Sir
Reginald and Lethbridge, indeed, with a partial return to
reasonableness, suggested the abandonment of the chase for the night,
and a return to the _Flying Fish_ until the morning, when they could
come back to the spot, provided with everything necessary to enable them
to carry the pursuit to a successful issue. But von Schalckenberg
protested so vehemently against this course, urging with so much
plausibility the likelihood that the creature would drop exhausted
before it had run a mile, and that, if the search for it were left until
the morning, all that they would find of it would probably be its
mangled remains, so torn and mauled by other animals as to be utterly
valueless, that at length the others allowed themselves to be persuaded
against their better judgment. So gathering together such dry rushes
and other matters as could be converted into torches, they lighted
these, and with the illumination thus obtained, proceeded upon their
quest.

The fresh blood spoor was easily followed for the first half-mile or so,
at which point their hopes of success were stimulated by a sudden
scrambling sound at no great distance ahead of them, as though some
heavy animal had been startled by the light of their torches and the
noise of their approach, and had hastily betaken itself to flight.
Encouraged by the sounds, they hurried forward, and presently came upon
a small puddle of blood and a "form" in the thick carpet of ferns and
fallen leaves, with which the soil was covered, that plainly pointed to
the fact that the wounded animal had here sunk down to rest, and had
only just moved on again. This last impression was clearly borne out by
the circumstance that, even as the party bent over the spot, examining
it, the crushed ferns were slowly raising themselves again.

"Ah!" ejaculated von Schalckenberg, as he commented upon this, "the
chase will soon be over; we shall come up with him again within the next
ten minutes, and then he will not escape us."

The ten minutes, however, became twenty, and the twenty lengthened out
to forty, and still they had not overtaken the okapi, although they
frequently heard sounds at no great distance ahead which led them to
believe that they were close upon its heels. But they had been greatly
delayed by the constant necessity to pause while they renewed their
torches; and latterly the blood spoor had been steadily growing less
distinct. It appeared that the wound had almost ceased