see me going to run down a canoe, stand by to give them eternal ginger
when they're ten yards from the stern. I'll whistle when you're
to fire."

Captain Kettle went on to the upper deck and took over the wheel, and
screwed it over hard-a-port. The little top-heavy steamer swung round in
a quick circle, lurching over dangerously to the outside edge. She ran
for half a mile up stream, and then turned again and came back at the
top of her gait. She was aiming at one particular canoe, which for a
while came on pluckily enough to meet her.

But African nerve has its limits, and the sight of this strange uncouth
steamer, which followed so unflinchingly their every movement, was too
much for the sweating paddlers. They turned their ponderous dug-out's
head, and tried to escape.

Kettle watched them like a cat. He had the whistle string in his teeth,
so as to leave him both hands free for the steering wheel, and when the
moment came he threw back his head, and drew the string. The scream of
the steam whistle was swamped instantly in the roar of a blasting
volley. Not many of the shots hit--for the African is not a
marksman--but the right effect was gained. The blacks in the canoe
ducked and flinched; they were for the moment quite demoralized; and
before they could man their paddles again, the stern-wheeler's stem had
crushed into their vessel, had cut a great gash from one side, had
rolled it over, and then mounted the wreck, and drove down stream across
the top of it.

A few more angry shots snapped out at the black bodies swimming in the
yellow water. "Hold up, there," Kettle ordered, "and let them swim if