The more he thought about it, the more troubled Royce became. If the raiders had not returned to their own country across the Yo, it was at least possible that they might discover Challis's camp. He was uneasy at the idea of Challis, with his few men, of whom half were sick, having to sustain an attack by a large body of the most ferocious warriors known in that part of Africa. Anxious to rejoin his friend, Royce grew impatient at the slow pace at which the carriers walked, heavily burdened as they were, and would have gone on far ahead but that he felt himself responsible to the chief for their safety.
It was fortunate that he had decided to avoid the fort on his return journey. Goruba had dispatched a small band of his best men to lie in wait there, and ambush the white man and his follower. They were lurking in the precincts of the fort at the very moment when Royce and his party were making a bend to the south about a mile distant.
The route followed by the headman of the carriers led through a considerable stretch of wooded country. The headman told John that he would not have chosen that way but for his master's desire to avoid the fort, although it was shorter. When John asked him why, he explained that the woodland was the resort of large herds of elephants, of which the carriers were somewhat afraid. It would have been different had they not been carrying loads. They were bold enough when they accompanied the chief on hunting expeditions, and had spears in their hands. But with heavy loads on their heads they felt helpless if the great beasts should chance to cross their path.
Once or twice, as they pressed on at their best pace, they heard a great crashing among the trees. Their scent, carried on the breeze, had disturbed the elephants browsing in the thickets. The sound alarmed the men, but Royce, when John told him what caused it, explained that the elephants were just as anxious to avoid them as they were to avoid the elephants.
"What the white man says may be true," said the headman. "But sometimes the scent of men makes the elephants angry, and then they seek the men, and do not run away."
They passed through the woodland without encountering elephants, and found themselves on the low shore of an extensive lake, the remoter border of which was overhung by low cliffs. The negroes were careful to keep at a good distance from the brink of the water. Alligators might often be met with on the mud flats, lying so still, and being so much the colour of the ground, that their presence was sometimes only known by the shrieks of some hapless victim whom one had seized.
As they were skirting the lake, John suddenly gave a shout, and pointed to what appeared to be a greyish-black ridge just projecting above the surface of the water. This object seemed to swell, the water was disturbed, and at one end of the ridge emerged the ugly head of a hippopotamus.
"Hippo meat berry fine, sah!" said John longingly.
"I daresay, but I am not going to shoot when I don't know who may be about," Royce returned. "And don't shout again, John, whatever you may see. I am not anxious to meet that giant Goruba again."
They left the lake behind, and by dint of hard marching through rough and scrubby country reached the neighbourhood of the ruined village a little before nightfall. Approaching it on a different side from that by which he had left it, Royce would not have recognised it but for the assurance of his guides.