192 
THE NEW AFRICA 
animals, with a peculiar membrane called tapetum, that has the 
power of throwing a faint light into the surrounding darkness. 
In this case the idea was preposterous on the very face of it, 
owing to the size of the light, and Hammar and I expected this 
to be some ruse of the Mashubia, who had followed us, hoping 
to bring forth a scare by this unique device, and to attract our 
attention in one direction while they tried an assault from 
another. So we promptly put two boys to peer out of the rear 
of the skerm to see if there were any skulking figures about, 
while we watched the strange apparition in front. 
Some ten minutes of this by-play exhausted my patience, 
so, bidding the whole party strictly to stay within the precincts 
of the camp, and on no account to stir out, I took the four-ounce 
gun, and, putting a tree between myself and the light, moved 
out about half-way towards it. When I peered out from behind 
my cover at this distance the light was gone, but in the moment 
there appeared a large, dark shadow about the size of an ox, 
though lower, moving ten yards in front of me. I pulled off at 
this, but the flash of the gun revealed that I had been mis¬ 
taken, for there was nothing but the bare ground in front of me. 
The flash, however, revealed the outline of a man standing on 
my left. On grasping the figure it proved to be Hammar, who 
had followed me up to take his share of the adventure, and, 
when I come to think of it, perhaps it is just as well that the 
gun was empty when I noticed him, for at the first sight of a 
human figure in an unexpected place he certainly ran a risk I 
do not care to contemplate. 
As the light was gone, we returned to the camp, when, after 
a space of a few minutes, the light appeared again in its faded 
yellow entirety. Feeling sure that no human agency was 
responsible for the light, I went quietly to sleep till awakened 
to take my watch, when the light was still in full action, and 
remained so until with the first streak of dawn it disappeared. 
With daylight we hunted the spot in vain for traces of animal 
or bird spoor to which we could attach the responsibility of 
this appearance, but the only trace visible on the ground was 
