It is not my purpose to relate each adventure as it happened. Perils from man and beast there were. Once we were captured by a strange tribe and escaped narrowly, leaving behind us much of vital use to us in our journeying. Once I saved Lestrade, helpless and unarmed, from the fury of a gorilla. Once we fled for our lives before the onslaught of an army of brown ants, that strip to the bone every living thing that ventures in the line of its strange march.
So on, and at last we reached the waterfall set down upon our chart, and here a thing happened that kindled anew the fire of our drooping hearts.
It was a thing wonderful in itself, more wonderful as explaining the parting words of the slave Sagamoso, and it clearly showed us that we had not strayed from the right path, and that the jungle had given up its secret.
This waterfall was higher than any I had seen in Africa. It fell with a rush and a roar loud enough to be heard very far off, and it was split at its lowest part by a tall pillar of stone, on which was carved—and this was what cheered us like wine—the grotesque image of the snake-encircled god.
How such a pillar could have been set up by mortal hands in such a place, exposed as it was to the fury of the downpour of this great body of water, was in itself a marvel, and threw a new light on the people that, with our small store of weapons, we two men had set out to brave.
“The waterfall must have been turned from its course,” said Lestrade.
And I, seeing no better way out of it, agreed.
Yet was this no time to stop and argue the matter, so we took up our burdens once more, and, with renewed hope, pressed on; and the more certainly in that here the jungle broke, leaving before us a broad track, as though an army of elephants had fled or been driven along the way.
This did not astonish us at the moment, for there are many such clearings in the African forest; but as we sped onward, and the broad thoroughfare still stretched before us, as far as eye could see, we knew this was no common happening.
Night found us yet on this untrammelled and solitary highway; and as the shadows closed, I am not ashamed to confess that a chill settled on my heart, and that even Lestrade grew silent.