Trim’s companions wanted to fire after them, but the boy forbade them.
“There’s no sense in killing them unnecessarily,” he said; “let them scoot if they want to. A scare is just as good for them as a beating.”
At that moment there was a sound of firing at the other entrance to the cave.
Leaving his guards with orders to fight off any further attack that might be made, Trim hurried around under the falls, passing Dobbin and the donkeys, until he came to the other entrance.
That was even narrower than the first, and much more difficult of use.
The water came down so close to the side of the ledge there that the guards stationed at that point were wet to the skin by the splashing of drops and spray.
Much the same thing had happened there as at the first entrance. A party of savages had come up on that side of the stream and the guards had opened fire on them. The result was that the blacks retreated. Trim heard there also the tones of a voice shouting angry commands. He tried in vain to get a glimpse of the man, and presently became aware from the direction from which the voice came that the speaker was making his way across the stream to the other side of the falls.
As there were no savages in sight, Trim returned to the first entrance and again took the place of one of the guards there.
He could see that the man whom he had shot had struggled to his feet and was now leaning against a tree in such a way that the greater part of his body was protected.
Presently he recognized the voice that he had heard issuing commands upon the other side of the falls, and then he saw a white man striding toward the wounded man with a rifle in his hands.