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A
gentle breeze fills the huge sail of our dhow, and draws us through
the water that ripples musically against her sides. Most of the men are
sleeping forward, for it is near midnight, but a stout swarthy Arab,
Mahomed by name, stands at the tiller, lazily steering by the stars.
Three miles or more to our starboard is a low dim line. It is the
Eastern shore of Central Africa. We are running to the southward, before
the North East Monsoon, between the mainland and the reef that for
hundreds of miles fringes this perilous coast. The night is quiet, so
quiet that a whisper can be heard fore and aft the dhow; so quiet that a
faint booming sound rolls across the water to us from the distant land.
The Arab at the tiller holds up his hand, and says one word:--"_Simba_
(lion)!"
We all sit up and listen. Then it comes again, a slow, majestic sound,
that thrills us to the marrow.
"To-morrow by ten o'clock," I say, "we ought, if the Captain is not out
in his reckoning, which I think very probable, to make this mysterious
rock with a man's head, and begin our shooting.


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