part of the river where the people knew white men only by hearsay, and could not distinguish between inoffensive travellers and the grasping agents whose cruelty rumour was spreading through the land. The people of the village where he wished to put up for this night were surly and suspicious, and he decided for once to sleep in his tent on the river bank instead of in a hut.
The party had barely finished their evening meal when the sun sank, and in a few minutes all was dark. Samba had been handed over to Barney, whose hospital experience enabled him to tend the boy's wound with no little dexterity, and the boy went happily to sleep in Barney's tent, his arm round Pat's neck. Jack shared his uncle's tent. He had been somewhat excited by the scenes and events of the day, and did not fall asleep the moment he lay down, as he usually did. The tent was very warm and stuffy; the mosquitoes found weak spots in his curtains and sought diligently for unexplored regions of his skin, until he found the conditions intolerable. He got up, envying his uncle, who was sound asleep, his snores vying with the distant roars of hippopotami in the river. Taking care not to disturb him, Jack stepped out of the hut, and understood at once why the air was so oppressive. A storm was brewing. Everything was still, as if weighed down by some monstrous incubus. Ever and anon the indigo sky was cut across by steel-blue flashes of forked lightning, and thunder rumbled far away.
Jack sauntered on, past Barney's tent, towards the river bank, listening to noises rarely heard by day—the grunt of hippopotami, the constant rasping croak of frogs, the lesser noises of birds and insects among the reeds. The boatmen and other natives of the party were a hundred yards away, beyond the tents he had just left. Sometimes they would chatter till the small hours, but to-night they were silent, sleeping heavily after their toil.
He came to a little eminence, from which he could look down towards the stream. Everything was black and indistinguishable. But suddenly, as a jagged flash of lightning momentarily lit the scene, he fancied he caught a glimpse of a figure moving below, about the spot where the nearest of the canoes was moored. Was it a wild beast, he wondered, prowling for food? Or perhaps his eyes had deceived him? He moved a little forward; carefully, for the blackness of night seemed deeper than ever. Another flash! He had not been mistaken; it was a figure, moving on one of the canoes—a human form, a man, stooping, with a knife in his hand! What was he doing? Once more for an instant the lightning lit up the river, and as by a flash Jack guessed the man's purpose: he was about to cut the mooring rope!
Jack's first impulse was to shout; but in a moment he saw that a sudden alarm might cause the natives of his party to stampede. The intruder was alone, and a negro; Why not try to capture him? Jack was ready with his hands: his muscles were in good order; he could wrestle and box, and, as became a boy of Tom Brown's school, fight. True, the man had a knife; but with the advantage of surprise on his side Jack felt that the odds were fairly equal. He stole down the slope to the waterside, hoping that the darkness would remain unbroken until he had stalked his man. A solitary bush at the very brink gave him cover; standing behind it, almost touching the sleeping sentry who should have been guarding the canoes, Jack could just see the dark form moving from the first canoe to the second.
He waited until the man bent over to cut the connecting rope; then with three long silent leaps he gained the side of the foremost canoe, which was almost resting on the bank in just sufficient water to float her. The man had already made two or three slashes at the rope when he heard Jack's splash in the shallow water. With a dexterous twist of his body he eluded Jack's clutch, and swinging round aimed with his knife a savage blow at his assailant. Jack felt a stinging pain in the fleshy part of the thigh, and, hot with rage, turned to grapple with the negro. His fingers touched a greasy skin; the man drew back, wriggled round, and prepared to leap overboard. At the moment when he made his spring Jack flung out his hands to catch him. He was just an instant too late; the negro had splashed into the shallow water on the far side of the canoe, and disappeared into the inky blackness beyond, leaving in Jack's hands a broken string, with a small round object dangling from the end. At the same moment there was a heavy thwack against the side of the canoe; and Jack, mindful of crocodiles, bolted up the bank. He turned after a few yards, shuddering to think that the man had perhaps escaped him only to fall a victim to this most dreaded scourge of African rivers. But if he was indeed in the jaws of a crocodile he was beyond human help. He listened for a time, but could detect no sound betraying the man's presence. Pursuit, he knew, was useless. Except when the lightning flashed he could scarcely see a yard beyond him.
A midnight encounter
Jack did not care to disturb his uncle. He went round the camp, found Nando with some difficulty in the darkness, and ordered him to send ten of the crew to occupy the canoes for the rest of the night. Then he went back to his tent, bound up his wound, and stretched himself on his mattress. He lay awake for a time, wondering what motive the intruder could have for damaging the expedition. At last, from sheer weariness, he dropped off into a troubled sleep in which he was conscious of a deluge of rain that descended upon the camp.