“I can manage by myself,” said the little Prince indignantly. “I’m a boy too, aren’t I?”
“You are not so big as the others,” said Pilescu with a grin, and he caught up the angry boy and put him firmly on his shoulder. Paul was red with rage, but he did not dare to struggle in case he sent Pilescu into the water. As it was, Pilescu lost his footing once, and almost fell. He just managed to swing himself back in time, and sat with a bump on a big rock. Paul was almost jerked off his shoulder.
The girls were taken safely across. As Ranni had said, the stones were almost like stepping-stones, although one or two were rather far apart — but fortunately the water there was only waist-deep, so a little wading solved the difficulty. The other three boys got across easily. Mafumu jumped like a goat from one stone to another.
And now they were the other side of the waterfall. The noise of its falling still sounded thunderous, but they liked it.
“The foam is like soap-suds,” said Nora, watching some swirling down the river.
The sun was now too high for any of them to go further. Even Mafumu was hot and wanted to rest. Also his foot pained him a little now, in spite of the careful bandaging. Everyone curled up in the cool shade of an enormous tree, where they could occasionally feel the delicious coldness of the misty spray from the waterfall.
“I suppose we ought to have a meal,” said Ranni, too lazy to do anything about it.
“I’m so hot and tired I couldn’t eat even an ant’s egg!” said Jack.
“You haven’t been offered one,” said Peggy. “The only thing I’d like would be something sweet to drink.”
Mafumu disappeared for a moment. He came back laden with some strange-looking fruit, that looked like half nut, half pomegranate. He slit a hole in the top-end and showed Peggy how to drink from it.