st. The unicorn stood for a moment tossing his
head, apparently half stunned with the tremendous shock; but he quickly
recovered, and was evidently preparing to renew his terrible onslaught
when his quick eye detected the presence of the hunters, who, completely
carried away by the exciting spectacle they had just witnessed, were
standing at their full height in the long grass, fully exposed from
their waists upward, and with the light glancing brightly from the
polished silver-like barrels of their rifles. A moment's pause was
sufficient for the unicorn; some subtle instinct doubtless taught him
that in the strange beings who had thus unexpectedly revealed themselves
he beheld enemies more dangerous than the most deadly of his four-footed
foes; and, wheeling quickly about, he uttered a curious barking kind of
neigh and dashed off at a headlong gallop in the direction already taken
by the rest of his companions.

"Good Heavens, we have lost them!" groaned the professor in a perfect
agony of despair.

"Yes," assented the baronet, who next turned to his more distant
companions and hailed them with:

"We have had our trouble for nothing, after all. The best thing we can
now do is to make our way back to the ship with all speed, when we can
renew the pursuit, unless, as seems only too probable, we are about to
have our hands full with the coming storm. We have not a moment to
lose, I should say; so I would suggest that each of us put his best foot
foremost."

"Ay, ay," replied Mildmay, "crowd sail we must; for, unless I am greatly
mistaken, we are about to have a regular tornado."

"A tornado!" gasped the professor. "Run--run for your lives; I verily
believe _I forgot to moor the ship_!"

Forgot to moor the ship! Could such fatal carelessness be possible? If
so, they must indeed run for their lives; for should the storm burst
before they reached the ship she would be whirled away over the plain
like an empty bladder before the blast, to what distance and with what
results it was difficult just then to foreshadow; but among the
possibilities which instantly presented themselves to the mind was that
of death to the two inmates of the ship, irreparable damage to the craft
herself, and four persons left to shift for themselves in the very
centre of Africa, with nothing but the clothes they wore, the rifles
they carried, and about a dozen rounds of ammunition apiece. The
prospect was appalling enough to send a mom