"We shall have to tighten our belts to-day, Mbutu," he said. "Did you ever hear of that? Twist your burnous more tightly round your loins and you won't feel the pain so much. And we must be careful of our matches, too. The box is half-empty and we can't get any more."
"Make fire with wood, sah," said Mbutu.
"But wouldn't that be difficult with the damp stuff around us? We must keep up our courage and get on. We can't tell the way till the sun is up, and indeed I'm afraid we shall never see the sun in this thick forest."
"Me climb tree, sah; see sun den."
Mbutu began to clamber up into the foliage, and springing dexterously from branch to branch ascended to the top, where, a hundred and fifty feet from the ground, above the rolling banks of mist, he caught sight of the red sun rising above the limitless expanse of waving green. Descending rapidly, he told his master he was now sure of the direction in which they should go, and before seven o'clock they had begun again their painful march.
Tom had to stop frequently to rest. The gnawing pains of hunger told more seriously upon him than upon the Muhima, for his life for the past three weeks had been more than hard, making unaccustomed demands upon his strength. He still felt the effects of his wound. They found a few berries and edible roots, and if such supplies, meagre as they were, continued, Tom hoped to stave off actual starvation.
"Surely we shall come to a native village by and by," he said hopefully. "Even the pigmies might take pity on starving men."
But Mbutu shook his head; he had no faith in the compassion or generosity of pigmies; he knew of them only as dangerous foes. In the afternoon they reached a spot where the ground began to slope downwards, and the vegetation appeared still thicker and more entangled.
"Coming to ribber, sah," said Mbutu eagerly. "Perhaps huts; perhaps catch fish."
Fifteen minutes later, in truth, they came suddenly to the brink of a river, through a hedge of creeping-plants covering every inch of ground from the water's edge to the green-black forest behind. The current was fairly strong, and the water was tea-coloured, suggesting iron in solution, swirling with dingy froth around a few boulders that stood out above the surface here and there. Mbutu, scanning the opposite bank, uttered a cry of joy. The stream was some fifty yards wide, and on the other side there was a narrow rift in the vegetation, so narrow indeed that Tom did not discern it until it was pointed out to him.