The Boy Aviators in Africa Part 6

"Try-and-make-the-rock. Try-and-make-the-rock."

Frank's insistence had done this much. It had caused the boy to recollect the one hope of salvation that the desperate situation held out. As he was swept down the torrent Harry made no effort to swim. It would have been worse than useless and besides he needed to husband his strength for the final struggle he knew was upon him.

The next minute he felt a sickening swirling sensation and realized that he was in the whirlpool's death-grip at last.

Faster and faster the boy was hurried in ever decreasing circles.

Dizzy, half-choked with water, blinded and almost exhausted Harry, with the tenacity of a bull dog, still clung tenaciously to the one idea:

"Try-and-make-the-rock. Try-and-make-the-rock."

Suddenly, he was flung against a hard substance. With outstretched fingers he clutched at the slimy surface as of what he realized was the end of his journey at last. The great stone was covered with slimy weed, however, and his grasping fingers refused to clutch at any friendly niche in its surface.

With a despairing cry the boy was being swept in to the terrible mouth of the pool when he felt himself seized and pulled up out of the grip of the torrent. He knew no more till he opened his eyes and found Frank by his side. Both boys were on the rock--sitting on it in two inches or more of water. Fortunately in that climate the water was not so chilly as to cause discomfort, but this was about the only crumb of satisfaction the situation held for them.

"Well done, old fellow," said Frank as Harry opened his eyes. "You had a narrow escape, though."

Harry could only look at his brother gratefully. How deep was his debt of grat.i.tude to him both boys realized without their talking of it.

"How did you gain the rock, Frank?" asked Harry.

"When I saw you swept off the tree trunk I slipped off too," replied Frank, "and when I felt myself dragged into the pool I struck out for the rock. I confess, though, I didn't have much hope of reaching it till I was slammed into it with a blow that almost cracked my ribs and knocked all the wind out of me. I managed however to grab hold of a depression in the surface and maintain my grip on it. I had hardly dragged myself up when you were hurled against it. I thought I had lost you, for the water pulled like a draught-horse, but I managed to hold on to you and here we are."

"And a worse position we could not possibly be in," added Harry.

"Unless we were in there," retorted Frank pointing, not without a shudder, to the whirling open mouth of the pool which had sucked down the wreck of their canoe.

"What is it do you suppose?" asked Harry wonderingly.

"The mouth of a subterranean river I guess," replied Frank. "I have read of such things."

"But why didn't Desplaines warn us of our danger," said Harry bitterly, "if we ever get out of this I shall tell him my opinion of him pretty strongly. We might have been killed and we may yet."

"He did warn us," replied Frank calmly.

"He did?"

"Yes."

"I should like to know when?"

"When we shoved off."

"You mean when he shouted something we couldn't catch and pointed down the river?"

"That's it."

"I thought he meant there was better fishing down, here," snapped Harry indignantly, "what idiots we were."

"Yes; not to notice how we were drifting," rejoined Frank quietly, "it's no use to blame Mr. Desplaines for this pickle. We have only ourselves to be angry with. I don't suppose he ever thought that two boys would not notice how they were drifting in a ten mile current."

"The point is how are we ever going to get out of it?"

How indeed?

As the boys looked about they saw little to encourage them. The chasm in which they were beleaguered was not more than fifteen feet across, but on either side shot up walls of rock so steep and smooth that not even a fern could find root on their polished surfaces.

Where the whirlpool sank into the bowels of the earth the walls came together at an angle forming a sort of triangular prison. At the top of this trap the boys could see a strip of blue sky and the outlines of the graceful tops of some bulbous stemmed palms but nothing else. Once a vulture sailed across the strip and sighting the two boys came lower to investigate. The sight of the carrion bird made both of the boys shudder.

"Ugh, he scents a meal, he thinks we're dead already," cried Harry disgustedly.

The sound of his voice echoed gloomily among the rocks.

"We're dead already," came back in sepulchral tones.

"I shan't try to wake that echo up again," said Harry in a low tone and shivering at the uncanny voice of the rock.

Neither of the boys spoke for a long time. They sat there silently, occasionally standing up to get the stiffness out of their limbs till the strip of sky above began to darken to gray.

"Well, here goes!" exclaimed Harry suddenly.

Frank glanced sharply up. He did not like the wild tone in which the words were spoken.

"What is it?" he asked sharply.

"I'm tired of this, I'm going to swim for it," replied Harry with a foolish, hysterical laugh.

Frank saw what had happened. The boy had become half-delirious under the mental strain he had undergone.

"Sit down, old fellow," he said kindly, "help will come soon I am sure."

"Yes, a steamboat will come sailing down the river and take us home in the captain's cabin I suppose," said Harry foolishly.

But nevertheless Frank's stern command to "shut up" and not make a foot of himself brought him to his senses and he said no more till the stillness was broken by a sudden cry from above.

"Bosses--oh, bosses."

"Ahoy there; castaways!"

Frank looked up.

The cry of joy he gave set the echoes flying in the gloomy canyon.

It was the black face of Sikaso that was gazing down on them and beside it was Ben Stubbs' weather-beaten countenance. Behind them were Billy, Lathrop and the rest.

"Hold on there and we'll get you out of that in two shakes of a duck's tail," cheerily hailed the old adventurer. "We guessed you'd be here and we brought a rope as long as a man of war's cable with us. Lucky thing we did."

The next minute a long rope of vegetable fiber came snaking down the side of the cliff and to one end of it clung Ben Stubbs. As he reached the bottom--the rope being cautiously paid out from above by his companions--the old seaman swung himself outward from the face of the rock and "in a brace of shakes," as he would have said, stood alongside the two boys. In a second his sharp eye took in Harry's wild looks and hysterical greetings and realized what had happened.

"Now, Frank," he ordered, giving the young aviator the end of the rope--"catch hold tight and when you are ready give the word."