Part 15 (2/2)
This uneventful state of affairs continued until they arrived in ten degrees of north latitude and twenty degrees of east longitude, when they found themselves fairly beyond the limits of even thewooded hill and grassy, atered plain, which had all the appearance of a very pro district The country was very thinly populated, the native villages being in some cases as much as fifty or sixty es found within a shorter distance than twenty miles The inhabitants were, as far as could be seen, fine stalwart speciro race, evidently skilled in the chase and, presue warfare; but it was not very easy to form a reliable opinion upon their habits andFish_ appeared upon the scene they invariably took to their heels with yells of terror and sought shelter in the thickest covert they could find
As the travellers penetrated further in toward the heart of this district, their anticipations in the ame became ever more abundantly realised; vast herds of antelope of various descriptions, and includingconstantly visible from the shi+p's deck whenever she was raised a few hundred feet in the air And, in addition to antelope, a few elephants, an occasional herd of buffalo, a troop or two of wild horses, a rhinoceros, a faorilla, was a by noof the countless troops of a
Such a district seemed to be the very realisation of a sportsman's or a naturalist's dream of paradise; and it was quickly decided that a halt should be called, and at least a few days devoted to the pursuit of game and the collection of natural history speci Fish_ to earth was accordingly sought for, and found in a small open space of about thirty acres, almost entirely surrounded by bush, and in close proximity to a tiny streamlet which emptied itself into a small shallow lake about half a mile distant from the selected site
Here they hunted with e aame--for they soon discovered that they could do very little without horses--butof themselves in artfully devised ambushes, to secure a few choice and rare skins and horns, besides the tusks of eight elephants and the plue of over a dozen ostriches
On the day of their departure fro and wholly unexpected good fortune befell thes which are never encountered anywhere but in the tropics A very heavy dew had fallen during the night, revivifying the vegetation parched by the fervid heat of the previous day, and causing the foliage and flowers to glow for a brief period in their brightest and freshest tints, whilst they exhaled their choicest odours; and a light cool northerly breeze i air, as yet uninfluenced by the scarcely risen sun
They had ”broken caht of about one thousand feet above the ground level, preparatory to the resu was spread over the deck, fore and aft, under the protecting shade of which they proposed to take breakfast; and whilst waiting for the meal to be served, the travellers, each seated in a deck chair, were anificent prospect which lay spread out around and beneath theently investigated with the aid of their telescopes
They were thus engaged when George announced that breakfast was served; and the professor was just on the point of laying down his instru hiroup of ani upon the crest of a distant eminence, swept for aof peculiarity and strangeness in the appearance of the creatures caused the motion of the telescope to be arrested in , deaf to the calls of his companions and the respectful reminder of the faithful steward, had his instruroup of ani way off, and the round that it was iuish the to the pilot-house and directing the shi+p's head straight toward the point occupied by the animals After which he carefully noted the time, made a little mental calculation, and seated himself at the breakfast table, with his watch carefully propped up before his plate
His friends were, by this time, so accustoht of asking any questions, feeling sure that an explanation would coood time Neither did theyof the shoulders and an a at his watch, hastily rose fro with him a fork with a s, hurried away to the pilot-house A entle jar was felt as the shi+p caround; but the mist was by this time so thick that it was difficult to see objects more than a couple of hundred feet distant, and all that could be clearly made out was that they had stopped close to a clump of bush of considerable extent
By the ti mist, true to its proverbially evanescent character, had completely passed away, and the travellers found that they had coht eminence, from which an uninterrupted view, of severalplains, could be obtained in every direction save one, namely, that bethich and the shi+p stretched the belt of bush
And now came the professor's explanation:
”You have, doubtless, wondered, gentle, interrupted our journey I will now tell you I have lately been glancing through the book which, you will re from the wreck of the _Daedalus_, and therein Icharacter This passage related to the ruion of a certain unnamed traveller who is stated to have positively asserted that he here saw, on more than one occasion, an animal absolutely identical with the fabled unicorn This remarkable stateo, seen a paragraph in a Berlin paper to a similar effect The state doubt, if not of absolute incredulity, as to its veracity; an expression which i most cruel and unfair to the claimant for the honours of a new discovery in natural history; since the discovery was alleged to have been ion which had never before--nor, indeed, has since, until now--been penetrated by civilised man; or froain e it Such being the case, as the course ere pursuing would take us through the very heart of this unknown and unvisited region, I resolved to maintain a most careful watch for these creatures
I have done so, and I a actually seen a troop of theether prevented a clear and distinct view of the animals to which I refer; but, whatever theyat no great distance on the other side of this belt of bush
Should such be the case, we have the wind of the ani the which, if patiently and cautiously executed, ought to enable us not only to secure a speciht into the habits of the creature”
The trio addressed felt, one and all, slightly incredulous as to the realisation of von Schalckenberg's sanguine sur the mammoths, they prudently kept their own counsel, and hastened away to secure their rifles and toand tedious stalk They exchanged their suits of dazzling white nankeen for others of a thin, tough serge of a light greenish-grey tint, which adh which the stalk would have to be performed; and, in about a quarter of an hour from the co outside the huge hull of the shi+p, and in its shadow, einald and the professor were to constitute one contingent, Lethbridge and Mild i to take up the ht of the game, but on no account to shoot until the others had first opened fire
The two parties then went their several ways, reaching, at about the same moment, the opposite extremities of the bush belt The ut the gaht in his conjectures, and the hunters sank down upon their knees and began a slow and tedious progress through the long grass The professor was fairly quivering with excitement, and all his co cautiously to his feet as soon as they had cleared the bush sufficiently to allow of his obtaining a view beyond For a lared anxiously around hiain as if shot
”They are there,” he gasped almost inarticulately, ”sixteen of them; not more than half a mile away”
”And what do '_they_' actually prove to be?” murmured the baronet ”Not unicorns, of course?”
”Yes, _unicorns_! Animals with only one horn--the males, that is to say Some have no horns, and those I take to be feinald's curiosity He, in his turn, rose to his feet, ignoring the professor's agonised entreaties for caution, and, sure enough, within half a mile of where he stood was a herd of aniures as one of the supporters of the royal arland that he could hardly credit his eyes He counted the creatures, and found that, as the professor had stated, there were sixteen of therown They very closely approached the zebra in general shape, but were considerably larger anih They were of a beautiful deep creas black below the knee, and they had short black emsbok, and, in the case of four of the aniht black pointed horn projecting from the very centre of the forehead, just above the level of the eyes
At length, yielding to the professor's entreaties and reain sank to his knees and the stalk was resumed
Soon, however, it becarowing restless and uneasy They frequently ceased feeding suddenly and gazed about theh suspicious of but unable to detect the approach of danger, and instead of steadily cropping at the grass in one particular spot they would snatch a few hasty mouthfuls and then move on some ten or a dozen yards And, as it unfortunately happened, their progress was directly away from the hunters, so that the latter soon found they were booked for a very long, tedious, and wearisoard the uneasiness of the game as due to their own presence, yet, upon further reflection, this seemed scarcely possible, for, in the first place, they were all, even to Mildmay and the professor, tolerably experienced hunters, and were conducting the stalk in the most approved and sportsmanlike manner, and, in the next place, they were dead to leeward of the animals, and it was consequently impossible that the creatures could have scented thehly puzzled; and at length they-- almost simultaneously, as it afterwards appeared--arrived at the sa stalked by so besides the
In support of the first idea there was no evidence beyond the mere fact of the animals' restlessness; but the aspect of the heavens soon becaly favour the second Whilst the hunters had been sedulously pursuing their task the sky had gradually lost its pristine purity of blue and had beco like a ghastly white radiant ball, shorn of his beams
The distant landscape first became unnaturally clear and distinct in all its details and then became veiled in a sort of e of cloud made its appearance above the south- western horizon, spreading rapidly toward the zenith, and the hunters began to realise that they were in for a thorough wetting, if for nothing worse Mildmay, indeed, as perhaps better acquainted than anyone else in the party with the character of the tropics, strongly urged upon his co the chase and returning with all speed to the shi+p; and the latter, impressed by the lieutenant's earnestness, once rose cautiously to his feet with the intention of signalling a return to the other contingent, but the baronet and the scientist were at that moment invisible, so the colonel sank once more on all-fours and the chase went on
Suddenly a sound like a loling roar, closely followed by a shrill screas of the al hastily to their feet, they saw that aupon the back of one of the hornless unicorns, and was tearing savagely at its neck and throat with its teeth and claws, the rest of the herd, with one exception, being in full flight The exception was a finemane and half-averted body, stoodof his fore-feet upon the ground, watching the unavailing struggles of his hapless coallop of a few yards sufficing to exhaust the victiround with her savage rider still clinging tenaciously to her back This, apparently, was theforward at lightning speed and with lowered head he charged full upon the prostrate pair, and, as the leopard faced round toward hiht pointed horn was levelled and in another instant the great cat was hurled ruthlessly froh eye and brain by the foronist The unicorn stood for ahis head, apparently half stunned with the tremendous shock; but he quickly recovered, and was evidently preparing to renew his terrible onslaught when his quick eye detected the presence of the hunters, who, co spectacle they had just witnessed, were standing at their full height in the long grass, fully exposed frohtly from the polished silver-like barrels of their rifles A moment's pause was sufficient for the unicorn; soe beings who had thus unexpectedly revealed theerous than thequickly about, he uttered a curious barking kind of neigh and dashed off at a headlong gallop in the direction already taken by the rest of his coroaned the professor in a perfect agony of despair