The countenances of all the fellows brightened up; the ivory tusks of the noble beast were, they thought, already in their possession—they were selling the skin of the fox before having killed the animal.
We let all our canoes pass down the stream a little way, in order that we might hold a grand palaver. Adouma, Quabi, Rapero, all Quengueza’s nephews, were present. Querlaouen and Malaouen, the two most redoubtable warriors of the Bakalai of the Ovenga, were also there; these five, with Quengueza and myself, formed the Grand Council.
Quengueza, being an old man, was to remain where he was with all the party, while myself and the five others were to move in a canoe and make land near where the elephants were.
Immediately the fellows covered themselves with their fetiches; Querlaouen and Malaouen bled their hands, and then we looked carefully at our guns. Though we were more than one hundred men altogether, the falling of a leaf could have been heard by any one of us, the silence was so profound.
The canoe that was to take us came. Adouma and Quabi paddled, and onward we went until we reached a bend of the river, and I could distinctly hear the elephants. So we thought best to land inside of the bend, which we did without uttering a whisper for fear of alarming the elephants. After landing the great difficulty was how to gain the other side. The country was overflowed, it was all bog land, yet to the elephants we must go. We could not possibly follow the edges of the forest that bordered the Ofoubou, for we should have soon found ourselves in twenty feet of water, and in the middle of a strong current. These bog-lands are always dangerous things on the banks of the overflowed African rivers.
I hung my powder-flask close to my neck, and also my watch, in case the water should be deep, for I am not tall. My men took the same precaution with their bags, and then Malaouen took the lead. Where we landed there was no dry spot, and as we advanced through the woods we immediately found ourselves entangled in the midst of the roots of the trees, with the water above our waists, sinking knee deep into the mud, ignorant at every step whether the next might bring us into water up to our necks or above our heads. That was about as difficult a tramp as I ever had had in all my travels. Suddenly Querlaouen’s foot caught under some roots, and down he went into the water, gun and all. He immediately swore in Bakalai that somebody had bewitched him, and did not want him to kill an elephant. Finally we came to a place where the water reached my neck, I being the shortest of all; so I took my watch and powder in one hand and my gun in the other, raising both arms as high as I could, and at every moment I fully expected to go down. One step more and the water just reached my mouth, but happily the next step took me on higher ground.
WE ARE TOO LATE.
At last we succeeded in crossing the bend, and came in sight of the elephants, who did not observe our approach.
They were seven altogether. What a huge beast the male was! The other six were all females, so said Malaouen. They were perfectly unconscious of our presence, and swam to and fro in the narrow river. Unfortunately they were very far from us, being very nearly half a mile off, and to come to a good shooting distance in this awful swamp would take some time.
