The man in the bows looked straight down the channel to their lair, where in the narrow cut the Okapi lay hidden behind a screen of leaves.  Then he moved his hand to the right, and the canoe, silently, without a ripple almost, skirted the island on that side, into whose reedy sides the men darted their glances.  Again the hand was moved, and the long boat crept across to the island on the left, which was swept by the sharp suspicious eyes of the natives.  Again the bowman directed his gaze into the narrow opening, and this time he looked long.  There was one small island to pass, and if the canoe kept on the north side, it would have to come right into the hiding-place; if it kept to the south, it would reappear at the end of the passage by which the Okapi had entered.

In either case, the danger of discovery seemed certain.  The three pairs of eyes from behind the tall grass were glued to the man’s face.  They saw him start, then move his hand to the left, and as the canoe went stealthily out of their view round the south side, they heard the sullen plunge made by a crocodile as, disturbed from his sleep, he took to the waters.

Then the three crept back to the boat.  “Pull her through the screen,” whispered the hunter, as he caught up his rifle, “but make no noise;” and he took up another position ashore, this time facing the other end of the channel.

With great caution the boys coaxed the Okapi through the trailing branches, so that she would be hidden from view if the natives looked up the channel.  Then they waited and waited for ages before the hunter showed himself.

“Well?” they asked in a whisper.

“They have passed on.”

“And?” they said, watching his face.

“I don’t quite like it.  They may have no suspicions, but I think they have; for one man pointed up in this direction.”

“If they suspected anything they would have stopped surely.”

“Perhaps not.  The native doesn’t like the look of a trap, and it maybe that they passed on with the intention of returning at night.  Or they may have gone for the other boats.”  Mr. Hume stood up to glance shorewards.

“Would it not be better to move on?” said Venning.

“If we could be sure that we should not be seen from the land, that would be the move.”  He stroked his beard.  “I guess we’ll move,” he said, “just about dusk, for I’m pretty sure in my mind that they did take particular notice of this channel, and my policy is always to listen to your instincts.”

“Instincts,” muttered Compton; “call them nerves.”

Mr. Hume laughed.  “About the time you were born, Dick, I was playing a lone hand in Lo-Ben’s country as trader and hunter, when a loss of nerve would have meant loss of life.  See!  So just leave this to me, and shove her along.”

Compton grinned back at the hunter, and tugged at his oar, for the levers clanked too loud for this work.  They crept along to another berth a little way off, and tied up in the shadow of the bank; and they had scarcely settled themselves when they heard again the beat of engines.  The launch was returning, and was returning in answer to a signal that the game had been found!  A pungent smell of smoke suddenly reached them, and, standing up, they saw over the reeds that a fire had been made on one of the neighbouring islands.