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Updated: July 4, 2025
If we were to save Iguma, we must carry her off at once without waiting for the night, for the instant the priest had pronounced her name, the crowd, in overwhelming numbers, would rush to her house to seize her, and even Kendo himself would be utterly unable to afford her protection. All this time we knew by the hideous din that the cruel executions were going forward.
We were gliding quickly on, when suddenly Kendo's canoe spun round, and filling was driven against some rocks whose black heads rose above the foaming water. We narrowly avoided the danger, and as we shot by had just time to help Harry, who held on tight to his gun, on board, while Kendo, striking out, got up alongside us, and with the aid of Iguma also scrambled in.
I must own I had my doubts how far we were justified in using this deceit, but our position was a difficult one and might become dangerous, and just then we did not consider the consequences which might result from the artifice we had resorted to. I tried to make Iguma understand how much I was obliged to her by eating some of the food she had brought, and assuring her how very nice I found it.
Having picked up the baskets and refilled them with the fruit which had been strewn on the ground, they prepared to return. Four of them carried Iguma, who placed her arms round the necks of two, while the others supported her legs.
In another moment she would have been beyond our reach, when a pale-faced stranger appeared with a wonderful thunder maker in his hand. He made thunder, and the ape, huge as it was, fell dead at his feet. The beautiful Iguma was saved. He who had saved her has won our hearts, we will do him honour, we will do all he asks of us.
We were about to perform our ablutions, when a damsel appeared carrying a basket of fruit on her head. She approached accompanied by a white-haired old gentleman clothed in one of the robes I have described. Looking up I recognised Iguma. I asked Aboh who the old gentleman was, suspecting that he had come with some object in view. "That's her grandfather," he answered, looking very knowing.
She appeared to be beckoning to us; we went forward, and great was our surprise to find that she was no other than Iguma, the young lady I had saved from the ape, and whose marriage with Prince Kendo I had afterwards witnessed.
Charley continued working away without uttering a word, and sometimes I wished that he would speak, for the silence oppressed me; Iguma lay perfectly still in the bottom of the canoe; it was evident she fully comprehended the danger we were in. On we went, hour after hour passed by. Daylight broke sooner than I had expected, and yet it seemed that we had been in the canoe a long time.
"Ah, white men, save my wife," he exclaimed, "the doctor has accused her of bewitching the queen, and should her majesty die, nothing will save my poor Iguma, her head will to a certainty be cut off." We all at once exclaimed that we would endeavour to save her, if he could point out the best way we could do so. "Shall we go to the king and ask her life?"
His words awoke me, and starting up I could distinguish two dots on the water right ahead. "Are they our friends, though?" I asked Charley, after I had gazed at them a few seconds. "I hope so," he answered. "I felt sure that they were ahead of us, for, thinking that we were before them, they have been paddling on, expecting all the while to overtake us." "What does Iguma think?"
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