Hans, who was still weak, we set to steer
with a paddle aft, which he did in a somewhat erratic fashion.
A stern chase is proverbially a long chase, but still the enemy with
their skilled rowers came up fast. When we were a mile from the reeds
they were within half a mile of us, and as we tired the proportion of
distance lessened. When we were two hundred yards from the reeds they
were not more than fifty or sixty yards behind, and then the real
struggle began.
It was short but terrible. We threw everything we could overboard,
including the ballast stones at the bottom of the canoe and the heavy
hide of the gorilla. This, as it proved, was fortunate, since the
thing sank but slowly and the foremost Pongo boats halted a minute to
recover so precious a relic, checking the others behind them, a
circumstance that helped us by twenty or thirty yards.
"Over with the plant!" I said.
But Stephen, looking quite old from exhaustion and with the sweat
streaming from him as he laboured at his unaccustomed paddle, gasped:
"For Heaven's sake, no, after all we have gone through to get it.
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