d saw all that like lightning. By a last instinct he clung to
the seat which united the two sides of the boat, and, his head out of
the water, under the capsized hull, he felt the irresistible current
carrying him away, and the almost perpendicular fall taking place.

The boat sank into the abyss hollowed out by the waters at the foot of
the cataract, and, after plunging deep, returned to the surface of the
river.

Dick Sand, a good swimmer, understood that his safety now depended on
the vigor of his arms.

A quarter of an hour after he reached the left bank, and there found
Mrs. Weldon, little Jack, and Cousin Benedict, whom Hercules had led
there in all haste.

But already the cannibals had disappeared in the tumult of the waters.
They, whom the capsized boat had not protected, had ceased to live
even before reaching the last depths of the abyss, and their bodies
were going to be torn to pieces on those sharp rocks on which the
under-current of the stream dashed itself.

CHAPTER XX.

CONCLUSION.

Two days after, the 20th of July, Mrs. Weldon and her companions met a
caravan going toward Emboma, at the mouth of the Congo. These were not
slave merchants, but honest Portuguese traders, who dealt in ivory.
They made the fugitives welcome, and the latter part of the journey
was accomplished under more agreeable conditions.

The meeting with this caravan was really a blessing from Heaven. Dick
Sand would never have been able to descend the Zaire on a raft. From
the Falls of Ntamo, as far as Yellala, the stream was a succession of
rapids and cataracts. Stanley counted seventy-two, and no boat could
undertake to pass them. It was at the mouth of the Congo that the
intrepid traveler, four years later, fought the last of the thirty-two
combats which he waged with the natives. Lower down, in the cataracts
of Mbelo, he escaped death by a miracle.

On the 11th of August, Mrs. Weldon, Dick Sand, Jack, Hercules, and
Cousin Benedict arrived at Emboma. Messrs. Motta Viega and Harrison
received them with generous hospitality. A steamer was about sailing
for the Isthmus of Panama. Mrs. Weldon and her companions took passage
in it, and happily reached the American coast.

A despatch sent to San Francisco informed Mr. Weldon of the
unlooked-for return of his wife and his child. He had vainly searched
for tidings of them at every place where he thought the "Pilgrim"
might have been wrecked.

Finally, on the 25th of A