"The god has visited me and taken away my hand!" he moaned in a
wailing voice.
I don't think anybody spoke; the thing was beyond words, but we tried
to bind the poor fellow's arm up by the light of matches. Then we sat
down again and watched.
The darkness grew still denser as the thick of the cloud passed over
the moon, and for a while the silence, that utter silence of the
tropical forest at night, was broken only by the sound of our
breathing, the buzz of a few mosquitoes, the distant splash of a
plunging crocodile and the stifled groans of the mutilated man.
Again I saw, or thought I saw--this may have been half an hour later--
that black shadow dart towards us, as a pike darts at a fish in a
pond. There was another scuffle, just to my left--Hans sat between me
and the Kalubi--followed by a single prolonged wail.
"The king-man has gone," whispered Hans. "I felt him go as though a
wind had blown him away. Where he was there is nothing but a hole."
Of a sudden the moon shone out from behind the clouds.
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