“This is a Bland’s .577 axite express,” said he. “I got that big fellow with it.” He glanced up at the white rhinoceros. “Ten more yards, and he’d would have added me to HIS collection.
Òn that conical bullet his one chance hangs,
‘Tis the weak one’s advantage fair.’
Hope you know your Gordon, for he’s the poet of the horse and the gun and the man that handles both. Now, here’s a useful tool−−.470, telescopic sight, double ejector, point−blank up to three−fifty. That’s the rifle I used against the Peruvian slave−drivers three years ago. I was the flail of the Lord up in those parts, I may tell you, though you won’t find it in any Bluebook. There are times, young fellah, when every one of us must make a stand for human right and justice, or you never feel clean again. That’s why I made a little war on my own. Declared it myself, waged it myself, ended it myself. Each of those nicks is for a slave murderer−−a good row of them−−what? That big one is for Pedro Lopez, the king of them all, that I killed in a backwater of the Putomayo River. Now, here’s something that would do for you.” He took out a beautiful brown−and−silver rifle. “Well rubbered at the stock, sharply sighted, five cartridges to the clip. You can trust your life to that.” He handed it to me and closed the door of his oak cabinet.
“By the way,” he continued, coming back to his chair, “what do you know of this Professor Challenger?”
“I never saw him till to−day.”
“Well, neither did I. It’s funny we should both sail under sealed orders from a man we don’t know. He seemed an uppish old bird. His brothers of science don’t seem too fond of him, either. How came you to take an interest in the affair?”
I told him shortly my experiences of the morning, and he listened intently. Then he drew out a map of South America and laid it on the table.
“I believe every single word he said to you was the truth,” said he, earnestly, “and, mind you, I have something to go on when I speak like that. South America is a place I love, and I think, if you take it right through from Darien to Fuego, it’s the grandest, richest, most wonderful bit of earth upon this planet. People don’t know it yet, and don’t realize what it may become. I’ve been up an’ down it from end to end, and had two dry seasons in those very parts, as I told you when I spoke of the war I made on the slave−dealers. Well, when I was up there I heard some yarns of the same kind−−traditions of Indians and the like, but with somethin’ behind them, no doubt. The more you knew of that country, young fellah, the more you would understand that anythin’ was possible−−ANYTHIN’1. There are just some narrow water−lanes along which 40
folk travel, and outside that it is all darkness. Now, down here in the Matto Grande”−−he swept his cigar over a part of the map−−”or up in this corner where three countries meet, nothin’ would surprise me. As that chap said to−night, there are fifty−thousand miles of water−way runnin’ through a forest that is very near the size of Europe. You and I could be as far away from each other as Scotland is from Constantinople, and yet each of us be in the same great Brazilian forest. Man has just made a track here and a scrape there in the maze.
Why, the river rises and falls the best part of forty feet, and half the country is a morass that you can’t pass over. Why shouldn’t somethin’ new and wonderful lie in such a country? And why shouldn’t we be the men to find it out? Besides,” he added, his queer, gaunt face shining with delight, “there’s a sportin’ risk in every mile of it. I’m like an old golf−ball−− I’ve had all the white paint knocked off me long ago. Life can whack me about now, and it can’t leave a mark. But a sportin’ risk, young fellah, that’s the salt of existence. Then it’s worth livin’ again. We’re all gettin’ a deal too soft and dull and comfy. Give me the great waste lands and the wide spaces, with a gun in my fist and somethin’ to look for that’s worth findin’. I’ve tried war and steeplechasin’ and aeroplanes, but this huntin’ of beasts that look like a lobster−supper dream is a brand−new sensation.” He chuckled with glee at the prospect.