“Big, big water,” he said, and made a noise like the splashing of the waterfall. “Jack come with Mafumu see big, big water. We go into big water. Come.”
Jack thought Mafumu was quite mad, but the other boy was so much in earnest that he nodded his head and said Yes, he would come.
Leaving their packs where they were, covered by boulders and stones, the two boys made their way back to the great waterfall. The noise was so deafening that they had to shout to one another to make themselves heard.
Mafumu remembered the way he had taken in the moonlight. He never forgot any path he had once travelled. He even remembered the bushes and rocks he had passed. So now he found it easy to help Jack up the rocky ledges to where the water gushed out of the mountain-side.
Jack was wet through and almost deaf by the time he reached the place where the water appeared from the mountain. He kept shaking his head to get the noise of the fall out of it — but it was impossible! It went on all the time.
Mafumu was excited. He led Jack behind the great curve of the fall, and showed him how the water thundered out just above their heads. It was a queer feeling to stand immediately under a great waterfall, and see it pouring down overhead and in front, a great blue-green mass of water, powerful enough to sweep the boys off and away if it could have reached them!
“How queer to stand behind a waterfall like this,” said Jack. “Mafumu — what’s the sense of bringing me here? How do you suppose we’re going to crawl through water that’s coming out of the mountain at about sixty miles an hour. You must be mad.”
But Mafumu was not mad. He took Jack right to the other side of the ledge, and pointed to a narrow rocky path that led into the mountain, where the water ran only two or three inches deep. Nearby, the river had worn a deep channel for itself — but this ledge was just above the level of the river, and had water on it only because of the continual splashing and spray that came from the fall.
“We go in here,” grinned Mafumu. “We go in here, yes?”
“Golly, Mafumu — I believe you are right!” said Jack, excited. “I believe we can go in here! Though goodness knows how far we’ll get, or where it will take us.”