It seemed certain now that the boat would be carried over the falls, when suddenly it began to swirl about, and another few strokes brought them into the last big clump of overhanging brush.
Biff and Kamuka managed to grab hold and cling there, while Mr. Brewster worked the boat into the bank itself. Then new disaster loomed in the shape of the pack boat which had been following them on its towline. As the other boat spun past, its line went taut before Mr. Brewster could cut it.
Biff’s shoulders seemed to wrench half from their sockets, and he felt the bush pull loose from the soil. Then the tug ended as the other boat came full about, giving them a soft thump. Churned into this new position, it bulked in between the bank and their own craft, almost wedging them loose and out into the stream.
Mr. Brewster made a quick leap across the baggage and up on to the high bank, carrying the slack line which he hitched over a tree bough. That secured both boats, while the boys clambered ashore.
In cutting away the bank, the current had created an eddy which accounted for the final swirl that had carried both boats to safety. Yet only a dozen feet away, the tangled jungle growth actually quivered on the fringe of the falls that dropped in one huge deluge into the dizzy depths below.
It was from there that they first looked for Whitman’s boat, expecting to see it bobbing somewhere in the rocky gorge a hundred feet below. The rising mist obscured the bottom of the falls where the terrific torrent would by now have battered the bodies of Mr. Whitman and Jacome into a pulp.
Or so they thought, until Mr. Brewster stepped closer to the overhanging bushes and gained a full view of the crescent-shaped brink. He beckoned to the boys and exclaimed:
“Look there!”
Caught between two low rocks, Whitman’s boat was jammed on the brink, its two occupants still alive, temporarily at least. Heavily loaded, wide of beam and flexible because of its inflated sides, the rubber boat had snagged where almost any other craft would have cracked up and gone over the crest.
Other low rocks jutted at close intervals along the foamy brim. Biff noticed them when he saw Mr. Whitman rise in the boat to point them out to Jacome.