"Path, sah!" said Mbutu. "'Spect huts ober dar. Huts, food. Plenty food, oh yes!"
They sat down for a few moments to rest on a rock at the edge of the stream, gazing in silence at the gurgling water. Suddenly Mbutu twitched his master's sleeve and pointed to the farther bank. Just emerging from the leafy hedge, through the narrow opening, was a diminutive and graceful little woman, copper-coloured, with raven-black hair, a broad round face, and full lustrous eyes. Three iron rings were coiled spiral-shaped about her neck. She was crooning happily to a tiny brown child toddling by her side, and on her head a small pitcher was cleverly balanced. She came down to the water's edge and stooped to fill her pitcher, still chanting softly a quaint song that Tom thought wonderfully pretty. Her boy leant over the water in comical mimicry of his mother.
"Bambute woman, sah," whispered Mbutu.
Low as the words were uttered, the channel between the high banks acted as a sound-board, and the sharp ears of the little woman heard them. She looked up, gave a startled cry, and stepped back. At the same instant the tiny fellow, alarmed by his mother's cry, lost his balance and toppled over into the water. The stream there was deep, flowing in strong and steady current. For one brief moment the mother seemed dazed, and Tom looked at the little brown bundle floating down stream as at some picture, not an actual thing at all. Then the woman screamed, dropped her pitcher, and forced her way along the bank, wringing her hands and moaning pitifully as she saw the stream bearing her little son away.
"She can't swim!" cried Tom, realizing the situation.
He sprang up, leapt on to the first boulder, then to the second two yards from it to the left, and took a header into deep water. Excitement lent him strength; he forgot where he was, forgot all his late sufferings, forgot the danger of chill and crocodiles; all that he saw was the drowning child, all that he thought of was his duty to save it. He struck out energetically, the current assisting him. As yet the stream had borne the child along upon its surface, but just as Tom arrived within a dozen yards of him he sank, and the mother's heart-broken cry echoed from the forest. Tom quickened his stroke, and, gathering his breath, dived just beyond the spot where he had last seen the brown body. It was difficult to make out anything in the tan-coloured water, but he fancied he saw the little black head, threw out his right hand, caught a foot, and in a few seconds was safe at the surface again, the boy in his grasp.
By this time Mbutu had reached his master's side. He relieved him of the burden, and together they swam to the shore, where Tom turned the pigmy urchin on his face and slapped his back and worked his arms about till the little fellow recovered his breath. A lusty cry soon proclaimed that there was vigorous life in the tiny body. Then they carried him with some difficulty along the steep bank to the path by which he had come from the forest. They caught sight of his mother darting like a timid gazelle among the trees. Mbutu at Tom's command called to her to come and fetch her pickin, using all the dialects he knew; she stopped and faced the strangers again, but evidently understood nothing of what the Muhima said, and was too much scared to approach them. In spite of his exhaustion, Tom could not help smiling at the woman's fears.
"Put the little beggar down," he said, "and see him run."
"Want food, sah," expostulated Mbutu; "woman gib food."
"But she wants her baby first; perhaps she thinks we are cannibals, and mean to make a meal of both of them."