In Search of the Okapi Part 4

"All these precautions for a wretched fly."

"Exactly. A mosquito's gimlet carries more terrors for the explorer than the elephant's trunk, and his hum is more dreaded than the roar of the lion. The mosquito is fever-winged, alert, and bloodthirsty.

He carries the germs of malaria with him; and malaria kills off more men than all the reptiles and wild animals combined."

"Is there no way of fighting?" asked Compton, impressed.

"Oh ay; they are fighting him on the West Coast by draining the swamps, where he breeds about the villages. But who can drain the swamps of the Congo, or let light into the Great Forest?"

"Then we stand a fair chance to catch malaria?"

"A better chance," said Mr. Hume, grimly, "than we have of catching the okapi. Fear the mosquito, but at the same time take every precaution against its attack. I have an idea myself that nature has provided a safeguard."

"Quinine?" said Venning.

"Quinine is an antidote. I mean a preventive--but that is your department, Venning. It will be one of your duties to study the little brute, and you may make a great discovery, for instance, it has been discovered that the mosquito dislikes certain colours. Why?

It may be that he would show more distinctly on one colour than on another, and so fall an easy victim to an insect-eating bird. But it may be that the leaves of some plant of a particular hue, or the juices of the plant, are distasteful to the insect. Flies don't like the leaves of the blue-gum, and I guess mosquitoes have their likes and dislikes. Find the plant they dislike, and we may defy them."

They had no accommodation for such a luxury as a tent, but instead they purchased canvas hammocks, each with a waterproof covering, and a roll of green canvas with strong eyelet-holes, to serve the purpose of a tent, in addition to a canvas awning with bamboo rods, to cover the whole boat in case they were not able to land for any length of time.

It was a pleasant time for the boys, and when at last they were pitching down the Channel into the Bay of Biscay, having meanwhile pa.s.sed through a miserable twenty-four hours, they inhaled the strong salt air and clapped each other on the back.

It was grand!

They stood in the bows, one hand on the rail, the other on the brim of a hat, and tasted the salt with a smack of the lips. The wind blew its life into their eyes, brightened them, toughened their skins, reddened them, and the spray, drying on the red, softened the colour to a fine healthy brown. Then the good ship heeled over and rolled back with a swing of the yards, and the first roller from the Atlantic went majestically by. They were on the old, old track of the adventurers, of the sea-rovers, of the great captains, of the empire builders, and before them, far off in the fastness of the Dark Continent, was the Great Forest with all its secrets fast held.

CHAPTER III

THE CANOE ADRIFT

They pa.s.sed in time the rocks that guard Madeira, the green bay of Funchal, the peak of Teneriffe, and then the ship turned on its heel to the West Coast, and, while yet a thousand miles away, was welcomed by two messengers--a shrike and a hawk-moth, who had sailed along some upper current of air with red sand from the Sahara to filter down at last on to a firm resting-place.

They went away down into the Gulf of Guinea, and with many a call by the way to discharge cargo, approached the mouth of the Congo, whose flood gave a tawny colour to the sea. So far they had seen nothing but the squalid fringe of the Continent, and the damp heat had steamed them and tried them, but the young explorers had not lost the fine edge of their imagination. They knew that hundreds of miles back in the unexplored heart of the land there were secrets to be unraveled, and though they shed their warmer clothing, they retained their ardour. The river somewhere in its far reaches held for them, and them alone, new forms of life--the grandfather of all the crocodiles, a mammoth hippo; and somewhere in the forest was some huge gorilla waiting to offer them battle. Moreover, were these not the gates of the Place of Rest?

"Surely," said Compton, as they steamed slowly into the night off the mouth of the great river, "thy slave is not cast down because the black children of the mud-house at our last calling-place did mock us with their mouths, and the man, their father, wore the silk hat and frock-coat of civilization?"

"Perish the thought," said Venning, throwing a banana peel at a brilliant flash of phosph.o.r.escent light in the oily waters. "Yet the man-who-was-tired, he of the parchment face, who sat on a verandah with his feet on the rail, prophesied that within seven days we should be sighing for English bacon in the country where a white man could breathe."

"There is no snap in the air; but I can breathe freely. See;" and Compton took a deep breath.

"That is the teaching of the hunter," said Venning, wisely. "Deep breathing gives a man deep lungs. That is his teaching. Also this, that a man should keep his skin clean and his muscles supple by hard rubbing after the bath. Therefore, I did ask the bo'sun to turn the hose on us in the morning when they clean down the decks. It is good friction."

"And he has another saying--that it is good for the skin to apply oil with the palm of the hand till the skin reddens. I have a smell about me like a blue gum-tree, for the ointment he gave contains eucalyptus oil."

"And the fat of a goat. There is much virtue in goats' fat, and the eucalyptus is not to the taste of the trumpeter."

"The mosquito?"

"Even so."

"Then why don't you say so in good English?" and Compton dropped away from his high-flown speech. "I bet that's a shark kicking up all that phosph.o.r.escence."

"He swims in fire, like the--like the----"

"Sprat!"

"Like Apollo, you lean-minded insect. With every sweep of his tail he sends out diadems of liquid gems, and his broad nose shovels fire before him like a----"

"Stoker. Exactly; and if we had a lump of fat pork and a hook we could drag him up and collect a basketful of jewels. I dare say he is leering up at us with a green and longing eye."

"Did you hear that cry?" asked Venning, suddenly.

"No." "Was it the shark whispering, do you think?"

"Shut up and listen."

They leant over the rail and peered into the night. The drowsy air throbbed to the measured beat of the engines, but they scarcely noticed that accustomed sound.

"There it is again."

"Yes. I heard something like a sheep bleating."

"Would a sheep be swimming out here, you a.s.s?"

"The shark's off--look!" and they saw a streak of fire shoot forward.

"And there goes another. By Jove, they must have heard the cry!"

"I'm sorry for the sheep then," muttered Compton.

They bent far forward, listening intently, and following the course taken by the sharks as defined by the gleaming wake. The leadsman swung out the sounder as the vessel slackened down with a yell from the escape-valve that drowned all other sounds with its deafening clamour.

"By the deep nine!" cried a ba.s.s voice.

The bell in the engine-room signaled the skipper's order, and the ship felt her way once more. Again there was silence, save for the throb of the engines and the grating of the steering-chain at intervals.

"I have not heard the cry again," said Compton.

"Can you see anything over there--follow the line of my finger-- there, just by that gleam?"

"Yes; I think there is something."

"Then I think the captain ought to know;" and Venning ran off first to Mr. Hume.

"Something afloat, eh?" and Mr. Home rose from his deck-chair.

"Some one in distress, I think," They went on to the bridge, and Venning began his story; but the captain cut him short by wheeling round to the rail.