s halted a minute to recover
so precious a relic, checking the others behind them, a circumstance
that helped us by twenty or thirty yards.

"Over with the plant!" I said.

But Stephen, looking quite old from exhaustion and with the sweat
streaming from him as he laboured at his unaccustomed paddle, gasped:

"For Heaven's sake, no, after all we have gone through to get it."

So I didn't insist; indeed there was neither time nor breath for
argument.

Now we were in the reeds, for thanks to the flag which guided us, we had
struck the big hippopotamus lane exactly, and the Pongos, paddling
like demons, were about thirty yards behind. Thankful was I that those
interesting people had never learned the use of bows and arrows, and
that their spears were too heavy to throw. By now, or rather some time
before, old Babemba and the Mazitu had seen us, as had our Zulu hunters.
Crowds of them were wading through the shallows towards us, yelling
encouragements as they came. The Zulus, too, opened a rather wild fire,
with the result that one of the bullets struck our canoe and another
touched the brim of my hat. A third, however, killed a Pongo, which
caused some confusion in the ranks of Tusculum.

But we were done and they came on remorselessly. When their leading boat
was not more than ten yards from us and we were perhaps two hundred from
the shore, I drove my paddle downwards and finding that the water was
less than four feet deep, shouted:

"Overboard, all, and wade. It's our last chance!"

We scrambled out of that canoe the prow of which, as I left it the last,
I pushed round across the water-lane to obstruct those of the Pongo. Now
I think all would have gone well had it not been for Stephen, who after
he had floundered forward a few paces in the mud, bethought him of his
beloved orchid. Not only did he return to try to rescue it, he also
actually persuaded his friend Mavovo to accompany him. They got back to
the boat and began to lift the plant out when the Pongo fell upon them,
striking at them with their spears over the width of our canoe. Mavovo
struck back with the weapon he had taken from the Pongo sentry at the
cave mouth, and killed or wounded one of them. Then some one hurled
a ballast stone at him which caught him on the side of the head and
knocked him down into the water, whence he rose and reeled back, almost
senseless, till some of our people got hold of him and dragged him to
the shore.

So Stephen wa