Reginald at once made his way to the Custom House to get the boats'
cargoes cleared. He was fortunate enough to find in the collector a man
with whom he had had several previous transactions, and who was
consequently pretty well acquainted with him. This facilitated matters
greatly, and by half-past eight the duty (a very considerable sum) had
been paid and the goods passed, so that nothing further remained but to
land everything and have it conveyed to the railway-station for
transmission to town. This done the two boats were taken into "The
Camber" and put under the care of a trustworthy man, after which the
party breakfasted at the "George," proceeding to town directly
afterwards by the twelve-o'clock express.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN.
A TROOP OF UNICORNS.
A week later, the four friends once more found themselves beneath the
roof of "The Migrants'", where it had been arranged that they were to
meet and take luncheon together prior to their journey down to
Portsmouth to rejoin the _Flying Fish_. On comparing notes it was found
that each had, according to his own views, made the best possible use of
his time, the professor having not only placed the mammoth's skin in the
hands of an eminent taxidermist, but also prepared and read before the
Royal Society a paper on "The Open Polar Sea," which had created a
profound impression on the collective mind of that august body;
Lethbridge and Mildmay had seized the opportunity for paying a too-long-
deferred visit to their respective mothers; and Sir Reginald had, acting
upon the best obtainable advice, conveyed the four parcels of diamonds
belonging to the party over to Amsterdam, where they had been left in
the care of a thoroughly trustworthy diamond merchant, with instructions
that certain of the jewels were to be cut and set in the handsomest
possible manner, whilst the rest were to be disposed of as opportunity
might offer. The furs were also satisfactorily got rid of; some of them
having been sold, and the remainder (consisting of all the choicest
skins) placed in the hands of the furriers to be cured and taken care of
until their owners should return to claim them.
The luncheon was a very lively meal; the conversation naturally turning
to the last occasion upon which the travellers had met there; and upon
its conclusion the four friends chartered a couple of hansoms, which
conveyed them to Waterloo station in good time for the Portsmouth
express.
On their arrival at the Harbour station they found George and his French
friend, the cook (both of whom had been granted a week's leave),
dutifully awaiting them on the platform. The boats, under the care of
the man who had been placed in charge of them, were lying alongside the
adjacent slipway, in accordance with a telegraphed arrangement which had
preceded the travellers; and, entering these, the party at once
proceeded down the harbour, past Southsea and its castle, and out toward
Nettlestone Point. It was by this time quite dark, save for the light
of the young moon, which was already near her setting, and the boats
were consequently at once urged to their full speed in the direction
where the _Flying Fish_ had been left.
Having originally taken their cross bearings wholly from the shore
lights, the voyagers had now no difficulty whatever in placing the boats
in their proper position. Arrived on the spot, a sounding-line was
dropped over the side, and the first cast showed that they were floating
exactly over the submerged ship. The boats were therefore allowed to
drift with the tide until they were clear of the _Flying Fish_, when Sir
Reginald dropped his anchor and ladder, and the professor, who had
already routed out from the stern locker and donned his diving armour,
stepped over the side, adjusted his weights, and quietly disappeared
beneath the surface of the water. A lapse of perhaps a minute occurred,
when the ladder was found to be hanging limp and loose; a bright white
light flashed upward through the water for a moment, as a signal from
the professor that he had reached the bottom all right; and then the
luminous beam was seen moving slowly forward over the bottom in the
direction of the submerged ship. Suddenly the light vanished.
"He has reached the ship," the baronet reported to those in the other
boat, who were alternately drifting with the tide and moving up against
it to maintain an easy speaking distance from their consort. A quarter
of an hour passed, and then a brilliant, dazzling flood of light
streamed out for about ten seconds at apparently no great distance below
the surface, then vanished again.
"All right," remarked Sir Reginald as soon as he saw this; "he has
reached the pilot-house. Now, George, up with the anchor, my good
fellow, and we will back off a few yards out of harm's way."
The boats accordingly did so, von Schalckenberg allowing them ten
minutes for the operation; then, with a sudden rush and swirl of water,
the huge bulk of the _Flying Fish_ appeared above the surface, looming
black, vast, and mysterious against the faintly luminous horizon. A
moment more, and the windows of the pilot-house shone out a series of
luminous discs against the darkness, showing that the professor had
lighted up the interior, and that individual himself appeared on deck
hailing the invisible boats with:
"It is all right; everything is just as we left it, and you may come on
board as soon as you like."
Ten minutes later the boats had been hoisted in and stowed away, and the
_Flying Fish_, at an elevation of some three hundred feet above the sea-
level, was moving to the southward and eastward across the placid waters
of the Channel, at the moderate rate of some five-and-twenty miles per
hour. At midnight, however, after a little music and conversation, the
pace was quickened to about one hundred miles per hour; the altitude was
at the same time increased to ten thousand feet; the course was set to
south, by compass, and the travellers, with a feeling of perfect
security, retired to rest, confident that the professor's clever
automatic devices would not only maintain the ship at her then
elevation, but would also steer her straight in the required direction.
On the following morning at daybreak the travellers found themselves
hovering over the blue Mediterranean, with the African coast at no great
distance, and a town of considerable size directly ahead. This town was
soon identified as Tunis (near which is the site of ancient Carthage),
and they shortly afterwards passed over it, not unnoticed by the
inhabitants, who, with the aid of the telescope, could be seen pointing
upward at the ship in evident consternation. Then on over the chain of
hills beyond the town, and they once more found themselves with the sea
beneath them, the ship's course causing her to just skirt the Gulf of
Hammamet, whilst they obtained a splendid view of Lake Kairwan and the
three streams which it absorbs. Then past Capes Dimas and Kadijah,
across the Gulf of Cabes, and so on to Tripoli, which was reached and
passed soon after the party had risen from breakfast. At this point the
Mediterranean was finally left behind, and the ship's speed was shortly
afterwards reduced to a rate of about fifteen knots through the air; her
altitude being also decreased to about one thousand feet above the
ground level.
The course was now altered to about south by west (true), and the
travellers passed slowly over the Fezzan country, the borders of the
Libyan Desert, the Soudan, and Dar Zaleh; the prospect beneath and
around them varying with every hour of their progress, from the most
fertile and highly cultivated district, dotted here and there with
straggling villages, to the most sterile and sandy wastes. They saw but
little game during this portion of their journey, and only descended to
the ground at night, when the vessel was secured by her four grip-
anchors during the hours which her crew devoted to rest.
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 the most
rudimentary civilisation, and in a country of alternating wooded hill
and grassy, well-watered plain, which had all the appearance of a very
promising hunting district. The country was very thinly populated, the
native villages being in some cases as much as fifty or sixty miles
apart, whilst in no instance were two villages found within a shorter
distance than twenty miles. The inhabitants were, as far as could be
seen, fine stalwart specimens of the negro race, evidently skilled in
the chase and, presumably, also in all the arts of savage warfare; but
it was not very easy to form a reliable opinion upon their habits and
mode of life, as whenever the _Flying Fish_ 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 matter of game became ever more
abundantly realised; vast herds of antelope of various descriptions, and
including more than one new species, being constantly visible from the
ship'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 family of lions, a
skulking leopard, or a gorilla, was a by no means unusual sight; to say
nothing of the countless troops of monkeys and other unimportant game
with which the country seemed to be literally swarming.
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 specimens. A suitable spot in
which to bring the _Flying 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 moderate success for a week, not killing any very
large amount of game--for they soon discovered that they could do very
little without horses--but managing, by patient stalking and the
secreting of themselves in artfully devised ambushes, to secure a few
choice and rare skins and horns, besides the tusks of eight elephants
and the plumage of over a dozen ostriches.
On the day of their departure from this temporary halting-place,
however, a piece of surprising and wholly unexpected good fortune befell
them. It was one of those especially glorious mornings 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 imparted a
temporary freshness to the early morning air, as yet uninfluenced by the
scarcely risen sun.
They had "broken camp," and had risen to a height of about one thousand
feet above the ground level, preparatory to the resumption of their
southward journey. An awning 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 amusing themselves by inspecting the magnificent
prospect which lay spread out around and beneath them, the more distant
parts of which were being diligently 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 instrument,
preparatory to seating himself at the table, when a small group of
animals, which were grazing upon the crest of a distant eminence, swept
for a moment across his field of view. A certain something of
peculiarity and strangeness in the appearance of the creatures caused
the motion of the telescope to be arrested in mid-sweep, and in another
instant von Schalckenberg, deaf to the calls of his companions and the
respectful reminder of the faithful steward, had his instrument focused
full upon the group of animals. They were, however, a long way off, and
the mist was now rising so thickly from the surface of the ground that
it was impossible to clearly distinguish them; so the professor
contented himself by going to the pilot-house and directing the ship'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 accustomed to the professor's little
peculiarities that no one thought of asking any questions, feeling sure
that an explanation would come all in good time. Neither did they make
any remark or evince any surprise, beyond a shrug of the shoulders and
an amused elevation of the eyebrows, when the _savant_, glancing at his
watch, hastily rose from the table, and, in his absent-mindedness
carrying with him a fork with a morsel of venison-steak impaled upon its
prongs, hurried away to the pilot-house. A moment or two later a gentle
jar was felt as the ship came to the ground; 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 time that breakfast was over, the morning mist, true to its
proverbially evanescent character, had completely passed away, and the
travellers found that they had come to earth on the crest of a slight
eminence, from which an uninterrupted view, of several miles extent over
the surrounding plains, could be obtained in every direction save one,
namely, that between which and the ship stretched the belt of bush.
And now came the professor's explanation:
"You have, doubtless, wondered, gentlemen," said he, "why I have thus
early, and without warning, interrupted our journey. I will now tell
you. I have lately been glancing through the book which, you will
remember, I succeeded in recovering from the wreck of the _Daedalus_,
and therein I met with a passage of a most surpassingly interesting
character. This passage related to the rumoured penetration into this
region 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 statement
at once reminded me that I had, many years ago, seen a paragraph in a
Berlin paper to a similar effect. The statement was accompanied by an
expression of strong doubt, if not of absolute incredulity, as to its
veracity; an expression which impressed me at the time as being 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 made in a
region which had never before--nor, indeed, has since, until now--been
penetrated by civilised man; or from which, at all events, no civilised
traveller has ever again emerged, if indeed he had been successful in
penetrating it. Such being the case, as the course we were 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 am sanguine that I have this morning actually
seen a troop of them. Unfortunately, the mist and the distance together
prevented a clear and distinct view of the animals to which I refer;
but, whatever they may be, I have an idea that they are at this moment
feeding at no great distance on the other side of this belt of bush.
Should such be the case, we have the wind of the animals and ought to
have no great difficulty in stalking them; a proceeding which, if
patiently and cautiously executed, ought to enable us not only to secure
a specimen or two, but also to obtain a slight insight into the habits
of the creature."
The trio addressed felt, one and all, slightly incredulous as to the
realisation of von Schalckenberg's sanguine surmises; but, remembering
the mammoths, they prudently kept their own counsel, and hastened away
to secure their rifles and to make their preparations for a possibly
long and tedious stalk. They exchanged their suits of dazzling white
nankeen for others of a thin, tough serge of a light greenish-grey tint,
which admirably matched the colour of the long grass through which the
stalk would have to be performed; and, in about a quarter of an hour
from the commencement of their preparations, found themselves standing
outside the huge hull of the ship, and in its shadow, making their final
dispositions for the chase. These arrangements were soon made. Sir
Reginald and the professor were to constitute one contingent, Lethbridge
and Mildmay the other; these last being impressively instructed by von
Schalckenberg to take up the most advantageous position possible for
intercepting the flight 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 utmost
caution now became necessary in order to avoid startling the game, if
indeed the professor was right 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 companion's efforts were ineffectual to prevent his rising
cautiously to his feet as soon as they had cleared the bush sufficiently
to allow of his obtaining a view beyond. For a moment or two he glared
anxiously around him, then dropped to his knees again 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 females."
This was too much for Sir Reginald'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
animals so closely resembling the unicorn which figures as one of the
supporters of the royal arms of England that he could hardly credit his
eyes. He counted the creatures, and found that, as the professor had
stated, there were sixteen of them, all apparently full-grown. They
very closely approached the zebra in general shape, but were
considerably larger animals, standing about fourteen hands high. They
were of a beautiful deep cream colour, their legs black below the knee,
and they had short black manes, black switched tails very similar to
that of the gemsbok, and, in the case of four of the animals then in
view, were provided with a single straight 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 remonstrances, the
baronet again sank to his knees and the stalk was resumed.
Soon, however, it became apparent that, from some cause or other, the
animals were growing restless and uneasy. They frequently ceased
feeding suddenly and gazed about them with an anxious, inquiring look,
as though 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 wearisome task. The stalkers were at
first disposed to regard 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 them. Both Sir
Reginald and the colonel were thoroughly puzzled; and at length they--
almost simultaneously, as it afterwards appeared--arrived at the same
conclusion, namely, that the unicorns were being stalked by somebody or
something besides themselves, or else that a storm was brewing.
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 became
such as to strongly favour the second. Whilst the hunters had been
sedulously pursuing their task the sky had gradually lost its pristine
purity of blue and had become a pale colourless grey, in which the sun
seemed to hang 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 murky haze. Presently a
sharply defined ridge 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, who was perhaps better acquainted than
anyone else in the party with the character of the tropics, strongly
urged upon his companion, Lethbridge, the desirability of abandoning the
chase and returning with all speed to the ship; 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 low growling roar, closely followed by a shrill
scream, came floating down to the hunters upon the wings of the almost
stagnant breeze, and, springing hastily to their feet, they saw that a
magnificent leopard had sprung upon 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 fine male unicorn, which, with bristling
mane and half-averted body, stood motionless save for a quick angry
stamping of his fore-feet upon the ground, watching the unavailing
struggles of his hapless companion. These were of very short duration,
a staggering gallop of a few yards sufficing to exhaust the victim's
strength, when she reeled and fell headlong to the ground with her
savage rider still clinging tenaciously to her back. This, apparently,
was the moment which the male unicorn had been waiting for. Bounding
forward at lightning speed and with lowered head he charged full upon
the prostrate pair, and, as the leopard faced round toward him with an
angry snarl, the long straight pointed horn was levelled and in another
instant the great cat was hurled ruthlessly from the quivering body of
his victim, transfixed through eye and brain by the formidable weapon of
his vengeful antagonist. The unicorn stood for a moment tossing his
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, completely
carried away by the exciting spectacle they had just witnessed, were
standing at their full height in the long grass, fully exposed from
their waists upward, and with the light glancing brightly from the
polished silver-like barrels of their rifles. A moment's pause was
sufficient for the unicorn; some subtle instinct doubtless taught him
that in the strange beings who had thus unexpectedly revealed themselves
he beheld enemies more dangerous than the most deadly of his four-footed
foes; and, wheeling quickly 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 companions.
"Good Heavens, we have lost them!" groaned the professor in a perfect
agony of despair.