island; they were also increasing their speed; and as they were now heading straight for the mouth of the gorge Juma at last recognized how he had been duped. The voyagers were now in full view of the causeway. It was covered with men returning at a run to the fort. But Juma, the moment he saw his mistake, hastened to the gate and shouted to the men to right-about and make for the gorge. The causeway was too long for his words to be heard distinctly at the shore end, and there was a minute’s confusion among the negroes before they grasped what was intended--a precious minute to the voyagers, for at the end of it the rafts were swept into the full current. When the men on the causeway, yelling with rage, at last set off to run back to the shore, John saw with a leaping heart that they were too late. A few of the enemy who had not yet reached the causeway when the retirement was countermanded, rushed along the shore and came level with the rafts as these began the descent of the rapids. But they had to run uphill: the speed of the current was at least fifteen miles an hour; before they could gain the summit of the bluff the rafts would be a mile or more downstream. As John’s raft was swept along in the wake of Ferrier’s, he wondered whether the rafts, when they reached the end of the rapids, would be in splinters, and the men battered corpses. When he had shot the upper rapids with Bill, the darkness had concealed the full extent of his peril; but now in broad daylight it was brought alarmingly home to him. Ferrier’s raft was swinging before him, and John heard his shouts as he instructed Coja how to move his pole for steering. John stuck to his post, almost at his wit’s end, but trying desperately to follow in Ferrier’s wake, and shouting instructions to Said Mohammed, who steered accordingly. All at once he saw with terror a large rock almost in midstream, over which the water swirled and dashed with clouds of spray. He felt that nothing could avert disaster. Ferrier was safely past; John, grasping his pole, cried to the Bengali to steer to the right. The rock seemed to approach him with terrible speed; in a moment the raft would surely be dashed against it and shivered to splinters. But the force of the current, and a timely thrust of the pole--how he made it in time John could never understand--carried the raft clear of the barrier. John’s shove was indeed more vigorous than was necessary, for it swung the stern of the raft partly across the current, and caused it to scrape the edge of the rock, with a jar that sent John and the Indian headlong among the men who lay on the deck. There was a howl of dismay, and John sprang up, expecting to find himself whirling to destruction. But to his unspeakable relief he saw that the perilous voyage was over. The raft had shot clear of the gorge, and was floating with almost oily smoothness on the river below the escarpment. CHAPTER THE TWENTY-FIFTH--The Fight in the Swamp