The raft leaped forward like a thing alive. Kikuyus sweating at the were unable to point the unwieldly craft inshore any longer. Frightened cries broke from the blacks as they saw the spouters ahead, saw too the black teeth of the basaltic rocks waiting to tear them.  
“Back, back,” shouted , stationed on the shoreward side of the raft. He waved his arms in warning to the blacks. “Don’t let them jump in, Matse,” he screamed. “They’d drown.”
 
But the frightened blacks had lost all of their superiors. They continued to crowd forward as if planning to leap overboard.
 
“Look out, Jack,” cried Frank, in the bow, his attention diverted from the river ahead by Jack’s predicament. “You can’t stop them. They’ll brush you into the river if you get in their way.”
 
But big Bob saw the danger to his comrade, too.
 
He gained Jack’s side and, legs , facing the frightened blacks, he waved his automatic in their faces.
 
“Any man deserting will be shot,” he cried. “Matse, tell these fellows we want to save their lives. We’ll swing the raft against the island below us. If everybody works on the steering oar it can be done. And we’ll all be saved.”
 
Matse also had to the fright of the moment, along with his companions. But not to the same extent. One look ahead showed him the possibilities and, flinging himself in front of his wavering assistants, he shouted at them in their own tongue. The boys could not understand his words, but there was no misreading his tone. He was them with whips of scorn. And that it was proving effective was plain to be seen.
 
“Fella-boys help, baas,” cried Matse, in the end, turning to Bob. “You tell um what can do.”
 
It was an anxious moment for the three boys. Fate had thrust them without any preliminary warning into a tight place, indeed. Ahead lay possible, even probable, disaster. To escape to the shore by swimming was out of the question. The current was running like a mill race, and even the strongest of swimmers could not have stemmed it, but must of necessity have been swept along helpless in its clutch. And upon the young shoulders of the trio rested the responsibility for not themselves alone from this threatening monster of a river, but also the half dozen blacks. Moreover, if it were humanly possible, they desired also to save the raft and its contents.
 
But was it possible? Was it possible to save the lives of all concerned? Could they hope to save the raft? Was not their only chance to be flung upon some of the rocks which, bare, jagged, wet from the constant spray over them, offering only insecure hold at best, seemed to leap toward them, so swiftly were they borne along? And then the raft would go whirling and bumping into the further rapids around the bend which as yet they could not see and be swept to destruction over the falls they suspected lay not far away by reason of the growing volume of sound which came to them, the dull booming roar of water tumbling, , over a .
 
At such moments, one’s eyes seem to drink in all the surroundings as if in one vast comprehensive glance, and one’s thoughts by the unwonted danger race madly. It was so with the boys. They saw the high wooded , rank jungle growth to the water’s edge. They saw the broad river, half a mile wide, on like a great sheet of glass to crash and splinter upon the rocks at the bend and upon the wooded island in the middle. What lay beyond that mighty curve, where the river turning sharply bore away to the right whence came the roar of the waterfall which they suspected to be there, they could not see. All this they saw, all this their vision grasped, in that one sweeping glance when a moment seemed an . And their thoughts moved as swiftly as sight. In fact, only one possible for all lay ahead. And all three grasped it .
 
“The island,” cried Jack. “We must try to reach the island.”
 
This island was in shape long and narrow and as they drew nearer, they could discern the contour of that portion at the upstream end quite clearly. At the tip were rocks in a mass which would spell destruction to the raft, perhaps to themselves, if they were swept upon them. But, caught in a current setting into the channel between the island and the left bank of the river, they could see as they drew closer to the island that just below the rocks lay a with a shelving sandy shore.
 
They were still some distance above this point, and Bob believed they could the raft into the cove ............