"I jabbed the watchman"
"Well," the pushmi-pullyu sighed as he balanced his graceful body to the slight rolling of the houseboat, "I hope never again to have such a race for my life as I had that night. Cold shivers run down my spine still whenever I think of it—the barking of the dogs and the shouting of the men and the shrieking of the women and the crashing of the underbrush as my pursuers came tearing through the jungle, hot upon my trail.
"It was a river that saved me. The rainy season was on and the streams were in flood. Panting with terror and fatigue, I reached the bank of a swirling torrent. It was fully twenty-five feet wide. The water was simply raging down it. To try and swim it would be madness. Looking backward, I could see and hear my pursuers close upon my heels. Again I had to take desperate measures. Drawing back a little to get space for a run and still clutching that wretched ostrich skin firmly in my mouth, I rushed at the river at full speed and leaped—as I have never leaped in my life—clear across to the further bank. As I came down in a heap I realized I had only just been in time, for my enemies had already come up to the river on the side that I had left. Shaking their fists at me in the moonlight, they were trying to find a way to get across to me. The dogs, eagerest of all, tried, some of them, to swim; but the swift and raging waters swept them down the stream like corks and the hunters were afraid to follow their example.
"I leapt as I have never leapt before"