The moon had set, and it was impossible to go further; moreover, they were weary with long marching.

Wrapping themselves up in their blankets--for here the air was piercingly cold--they lay down beneath the shelter of some bushes to sleep till dawn.

It was Otter who woke them.

"Look, Baas," he said to Leonard, "we have marched straight.
There below us is the big river, and there far to the right is the sea." They looked.

Some miles from them, across the great plain of bush that merged gradually into swamp, lay that branch of the Zambesi which they would reach.