“Why don’t we leave ’em to make their own explanations?” I proposed at last.  “We can claim our few belongings at any time if we see fit.”  But the suggestion took time to recommend itself.

That night until nearly morning we fretted at every rest the paddlers took—­drove them unmercifully—­ran risks of overturning on the slippery shoulders of partly submerged rocks—­took long turns ourselves to relieve the weary men, Coutlass working harder than the rest of us.  It would have been a bad night’s work if we had overhauled the dhow and loosed him to do his will.

“Think of the baggage!” he kept shouting to the night at large.  “Lying in the arms of Georges Coutlass, kissing and being kissed, simply to rob him—­Coutlass—­me!  Think of it!  Only think of it.  She lay in the hook of my right arm and only thought of how to win back the favor of the other she-hellion!  And I was deceived by such a cabbage!  Wait though!  Nobody ever turned a trick on Georges Coutlass more than once!  Wait till we catch them!  See what I do to them!  I don’t forget Kamarajes either, or that bastard de Sousa, also pretending they were friends of mine!  Heiah!  Hurry!  Drive the paddles in, you lazy black men!”

It was more his hunger for revenge than any other one thing that tipped the scales of indecision and called us off the chase.  A little before morning, at about that darkest hour, when the stars have seen the coming sun but the world is not yet aware of it, Fred called to us to turn in toward a barren-looking hill of granite that rose almost sheer out of the water but at one corner offered a shelving landing place.  There we all clambered out to stretch cramped muscles and make a fire to cook the hippo’s tongue, Coutlass cursing us for letting what he called idleness come between us and revenge.

Kazimoto had scarcely more than gathered an armful of wood, thrown it down, and gone to hunt for more; one of the other boys had struck a match, and the first little flicker of crimson fire and purple smoke was starting to curl skyward, when Fred jumped on it and stamped it out.

“Silence!” he ordered.  “Keep still every one!” and repeated it twice in Kiswahili for the natives’ benefit.

We could not see at first which way he was staring through the darkness.  It was more than two minutes before I knew what had alarmed him, and then it was sound, not sight that gave me the first clue.  There came a purring from the lake; and when I had searched for a minute for the source of it I saw the glow we had watched from the dhow in the storm the first night out—­the telltale crimson stain on the dark that rides above a steamer’s funnel, and at intervals a stream of sparks to prove they were burning wood and driving her at top speed.

“It can’t be the German launch,” said I.

“Why not?” demanded Fred irritably.  He knew I knew it was the German launch as certainly as he did.