“Hold on to the canoe, my men; seize a rope, each one,” said he, while tearing his flannel shirt away. Before he could prepare himself, the canoe was drawn down into the abyss, and the whirling, flying waters closed over all. When the vacuum was filled, a great body of water was belched upwards, and the canoe was disgorged into the bright sunlight, with several gasping men clinging to it. When they had drifted a little distance away from the scene, and had collected their faculties, they found there were only eight of them alive; and, alas for us who were left to bewail his sudden doom! there was no white face among them. But presently, close to them, another commotion, another heave and belching of waters, and out of them the insensible form of the “little master” appeared, and they heard a loud moan from him. Then Uledi, forgetting his late escape from the whirling pit, flung out his arms, and struck gallantly towards him, but another pool sucked them both in, and the waves closed over them before he could reach him; and for the second time the brave coxswain emerged, faint and weary—but Frank Pocock was seen no more. “My brave, honest, kindly-natured Frank, have you left me so? Oh, my long-tried friend, what fatal rashness! Ah, Uledi, had you but saved him, I should have made you a rich man.” “Our fate is in the hands of God, master,” replied he, sadly and wearily. Various were the opinions ventured upon the cause which occasioned the loss of such an expert swimmer. Baraka, with some reason, suggested that Frank’s instinctive impulse would have been to swim upward, and that during his frantic struggle towards the air he might have struck his head against the canoe. Shumari was inclined to think that the bandages on his feet might have impeded him; while Saywa thought it must have been his heavy clothes which prevented the full play of the limbs required in such a desperate situation. All over Zinga, Mbelo, and Mowa the dismal tidings spread rapidly. “The brother of the Mundelé is lost—lost at Massassa,” they cried; and, inspired by pure sympathy, they descended to Zinga, to hear how the fatal accident occurred. Good, kindly Ndala—who came accompanied by his wives, and with a true delicacy of feeling would not permit the natives to throng about me, but drove them outside the camp, where they might wonder and gossip without disturbing us—old Monango, Kapata, and tall, good-natured Itumba, and a few of the principal men, were alone admitted.