A sudden thought crossed his mind. He raised his gun and fired at the man who was steering; the bullet shattered the rudder-scull into fragments.
The cannibals uttered a yell of terror. Deprived of guidance, the canoe was at the mercy of the current, and, borne along with increasing speed, was soon within a hundred feet of the cataract.
The anxious watchers on the bank instantly discerned Dick's purpose, and understood that in order to save them he had formed the resolution of precipitating himself with the savages into the seething waters
Nothing could avail to arrest the swift descent. Mrs Weldon in an agony of despair waved her hands in a last sad farewell, Jack and Benedict seemed paralyzed, whilst Hercules involuntarily extended his great strong arm that was powerless to aid.
Suddenly the natives, impelled by a last frantic effort to reach the shore, plunged into the water, but then movement capsized the boat.
Face to face with death, Dick lost nothing of his indomitable presence of mind. Might not that light canoe, floating bottom upwards, be made the means for yet another grasp at life? The danger that threatened him was twofold, there was the risk of suffocation as well as the peril of being drowned; could not the inverted canoe be used for a kind of float at once to keep his head above water and to serve as a screen from the rushing air? He had some faint recollection of how it had been proved possible under some such conditions to descend in safety the falls of Niagara.
Quick as lightning he seized hold of the cross-bench of the canoe, and with his head out of water beneath the upturned keel, he was dashed down the furious and well-nigh perpendicular fall.
The craft sank deep into the abyss, but rose quickly again to the surface. Here was Dick's chance, he was a good swimmer, and his life depended now upon his strength of arm.
It was a hard struggle, but he succeeded. In a quarter of an hour he had landed on the left hand bank, where he
[Illustration: The bullet shattered the rudder scull into fragments]