Three more of the monsters were now scrambling up, and under their pressure the raft moved towards the shore. Challis jabbed his spear at their eyes and gaping mouths. He disposed of them one after another. But his victory brought catastrophe. The third flopped off so suddenly that before Challis could step forward the raft tipped up, and all four men were thrown into the water.
The Tubus yelled, John shouted, the people on shore shrieked. Challis felt that all was over. Against these reptiles in their own element he could do nothing. He could only swim for it.
"Splash with your legs!" he cried to John, who, like the Tubus, was already striking out vigorously for land, now only fifty yards away.
The spearmen, aghast at the plight of their white chief, forgot their fears and dashed into the shallower water to save him, the crowd behind them yelling frantically. The tremendous splash, the din and clamour scared even the monsters. They sheered off and sank beneath the surface.
In a few moments Challis, slimy with weeds and green with ooze, was dragged up by his jubilant followers. John and the Tubus scrambled on shore unassisted. The crowd made a dash for the latter, but Challis sternly called them off, ordering John to look after them as prisoners of war. And then they all marched back to the cave, the people shouting and laughing with joy, though Challis felt by no means like a conqueror.
CHAPTER XXV
CHARGED BY RHINOCEROSES
On the day after the fight by the swamp, while Challis was exercising his men, some of the boys whom he had turned into scouts ran in with the news that a band of fifty or more armed negroes was approaching from the south-west.
Challis hoped that he would not have to engage a new enemy. Giving John orders to watch the newcomers, he went on with his work. By and by, out of the tail of his eye, he saw John talking to a group of strangers, who looked on at the drilling with the interest and curiosity of children.
It was plain that the newcomers were friends, and that John, with much self-importance, was eloquently expounding the virtues of white man's medicine.