cheerful
surroundings and among our friends or acquaintances, it is easy to
imagine how much greater was the shock to me, a traveller on such a
journey and in such a night.

I shrank from approaching the shores of this lake, remembering that as
yet all the vision was not unrolled. I looked about me. If we went to
the left we should either strike the water, or if we followed its edge,
still bearing to the left, must ultimately reach the forest, where
probably we should be lost. I looked to the right. The ground was strewn
with boulders, among which grew thorns and rank grass, impracticable for
men on foot at night. I looked behind me, meditating retreat, and there,
some hundreds of yards away behind low, scrubby mimosas mixed with
aloe-like plants, I saw something brown toss up and disappear again that
might very well have been the trunk of an elephant. Then, animated
by the courage of despair and a desire to know the worst, I began to
descend the elephant track towards the lake almost at a run.

Ten minutes or so more brought us to the eastern head of the lake, where
the reeds whispered in the breath of the night wind like things alive.
As I expected, it proved to be a bare, open space where nothing seemed
to grow. Yes, and all about me were the decaying remains of elephants,
hundreds of them, some with their bones covered in moss, that may have
lain here for generations, and others more newly dead. They were all
old beasts as I could tell by the tusks, whether male or female. Indeed
about me within a radius of a quarter of a mile lay enough ivory to make
a man very rich for life, since although discoloured, much of it seemed
to have kept quite sound, like human teeth in a mummy case. The sight
gave me a new zest for life. If only I could manage to survive and carry
off that ivory! I would. In this way or in that I swore that I would!
Who could possibly die with so much ivory to be had for the taking? Not
that old hunter, Allan Quatermain.

Then I forgot about the ivory, for there in front of me, just where
it should be, just as I had seen it in the dream-picture, was the bull
elephant dying, a thin and ancient brute that had lived its long life
to the last hour. It searched about as though to find a convenient
resting-place, and when this was discovered, stood over it, swaying
to and fro for a full minute. Then it lifted its trunk and trumpeted
shrilly thrice, singing its swan-song, after which it sank slowly to its