About three hours after daylight we breakfasted off slices of hot boiled hippo tongue and cold lake water, without salt or condiments of any kind, and with discontent increased by that unpleasing feast we aroused the boys and drove them into the canoes.
We forced the pace again, and picked up smoke on the sky-line an hour before noon, but it was not from a steamer's funnel.

It was lazy, flat-flowing, spreading smoke with a look of iniquity about it that sent our hearts to our mouths.

We paddled toward it with frenzied energy, and long before any of us could make out details Coutlass, standing balancing himself amidships, told us what we knew was true and flatly refused to believe.
"It's the Queen of Sheba burning to the water-line!" "Sit down, you fool, or you'll upset us!" "She's gutted already--the flame is about finished! nothing now but smoke!" "Sit down, you lying idiot, and hold your tongue!" "I can see the smoke of the German launch now! Don't you all see it?
Straight ahead beyond the smoke of the dhow! They've burned the dhow and steamed away! I'll bet you a million pounds they've killed everybody--shot 'em, or burned 'em alive, or drowned 'em!" "Did you hear me tell you to sit down?
I'll tip you overboard and make you swim for shore--d'ye see those crocodiles?
Ugh! Look at the brutes! In you go among the crocks if you don't sit down at once!" Coutlass took no notice of the threat, but rocked the canoe recklessly as he stood on tiptoe.
"Think of their gall! By Bacchus, they're steaming for British East! I bet you five million pounds to a kick they think they've drowned the lot of us! They're going to steam in and report the accident!" We got him to sit down at last by ordering the paddlers nearest him to throw him overboard, but nothing would stop his evil croaking any more than flat refusal to admit the truth of what he gloated over lessened our real conviction.
Long before we reached the dhow there was no room left for unbelief.
The stern planks were charred, but stood erect, unburned yet, and the blue and white paint smeared on them was surely that of the Queen of Sheba.

When we came within fifty yards the water was full of loathsome reptiles; our paddles actually struck them as they swarmed after the prey, snapping at one another and at our canoes--long, slimy-looking monsters, as able to smell carrion in the distance as kites are to see.
There were garments on the water--blankets--and one soaked, torn, lacy thing that certainly had been a woman's.

More than a dozen crocodiles fought around that.