freedom and
grace, a small antelope passed with the swiftness of an arrow; after it,
almost touching it, came another form, yellow and fierce and flashing
through the grass and vanishing, like the antelope, amidst the high
grasses on the edge of the pool.

The antelope had rushed to the water for protection, and the leopard had
followed, carried forward by its impetus and ferocity, for Adams could
hear its splash following the splash of the quarry; then a roar split the
silence, echoed from the trees, and sent innumerable birds fluttering and
crying from the edge of the forest and the edge of the pool.

Adams burst through the long speargrass to see what was happening, and,
standing on the boggy margin, holding the grasses aside, gazed.

The antelope had vanished as if it had never been, and a few yards from
the shore, in the midst of a lather of water that seemed beaten up with a
great swizzle-stick, the leopard's head, mouth open, roaring, horrified
his eyes for a moment and then was jerked under the surface.

The water closed, eddied, and became still, and Silence resumed her sway
over the Silent Pools.

Something beneath the water had devoured the antelope; something beneath
the water had dragged the leopard to its doom, and swish! a huge flail
tore the speargrass to ribbons and sent Adams flying backward with the
wind of its passage.

Another foot and the crocodile's tail would have swept him to the fate of
the antelope and leopard.

The place was alive with ferocity and horror, and it seemed to Adams that
the Silent Pools had suddenly slipped the mask of silence and beauty and
shown to him the face of hideous death.

He wiped the sweat from his brow. He was unarmed, and it seemed that a
man, to walk in safety through this Garden of Eden, ought to be armed to
the teeth. He turned back to the camp, walking slowly and seeing nothing
of the beauties around him, nothing but the picture of the leopard's face,
the paws frantically beating the water, and a more horrible picture still,
the water resuming its calmness and its peace.

When he reached the camp, he found Berselius and Meeus absent. After their
siesta they had gone for a stroll by the water's edge in the opposite
direction to that which he had taken. The soldiers were on duty, keeping a
watchful eye on the villagers; all were seated, the villagers in front of
their huts and the soldiers in the shade, with their rifles handy; all,
that is to say, excep