The girls at once forgot all their sorrows when they jumped on board this wonderful river monster.  They felt it shiver and throb and begin to move.  The bank went farther and farther away.  The Peace had again started up stream.

The girls stood in wonder and gazed with open eyes as the banks slid past.  They saw the birds all green and red flashing along the surface of the water, and the huge hippopotami sullenly plunging into the river like the floating islands of earth that sail down the Congo.  Their quick eyes noted the quaint iguana, like giant lizards, sunning themselves on the branches of the trees over the stream and then dropping like stones into the stream as the steamer passed.

The Slave Girl’s Brother

Then, suddenly, as they came round a bend in the river, all was changed.  There ahead Grenfell saw a river town.  The canoes were being manned rapidly by warriors.  The bank bristled with spears in the hands of ferocious savages, whose faces were made horrible by gashes and loathsome tattooing.  In each canoe men stood with bows in their hands and arrows drawn to the head.  The throb of the engines ceased.  The ship slowed up.  But the canoes came on.

The men of this Congo town only knew one thing.  Enemies had, only a few weeks earlier, come from down-river, had raided their town, burned their huts, killed many of their braves, and carried away their children.  Here were men who had also come from down the river.  They must, therefore, be enemies.

Their chief shouted an order.  In an instant a score of spears hurtled at the ship and rattled on the steel screens around the deck.  The yell of the battle-cry of the tribe echoed and re-echoed down the river.

Grenfell was standing by the little girls.  Suddenly one of them with dancing eyes shouted and waved her arms.

“What is it?” cried Grenfell to her.

“See—­see!” she cried, pointing to a warrior in a canoe who was just poising a spear, “that is my brother!  That is my brother!  This is my town!”

“Call to him,” said Grenfell.

Her thin childish voice rang out.  But no one heard it among the warriors.  Again she cried out to her brother.  The only answer was a hail of spears and arrows.

Grenfell turned rapidly and shouted an order to the engineer.  Instantly a shriek, more wild and piercing than the combined yells of the whole tribe, rent the air.  Again the shriek went up.  The warriors stood transfixed with spear and arrow in hand like statues in ebony.  There was a moment’s intense and awful silence.  They had never before heard the whistle of a steamer!

“Shout again—­quickly,” whispered Grenfell to the little African girl.

In a second the child’s shrill voice rang out in the silence across the water, crying first her brother’s name, and then her own.

The astonished warrior dropped his spear, caught up his paddle and—­in a few swift strokes—­drove his canoe towards the steamer.  His astonishment at seeing his sister aboard overcame all his dread of this shrieking, floating island that moved without sails or paddles.