t was going to be pushed out into the stream. The cannibals
were going to cross the river. They did not budge before the gun aimed
at them, knowing the effect of fire-arms. But one of them had seized
the oar; he managed it like a man who knew how to use it, and the boat
crossed the river obliquely. Soon it was not more than a hundred feet
from the left bank.

"Flee!" cried Dick Sand to Mrs. Weldon. "Flee!"

Neither Mrs. Weldon nor Hercules stirred. One would say that their
feet were fastened to the ground.

Flee! Besides, what good would it do? In less than an hour they would
fall into the hands of the cannibals!

Dick Sand understood it. But, then, that supreme inspiration which he
asked from Heaven was sent him. He saw the possibility of saving all
those whom he loved by making the sacrifice of his own life! He did
not hesitate to do it.

"May God protect them!" murmured he, "and in His infinite goodness may
He have pity on me!"

At the same instant Dick Sand pointed his gun at the native who was
steering the boat, and the oar, broken by a ball, flew into fragments.

The cannibals gave a cry of terror.

In fact, the boat, no longer directed by the oar, went with the
stream. The current bore it along with increasing swiftness, and, in a
few moments, it was only a hundred feet from the falls.

Mrs. Weldon and Hercules understood all. Dick Sand attempted to save
them by precipitating the cannibals, with himself, into the abyss.
Little Jack and his mother, kneeling on the bank, sent him a last
farewell. Hercules's powerless hand was stretched out to him.

At that moment the natives, wishing to gain the left bank by swimming,
threw themselves out of the boat, which they capsized.

Dick Sand had lost none of his coolness in the presence of the death
which menaced him. A last thought then came to him. It was that this
boat, even because it was floating keel upward, might serve to save
him.

In fact, two dangers were to be feared when Dick Sand should be going
over the cataract: asphyxia by the water, and asphyxia by the air.
Now, this overturned hull was like a box, in which he might, perhaps,
keep his head out of the water, at the same time that he would be
sheltered from the exterior air, which would certainly have stifled
him in the rapidity of his fall. In these conditions, it seems that a
man would have some chance of escaping the double asphyxia, even in
descending the cataracts of a Niagara.

Dick San