"Nine times out of ten, young man," said Professor Wiseman impressively fixing Billy with his gaze just as he would have impaled a bug or grasshopper, "and the tenth time they come so near the truth as to be uncomfortable."
"I have heard of such things, but I always put them down as impossibilities," gasped Frank.
"Just travelers' tales," said Billy.
"There are many things for the young to learn in Africa," remarked Professor Wiseman coldly and gazing at Billy with squashing intentness; "the young do not believe many things merely because they are young—and foolish."
"Gee! that was a nailer for fair," said Billy afterward. "I felt as if the Doc was running a big blue pin through me and sticking me on a bit of cork."
That morning, as the start for the interior was not to be made till the next day, M. Desplaines asked the boys if they would care to try a little fishing at the foot of the famous Jumbari Falls which lay on a branch of the Bari river a short distance from the town. Of course the boys assented eagerly, but as it was found that only Frank and Harry were expert canoeists, it was agreed that the others should fish from the bank while the two young leaders trolled their lines from a native built craft. This canoe was kept at the falls—to which they tramped the two miles overland by a narrow trail.
The falls were a magnificent sight. From a dark red rock, fully two hundred feet in height, a great volume of water poured its roaring current into a boiling pool below. The cliffs shot up sheer on all sides and were covered at the bottom with luxuriant green growth like seaweed, while higher up, ferns, as big as rose-bushes at home, and trees of a hundred varieties clung wherever they could find a root-hold. As the party arrived at the top of the ravine and gazed down, the uproar of the water was so terrific as to render any speech inaudible. M. Desplaines, who led the party, pointed to a hole in the rocks and a second later vanished into it.
At first, consternation seized on the boys who thought that an accident had happened, but seeing not hearing Professor Wiseman's reassuring laugh and noticing him plunge after M. Desplaines, the boys rightly concluded that the aperture was a subterranean entrance to the foot of the falls. And so it proved. A steep flight of steps was cut in a deep cleft of the cliff down to the water's edge. A few minutes after they had begun the descent, the little party stood on the brink of the whirling pool into which the mighty falls roared their thousands of tons of water. Following M. Desplaines, they advanced down the stream to a point where a bend shut off like a rock curtain the deafening uproar of the cascade. Here a canoe lay moored and Frank and Harry stepped into it and shoved off. Their lines and other equipment they had in their pockets.
As they shoved out M. Desplaines shouted something that they did not catch and pointed down the stream. How near the fact that they could not hear his words was to come to costing them their lives neither of the boys guessed.