ey they halted upon the crest of a
high mountain. The moon had set, and it was impossible to go further;
moreover, they were weary with long marching. Wrapping themselves up
in their blankets--for here the air was piercingly cold--they lay down
beneath the shelter of some bushes to sleep till dawn. It was Otter who
woke them. "Look, Baas," he said to Leonard, "we have marched straight.
There below us is the big river, and there far to the right is the sea."

They looked. Some miles from them, across the great plain of bush that
merged gradually into swamp, lay that branch of the Zambesi which they
would reach. They could not see it, indeed, for its face was hid by a
dense cloak of soft white mist that covered it like a cloud. But there
it was, won at last, and there away to the eastward shone the wide
glitter of the sea, flecked with faint lines of broken billows whence
the sun rose in glory.

"See, Baas," said Otter, when they had satisfied themselves with
the beautiful sight, "yonder, some five hours' march from here, the
mountains curve down to the edge of the river. Thither we must go, for
it is on the further side of those hills that the great swamp lies where
the Yellow Devil has his place. I know the spot well; I have passed it
twice."

They rested till noonday; but that night, before the moon rose, they
stood on the curve of the mountain, close down to the water's edge. At
length she came up, and showed them a wonderful scene of desolation.
Beyond the curve of hills the mountains trended out again to the south,
gradually growing lower till at last they melted into the skyline.
In the vast semicircle thus formed ran the river, spotted with green
islands, while between it and the high ground, over a space which varied
from one mile at the narrowest to twenty miles in width at the broadest
of the curve, was spread a huge and dismal swamp, marked by patches of
stagnant water, clothed with reeds which grew to the height of small
trees, and exhaling a stench as of the rottenness of ages.

The loneliness of the place was dreadful, its waste and desolation were
appalling. And yet it lived with a life of its own. Wild fowl flew in
wedges from the sea to feed in its recesses, alligators and hippopotami
splashed in the waters, bitterns boomed among the rushes, and from every
pool and quagmire came the croaking of a thousand frogs.

"Yonder runs the slave road, or yonder it once ran," said Otter,
pointing to the foot o