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Updated: May 16, 2025
We had them cold with every meal almost, and he was continually giving us details of what they measured from tip to tip, as though he thought we were going to make them warm under-things for the winter. I used to listen to him with a rapt attention that I thought rather suited me, and then one day I quite modestly gave the dimensions of an okapi I had shot in the Lincolnshire fens. Mrs.
On the walls snow-shoes, fishing-lines, dried fish in smellable bunches, a portrait of the Okapi from Outing, and a musical clock that played with painful persistence the first three bars of "God Save the King." Everywhere else were rags, mud, and dirt. "You see, I am joost like a white woman," said the swarthy queen.
But, as an irrepressible shout of triumph was raised by the excited von Schalckenberg, the watchers saw the quarry scramble to its feet and limp off into the darkness of the forest, evidently pretty badly hurt. "We must follow it up!" cried the professor, eagerly; "we must secure it, at all costs. An okapi is worth a hundred other animals of any kind that one can name.
"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.
The Okapi straightway continued up the dark river, through the silence of the sombre woods, and the old man drank his coffee, and then gave himself up to the pleasure of tobacco, with his dull eyes fixed on Compton. In the afternoon he pointed to a palm-tree. "There is a path," he said. "Is there anything you would like?" asked Compton. "Coffee is good, and tobacco is a great comforter."
He put two fingers in his mouth and produced a shrill whistle. There was no answer; and after a time they all landed to stretch their legs, but the associations of the place, with those grim remains of the cannibal feast, were too terrible, and they did not stay long. As the Okapi resumed her voyage up the sombre defile, a faint whistle sounded on the opposite bank.
"What devil's noise is that?" sang out a voice they recognized as that of the Belgian officer. A sharp order was given, the paddles ceased, and the canoe, looming long and black on the water, drifted towards the Okapi. "I have heard that cry before," said a rasping voice. "Be ready with your weapons. Allah the merciful may yet deliver those we seek."
They sat up under the awning and talked of the great drive, of Muata's escape, and of his wonderful luck in finding them though he made out that there was nothing strange about it, since from the woods he had seen the preparations for the hunt, and had, too, made out the Okapi in the dusk.
They had cause now for uneasiness, and the boys for the first time began to entertain suspicions about Muata's faithfulness, for the loss of the Okapi in the very thick of the forest meant to them what marooning is to the sailor man. They sat discussing the matter long into the night, and when morning came they looked out on the valley with other feelings than before.
There was a splash as the boat was shoved off, then muttered exclamations and a yelp from the jackal: Many scores of ants had invaded the Okapi, and each ant, full of murderous rage for the wanton attack upon the nest, seized hold of the first soft thing it came across, and once it gripped it held on like a bull-dog.
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