"'Gators!" croaked the Read Bird, beating his wings together violently. "Watch out for those 'gators."
"Why bother him with gaiters at a time like this? They look perfectly all right to me." Samuel Salt frowned up at Roger.
"Not his gaiters, river 'gators, alligators, CROCODILES!" wailed Roger, beginning to fly in agonized circles. "Crocodiles and WORSE."
Samuel, eyeing what he had supposed to be a pile of rotten logs on the river bank, saw dozens of the slimy saurians slide into the water and come savagely toward them.
"Back to the ship! Back to the ship!" babbled the Read Bird, clutching Ato's collar with a frantic claw. But the King was too frightened to move. The sight of the bleary-eyed river monsters made him tremble so violently his stilts twittered and swayed like trees in a hurricane. He could not for the life of him take a step in either direction. With a loud cry Samuel started to help him, but a crocodile reached Ato first. Its jaws closed with a vicious snap on the King's left stilt and with a heart-rending shriek Ato plunged into the slimy river.
"There, there! Now you've done it!" sobbed Roger. "Fed the kindest soul who ever served a ship's company to a parcel of crocodiles!" Dropping the Oz flags and lunch basket, he made an unsuccessful grab for his Master's arm. But even if he had caught it, Ato's great weight would have pulled them both under, and now only a circle of bubbles showed where the luckless explorer had disappeared. Firing his blunderbuss to frighten off the rest of the crocodiles, Samuel, striking left and right with his stilts, propelled himself forward, while Roger pecked futilely at the monster that had felled his Master. But just as Samuel, after boldly driving off the dragon-like creature, prepared to dive in and save Ato or perish with him, a dripping head appeared above the water.
"Thank you. Thank you very much!" murmured a mild voice. "I haven't had as nice a present as this since I was an itty bitty baby. Now what can I do for YOU?" Neither Samuel nor Roger could speak a word, for where the King had gone down, a tremendous hippopotamus was coming up, the lunch basket hanging carelessly out of a corner of its mouth. For a wild moment Samuel thought his enormous friend and shipmate had been transformed by some witchcraft into this ponderous beast. He even imagined he caught an expression of Ato's in the monster's moist eye. But this gloomy idea was soon dispelled, for, as the creature rose higher out of the water, they could see a desperate and bedraggled figure sprawled across its slippery back.
"Ahoy, Mate!" choked Samuel, his heart thumping like a trip hammer. "Is it really you? Are you safe, then?"