"Safe!" quavered the half-drowned and mud-covered King of the Octagon Isle. "SAFE?" He peered dizzily at the churning crocodiles just a boat's length away, and his voice cracked and broke. "I never felt safer in my life. What am I riding, a whale or an elephant?"
"A river horse," explained the hippopotamus, looking kindly over her shoulder. Then, as the crocodiles began to hiss and roar and come rolling toward them, she gave a ferocious bellow and snort. "Away with you! Be off, you river scum!" she squealed viciously. "These travelers are MINE. Shoot your fire stick, Master Long Legs. That will fix them." For a moment the crocodiles held their post, then, as Samuel fired his gun repeatedly, they began to slide sullenly across the river to the opposite bank. "Hold fast, Master Short Legs, and I'll soon have you ashore," wheezed the hippopotamus, speaking out of the corner of her mouth so as not to drop the picnic basket.
"Yes, yes, but what then?" shuddered Ato, trying to get a finger hold on the monster's slippery neck.
"Why, then, we'll both tell our stories, and after that I'll eat," snorted the river horse, paddling joyously toward the bank.
"You'll EAT!" groaned Ato, ready to roll back into the river. "Oh, my father and mother and maiden aunts!"
"Did you hear that?" Dropping to Samuel's shoulder, Roger whispered fiercely. "Quick now, a shot behind the ear, before it gets any further. Are you going to do nothing while this ravenous monster carries off my poor Master?"
"Sh-hh!" warned Samuel, holding up his finger. "These creatures do not eat meat or men. They're herbivorous, my lad, and this one seems uncommonly kind and friendly. But what puzzles me—" the Royal Explorer looked intently into the face of the Read Bird. "What puzzles me is to find this one talking our language. To my knowledge, only animals in Oz, a few in Ev and you on the Octagon Isle have the gift of speech. And I tell you, Mate, this is a valuable discovery, and a simply splendid specimen of a pachydermatous talking aquatic." Whether the last few words in this sentence or a stone in the river bottom tripped up the Captain, Roger never knew, but without any warning Samuel turned a sudden back somersault into the river, going under as completely as Ato had done.
"Ugh—gr—ugh!" he gurgled, coming up full of mud and disgust. "How did that happen?"
"Stilts!" sniffed Roger, whose wings had saved him from going down with Samuel. "A splendid way to get ashore, Master Salt, so neat and tidy. And a fine Discoverer you look now."
Sighing deeply, Samuel watched his stilts floating out of reach, then shaking his head violently to get the water out of his eyes, he swam thoughtfully after the hippopotamus. As he dragged himself up on the bank, a monkey swinging by its tail from the lower branches of a tree snatched his three-cornered hat and scittered all the way to the tree top, at which all the other monkeys let out shrill hoots of mocking merriment.