"I hate to have to leave the pigs," said Owen, as they prepared to move off again. "But it cannot be helped. Still, it seems so cruel to kill animals when one does not even intend to carry them away. We will see what the captain says. Perhaps he will allow us to return with some of the men, for fresh meat is always wanted." The additional burden told heavily upon Owen and Mulha, for the head of a full-grown rhinoceros is no light weight. But the quarters of the deer happened to be of small proportions, so that they were able to stagger along, streaming with perspiration as they went, for the heat was great, even beneath the shadow cast by the trees of the forest. Indeed, so close was the atmosphere that they were forced to rest after a while, and came to a halt beside a stream which gushed out from the undergrowth, and trickled away between the grass and stones at their feet. "I am thirsty, sahibs," said Mulha. "Shall we rest here for a time?" He lowered his end of the pole as Owen did the same, and then went down on hands and knees beside a pool of the clear running water. Then, having satisfied his thirst, he strode off into the forest, returning with a huge bunch of bananas, which he offered to his companions. "I had forgotten food," he said. "There has been so much to do and so much excitement that I did not desire any. But the work we have been doing has made me hungry. Will the sahibs eat?" Owen and his friend Jack Simpson were growing lads, and had had nothing since breakfast. It is not to be wondered at, therefore, that they eagerly agreed to such a proposal, and having slaked their thirst took the fruit and ate it with the utmost pleasure. Then Owen and Mulha took up their burden again, and the party moved off through the trees, their road leading them all the time downhill towards the low-lying coast. Occasionally as they went through the forest a troop of monkeys would cross their path, just as one had done when they were in the glade, and would disappear amidst the trees, chattering and screaming, and hurling defiance in their own tongue at the heads of the intruders. Another wild pig scampered across the path, and once, to the astonishment and dismay of the party, they suddenly sighted the flank of an enormous animal, apparently almost asleep beneath the shade cast by the trees. "Rhino again!" exclaimed Owen, as he lowered the stick. "Get your gun ready, Jack, and what about a tree?"