Page:Harris Dickson--Old Reliable in Africa.djvu/246

 you ack so skeery? Dat ain't no constable." Zack made a feint at returning, but Said, by main strength, dragged him to the gunboat.

From a safer position Zack measured the Sultan of Bong—a nappy-headed black man, bare-foot, bare-headed, in shirt and drawers—who nevertheless owned the Most Important Donkey, who owned Top-Knot, and all those women on the barge.

Grumbling and mouthing, Old Reliable found Colonel Spottiswoode on the upper deck observing the preparations for their landing at a wood-yard. With much puffing, much rattling of old machinery and belching of smoke, the gunboat shoved her starboard barge against the shore. Out of the din Old Zack leaned over the rail and shouted, "Dar now! Rouster done fell overbode." Shrieking black people ran from among the corded piles of wood and crowded to the shore.

"Look yonder, Cunnel! Look yonder!"

They saw a solitary Arab sailorman, who yelled and struggled in the water, kicking about him frantically. Then four other splashes came in quick succession, as four other Arabs sprang from the boat, and five men battled with the current. All of them seemed to flounder and scream instead of swimming. Two of them carried sticks with which they belabored the water. Flurrying,