“Yes,” replied the latter, leaning close and speaking in a whisper, “or if we aren’t swept into the rapids ahead. Take a look but don’t draw the attention of the Kikuyus. They are so interested in watching the result of your labors and in playing around with your steering oar that they haven’t seen yet. There. Down stream.”
Bob looked.
Some distance ahead, where the river swept around a big island, scattered rocks jutted above the water of both channels. And over them foamed the river.
Then the first sound of the rapids was borne to their ears.
CHAPTER XIII
IN THE RIVER’S CLUTCH
The raft leaped forward like a thing alive. Kikuyus sweating at the steering oar were unable to point the unwieldly craft inshore any longer. Frightened cries broke from the blacks as they saw the spouters ahead, saw too the black teeth of the basaltic rocks waiting to tear them.
“Back, back,” shouted Jack, stationed on the shoreward side of the raft. He waved his arms frantically in warning to the blacks. “Don’t let them jump in, Matse,” he screamed. “They’d drown.”
But the thoroughly frightened blacks had lost all awe of their superiors. They continued to crowd forward as if planning to leap overboard.
“Look out, Jack,” cried Frank, standing in the bow, his attention diverted from the river ahead by Jack’s predicament. “You can’t stop them. They’ll brush you into the river if you get in their way.”
But big Bob saw the danger to his comrade, too.