They heard the deep boom of the Zaire's siren signalling a solitary and venturesome fisherman to quit the narrow fair-way, and presently she came round the bend of the river, a dazzling white craft, showering sparks from her two slender smoke-stacks and leaving behind her twin cornucopias of grey smoke.
Wafa stepped into a canoe, and, seeing that the others were preparing to follow him, he struck out swiftly, manœuvring his ironwood boat to the very waters from whence a scared fisherman was frantically paddling.
"Go not there, foreigner," wailed the Isisi Stabber-of-Waters, "for it is our lord Sandi, and his puc-a-puc has bellowed terribly."
"Die you!" roared Wafa. "On the river bottom your body, son of a fish and father of snakes!"
"O foreign frog!" came the shrill retort. "O poor man with two men's wives! O goatless——"
Wafa was too intent upon his business to heed the rest. He struck the water strongly with his broad paddles, and reached the centre of the channel.
Bones of the Houssas put up his hand and jerked the rope of the siren.
Whoo-o-o—woo-o-op!
"Bless his silly old head," said Bones fretfully, "the dashed fellow will be run down!"
The girl was dusting Bones's cabin, and looked round. "What is it?" she asked.