Sherif el Habib, having chosen a camping ground in the oasis, and being
supplied with provisions enough for several months, agreed to wait for
the return of the young explorers.
No sooner were Max and Ibrahim away from the camp than they felt like
boys.
They were their own masters, and not only that, but they had two Arabs
with them as stewards and porters.
Provisions for two weeks were packed into convenient form, and the four
started.
Ibrahim insisted on Max taking the lead, the very thing not to do, for
Max was venturesome, and when freed from restraint a perfect madcap.
However, Ibrahim believed in him most implicitly, and it was agreed
that Max should be captain.
The madcap had seen, some hours journey back, a boat, and to it they
went.
A native, who was fishing, objected to them having it, but a few beads
and a china doll were considered a princely recompense, and Max became
the owner of the boat.
He asked the native where the river led to, and was told that in the
great quagmire was a fire that had been burning for hundreds of moons,
and it took all the water to keep the fire down; if the water stopped
the whole world would be burned up, and, added the native, naïvely:
“Even Klatch would be burned.”
And the terrible climax made the naked savage look so frightened that
Max burst into an uncontrollable fit of laughter.
“Did you ever see the fire?” asked Ibrahim.
“No, no! but Baas must not ask.”
“We are going to see it; will you come?”
“No, no.”
“Will give you beads.”
“No.”
“China doll”--holding another up to view.
“No, no, no!”
The answer was very emphatic, and the man looked the very
personification of fear.
The boat was a good, strong dugout.
A log of the talha, a species of mimosa tree, had been hollowed out
with rude tools.
This dugout formed one of the strongest kinds of canoe or boat known in
Africa.
There was room for seven or eight in it, and Max, out of a pure spirit
of mischief, determined that the naked native should be one of the
party.
The man objected, but the Arabs seized him by the arms and legs and
lifted him into the boat.
The poor fellow trembled as though he had one of those terrible agues
so prevalent in some countries, and which makes one:
“Shake! shake! shake!
Shudder, and cower, and quake,
Till every nerve has its separate quiver,
And every sinew its separate shiver,
And every bone its particular ache;
For either he or the chill must break!
“Shake! shake! shake!
Till joints are loose and sinews slack,
Till every bone is a torturing thing,
And every nerve is a hornet’s sting,
While up and down the weary back
An army of icebergs, stern and solemn,
Marches along the spinal column.”
That was just how poor, wild Klatchman--as he called himself--felt when
he was lifted into the boat and held there by fear that Max would kill
him if he attempted to move.
The man gave himself up for lost, and bade farewell by gestures to the
cows and the sacred bulls, to his tribe and his kindred.
The Arabs bent themselves to the oars and the boat seemed to fly along.
The water was rough.
At times waves buffeted the boat and rocked it as if it were a paper
shell.
The oars were needed, not to propel the boat, but rather to prevent it
going too fast.
“Hurrah for the rapids!” shouted Max, but Ibrahim was getting scared.
“Pull us to the land,” he commanded, but Max was in for mischief.
“Don’t do it. On we go,” and then he began to sing:
“A life on the ocean wave,
A home on the rolling deep.”
Poor Klatchman overcame his fear of Max and jumped out of the boat.
A big, powerful fellow--swimming like a fish--he tried to reach the
land.
The current was too strong.
He struck out vigorously, but was carried along backward.
Ibrahim was so frightened that he threatened to jump out.
“Don’t do it,” implored Max.
But Ibrahim was determined and Max was afraid that not only would the
native perish, but that his Persian friend would be sacrificed also.
“It is only a joke,” said Max, “we will pull back now.”
“And Klatchman?”
“He will catch up to us.”
Ibrahim sat down again, and Max ordered the Arabs to pull back to the
place from which they started.
A few strokes and Ibrahim again interfered.
“Save the poor wretch, Max, for my sake.”
“If you like, but Klatcher can catch up to us; it is good to give him a
scare.”
“Please save him.”
Max laughed long and heartily.
“How serious you are. One would think we were in the rapids of Niagara.”
“My dear fellow--Klatchman is a human being----”
“Is he?”
“Of course he is.”
“Thought perhaps he was Darwin’s missing link.”
Max may appear to the reader to have been thoroughly heartless, but he
was not.
For weeks he had curbed his spirit of fun and had played no practical
jokes.
Now he had a chance to frighten the poor savage and Ibrahim at the same
time.
That was his only idea. If he had thought poor Klatchman was in any
danger he would have been the first to have even risked his life to
rescue him; but in the first place he did not believe in the danger,
and then he looked upon the savage much as he would upon a Newfoundland
dog--one quite as much at home in the water as out of it.
“Never mind what he is,” said Ibrahim, “don’t be heartless, Max. Save
the poor wretch.”
Max looked round and saw that the native had resigned himself to his
fate.
He had ceased to make any effort to save himself.
“Look, Ib. It’s a whirlpool, by all that’s holy!”
Max was right; Klatchman’s body was being whirled round at a furious
rate.
“If only he had a torch in his hand he would look like a Fourth of July
pin-wheel,” continued the madcap.
Turning to the Arabs, he said:
“Pull to the wretch and drag him into the boat.”
“It is not safe, your excellency.”
“Tush! do as you are told.”
The men bent to the oars and pulled toward the whirlpool, but no sooner
had they changed the position of the boat than it seemed to fly over
the water, borne along by some fierce current below the surface.
“This is awful,” exclaimed Ibrahim.
“Awfully jolly, you mean,” replied the American.
“I am afraid.”
“Are you? Whyou!” whistled Max, “but we are in for it now.”
He was right; the boat whirled round like a teetotum.
It was useless to try and manage it.
“Great Scott! What a race.”
Max could scarcely get enough breath to speak, but even then he was
more than delighted.
There was the African whirling round in a smaller circle, while the
boat was going equally fast in a larger one around him.
“Jewilikins! what was that?”
Even Max turned sick when he knew what it was.
The boat had struck Klatchman such a blow on the head that the poor
creature’s brains were spattered all over the boat.
“Good-by, Max!” gasped Ibrahim.
“Good-by, old fellow! I have brought you to death, but I didn’t mean to
do so.”
“I forgive you. Poor Girzilla!”
One of the Arabs had fainted with fright, and before either of his
comrades or Max could reach forward to save him, he had fallen out of
the boat and was dashed to pieces in the whirlpool.
“Gone only a few minutes before us,” Max groaned, now thoroughly
serious and alive to his fate.
Was it imagination?
Were their senses so numbed that they did not feel the dizzying whirl
of the boat, or had the boat suddenly become stationary?
Ibrahim looked with bloodshot eyes at Max.
The madcap returned the look, equally puzzled as to what had taken
place.
They had reached the very center of the whirlpool, and the fury of the
whirling waters had spent themselves.
Like the famous Moskoestrom or Maelstrom, off the Norwegian coast, the
center was calm and still, while the outer rings were lashed everything
with the greatest fury.
Like that European whirlpool, the smaller African one seemed to get
tired and have a period of rest.
“Pull back, boys,” said Max, when he saw that Ibrahim had seized the
oar the dead Arab had let fall.
Both bent themselves with their whole strength to the oars, and the
boat moved as they willed it.
“Change places with me--let me pull!” exclaimed Max.
Ibrahim was nothing loath to do so, and he took the rudely-shaped
paddle from Max, which he had used to guide the boat in place of a
rudder.
The American was stronger than either the Persian or the Arab, and the
force of his oar soon made itself felt.
The outer ring of the now quiescent whirlpool was reached, and Max
uttered devoutly the words:
“Thank Heaven!”
While Ibrahim, after the manner of his people, exclaimed:
“Allah be praised! _Sin Syu!_”
Which latter was equivalent to saying:
“Allah be praised! I have said it!”
“We have not found the outlet of the river,” said Max.
“No, nor don’t want to.”
“I do, and I have already named the whirlpool ‘the Ibrahim.’”
“Thanks for the honor. But let us get back to uncle, and--Girzilla.”
“My dear fellow, you are in love with the pretty Egyptian. How she will
listen to your ‘hairbreadth ’scapes on sea and land.’”
“Hush! we are drifting.”
“Drifting isn’t the word for it, we are going thirty miles an hour.
Pull, you lazy Arab, pull!”
Max exerted all his strength.
The Arab became purple in the face with the strain.
On both the perspiration stood in great drops; their sinews were like
huge cords stretched under the skin.
“Snap!”
And as the sound broke upon his ears, both Max and Ibrahim groaned
aloud.
An oar had broken.
“The paddle, quick!”
Max seized the badly-shaped paddle, and tried to use it like an oar.
In vain.
The Arab’s oar was broken, and the boat and its occupants were at the
mercy of the cruel river.
Where was it taking them?
Not to the whirlpool.
That was passed long ago.
They could see it again as they looked back.
Ibrahim reached out his hand to seize a branch of a mimosa tree, but
his effort was in vain.
“See, what is that? Oh, Allah!” exclaimed the Persian as he saw the
face of the dead Arab close to the boat, with its eyes open, and
peering into the face of the young chief.
“It is horrible!” groaned Max.
On sped the boat, faster and yet faster.
The living Arab was the picture of stoicism.
He sat erect, his arms folded, the turban on his head scarcely
wrinkled; but his teeth were clinched together, and he awaited death.
Ibrahim had passed through the terror of the valley of the shadow of
death, and had mentally wished his uncle farewell.
As for Max, he was occupied thinking of a way to escape.
And yet a few minutes of life only remained to them.
The water had changed to dull, heavy red in color.
All along the banks Max could see the quagmire the caravan had avoided.
But the boat sped on so rapidly that nothing definite could be noted.
It seemed the boat was going uphill, but of course that was imagination.
A few yards before them was tall marsh grass growing in the water.
“Our troubles are at an end,” gasped Max, catching his breath, as he
spoke.
The boat tossed slightly.
A sudden lurch, and the small dugout, with its three occupants,
was precipitated over a cataract, a seething cauldron of hissing,
sputtering, bubbling water!