In Search of the Okapi - A Story of Adventure in Central Africa

Ernest Glanville

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• Publié par: adryo
• Publié le: 08 décembre 2010
• Nombre de lectures: 27
• Langue: English

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Okapi, by Ernest Glanville
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Title: In Search of the Okapi A Story of Adventure
in Central Africa
Author: Ernest Glanville
Release Date: January 28, 2006 [eBook #17615]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)
***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG
EBOOK IN SEARCH OF THE OKAPI***
E-text prepared by Charles KlingmanIN SEARCH OF THE OKAPI
A Story of Adventure in Central Africa
by
ERNEST GLANVILLE
Author of "The Diamond Seekers" "The Fossicker"
"Tales from the
Veld" etc.
Illustrated by William Rainey, R.I.
Chicago A. C. McClurg & Co. 1904CONTENTS
CHAP.
I. THE HUNTER
II. A NOVEL CRAFT
III. THE CANOE ADRIFT
IV. THE STORY OF MUATA
V. TROUBLE BREWING
VI. THE FLIGHT
VII. THE THOUSAND ISLANDS
VIII. THE BULLS AND THE WILD DOGS
IX. A LION'S CHARGE
X. A NIGHT IN THE REEDS
XI. A TRAPXII. THE MAN-EATERS
XIII. THE TREE-LION
XIV. THE OVERHEAD PATH
XV. FIGHT WITH A GORILLA
XVI. ACROSS THE LAGOON
XVII. THE PLACE OF REST
XVIII. THE FIGHT IN THE DEFILE
XIX. THE MAKER OF LAWS
XX. THE SECRET WAY
XXI. A VOICE FROM THE DEAD
XXII. A TERRIBLE NIGHT
XXIII. THROUGH THE VAULTS
XXIV. LETTING IN THE RIVER
XXV. THE CRY IN THE NIGHTIN SEARCH OF THE OKAPI
CHAPTER I
THE HUNTER
"Dick, why do you study Arabic so closely?"
"To understand Arabic."
"And further?"
Dick Compton closed his book and placed it
carefully in a leather case.
"It is a pity you were born curious, Venning,
otherwise you would have made an excellent
companion for a studious man. 'Why do I wish to
understand Arabic?' Why do you stand on one leg
watching a tadpole shed its tail."
"Excuse me, I always sit down to watch a tadpole."
"Yet I have seen you poised on one leg for an hour
like a heron, afraid to put down the other foot lest
you should scare some wretched pollywog. Why?"
"I do it for the love of the thing, Dick. What is a
page of your crooked signs compared with a single
green pond and all that it holds?""By Jove! Is that so—and would you find a volume
in a caterpillar?"
"Why not? Listen to me, Dick. Take the silver-
spiked caterpillar, with a skin of black satin and a
length that runs to four inches. He lives his life in
the topmost boughs of an African palm—a
feathered dome amid the forest—and there
beneath the blue sky he browses till he descends
into the warm earth to sleep in chrysalis form
before he emerges as a splendid moth, with glass
windows in his wide wings to sail with the fire-flies
through the dark vaults of the silent woods."
"All that from a caterpillar?"
"That and much more, Dicky."
"And where will this study of the caterpillar lead
you, Godfrey? One can't live on a caterpillar."
"Yet there is one kind—fat and creamy—that
makes good soup."
"Ugh, you cormorant! But tell me seriously, what is
the end of your studies—where will they lead you?"
"To Central Africa."
"Do you mean that, Venning?"
"I do, Dick. There is one spot on the map of Africa
that is marked black. That spot is covered over
hundreds of square miles by the unexplored forest.
Think what that means to me!""Fever most likely—or three inches of spear-head."
"A forest big enough to cover England! Just think
of the new forms of life—from a new ant to an
elephant or hornless giraffe. The okapi was
discovered near that great hunting-ground—and,
who is to say there are not other animals as
strange in its untrodden depths?"
"Is it a wild-fowl, the okapi?"
"A wild-fowl, you duffer!" exclaimed Venning,
indignantly. "Haven't you heard of the dwarfed
giraffe, part zebra, discovered by Sir Harry
Johnston? It lost the long neck of the original
species which browses in the open veld by the
necessity to adapt its habits to the changed
conditions of life within the forest."
"Your neck is rather long, my boy, from much
stretching to watch things. Look out that you don't
have it shortened. And so you intend to visit
Central Africa? That is very curious!"
"I don't see anything curious about it."
"Nor do I, as to one thing. If a fellow is crazy about
butterflies, he may as well roam in Africa as a
lunatic with a net as anywhere else; but the curious
part of the matter is, that my study of Arabic is
intended to prepare me for a trip to the very same
place."
"Compton, you don't mean it," said the other,jumping from his seat.
"I do, most decidedly."
"But what has Arabic got to do with the Central
African Forest?"
"Quite as much as your short-nosed elephant or
long-tailed hippopotamus. I also wish to discover
something that has been lost. Don't open your
mouth so wide."
"Is it an animal, Dick?"
"Good gracious, no! I don't care twopence about
an animal, except it is for the pot, or unless it
wants me for dinner. No; mine is another search. It
is connected with my father."
"Yes," said Venning, quietly; for his friend had
suddenly grown grave.
"When I was a little chap, about seventeen years
ago, my mother received a letter dated from the
'great forest.'"
"It contained only these words, 'Good-bye.' With it
there was a letter in Arabic, written by my father's
headman. That letter was seven months on its
travels, and since then no other word have I
heard."
Venning muttered something in sympathy.
"My mother," continued the other, "died five yearsago, without having learnt the meaning of the
message in Arabic. She had a wish that no one but
I should read the letter, and often she told me that
if it contained any instructions or directions, I was
to carry them out. Well, I have interpreted the
Arabic signs."
"Yes, Dick; and——"
"And I can't quite make out the meaning. There is
a reference to the journal my father kept, with the
statement that it was safely hidden; but then
follows a reference to a Garden of Rest, to certain
people who protected him, and to a slave-trader
who did him an injury. These references to me are
a mystery; but what is clear is his desire to have
his journal recovered from the Arab slave-dealer,
described merely as 'The Wolf.'"
"And that is why you wish to go to Central Africa?"
"That is why, Venning. I must recover my father's
journal if it exists; I must, if it is not too late, find
out how he died; I must find out who are the wild
people, and what is the Garden of Rest."
"The Garden of Rest! That sounds peaceful, but it
is very vague, Dick, as a direction. A garden in a
forest hundreds of miles in length will take some
finding."
"I have a clue."
"So."