In his fear he gave tongue.

The gun from the launch fired, a yell rose from every side, and all the canoes near dashed forward.
Mr.Hume shoved out, and the Okapi slipped up-stream undetected under the uproar, darting from one island to another, and keeping as near the banks as possible.

They were doing splendidly! The enemy was behind; it seemed that they must reap the advantage of their caution and resourcefulness, when, without any intimation of danger, they came right upon a canoe lying in mid-channel between two of the innumerable islands.
"Back-water!" cried Mr.Hume, at once.
The boys obeyed without, of course, any knowledge of the course, and the Okapi slackened down.
"Well met, my friends," came a voice they knew; and the two looked over their shoulders.
"Dished, after all!" muttered Compton, bitterly; then he snatched up his rifle.
"Hassan thought you would come along this way," went on the junior officer--for it was he; "but I doubted, and yet here you are." "The praise be to Allah," remarked Hassan, piously, as he glanced along his rifle.
The Okapi had lost the little way she was making, and began to move with the current away from the canoe.

Mr.Hume suddenly spoke for the first time since his order.
"Turn that canoe round!" he roared; and his Express leapt to his shoulder.

The boys followed suit.
The paddle-men promptly ducked their heads, and one of them called out in his lingo that this was the slayer of crocodiles and of the great bull.
"But, my friend----" began the Belgian, who now, together with Hassan and several Arabs in the stern of the canoe, came under the levelled barrels.
"Oblige me," said the hunter.