"It's time for dinner, I'm sure. I'd give anything for a glass of cider, but, as that's out of the question, can you find me some water anywhere, Mbutu?"
"Oh yes, sah; camp here, must be water."
He went into the undergrowth, and returned by and by with a broad leaf of the phrynia held cup-shape in his hands, brimming with delicious water from a rivulet. After quenching their thirst and eating a few berries they went on again.
Marching began to be monotonous. There was little variety. Sometimes they crossed the track of an elephant or a buffalo; once they came upon a stretch of fifty yards of flattened undergrowth exhaling an unpleasant musky smell, and Mbutu explained that that was the trail of a boa-constrictor. Later they crossed a track evidently made by human footsteps, and once Tom was only saved from falling into a deep elephant-pit by Mbutu snatching at him as he trod at the edge. Always there was the bush to be penetrated; colossal trees to be avoided; riotous creepers to be dodged; and Tom was very glad when night came and Mbutu found him a hollow tree to sleep in.
On this night the parts were reversed, for while Tom fell into a sound sleep at once, Mbutu sat up, watchful and anxious. He had been disturbed by the sight of leopard scratches on the trunks of teak, and as a measure of precaution had borrowed his master's box of matches and kindled a fire--a slow process with the damp wood. But he was still more disturbed by the scarcity of food. He had noticed during their last hour's walk the almost complete absence of the edible plants on which they had fed hitherto, and he feared that they might have reached one of those regions of the forest where food, except wild animals to be hunted, is unprocurable. Before he at last closed his eyes he tore a strip off the burnous girt about his loins, and contrived to make with it a running noose, which he hung a foot or two above the ground upon a spray of thorn. This was a simple snare into which he hoped that a coney or some other small animal might run its neck before morning. But when the dawn broke, the noose was still hanging empty, and Mbutu, after a scrutiny of the bush, announced that his master would have to dispense with breakfast. Tom took the news lightly, in order not to discourage his companion.
"Cheer up!" he said. "It won't be the first time I've been for a tramp before breakfast. There's plenty of dew, I see, so that we can have a drink, and perhaps by the time we're sharp-set we shall be in the land of plenty."
So they started cheerfully enough, making still towards the south-west. But Tom's confidence proved to be not justified. The character of the vegetation had somewhat changed. It grew as thick as ever, but while many of the plants bore attractive-looking berries, Mbutu informed his master that they were all poisonous. They did come upon a mass of wild bananas, but only the cultivated fruit is eatable. Even when they reached what had once been a clearing, where a grove of plantains might have been expected, they found that elephants had been running riot, and the vegetation there was trampled into a pulp. Once Mbutu uttered a cry of joy on catching sight of a small arum bush; he sprang forward, dug up the roots with his knife, slit them into slices, and roasted them over a fire. That was all the food they obtained that day. It had been very hot, the air had seemed almost solid, and the foetid exhalations from the soft places they had passed made Tom feel sick and disconsolate.
When they stopped for the night, Mbutu again lit a watch-fire, and set his noose. In the morning he was wakened by a faint cry, and, springing up, he saw that a coney had been caught in the snare, and had at that moment been pounced on by a wild cat. He was too hungry to allow himself to be forestalled. He picked up his knife and made for the cat, which turned its head without relaxing its hold, and showed its teeth as though inclined to fight. But when Mbutu was almost upon it, with an angry snarl it loosed its prey and sprang up into a tree. The coney was already dead, its neck broken by the cat's fierce onslaught. Mbutu had the animal half-skinned when his master awoke.
"What are you about?" cried Tom, horrified at seeing Mbutu lifting a piece of raw flesh to his mouth.
"Hungry, sah; coney berrah good."