No word was spoken, one will seeming to guide both Dick and Jack, who, without raising their rifles to their shoulders, rested them pistol-fashion upon the side of the canoe, and fired straight into the monster’s mouth.
There was a tremendous clap-to of his jaws, but not upon the side of the canoe; and then the huge head slowly sank down out of sight, as a couple of fresh cartridges were thrust into the rifles.
But now there was a fresh danger, water was coming in over the side where the piece was taken out; and it took a great deal of shouting, and no little help with the spare paddles, given by his majesty and his two visitors, to get the canoe run aground before she could sink.
Wet legs were the worst misfortune, and as they leaped ashore the men set to, hauled up the canoe, and emptied out the water, and in an hour they had sewn on a thick skin so as to temporarily keep out the water at the side, thin canes answering for needle and thread, after which they embarked.
It was none too soon; for as the last man got on board and the canoe was pushed off, there was a loud snorting and rustling in the reeds, and a hippopotamus rushed at them, giving the lads such an opportunity that they both sent a bullet into it as it entered the water, and they saw it no more.
Meanwhile the six hunters had not only killed their hippo, but had seen the monster shot by the boys aground, quite dead, upon one of the sandy bits of land, and they had steered their own trophy to its side, where they were busy drawing out the spears with which it bristled, as the king’s canoe came up.
A rope was made fast to each of the monsters then, and they were towed down stream and out into the big river, where, upon their reaching the town, an attack was made upon the great beasts, and the flesh hewed off amidst a great deal of shouting, singing, and drumming, the boys feeling no great temptation to eat hippopotamus, but being proud enough to display the head of the monster they had shot—a head that was even startling in its size and weight.