Chapter 43

If he so willed, the _Zaire_ would deviate to the left or right bank—if he wished the steamer kept a straight course till night fell, when the nearest wooding was his apparent objective. Before night came, late in the afternoon, he fetched up at a wooding where a year before he had felled ten trees, leaving them to season and to dry. For two hours the men of the _Zaire_ sawed and chopped at the fallen trunks, stacking the wood on the well-deck below. At night the _Zaire_ resumed her journey. The big lamp on the rig…