The short equatorial twilight was drawing to an end, and all Nature stood in silence, while Night crept up to claim the land where her reign is more autocratic than elsewhere on earth. There is a black night above the trees, and a blacker beneath. In an hour it would be dark, and, in the meantime, the lowering clouds were tinged with a pink glow that filtered through from above. There was rain coming, and probably thunder. Moreover, the trees seemed to know it, for there was a limpness in their attitude as if they were tucking their heads into their shoulders in anticipation of the worst. The insects were certainly possessed of a premonition. They had crept away.
It was distinctly an unlikely evening for the sportsman. The stillness was so complete that the faintest rustle could be heard at a great distance. Moreover, it was the sort of evening when Nature herself seems to be glancing over her shoulder with timorous restlessness.
Nevertheless, a sportsman was abroad. He was creeping up the right-hand bank of a stream, his only chance lying in the noise of the waters, which might serve to deaden the sound of broken twig or rustling leaf.
This sportsman was Jack Meredith, and it was evident that he was bringing to bear upon the matter in hand that intelligence and keenness of perception which had made him a person of some prominence in other scenes where Nature has a less assured place.
It would appear that he was not so much at home in the tangle of an African forest as in the crooked paths of London society; for his clothes were torn in more than one place; a mosquito, done to sudden death, adhered sanguinarily to the side of his aristocratic nose, while heat and mental distress had drawn damp stripes down his countenance. His hands were scratched and inclined to bleed, and one leg had apparently been in a morass. Added to these physical drawbacks there was no visible sign of success, which was probably the worst part of Jack Meredith's plight.
Since sunset he had been crawling, scrambling, stumbling up the bank of this stream in relentless pursuit of some large animal which persistently kept hidden in the tangle across the bed of the river. The strange part of it was that when he stopped to peep through the branches the animal stopped too, and he found no way of discovering its whereabouts. More than once they remained thus for nearly five minutes, peering at each other through the heavy leafage. It was distinctly unpleasant, for Meredith felt that the animal was not afraid of him, and did not fully understand the situation. The respective positions of hunter and hunted were imperfectly defined. He had hitherto confined his attentions to such game as showed a sporting readiness to run away, and there was a striking novelty in this unseen beast of the forest, fresh, as it were, from the hands of its Creator, that entered into the fun of the thing from a totally mistaken standpoint.
Once Meredith was able to decide approximately the whereabouts of his prey by the momentary shaking of a twig. He raised his rifle and covered that twig steadily; his forefinger played tentatively on the trigger; but on second thoughts he refrained. He was keenly conscious of the fact that the beast was doing its work with skill superior to his own. In comparison to his, its movements were almost noiseless. Jack Meredith was too clever a man to be conceited in the wrong place, which is the habit of fools. He recognised very plainly that he was not distinguishing himself in this new field of glory; he was not yet an accomplished big-game hunter.
Twice he raised his rifle with the intention of firing at random into the underwood on the remote chance of bringing his enemy into the open. But the fascination of this duel of cunning was too strong, and he crept onwards with bated breath.
It was terrifically hot, and all the while Night was stalking westward on the summits of the trees with stealthy tread.
While absorbed in the intricacies of pursuit—while anathematising tendrils and condemning thorns to summary judgment—Jack Meredith was not losing sight of his chance of getting back to the little village of Msala. He knew that he had only to follow the course of the stream downwards, retracing his steps until a junction with the Ogowe river was effected. In the meantime his lips were parted breathlessly, and there was a light in the quiet eyes which might have startled some of his well-bred friends could they have seen it.
At last he came to an open space made by a slip of the land into the bed of the river. When Jack Meredith came to this he stepped out of the thicket and stood in the open, awaiting the approach of his stealthy prey. The sound of its footfall was just perceptible, slowly diminishing the distance that divided them. Then the trees were parted, and a tall, fair man stepped forward on to the opposite bank.
Jack Meredith bowed gravely, and the other sportsman, seeing the absurdity of the situation, burst into hearty laughter. In a moment or two he had leapt from rock to rock and come to Meredith.
“It seems,” he said, “that we have been wasting a considerable amount of time.”
“I very nearly wasted powder and shot,” replied Jack, significantly indicating his rifle.
“I saw you twice, and raised my rifle; your breeches are just the colour of a young doe. Are you Meredith? My name is Oscard.”
“Ah! Yes, I am Meredith. I am glad to see you.”
They shook hands. There was a twinkle in Jack Meredith's eyes, but Oscard was quite grave. His sense of humour was not very keen, and he was before all things a sportsman.
“I left the canoes a mile below Msala, and landed to shoot a deer we saw drinking, but I never saw him. Then I heard you, and I have been stalking you ever since.”
“But I never expected you so soon; you were not due till—look!” Jack whispered suddenly.
Oscard turned on his heel, and the next instant their two rifles rang out through the forest stillness in one sharp crack. Across the stream, ten yards behind the spot where Oscard had emerged from the bush, a leopard sprang into the air, five feet from the ground, with head thrown back, and paws clawing at the thinness of space with grand free sweeps. The beast fell with a thud, and lay still—dead.
The two men clambered across the rocks again, side by side. While they stood over the prostrate form of the leopard—beautiful, incomparably graceful and sleek even in death—Guy Oscard stole a sidelong glance at his companion. He was a modest man, and yet he knew that he was reckoned among the big-game hunters of the age. This man had fired as quickly as himself, and there were two small trickling holes in the animal's head.
While he was being quietly scrutinised Jack Meredith stooped down, and, taking the leopard beneath the shoulders, lifted it bodily back from the pool of blood.
“Pity to spoil the skin,” he explained, as he put a fresh cartridge into his rifle.
Oscard nodded in an approving way. He knew the weight of a full-grown male leopard, all muscle and bone, and he was one of those old-fashioned persons mentioned in the Scriptures as taking a delight in a man's legs—or his arms, so long as they were strong.
“I suppose,” he said quietly, “we had better skin him here.”
As he spoke he drew a long hunting-knife, and, slashing down a bunch of the maidenhair fern that grew like nettles around them, he wiped the blood gently, almost affectionately, from the leopard's cat-like face.
There was about these two men a strict attention to the matter in hand, a mutual and common respect for all things pertaining to sport, a quiet sense of settling down without delay to the regulation of necessary detail that promised well for any future interest they might have in common.
So these highly-educated young gentlemen turned up their sleeves and steeped themselves to the elbow in gore. Moreover, they did it with a certain technical skill and a distinct sense of enjoyment. Truly, the modern English gentleman is a strange being. There is nothing his soul takes so much delight in as the process of getting hot and very dirty, and, if convenient, somewhat sanguinary. You cannot educate the manliness out of him, try as you will; and for such blessings let us in all humbleness give thanks to Heaven.
This was the bringing together of Jack Meredith and Guy Oscard—two men who loved the same woman. They knelt side by side, and Jack Meredith—the older man, the accomplished, gifted gentleman of the world, who stood second to none in that varied knowledge required nowadays of the successful societarian—Jack Meredith, be it noted, humbly dragged the skin away from the body while Guy Oscard cut the clinging integuments with a delicate touch and finished skill.
They laid the skin out on the trampled maidenhair, and contemplated it with silent satisfaction. In the course of their inspection they both arrived at the head at the same moment. The two holes in the hide, just above the eyes, came under their notice at the same moment, and they turned and smiled gravely at each other, thinking the same thought—the sort of thought that Englishmen rarely put into intelligible English.
“I'm glad we did that,” said Guy Oscard at length, suddenly. “Whatever comes of this expedition of ours—if we fight like hell, as we probably shall, before it is finished—if we hate each other ever afterwards, that skin ought to remind us that we are much of a muchness.”
It might have been put into better English; it might almost have sounded like poetry had Guy Oscard been possessed of the poetic soul. But this, fortunately, was not his; and all that might have been said was left to the imagination of Meredith. What he really felt was that there need be no rivalry, and that he for one had no thought of such; that in the quest which they were about to undertake there need be no question of first and last; that they were merely two men, good or bad, competent or incompetent, but through all equal.
Neither of them suspected that the friendship thus strangely inaugurated at the rifle's mouth was to run through a longer period than the few months required to reach the plateau—that it was, in fact, to extend through that long expedition over a strange country that we call Life, and that it was to stand the greatest test that friendship has to meet with here on earth.
It was almost dark when at last they turned to go, Jack Meredith carrying the skin over his shoulder and leading the way. There was no opportunity for conversation, as their progress was necessarily very difficult. Only by the prattle of the stream were they able to make sure of keeping in the right direction. Each had a thousand questions to ask the other. They were total strangers; but it is not, one finds, by conversation that men get to know each other. A common danger, a common pleasure, a common pursuit—these are the touches of Nature by which men are drawn together into the kinship of mutual esteem.
Once they gained the banks of the Ogowe their progress was quicker, and by nine o'clock they reached the camp at Msala. Victor Durnovo was still at work superintending the discharge of the baggage and stores from the large trading-canoes. They heard the shouting and chattering before coming in sight of the camp, and one voice raised angrily above the others.
“Is that Durnovo's voice?” asked Meredith.
“Yes,” answered his companion curtly.
It was a new voice which Meredith had not heard before. When they shouted to announce their arrival it was suddenly hushed, and presently Durnovo came forward to greet them.
Meredith hardly knew him, he was so much stronger and healthier in appearance. Durnovo shook hands heartily.
“No need to introduce you two,” he said, looking from one to the other.
“No; after one mistake we discovered each other's identity in the forest,” answered Meredith.
Durnovo smiled; but there was something behind the smile. He did not seem to approve of their meeting without his intervention.