“Why, there’s that hippo we lost overboard! Get ready, men, and we’ll hoist him on deck again! Lower a boat.”
The ship was steered close to Chunky where he floated in the water. Then a rowboat was lowered, with some sailors in it, carrying ropes to put about the hippo and hoist him on deck again. Of course Chunky might have dived down, and, keeping under water, out of sight, he could have swum far away. But he was tired, and quite ready to go back on deck again.
The small boat came close to him. At first some of the sailors were afraid, and one called:
“Look out that he doesn’t open his big mouth and bite our boat in two!”
“Oh, he won’t do that!” said one of the animal men, who was in the rowboat with the sailors. “This hippo is very good-natured and happy.”
And Chunky showed that he was by letting the sailors put ropes around him in the water, for they could not lift him out unless they did this.
Once the ropes were fastened about Chunky, he was towed to the side of the ship, and there, by means of a derrick, he was hoisted on deck again.
“There you are!” cried the animal man. “I’m glad to get you back again, Chunky.”
And so Chunky had fallen overboard and got back on the ship again, for the vessel had not moved far from the spot where, in the storm, the hippo had slid off the deck.
Chunky was so tired from his swim, and from having been in the water so long, that he was very easy to handle. He made no trouble at all, though he had been wild in the jungle only a few weeks before, and had never seen a man, white or black. He was put in another cage, and then the ship kept on, for the storm was over.