INUED--MOUNTAINS IN SIGHT--A TEMPEST AT NIGHT--END OF VOYAGE--WE
PART WITH THE DOCTOR.

As soon as morning came I got up and sauntered out into the fort. The
sentries were at their posts, but no one else was astir. Both within
and without the fort a perfect silence reigned, broken only now and then
by the cries of water-fowl as they rose from the bank, or the screaming
of parrots as they flew out of the neighbouring forest, from whence also
proceeded the suppressed chattering of a tribe of monkeys.

I was on my way to the gate, intending to go to the landing-place and
take a bath, when a stranger approached me. He wore a large
broad-brimmed straw hat with a Republican cockade, a short tunic of blue
and white striped cotton, light blue trousers, jack-boots with immense
spurs; a long French dragoon sword with brass basket-hilt fastened to
his waist-belt was dangling at his side, while a powder-horn was slung
over his shoulders, and he carried in his hand an enormous old French
silver-mounted gun. His hair was light, and so would have been his
complexion, had it not been burned red by exposure to the hot sun of the
tropics. His beard was carefully trimmed to a point. I may further say
that he had prominent black eyes, an aquiline nose of considerable
dimensions, a mouth not very small, a long face with a sharp chin; while
I judged by his features that he was German. Such, I found, was the
case, when he addressed me, and introduced himself as Dr Rudolph
Stutterheim.

After wishing me good-morning, he inquired where I was going. I told
him.

"Then you will be gobbled up by either one alligator or one shark," he
replied; "for though the water is brackish, the alligators come down
here to pick up any morsels they can find, and the sharks come for the
same purpose."

I thanked him for his warning, but still felt rather doubtful if he was
right. To convince me, he procured two pieces of offal, which he
carried at the end of his stick, and accompanied me down to the
landing-place, a rough stone pier which projected into the lake. Taking
a piece, he jerked it some distance into the water, when in an instant a
huge pair of jaws with rows of sharp teeth rose above the surface and
snapped it up. He then took the other piece and threw it in an opposite
direction, when just as it reached the water another pair of jaws, the
lower part of silvery-whiteness, rose above the water, and the meat was
gone.

"You see, my you