No one can be more wise than destiny.

The short equatorial twilight was drawing to an end, and all Nature
stood in silence, while Night crept up to claim the land where her reign
is more autocratic than elsewhere on earth. There is a black night above
the trees, and a blacker beneath. In an hour it would be dark, and,
in the meantime, the lowering clouds were tinged with a pink glow
that filtered through from above. There was rain coming, and probably
thunder. Moreover, the trees seemed to know it, for there was a limpness
in their attitude as if they were tucking their heads into their
shoulders in anticipation of the worst. The insects were certainly
possessed of a premonition. They had crept away.

It was distinctly an unlikely evening for the sportsman. The stillness
was so complete that the faintest rustle could be heard at a great
distance. Moreover, it was the sort of evening when Nature herself seems
to be glancing over her shoulder with timorous restlessness.

Nevertheless, a sportsman was abroad. He was creeping up the right-hand
bank of a stream, his only chance lying in the noise of the waters,
which might serve to deaden the sound of broken twig or rustling leaf.

This sportsman was Jack Meredith, and it was evident that he was
bringing to bear upon the matter in hand that intelligence and keenness
of perception which had made him a person of some prominence in other
scenes where Nature has a less assured place.

It would appear that he was not so much at home in the tangle of an
African forest as in the crooked paths of London society; for his
clothes were torn in more than one place; a mosquito, done to sudden
death, adhered sanguinarily to the side of his aristocratic nose, while
heat and mental distress had drawn damp stripes down his countenance.
His hands were scratched and inclined to bleed, and one leg had
apparently been in a morass. Added to these physical drawbacks there was
no visible sign of success, which was probably the worst part of Jack
Meredith's plight.

Since sunset he had been crawling, scrambling, stumbling up the bank
of this stream in relentless pursuit of some large animal which
persistently kept hidden in the tangle across the bed of the river. The
strange part of it was that when he stopped to peep through the
branches the animal stopped too, and he found no way of discovering its
whereabouts. More than once they remained thus for nearly five minutes,
peering at each