"Where are you going?" she cried, frightened.
"We have got to cross the river, and it is easier to cross here than below the falls. There the current is much swifter, and there are hippopotamuses and crocodiles. Take hold of my shoulders and hold tight."
He plunged in and struck for the opposite shore, while the terrified girl clung to him in desperation. The farther bank looked far away indeed. Below she could hear the roar of the falls. They seemed to be drifting down toward them.
But presently the strong, even strokes of the swimmer reassured her. He seemed unhurried and unexcited, and gradually she relaxed as though she had absorbed a portion of his confidence. But she sighed in relief as he clambered out on solid ground.
Her terror at the river crossing was nothing to that which she experienced in the descent of the escarpment to the foot of the falls—it froze her to silent horror.
The man descended as nimbly as a monkey; the burden of her weight seemed nothing to him. Where had Stanley Obroski acquired this facility that almost put to shame the mountain goat and the monkey?
Half way down he called her attention to three figures near the foot of the cliff. "There are Orman and West and the Arab," he said, but she did not dare look down.
The three men below them were watching in astonishment—they had just recognized that of the two descending toward them one was Obroski and the other a girl, but whether Naomi or Rhonda they could not be sure.
Orman and West ran forward to meet them as they neared the foot of the cliff. Tears came to Orman's eyes as he took Naomi in his arms; and West was glad to see her too, but he was saddened when he discovered that it was not Rhonda.
"Poor girl!" he muttered as they walked back to their little camp. "Poor Rhonda! What an awful death!"