The papyrus inshore was high enough to screen the moon from us, and we had to hunt a passage through it in pitch darkness.  Then, having found the muddy bank at last (and more trillions of mosquitoes) we had to drag the overturned boat out high and dry to rescue our belongings.  And that was ticklish work, because most of the crocodiles, and practically all the largest ones, spend the night alongshore.

Matches were wet.  We had no means of making a flare to frighten the monsters away.  We simply had to “chance it” as cheerfully and swiftly as we could, and at the end of a half-hour’s slimy toil we carried our muddied loads to the nearest high ground and settled down there for the night.

It would be mad exaggeration to say we camped.  Wet to the skin—­dirty to the verge of feeling suicidal—­bitten by insects until the blood ran down from us—­lost (for we bad no notion where the end of the ford might be)—­at the mercy of any prowling beasts that might discover us (for our rifle locks were fouled with mud)—­we sat with chattering teeth and waited for the morning.

When the sun rose we found a village less than four hundred yards away and sent the boys down to it to unpack the loads and spread everything in the sun to dry, while we went down to the river again and washed our rifles.  Then we dried and oiled them, and without a word of bargain or explanation, invaded the cleanest looking hut, lay down on the stamped clay floor, and slept.  It was only clean-looking, that hut.  It housed more myraids of fleas than the air outside supported “skeeters”; but we slept, unconscious of them all.

At four that afternoon we had the mortification of being roused by Fred’s voice, and the dumping of loads as his sixty porters dropped their burdens inside the village stockade.  He had scorned the ferry and crossed the ford on foot, making a prodigious splash to keep crocodiles away, and was as full of life and fun as a schoolboy on vacation.

“Wake up, you vorloopers!” he shouted.  “Wake up!  Shake off the fleas and come, and I’ll show you something.”

He had already had the tale of our night’s misfortune in detail from the owner of the only canoe (who claimed double pay on the ground that we had lost no loads in spite of over-turning.  “The last really white man who crossed lost all his loads!” he explained.) .

“Come and I’ll show you something you never saw before, you scouts!—­you advance guard!—­you line of skirmishers!”

Will hurled a lump of earth at him, and chased him to the river, where they wrestled, trying to throw each other in, until both were breathless.  Then, when neither could make another effort: 

“Look!” gasped Fred.

There was an island in mid-stream below where we must have crossed.  The stream was straight, and from where we stood we could see more than half a mile of alluvial mud with an arm of the river on either side.  The mud was white, not black—­so white that it dazzled the eyes to look at it.