Please ... just a little farther ... .

Margo cut loose half their supplies and kicked the bundles overboard-they landed with a splat in the mud The gondola slowed, settled toward the ground. Wind blew them sideways toward a snarl of broken trees. Margo yelled and yanked on the valve. Hydrogen hissed out of the balloon. The PVC gridwork thunked wetly into the mud with enough force to jolt her whole spine. Oww ... everything ached.

But they were down. Down, alive, and in one piece.

Margo just shut her eyes and shook.

When she opened them again, she found Koot and Kynan staring disconsolately at their wild surroundings. Koot, at least, was busy making them fast with cables and pegs while he stared at the tangle of brush and flooded river. Margo flushed. Some leader I turn out to be. Stranded two hundred fifty miles from the sea ...

She wanted to cover her face and cry. But this was her expedition and it was her mistake that had put them all in jeopardy.

"Koot? What do you know about the Limpopo?"

He studied the swollen river. "It is navigable at flood stage. That I know. It will be very dangerous if we try to raft it."

Raft it? "With what?"

Koot just looked at her. "Don't you English learn to think? Our gondola will float. It is PVC plastic. All we need to do is cut up the balloon to waterproof the floor and we can raft on it."

Raft a raging river filled with rocks and whole trees and God knew what else? Beats walking .....Yes, you're right. That's a good idea."

He snorted. "Of course it is, English. I thought of it."

Margo flushed again, but said nothing. He might be arrogant, but he was right, as usual. Through the effort of gestures and halting explanations, they told Kynan what had to be done. They opened every release valve on the gas bag and deflated it slowly then trod on the ballonets to help deflate them as well. Kynan used his knife to carefully slice open the Filmar wing. Then they unloaded the gondola and covered the rip-stop nylon with a layer of tough, transparent Filmar. Once that was done, they lashed it securely down with the cables which had held the gas bag attached to the gondola. The engines they abandoned by sinking them in the river.

Reloading the raft was tricky as they struggled not to puncture the layer of Filmar. Once the job was done, Kynan and Koot set to work cutting poles and rough paddles from tree branches. "There will be many dangers," Koot said glumly. "Crocodiles. Hippos. Rapids. We are low on food. We may all die."

Great pep talk. "We're not dead yet!" she flashed back. "And I'm not giving up. Let's push'er into the water."

Working together, they hauled the raft to the river and shoved off. Margo scrambled aboard and used her pole to help push them into deeper water. They picked up speed as the swollen current caught them and swept them downstream. She crossed her fingers, said a tiny prayer, and clutched her paddle.

Here goes nothing.

At least she wasn't hiding back home in Minnesota, waiting for life to pass her by the way it had passed by nearly everyone else in that godforsaken little town. If she was going to die out here, she'd die trying! That, Margo supposed as she dug her paddle into the racing current, was something worthy of an epitaph.

She hoped that thought didn't turn into prophecy.

The trip back down the Limpopo was an exhausting, nerve-racking blur of incidents which haunted her at night when she didn't sleep:

"Push off!" Koot screamed. "Now! Now!"

Margo thrust her improvised paddle against a jagged rock higher than her head. The shock of wood on stone all but dislocated her shoulder. Margo went to her knees as the raft spun away from the rock. One kneecap punched through the Filmar floor. Margo dropped her paddle to rig a hasty patch across the spurting hole. Then had to grab wildly for the paddle again as another rock towered in their path. The shock of contact spread white-hot fire through her damaged shoulder. But she held onto the paddle and kept lookout for more boulders. On the other side of the gondola, Kynan hung grimly to a long pole while Koot van Beek clung to his own paddle, trying to steer a course through the flood.

Another day, Margo wasn't sure which one, storm rains lashed them. The river rose swiftly, flinging them from one muddy crest to another. Then ahead, just visible through slashing rain, a sight that brought a cry of terror: wildebeest. A whole herd was trying to cross the Limpopo, thousands--tens of thousands--of animals at a time. The river ahead was a solid carpet of swimming, drowning wildebeest.

"KOOT!"

He came to his feet, swearing. "Try to reach the bank!"

They fought the flood, cracking heavily against a submerged rock. PVC burst along one side of the raft. Then they spun off and bounded downstream again, headed slightly outward toward the far bank. Margo dug in her paddle until her back screamed for mercy -- and kept paddling. If we hit that herd, we're dead .....loser, closer, they were going to make it...

The bank was infested with crocodiles.

"Keep going!" Koot lunged to his feet, rifle in hand, and braced with his legs wide apart.

KA-RUMP!

The rifle barked again and again. Crocodiles died or thrashed, wounded--on the muddy banks. Others flung themselves into the rain-lashed water or tore into wounded animals for a feast The bank neared, spun out of Margo's view, came back around closer than before. They were going to make it ... They would miss ....

The raft grounded, flinging Margo to her chest Koot leaped ashore, straining to hold the raft by one cable. Kynan jumped out beside him and snatched another slippery cable. Margo screamed "Look out!"

Koot let go, whirling and bringing up his heavy rifle. He fired once at the croc lunging toward Kynan. It slithered into the roaring whitewater and vanished.

Margo scrambled onto the muddy bank, snatching at the cable Koot had dropped. The raft fought for its freedom. She dug in heels and pulled. Rain slashed at her face, making breathing difficult. Lightning flared, but the roar of the river drowned out any thunder.

Koot yanked at another cable. The raft lifted an inch at a time. Margo worked backwards and maintained a steady pull, fearing her back would crack. The raft finally came clear of the river's maddened embrace and slid messily onto the mud. Only a dozen yards distant, crocodiles tore into other crocs brought down by Koot's rifle. Rain washed most of the blood away. Koot shot the nearest crocs then levered them into the water, creating a carcass-free perimeter around their position.

Margo panted, turning her shoulders to the driving rain to regain her breath, then found her M-1 carbine. Kynan Rhys Gower tied the raft down and set about repairing visible damage as best he could. Margo shook so hard- she could barely keep her grip on the rifle, but at least she was still alive to shake. Thirty yards downstream, wildebeest struggled in the water and screamed like terrified children while they died. She shut her eyes to the carnage. They'd come so close to plowing straight into that ....

More animals died during the next few hours than had died during the entire Ludi Megalenses. Possibly more than had died during the whole previous years at Rome. The death of the wildebeest herd didn't change the bloody savagery she'd witnessed in the Roman Circus, but it put life and death in much clearer perspective. Nature wasn't any nobler or gentler than human beings. It was just as deadly and just as cruel and just as savagely "unfair" to the weak ....

Maybe more so.

They had to wait hours past the end of the storm before the river was clear enough to risk rafting again.

That night they took turns once again standing watch.

They stayed on the river each night if no rapids threatened, trying to gain time, but dragged the raft onto the banks until dawn if the river was too rough to navigate in the dark. Tonight they'd come ashore rather than risk a treacherous stretch of white water visible just ahead in the fading twilight. That night, Margo spent a lot of time whimpering deep in her throat, glad the roar of white water drowned out the sound of her terror.