startling splash, followed by a snort and the snap of jaws; then all
would be quiet for several minutes, when, from another direction,
would come perhaps a heavy sigh; then another interval of silence,
again a splash, and so on until the impression grew on him that the
beasts and reptiles who made the noises were working slowly towards
him in a circle.

It was his first night on guard in the wilderness, and he felt the
uneasiness of the hunter who discovers how limited are his senses
compared with those of the wild creatures about him. Man, himself
the most secret, the most cunning, the most deadly, and, if truth
must be told, the most bloodthirsty, for he kills too often for the
love of killing, is the most helpless in the dark. His sense of
hearing, of sight, and of smell, fail him--thanks to a wise
provision of Nature in the interests of her other children--for if
man had the eyes of a cat, the nose of a wolf, and the hearing of a
deer, he would have cleared the earth of its creatures, who would
have had no rest night or day.

All the time, too, the river talked, as it rolled its great flood
along, sending up a soft volume of song from the innumerable sounds
produced as it washed along the islands and foamed against the rocks
of the shores. Presently, down the narrow channel, there came a rush
of water which rocked the boat, and next Venning heard close at hand
a strange noise, which he took to be made by a large animal cropping
at the river-grass. He looked about for a weapon, and, picking up
the long boat-hook, lashed his hunting-knife to the iron hook at the
top, converting it into a lance. He had read of hippos swamping
boats by seizing the narrow bows or keel in their vast jaws, and he
wished to be prepared for a possible attack. Presently the boat