Then, panting with having run, there came a native who looked like a Zulu, for he had enormous thighs and the straight up and down carriage, as well as facial characteristics.

“You are late!” shouted Schillingschen in German “Warum?  What d’ye mean by it?”

The man opened his mouth wide and made grimaces.  He had no tongue.  Schillingschen laughed.

“This is a servant who does no tattling in the market-place!” he said, turning again toward me.  “He and I can tie you to that post easily.  What do you say?”

There was nothing whatever to say, or to do except wonder how to circumvent him, and nothing in sight that could possibly turn into a friend—­except a little tuft of faded brown that out of the corner of my eye I detected zigzagging toward me in the direction from which we had come.  A moment later I knew it really was a friend.  “Crinkle,” a mongrel dog that Fred bad adopted the day after our arrival, breasted the low rise, saw me, gave a yelp of delight and came scampering.

The dog sniffed my knee to make sure of me, and then trotted over to sniff Schillingschen.  The professor stooped down to pat him, rubbed his ear a moment to get the dog’s confidence, and then seized him suddenly by both hind legs.  I saw what he intended too late.

“Stop, or I’ll kill you!” I shouted, and made a rush at him.  But he swung the yelping dog and hurled him far out into the pool.

A second later my fist crashed into his face and be staggered backward.  A second later yet the dumb Zulu pinned my elbows from behind and set his knee into the small of my back with such terrific force that I yelled with pain.  Then Schillingschen approached me and began to try to drive my teeth in with unaccustomed fists.  He loosened my front teeth, but cut his own knuckles, so began looking about for a stick.

Strangely enough my own attention was less fixed on Schillingschen than on the wretched “Crinkle” swimming frantically for shore.  Dog-like he was making straight for me, and there was no possibility whatever of his being able to scramble up the steep side.  I shouted to call his attention, and tried to motion to him to swim toward shallow water, but the Zulu would not let my arms free, and the dog only thought I was urging him to hurry.

Schillingschen found a stick and came back to give me a hammering with it just at the moment when a crocodile saw “Crinkle.”  A blow landed on my head, cut my forehead, and sent the blood down into my eyes at the same moment that I heard the dog’s yelp of agony; and next time I looked at the pond there was a tiny whirlpool on the surface, slightly tinged with red.

“You swine!” I shouted at Schillingschen, trying to break loose and attack him.  For answer he raised his cudgel in both hands and stood on tiptoe to get leverage.  If that blow had landed it must have broken something, for he was strong as a gorilla; but somebody shouted—­I recognized Fred’s voice, and in another second he and Will charged down on us.  Schillingschen turned about to strike Fred instead of me, but Will’s fist hit him on the ear and split it.  The professor staggered backward, and a moment later Fred had felled the Zulu.  I reeled from weakness and excitement, and nearly fell down.