Then return and depart, for here I would watch alone.

When all is finished I will summon you." Komba bowed his handsome head and at a sign two of the men got out paddles, for more were not needed, and with slow and gentle strokes rowed us across the water.

The first thing I noted about this water at the time was that its blackness was inky, owing, I suppose, to its depth and the shadows of the towering cliff on one side and of the tall trees on the other.

Also I observed--for in this emergency, or perhaps because of it, I managed to keep my wits about me--that its banks on either side were the home of great numbers of crocodiles which lay there like logs.
I saw, further, that a little lower down where the water seemed to narrow, jagged boughs projected from its surface as though great trees had fallen, or been thrown into it.

I recalled in a numb sort of way that old Babemba had told us that when he was a boy he had escaped in a canoe down this estuary, and reflected that it would not be possible for him to do so now because of those snags.