“Shure, sor, I only wanted ye to know my pore mother’s direction, so as ye could sind her word I was dhrowned in the big river out in Afrikky.”
“Will they be able to take us up there, king?” said Mr Rogers. “Hadn’t we better land, and let them drag the canoes round?”
The king laughed, and clapped his hands for the men to bend to their task, when they made the paddles flash in and out of the water, but it was soon evident that they would not surmount the rapids.
The boat Mr Rogers was in got half-way up, and then was carried back at a tremendous speed, being swept round by an eddy beneath some trees, to one of the branches of which Mr Rogers held on, and so steadied the canoe, while a stalwart
black thrust down his paddle from the bows, and kept the great vessel steady.
Just then Dinny, who followed his master’s actions as nearly as he could, laid hold of a goodly branch from the stern; but instead of taking the boat with him he thrust it away, and the next moment he was hanging from his branch, shouting “Masther!” and “Masther, dear!” with all his might.
“Faix and I knowed it would come to it,” he yelled, as the branch swayed up and down, and his legs went lower and lower in the water. “There’s a great crocodivil coming. Masther, darlin’, bring back the boat.”
This was done at last, but the black could scarcely paddle for laughing, and when the boat was under him poor Dinny hardly dared let go. He let himself subside in the bottom at last, and was wiping the perspiration from his face, and squeezing the water from his legs, when a shout from the big man in the bows drew Mr Rogers’ attention, and he ran forward to see that the other canoe was upset, and that the men were being pitched into the rapids.
For they had made three efforts to get up, each time being driven back; and at the fourth they were so much weakened and so weary, that when about half-way up they wavered, the stream caught the head, twisted it broadside, and, in a moment, king, subjects, box, and barrel were tilted out, and all went floating rapidly down the stream.