The Two Supercargoes; Or, Adventures in Savage Africa

by William Henry Giles Kingston

“Load, quickly, load,” cried Charley.

We did so, and then rushed out to secure the deer we had killed, fearing that another leopard might have a feast off it. We were not, however, molested, and with infinite satisfaction we dragged the animals one by one up to the neighbourhood of our camp, where we commenced cutting them up, although, I must confess, we were not expert in that part of the huntsman’s art. By the time we had finished our task, and hung up the deer as near to our fire as possible, the sun had sunk below the horizon.

We again went down to the lake, and were much disappointed at not seeing the canoe Aboh had promised to bring us. As it was not likely, therefore, that he would arrive that night, we made up our minds to camp at the same spot as before. There was no time to lose, and so, collecting firewood, we prepared to pass the night. It might seem an easy task to get a supply of sticks, but it was a dangerous one. Not only did we run the risk of disturbing some venomous snake, but were nearly certain to find scorpions almost as deadly among the dried wood. Our plan, therefore, was to scrape together the sticks with a long staff, and turn them over before attempting to bind them up into faggots for conveying to the camp. I had not long been thus employed, when a big scorpion crept out from a mass of bark; I laid my stick, which it bit severely, on its back, striking its sting into the wood before I crushed it to death. Having collected a sufficient amount of fuel to last for the night, we put up a lean-to, under which we could shelter ourselves from the night dew, though it would afford but a slight protection against any hungry animal which might venture near, as leopards and lions might occasionally do. We filled our saucepan with water, and made every preparation for the night, not forgetting to cook as much venison as we could possibly eat. Having taken a plentiful supper we were about to lie down, when Charley said that he would first take a look round the camp. Not far off was the huge trunk of a fallen tree, over which bushes had already begun to grow. I saw Charley suddenly sink down

behind it, and as I was following him, he made a sign to me to creep along under its shelter. I did so, and presently caught sight of a huge animal advancing in a stealthy fashion along the open ground. I at once knew it to be a leopard. Charley put up his hand, signing me to be cautious. The leopard approached, attracted, I have no doubt, by the smell of the venison, or by the remainder of the carcasses of the deer, which were not far off.

Whether or not it was the same leopard we had seen in the afternoon, I could not tell. The creature moved on in its cat-like fashion, looking cautiously around. Charley and I kept ourselves well concealed, still it apparently suspected that an enemy was near. It got directly in front of us. If Charley missed I must, I knew, take care to bring it down, for if not, it would make nothing of a bound over the tree, and would carry one of us off. Charley levelled his rifle; a sharp crack was heard ringing through the night air, answered by the chattering of numberless monkeys and the shrieks of flocks of parrots and other birds. The smoke for a moment prevented me seeing the leopard; the next instant, what was my horror to observe it approaching. In another instant it would have been upon us. I fired; it leapt high in the air, and rolled over close to the trunk of the tree.

“Well done, Dick!” cried Charley. “I hit it, but my bullet missed the vital part.”

The leopard was perfectly dead. We easily found the two bullet-holes. Charley’s bullet had struck the edge of a bone, and been slightly deflected. Had he been alone, the result might have been fatal to him. How thankful I felt that he had escaped! It was a lesson to us never to go out hunting singly, and we agreed that we would keep to that rule.

The leopard had fallen just under the bough of a tree, and as we were anxious to preserve its skin, and yet did not wish to spend time in flaying the animal that night, we resolved to try and hoist it up to the bough, where it would remain safe till the morning. We accordingly cut a number of vines which grew near, and under Charley’s directions formed a series of tackles, by means of which we succeeded, all hoisting together, in lifting it several feet off the ground. This done, we returned to our camp. While we had been thus engaged, we had run the risk, I suspect, of being attacked by another wild beast, either a leopard or lion, as when I was on watch I heard the mutterings of the last-named savage brutes in the distance. As I walked up and down in front of our fire while my brother and Harry were asleep, I watched the body of the leopard swinging in the air a few feet off, and kept my gun on the cock ready to fire should a lion approach, as I thought would very likely be the case, although I had no particular wish to have another battle that night. However, it so happened that we were left at rest. At early dawn we let down the carcase, and at once flayed it. Our object in doing so was to present the skin to the chief of the village we expected to visit, as we guessed it would be highly prized; besides which, the fact that we had killed the creature being known, would raise us in the estimation of the people. Having hung up the skin to dry, Harry and I went down to the lake, hoping to see the canoe of our friend, but we were again disappointed. Charley had, in the meantime, been preparing breakfast, roasting some more ducks, and the remainder of the ground-nuts left us by Shimbo. After this, we employed our time in scraping the inside of the leopard’s skin, which gave us enough to do; we then made a sort of lye from the ashes of our fire, which would have, we hoped, some effect in preserving the skin, though we were aware that the process we adopted was very rude and imperfect. As several hours had passed since Tubbs and the two blacks had left us, we became somewhat anxious about them. If the natives had proved treacherous, Tom would very likely be put to death or kept a prisoner, and we should see nothing more of him. About noon, Harry and I had gone down to the lake to get a saucepan of water, when we remarked a tiny speck on the broad shining expanse of the lake, where nothing previously had been visible.

“Hurrah! that must be the canoe at last,” he exclaimed.