For a moment they could feel the wind whistling past their faces and streaming through the women’s hair, though Thomas’s bowler seemed unperturbed by the breeze. Then there was the shock of a loud splash as Jib hit the surface of the water with the world’s largest belly flop.
Water spayed up around them, and the passengers were afraid they’d tumble off into the raging river. But Jib remained relentlessly upright, even as the water rushed them rapidly downstream. Jib bobbed up and down in the current, and his passengers were soaked to the skin, but there no longer seemed any danger of them slipping into the fury of he river.
On the shore behind them, the monkeys reached the riverbank and stopped, looking out across the water at the escaping humans and screeching at the top of their lungs.
