But he was already out of sight. The larger canoe, now hidden by the reeds, had just reached the horn of the curve, where the Portuguese was awaiting it. He was in a towering passion, and heaped unmeasured abuse on his luckless crew for failing to overtake their expected prey. By the time he and his men were afloat again, Tom's canoe was fully a mile and a half in advance, and out of sight.
It was now past mid-day. The heat was terrible, and there had been no time for a meal since starting. Tom had nibbled a few biscuits and drunk a little water, and his crew had munched some of their ground-nuts and cheese, relieving each other in pairs for a few minutes at a time. Tom did not dare to allow them to stop paddling altogether, for the pursuing crew could divide into larger relays, and he guessed that, having once sighted him, the Portuguese would give his men no respite until they overtook him. He wondered how long his own men's marvellous staying-power would hold out. Watching them anxiously, he saw with concern that, as the afternoon wore on, their strokes became less certain and put less and less way on the canoe. Mbutu, willing lad, relieved the others in turn at intervals, but, though he had said that he could "paddle well too much", it was obvious that he was out of training, as well as muscularly less hardy than the stalwart negroes.
About five o'clock Mbutu, again in his old place in the bow, cried suddenly:
Tom glanced round. The larger canoe was no more than three-quarters of a mile behind, and its crew gave a whoop of delight when they saw how they had gained on the other. The Portuguese stood up in the stern, and, raising his rifle to his shoulder, fired. Mbutu instinctively ducked, and it was well he did so, for the bullet flew by within an inch of his head and plumped into the water a few yards beyond. Tom's canoe then rounded a bend, and once more the pursuers were lost to view.
Half an hour later the two vessels were again in sight of each other, and now were scarcely half a mile apart. Another shot came whizzing through the air, and passed between the two Baganda nearest Mbutu. They gave a slight shudder as they heard its weird ping, and bent frantically to their paddles. Tom's mouth was set, and there came into his blue eyes the steely expression which had always given his school-fellows a feeling of expectancy and apprehension. He did not think of himself. He thought only of his uncle and the Portuguese, of how for his uncle's sake he must by hook or by crook evade the clutches of the conspirator behind. His feeling towards the pursuer was curiously impersonal, the same kind of feeling that he would have had towards a bowler at cricket--a skilled player to keep his eye on and beat if he could. He saw that but for some unforeseen accident he would be compelled to take to the woods within a very few minutes, and then, though he was resolved not to be captured, he would give little for his chances of reaching the expedition in time.
