Reluctantly they paddled the dinghy inshore. As the bows grated on the shingle an apparent log lying near the edge of the yellow river rose to its feet and disappeared into the safety of the stream.
The momentary glimpse of the rough scales dried khaki-grey in the sun, the pale wicked eye, the high hind legs, which sloped the obscene body at a slinking angle down to the crooked forelegs, recalled the monstrous saurians of the prehistoric past.
'And, by Jove, there's another!' whispered Dick, nodding his head at a couple of black knobs on the surface of the water, that represented the snout and eyebrow of a submerged monster. He reached for his gun and fired. A long, pale belly cartwheeled into the air with slashing tail and legs, to sink without a sound and be devoured, perhaps still living, by its mate.
Camp was pitched in silence on the site already chosen by Dick, and the deck hands were sent off grumbling to collect firewood. Norah was oppressed by the desolation of the bay, once the scene of hopeful and devoted enterprise, now delivered over to reptiles. A curse seemed to rest there, and she wondered whether by passing a night on these shores she submitted to its power.
Here the pale Galilean had not conquered. The gods of Africa had shown they still could wield their old weapons of remorseless disease, sudden death, and instantaneous decay, installing at the end a garrison of reptiles, cruel and hideous like themselves, the survivors of more ancient and horrific epochs."
"I don't mean," said Ross, "that Norah, who was a healthy-minded little thing, really believed such stuff. She was upset by the pitiful fate of the ox under her impotent eyes, and felt a distinct, if unreasonable, dislike for the place.
She was tempted to ask Dick to take her back to the steamer. But as the wish crossed her mind, she heard the report of his gun up the beach. He was amusing himself, bless his heart. She knew men did not welcome feminine intuitions that make them alter their plans, and thrust the impulse aside as cowardly.
But when she recollected that rapturous first sight of Tanganyika, and the hopes it had raised of quick release from the forest's encirclement and of an easy passage along azure waters to the civilisation her heart desired, disillusionment was keen. Would she ever be free, or had Africa put out a tentacle that had retaken her to its dark bosom? Would Africa master her as it had mastered this ruined mission?"
* * * * * * *
Ross rose and stretched his arms above his head. He lit a match to see his watch.