It rather resembled the Motombo in his cave, did that huge, black spider with just a little patch of white upon its head, or so I thought fancifully enough.  Then came the tragedy.  A great, white moth of the Hawk species began to dart to and fro between the reeds, and presently struck the web on its lower side some three inches above the water.  Like a flash that spider was upon it.  It embraced the victim with its long legs to still its tremendous battlings.  Next, descending below, it began to make the body fast, when something happened.  From the still surface of the water beneath poked up the mouth of a very large fish which quite quietly closed upon the spider and sank again into the depths, taking with it a portion of the web and thereby setting the big moth free.  With a struggle it loosed itself, fell on to a piece of wood and floated away, apparently little the worse for the encounter.

“Did you see that, Baas?” said Hans, pointing to the broken and empty web.  “While you were thinking, I was praying to your reverend father the Predikant, who taught me how to do it, and he has sent us a sign from the Place of Fire.”

Even then I could not help laughing to myself as I pictured what my dear father’s face would be like if he were able to hear his convert’s remarks.  An analysis of Hans’s religious views would be really interesting, and I only regret that I never made one.  But sticking to business I merely asked: 

“What sign?”

“Baas, this sign:  That web is the Motombo’s cave.  The big spider is the Motombo.  The white moth is us, Baas, who are caught in the web and going to be eaten.”

“Very pretty, Hans,” I said, “but what is the fish that came up and swallowed the spider so that the moth fell on the wood and floated away?”

“Baas, you are the fish, who come up softly, softly out of the water in the dark, and shoot the Motombo with the little rifle, and then the rest of us, who are the moth, fall into the canoe and float away.  There is a storm about to break, Baas, and who will see you swim the stream in the storm and the night?”

“The crocodiles,” I suggested.

“Baas, I didn’t see a crocodile eat the fish.  I think the fish is laughing down there with the fat spider in its stomach.  Also when there is a storm crocodiles go to bed because they are afraid lest the lightning should kill them for their sins.”

Now I remembered that I had often heard, and indeed to some extent noted, that these great reptiles do vanish in disturbed weather, probably because their food hides away.  However that might be, in an instant I made up my mind.

As soon as it was quite dark I would swim the water, holding the little rifle, Intombi, above my head, and try to steal the canoe.  If the old wizard was watching, which I hoped might not be the case, well, I must deal with him as best I could.  I knew the desperate nature of the expedient, but there was no other way.  If we could not get a boat we must remain in that foodless forest until we starved.  Or if we returned to the island of the Flower, there ere long we should certainly be attacked and destroyed by Komba and the Pongos when they came to look for our bodies.