Chapter Nine.The Mighty River.Before morning the “Jason” was pitching and tossing in a heavy sea which had risen very suddenly, and for the next week, whenever the brothers cared to face the rain, wind, and spray, they found Captain Banes on deck looking very grim and anxious and evidently in no humour for entering into conversation.The officers and crew too looked worn and harassed with hard work and the buffeting they had received; but it was evident that they took it all as a matter of course, and were perfectly confident about the ability of the brig to weather a far worse storm.It was quite bad enough, and prolonged till the pitching of the vessel became very wearisome; but there was one thing which always met the eyes of the brothers when they went on deck, and that was the figure of Briscoe tucked up in the best shelter he could find, beneath bulwark or behind deckhouse, clad in glistening black waterproof; and smoking a big cigar.He always saw the brothers as soon as they appeared on deck, and if they nodded to him he was quick to respond, but he never forced his company upon them; and it was so too in the cabin, for he was quiet and unobtrusive, speaking readily when spoken to, but only to subside at once when the conversation flagged.“What has become of his inquisitive organ, Brace?”“That’s what I was thinking: he seems quite a different man.”The storm was over at last, and one morning, as the brig was running due west under a full press of sail, it suddenly struck Brace that the water over the side was not so clear as it had been an hour before when he was leaning over the bulwark gazing down into the crystalline depths, trying to make out fish, and wondering how it was that, though there must be millions upon millions in the ocean through which they were sailing, he could not see one.“We must be getting into water that has been churned up by the storm,” thought Brace; but just then the second mate came up and he referred to him.“Water not so clear?” he said. “No wonder; we’re right off the mouths of the Amazon now.”“So far south?”“Yes, and running right in. Before long the water, instead of being like this—a bit thick—will be quite muddy, and this time to-morrow we shall be bidding good-bye to the sea, I suppose, for some time to come.”Lynton’s words were quite right, for the next day, after a most satisfactory run, Brace stood gazing over the bows of the brig at the thick muddy water that was churned up, and finding it hard to believe that he was sailing up the mouth of a river; for, look which way he would, nothing was to be seen but water, while when he tried his glass it was with no better success.But at last the land was to be made out on the starboard bow, or rather what was said to be land, a long, low, hazy something on the distant horizon.A couple of days later there was land plain enough on both sides of the brig, and they commenced a long, dismal progress up stream, of a monotonous kind that was wearisome in the extreme.As time went on, though, there was a change, and that was followed by plenty of variety in the shape of huge trees, with all their branches and leaves tolerably fresh, floating seaward, just as they had fallen from the bank after the mighty stream had undermined them. In one case there were land birds flitting about the few boughs that appeared above the water, but generally they were gulls snatching at the small fish attracted by the floating object.Once there was a great matted-together patch of earth fully thirty yards long and half as wide, a veritable island with bushes still in their places, floating steadily seaward, and helping to explain the muddiness of the water and the shallowness of the ocean far out and to right and left of where the great river debouched.Several consultations took place between the captain and Sir Humphrey as to the course to be taken, and the latter politely asked Briscoe to join in the discussion and give his opinion.“No,” he said; “I shan’t say anything. I’ve only one idea about it, and that is to sail up one of the big rivers that run out of this, one that has not been explored before, so as to get amongst what’s new.”“Well, that’s what we want, isn’t it, Free?” said Brace.“Exactly.”“Then I needn’t interfere in any way, gentlemen,” said Briscoe. “I only say choose your river, and let’s get to work: only pick one that has banks to it where we can land and do something.”“Then you don’t want us to go as far as we can up one of the explored rivers?” said the captain, smiling.“Certainly not,” cried Brace.“I understand, gentlemen. Give me time, and I’ll take you to just the place you want. I know the river, but I never heard its name. It runs, as far as I could make out, due nor’-west: that is, as far as I went up. After that it went no one knows where.”“That’s the place,” cried Brace. “Is it very big?”“Tidy, squire,” said the captain. “It’s very deep, and there’s plenty of room for the brig; and, what’s better, the current’s sluggish, so that we can make our way.”“What about the forest? Is it far back from the waterside?”“Hangs over it, so that one can send a boat ashore every night with a cable to make fast to one of the great trees, and save letting down and getting up the anchor.”“But about the river itself: can you take the brig up far—no rocks, shoals, or waterfalls?”“Nothing of the kind, sir,” said the captain. “It’s all deep, muddy, sluggish water running through a great forest, and I should say it carries off the drainage of hundreds of miles of country. It must come from the mountains right away yonder, and sometimes there must be tremendous rains to flood the stream, for I remember seeing marks of sand and weeds and dry slime thirty or forty feet up some of the trunks, and I should say that at times the whole country’s flooded and we shall have to look out to keep from grounding right away from the river’s course.”“You will take care of that,” said Sir Humphrey, smiling.“I shall try, sir,” said the captain grimly, “for I don’t think you’d like to wake up some morning and find the brig in the middle of a forest, waiting till the next flood-time came.”A week later, after being baffled again and again by adverse winds, Brace and his brother stood upon the deck of the brig one evening just as the wind dropped, as if simultaneously with the descent of the sun like a huge globe of orange fire behind a bank of trees a hundred yards to their left. The river, smooth and glassy, glowed in reflection from the ruddy sky, the sails flapped, and, no longer answering to her helm, the vessel was beginning slowly to yield to the sluggish current, when there was a rattling sound as the chain cable ran through the hawse-hole, and directly after the anchor took hold in the muddy bottom, the way on the brig was checked, and she swung in mid-stream with her bowsprit pointing out the direction of her future course—a long open waterway between two rapidly-darkening banks of trees whose boughs drooped over and dipped their muddied tips in the stream.“Will this do, squire?” said the captain.“Gloriously,” said Brace; “but I thought you meant to make fast every night to one of the trees.”“By-and-by, my lad, by-and-by, when there’s a handy tree. This would be bad landing for a boat—all one tangle of jungle, and hard to get through. You wanted to get where it was wild: hear that?”“Yes,” said Brace excitedly, as he heard a long-drawn cry from out of the forest, one which was answered from a distance, while the last cry was replied to faintly from still farther away. “What’s that—a jaguar?”“Monkey,” said the captain drily, “and that grunting just beginning and rising into a regular boom isn’t made by the pumas, for I don’t think there’d be any in these great forest-lands.”“What then?” said Brace, in a low voice, as if awe-stricken by the peculiar sounds.“Frogs, my lad, frogs.”Quaaak! A peculiarly loud and strident hollow echoing cry, which was startling in its suddenness and resembled nothing so much as a badly-blown note upon a giant trombone.“What’s that?”“That?” said the captain, thrusting his hat on one side so as to leave ample room for scratching one ear. “That? Oh, that’s a noise I only remember hearing once before, and nobody could ever tell me what it was. There’s a lot of queer noises to be heard in the forest of a night, and it always struck me that there are all kinds of wild beasts there such as have never been heard of before and never seen.”“I dessay,” said a voice behind them which made them both start round and stare at the speaker, who had been leaning over the bulwark unobserved.“What’s that?” said the captain sharply.“I said I dessay,” replied Briscoe; “but that thing isn’t one of them.”“What is it then?” said the captain shortly.“One of those great long-legged crane things that begin work about this time, fishing in the swamps for frogs.”“You think the noise was made by a crane?”“Sure of it, mister,” was the reply. “I’ve sat up before now at the edge of a swamp to shoot them for specimens, and there’s several kinds of that sort of bird make a row like that.”“Humph!” ejaculated the captain gruffly. “You seem to know. Perhaps, then, you’ll tell us what made that noise?”He held up his hand, and all listened to a peculiar whirring sound which began at a distance, came closer and closer till it seemed to pass from under the trees, swing round the ship, and slowly die away again.“Ah, that!” said Briscoe quietly. “Sounds like someone letting off a firework with a bang at the end gone damp. No, I don’t know what that is. Yes, I do,” he added hastily. “That’s a big bird too.”“Crane?” said the captain, with an incredulous snort.“No, sir,” said the American: “different thing altogether. It’s a night bird that flies round catching beetles and moths—bird something like our ‘Whip-poor-Wills’ or ‘Chuck-Will’s-widows.’”“Bah!” said the captain.“Yes, that’s right,” cried Brace: “a bird something like our English night-hawk that sits in the dark parts of the woods and makes a whirring sound; only it isn’t half so loud as this.”“Well,” said the captain grudgingly, “perhaps you’re right. I’m not good at birds. I know a gull or a goose or turkey or chicken. I give in.”The strange whirring sound as of machinery came and went again; but the maker was invisible, and attention was taken from it directly by a loud splash just astern.“Fish!” cried Brace.“Yes, that’s fish,” said the captain. “No mistake about that, and you may as well get your tackle to work, squire, for these rivers swarm with ’em, and some of them are good eating. Bit of fish would be a pleasant change if you can supply the cook.”“But it’s too dark for fishing,” said Brace.“Better chance of catching something,” said the captain. “But that isn’t fish; that’s something fishing.”There was no need for the captain to draw attention to the fact, for those near him were straining their eyes towards the shore, from which a strange beating and splashing sound arose, but apparently from beyond the black bank of trees formed by the edge of the forest.“There must be a lake on the other side of the bank,” said Brace eagerly.“No,” replied the captain; “only one of the creeks that run inland among the trees. Come, do you know what that is?”“It sounds like an alligator splashing about in shallow water,” replied Brace.“You’ve hit it first time, squire. It’s a big one lashing about with its tail to stun the fish so that they float up ready for his meal. That’s right, isn’t it, Mr Briscoe?”“Quite,” said the American. “I’ve seen them doing it in the Mississippi swamps; but they were only small ones, five or six feet long. This one sounds as if it were a thumper.”“Yes,” said Sir Humphrey, “I suppose there are monsters in these waters. Ah!” he continued, as the splashing grew louder; “that sounds like a warning to us not to think of bathing while we are up the river.”“Bathing!” cried the captain. “I should think not. You can’t do it here, sir, for, besides alligators and different kinds of pike, these waters swarm with small fish that are always savagely hungry. The big ones are plentiful enough, but the little ones go in shoals and are as ready to attack as the others, and they have teeth like lancets, so take care.”The splashing ceased, and this seemed to be the signal for fresh sounds to arise both up and down the river and from the forest depths on either bank, till the night seemed to be alive with a strange chorus, which, as Brace and his companions listened, culminated in a tremendous crash, followed by a dead silence.“Whatever is that?” whispered Brace.“Big tree tumbled,” said Briscoe carelessly.“But there is no wind—there was no lightning.”“No,” said the American, “but it had to tumble some time. You often hear that in the woods: they go on growing and growing for hundreds of years, and then they stop from old age and overgrowth, and begin to rot and rot, till all at once, night or day, the top’s too heavy for the bottom, and down they come. We’ll go and have a look at that one in the morning.”
Before morning the “Jason” was pitching and tossing in a heavy sea which had risen very suddenly, and for the next week, whenever the brothers cared to face the rain, wind, and spray, they found Captain Banes on deck looking very grim and anxious and evidently in no humour for entering into conversation.
The officers and crew too looked worn and harassed with hard work and the buffeting they had received; but it was evident that they took it all as a matter of course, and were perfectly confident about the ability of the brig to weather a far worse storm.
It was quite bad enough, and prolonged till the pitching of the vessel became very wearisome; but there was one thing which always met the eyes of the brothers when they went on deck, and that was the figure of Briscoe tucked up in the best shelter he could find, beneath bulwark or behind deckhouse, clad in glistening black waterproof; and smoking a big cigar.
He always saw the brothers as soon as they appeared on deck, and if they nodded to him he was quick to respond, but he never forced his company upon them; and it was so too in the cabin, for he was quiet and unobtrusive, speaking readily when spoken to, but only to subside at once when the conversation flagged.
“What has become of his inquisitive organ, Brace?”
“That’s what I was thinking: he seems quite a different man.”
The storm was over at last, and one morning, as the brig was running due west under a full press of sail, it suddenly struck Brace that the water over the side was not so clear as it had been an hour before when he was leaning over the bulwark gazing down into the crystalline depths, trying to make out fish, and wondering how it was that, though there must be millions upon millions in the ocean through which they were sailing, he could not see one.
“We must be getting into water that has been churned up by the storm,” thought Brace; but just then the second mate came up and he referred to him.
“Water not so clear?” he said. “No wonder; we’re right off the mouths of the Amazon now.”
“So far south?”
“Yes, and running right in. Before long the water, instead of being like this—a bit thick—will be quite muddy, and this time to-morrow we shall be bidding good-bye to the sea, I suppose, for some time to come.”
Lynton’s words were quite right, for the next day, after a most satisfactory run, Brace stood gazing over the bows of the brig at the thick muddy water that was churned up, and finding it hard to believe that he was sailing up the mouth of a river; for, look which way he would, nothing was to be seen but water, while when he tried his glass it was with no better success.
But at last the land was to be made out on the starboard bow, or rather what was said to be land, a long, low, hazy something on the distant horizon.
A couple of days later there was land plain enough on both sides of the brig, and they commenced a long, dismal progress up stream, of a monotonous kind that was wearisome in the extreme.
As time went on, though, there was a change, and that was followed by plenty of variety in the shape of huge trees, with all their branches and leaves tolerably fresh, floating seaward, just as they had fallen from the bank after the mighty stream had undermined them. In one case there were land birds flitting about the few boughs that appeared above the water, but generally they were gulls snatching at the small fish attracted by the floating object.
Once there was a great matted-together patch of earth fully thirty yards long and half as wide, a veritable island with bushes still in their places, floating steadily seaward, and helping to explain the muddiness of the water and the shallowness of the ocean far out and to right and left of where the great river debouched.
Several consultations took place between the captain and Sir Humphrey as to the course to be taken, and the latter politely asked Briscoe to join in the discussion and give his opinion.
“No,” he said; “I shan’t say anything. I’ve only one idea about it, and that is to sail up one of the big rivers that run out of this, one that has not been explored before, so as to get amongst what’s new.”
“Well, that’s what we want, isn’t it, Free?” said Brace.
“Exactly.”
“Then I needn’t interfere in any way, gentlemen,” said Briscoe. “I only say choose your river, and let’s get to work: only pick one that has banks to it where we can land and do something.”
“Then you don’t want us to go as far as we can up one of the explored rivers?” said the captain, smiling.
“Certainly not,” cried Brace.
“I understand, gentlemen. Give me time, and I’ll take you to just the place you want. I know the river, but I never heard its name. It runs, as far as I could make out, due nor’-west: that is, as far as I went up. After that it went no one knows where.”
“That’s the place,” cried Brace. “Is it very big?”
“Tidy, squire,” said the captain. “It’s very deep, and there’s plenty of room for the brig; and, what’s better, the current’s sluggish, so that we can make our way.”
“What about the forest? Is it far back from the waterside?”
“Hangs over it, so that one can send a boat ashore every night with a cable to make fast to one of the great trees, and save letting down and getting up the anchor.”
“But about the river itself: can you take the brig up far—no rocks, shoals, or waterfalls?”
“Nothing of the kind, sir,” said the captain. “It’s all deep, muddy, sluggish water running through a great forest, and I should say it carries off the drainage of hundreds of miles of country. It must come from the mountains right away yonder, and sometimes there must be tremendous rains to flood the stream, for I remember seeing marks of sand and weeds and dry slime thirty or forty feet up some of the trunks, and I should say that at times the whole country’s flooded and we shall have to look out to keep from grounding right away from the river’s course.”
“You will take care of that,” said Sir Humphrey, smiling.
“I shall try, sir,” said the captain grimly, “for I don’t think you’d like to wake up some morning and find the brig in the middle of a forest, waiting till the next flood-time came.”
A week later, after being baffled again and again by adverse winds, Brace and his brother stood upon the deck of the brig one evening just as the wind dropped, as if simultaneously with the descent of the sun like a huge globe of orange fire behind a bank of trees a hundred yards to their left. The river, smooth and glassy, glowed in reflection from the ruddy sky, the sails flapped, and, no longer answering to her helm, the vessel was beginning slowly to yield to the sluggish current, when there was a rattling sound as the chain cable ran through the hawse-hole, and directly after the anchor took hold in the muddy bottom, the way on the brig was checked, and she swung in mid-stream with her bowsprit pointing out the direction of her future course—a long open waterway between two rapidly-darkening banks of trees whose boughs drooped over and dipped their muddied tips in the stream.
“Will this do, squire?” said the captain.
“Gloriously,” said Brace; “but I thought you meant to make fast every night to one of the trees.”
“By-and-by, my lad, by-and-by, when there’s a handy tree. This would be bad landing for a boat—all one tangle of jungle, and hard to get through. You wanted to get where it was wild: hear that?”
“Yes,” said Brace excitedly, as he heard a long-drawn cry from out of the forest, one which was answered from a distance, while the last cry was replied to faintly from still farther away. “What’s that—a jaguar?”
“Monkey,” said the captain drily, “and that grunting just beginning and rising into a regular boom isn’t made by the pumas, for I don’t think there’d be any in these great forest-lands.”
“What then?” said Brace, in a low voice, as if awe-stricken by the peculiar sounds.
“Frogs, my lad, frogs.”
Quaaak! A peculiarly loud and strident hollow echoing cry, which was startling in its suddenness and resembled nothing so much as a badly-blown note upon a giant trombone.
“What’s that?”
“That?” said the captain, thrusting his hat on one side so as to leave ample room for scratching one ear. “That? Oh, that’s a noise I only remember hearing once before, and nobody could ever tell me what it was. There’s a lot of queer noises to be heard in the forest of a night, and it always struck me that there are all kinds of wild beasts there such as have never been heard of before and never seen.”
“I dessay,” said a voice behind them which made them both start round and stare at the speaker, who had been leaning over the bulwark unobserved.
“What’s that?” said the captain sharply.
“I said I dessay,” replied Briscoe; “but that thing isn’t one of them.”
“What is it then?” said the captain shortly.
“One of those great long-legged crane things that begin work about this time, fishing in the swamps for frogs.”
“You think the noise was made by a crane?”
“Sure of it, mister,” was the reply. “I’ve sat up before now at the edge of a swamp to shoot them for specimens, and there’s several kinds of that sort of bird make a row like that.”
“Humph!” ejaculated the captain gruffly. “You seem to know. Perhaps, then, you’ll tell us what made that noise?”
He held up his hand, and all listened to a peculiar whirring sound which began at a distance, came closer and closer till it seemed to pass from under the trees, swing round the ship, and slowly die away again.
“Ah, that!” said Briscoe quietly. “Sounds like someone letting off a firework with a bang at the end gone damp. No, I don’t know what that is. Yes, I do,” he added hastily. “That’s a big bird too.”
“Crane?” said the captain, with an incredulous snort.
“No, sir,” said the American: “different thing altogether. It’s a night bird that flies round catching beetles and moths—bird something like our ‘Whip-poor-Wills’ or ‘Chuck-Will’s-widows.’”
“Bah!” said the captain.
“Yes, that’s right,” cried Brace: “a bird something like our English night-hawk that sits in the dark parts of the woods and makes a whirring sound; only it isn’t half so loud as this.”
“Well,” said the captain grudgingly, “perhaps you’re right. I’m not good at birds. I know a gull or a goose or turkey or chicken. I give in.”
The strange whirring sound as of machinery came and went again; but the maker was invisible, and attention was taken from it directly by a loud splash just astern.
“Fish!” cried Brace.
“Yes, that’s fish,” said the captain. “No mistake about that, and you may as well get your tackle to work, squire, for these rivers swarm with ’em, and some of them are good eating. Bit of fish would be a pleasant change if you can supply the cook.”
“But it’s too dark for fishing,” said Brace.
“Better chance of catching something,” said the captain. “But that isn’t fish; that’s something fishing.”
There was no need for the captain to draw attention to the fact, for those near him were straining their eyes towards the shore, from which a strange beating and splashing sound arose, but apparently from beyond the black bank of trees formed by the edge of the forest.
“There must be a lake on the other side of the bank,” said Brace eagerly.
“No,” replied the captain; “only one of the creeks that run inland among the trees. Come, do you know what that is?”
“It sounds like an alligator splashing about in shallow water,” replied Brace.
“You’ve hit it first time, squire. It’s a big one lashing about with its tail to stun the fish so that they float up ready for his meal. That’s right, isn’t it, Mr Briscoe?”
“Quite,” said the American. “I’ve seen them doing it in the Mississippi swamps; but they were only small ones, five or six feet long. This one sounds as if it were a thumper.”
“Yes,” said Sir Humphrey, “I suppose there are monsters in these waters. Ah!” he continued, as the splashing grew louder; “that sounds like a warning to us not to think of bathing while we are up the river.”
“Bathing!” cried the captain. “I should think not. You can’t do it here, sir, for, besides alligators and different kinds of pike, these waters swarm with small fish that are always savagely hungry. The big ones are plentiful enough, but the little ones go in shoals and are as ready to attack as the others, and they have teeth like lancets, so take care.”
The splashing ceased, and this seemed to be the signal for fresh sounds to arise both up and down the river and from the forest depths on either bank, till the night seemed to be alive with a strange chorus, which, as Brace and his companions listened, culminated in a tremendous crash, followed by a dead silence.
“Whatever is that?” whispered Brace.
“Big tree tumbled,” said Briscoe carelessly.
“But there is no wind—there was no lightning.”
“No,” said the American, “but it had to tumble some time. You often hear that in the woods: they go on growing and growing for hundreds of years, and then they stop from old age and overgrowth, and begin to rot and rot, till all at once, night or day, the top’s too heavy for the bottom, and down they come. We’ll go and have a look at that one in the morning.”
Chapter Ten.In the Black Forest.There was a fascination about that night scene which kept Brace and his brother on deck for hours trying to pierce the black darkness, and whenever they made up their minds that it was time to go down to their berths something was sure to happen in the mysterious forest depths or near at hand in the river.One time it was a piercing cry as of someone in agony; at another a sneering, chuckling laugh taken up in a chorus as if by a mocking party of strange watchers, who, accustomed to the darkness, could see everything going on aboard the brig; whisperings; sounds of crawling creatures passing over sticky mud and wallowing impatiently in their efforts to get along; peculiar angry barkings uttered by the alligators; and a dreadful rustling in the trees, which Brace felt certain must be caused by huge serpents winding in and out amongst the branches.He suggested this to the captains who uttered a grunt.“Very likely,” he said. “They do creep about in that way after the monkeys. ’Tis their nature to. This is the sort of country for those gentlemen, both the dry ones and the wet ones.”“I don’t understand you,” said Brace. “Oh, you mean the boas and the anacondas.”“That’s right, squire, and I daresay we shall see some tidy big ones. Yes, that sounds like one working about. Ah! he struck at it and missed, I should say. Bit disappointing, for snakes like their suppers as well as other people, and I’m going down to have mine. Are you coming?”“No,” said Brace decisively; “I’m going to stay up here and listen.”Sir Humphrey and Briscoe elected to do the same, and for another hour they listened, and watched the display made by the fireflies; while every now and then, as the muddy water trickled and seemed to whisper against the sides of the brig, the listeners were startled by some strange splash close by, which sounded to them as if the river swarmed with huge creatures which kept on swimming around and beneath the vessel, partly attracted by curiosity as to the new visitor to their habitat, partly resenting its presence by splashing and beating the surface as they rose or dived.“It’s all very interesting,” said Briscoe at last, “and I could stop here all night watching and listening; but we must have sleep, or we shall be no good to-morrow, so I’ll say good night, gentlemen. If anything happens, my gun and rifle are both loaded, and I’ll come on deck directly.”“That’s right,” said Brace sharply. “But what can happen?”“Who can say?” replied the American. “We know we’re in a wild country, perhaps the very first of all people who have come so far into the forest, and we don’t know what enemies may come. I’m pretty sure of two: stinging insects and fever; but there’s no telling what may come out of the dark jungles. We’re pretty safe from wild beasts, but for aught we know we may have been watched by savages ever since the morning. Savages generally have canoes, bows, spears, and clubs. I don’t say it’s likely, but some of them might come creeping aboard in the night, and if I was captain I should arm the watch. Ugh! what’s that?” he cried, in a horrified tone.“Barrel of my rifle, Mr Briscoe,” said Lynton quietly, from out of the darkness.“Why did you do that?” said the American sharply.“Only to show you that the watch is armed, sir; and if there is anything unpleasant in the night we shan’t be long in letting you know.”Another hour passed before Sir Humphrey and his brother went below, and then their first act was to thrust cartridges into their guns and rifles, and to lay them with their ammunition-belts ready to hand; but even after that precaution sleep was slow in coming to Brace’s pillow, for he lay listening to the rush, gurgle, and splash of the river till the strange sounds grew confused and died out, all but a peculiar rustling that seemed to be made by a huge serpent creeping among the branches of the trees: and this puzzled the listener, for it was impossible that trees and a huge reptile could be out in the middle of the great muddy river.Then it seemed that the anchor which held them fast out in mid-stream must have dragged and the brig have been carried by an eddy close in shore, to run aground, so that the masts were tangled with the overhanging boughs.Thoughts came fast after this, but more and more confused, till they were so mixed that the listener could pick out nothing clear from what had become a mental tangle in which he grew so weary that nothing seemed to matter in the least, and he did not trouble about anything more till a voice said:“Come, Brace, isn’t it time you roused up?”The reply was a dull thump on the floor caused by the young man rolling out of his berth, to find his brother half-dressed, and that the troubles of the night had been merely dreams, for a glance out of the cabin window showed that the brig’s stern was in mid-stream, with the muddy water turned to ruddy gold by the rising sun, in whose rays the current flashed and looked glorious beyond the power of words to paint. The banks of trees which dipped their boughs right into the stream, instead of looking mysteriously black, were also glowing with colour, and in several parts full of moving life, as birds of brilliant hues flitted from bough to bough, and an excited company of active monkeys swung themselves here and there in their eagerness to get a view of the strange object which had invaded their forest home.It was settled at once over breakfast that a boat should be manned directly after the meal, so that a landing might be effected on one or the other shore, the forest promising endless attractions for the naturalists.“All right, gentlemen,” said Captain Banes; “the boat shall be ready, for there isn’t a breath of air this morning.”“Why do you speak like that?” said Sir Humphrey, noting the captain’s manner. “What has the wind to do with it?”“Only that if there was a breeze I should advise you to take advantage of it and go on up the river, for you’ll do no good here except by shooting from the boat.”“Oh, but we must land and go up country a bit,” cried Brace.“It isn’t to be done, squire,” said the captain. “Take your glass when you go on deck, and you’ll see that the forest is all one tangle, through which you’d have to cut your way, unless you can find a creek and pole the boat along among the trees.”“There must be a creek in yonder,” said Briscoe, “where we heard that great alligator splashing.”“Well, try, gentlemen,” said the captain, smiling; “there’s nothing done without: only don’t go and overdo it, for you’ll find it terribly hot and steamy under the trees.”“I’ll see to that,” said Sir Humphrey quietly; and soon after, well provided with arms and ammunition, the party stepped into the boat, the men dropped their oars into the water with a splash, and in an instant there was a tremendous eddy and a little wave arose, showing the course made by some startled inhabitant of the river—fish or reptile, probably the latter, disturbed from where it had lain in the shadow of the brig.“Might have had a shot if the water had been clear,” said Brace excitedly. “I’ve got ball in one barrel.”“Good plan,” said Briscoe, “for you never know what you may see next. I’d keep an eye upward amongst the low boughs of the trees. Use yours, too, Dan.”Brace was already carrying out that plan, attracted as he was by the sight of parrots and the glimpses of green and scarlet he kept seeing—brilliant tints that evidently formed part of the gorgeous livery worn by the macaws which made a home high up amongst the top branches of the huge trees.Brace glanced back at the brig swinging in midstream by her chain, with her square sails hanging motionless in the hot air; and then as the men dipped their oars gently, the boat glided close in towards the overhanging boughs, which displayed every tint of rich tropical green.One was literally covered from the water’s edge to its summit with a gorgeous sheet of brilliant scarlet blossoms, over which flitted butterfly and beetle, a very living museum of the most beautiful insects the travellers had ever seen.“It does not seem as if we need go any farther, Brace,” said Sir Humphrey.“So I was thinking,” said the former. “Look at those lovely humming-birds. Why, they’re not so big by a long way as the butterflies.”“I was looking,” said Sir Humphrey, “and longing for a tiny gun loaded with dry sand or water, to bring some of them down. Look at the bright blue steely gleams of their forked tails.”“No, no,” whispered Brace, as if afraid to speak aloud lest the glorious vision of colour should pass away; “I meant those tiny fellows all blue and emerald-green there, with the tufts of snowy-white down above their legs. Oh, what a pity!”The last words were said as the blaze of blossom and flitting colour passed away, for as the boat glided on they passed in amongst the veil of drooping leaves and twigs which brushed over their heads and shoulders, and were at once in a soft twilight, looking up into a wilderness of trunks and boughs, where for some moments after the sudden change all looked strangely obscure and dense.But there was plenty to see there as the men laid in their oars and one in the bows thrust out the hook to take hold of a branch here and there and drag the boat along towards a more open part, which soon took the form of a vegetable tunnel, proving to be an arched-in muddy creek, amongst whose overhanging cover something was in motion, but what it was did not become evident for a few minutes in the gloom.“Is it a great serpent?” said Brace huskily.“No,” said Briscoe quickly. “A party of monkeys playing at follow-my-leader. Look, there they go, close after one another. It looks just like some great reptile, but you can see now. They’re afraid of the boat.”He had hardly spoken when the latter quivered from the effects of a sudden concussion.“Take care,” said Sir Humphrey. “You’ve run upon a sunken trunk.”“No, sir,” said the man in the bows, as he held on to a tree with the boat-hook; “that wasn’t our doing. It was one of they alligators gave us a slap with his tail. Look at the water. There he goes.”The man was right enough, for the water was eddying violently from the passage of something beneath, and proof was given directly after, by the appearance of a dark gnarled something a few inches above the surface, this something curving over and being in the act of disappearing, when, carried away by the excitement of the moment, Brace raised his double gun, took a quick aim, and fired, with the result that there was a tremendous splash, the appearance of a flattened tail for a moment, and amidst a discordant screaming from overhead, the occupants of the boat had a glimpse of what seemed to be a writhing hank of enormously thick chocolate and tawny-yellow cable, which seemed to have been thrown from above, to fall with another splash into the water some twenty yards in front of where the boat lay. Then there was a momentary gleam of colour as the object writhed and twined, and then the muddy water rose and fell and washed among the trunks which rose straight from the surface, while for a few moments no one spoke, but every eye was directed at the spot where the water quivered as if something was in motion beneath.“I fired at the alligator,” said Brace, turning to his brother with a half-startled look.“Yes, and scared that big snake,” said Briscoe. “He was having a nap tied up in a knot on some big branch. I’ve seen ’em sometimes hanging over the side in thick folds. You tumbled him over with the startling. Warning to him to take a turn round the branch with his tail.”“Be ready to fire,” said Brace hurriedly. “It is sure to come up again to try and creep into a tree.”“No,” said Briscoe quietly. “He won’t show himself again for hours.”“Nonsense,” said Brace impatiently; “it would be drowned.”Briscoe smiled good-humouredly.“Drowned?” he said. “Just about as much as an eel would. Nice place this for a bathe, what with the alligators and the anacondas. Not much chance for a man if one of those brutes took hold of him. Pull him under in a moment.”“Do you think one of those creatures would attack in the water?” said Sir Humphrey.“I’ve seen one drag a pig down,” said Briscoe. “They’re as much at home in the water as out, and they can swim as easily as a water-snake.”“Then there’s nothing to prevent that thing from thrusting out its head and seizing one of us,” said Brace.“Nothing at all,” replied Briscoe, and then he smiled as he saw the men exchanging glances andDan taking out a keen bowie-knife. “But he won’t. He’ll lie down below there among the roots for hours, I daresay. If he did come up of course we should give him a shot.”“Ugh!” said Brace, shuddering. “But what are we going to do?”“Push on up the creek,” said his brother. “We may come to an open part. Go on, my lads.”The man with the boat-hook went on catching the boughs and drawing the boat along, and twice over a splash and the following movement of the water amongst the mossy, muddy tree-trunks told of the presence of some loathsome reptile; but the men sat fast, gazing stolidly to right and left in search of danger, and more than once Brace gave a glance at his double gun as if to see that it was cocked and ready.The sensation was not pleasant, and it attacked everyone in the boat. The American might be right, they thought, and the serpent remain startled and quiescent down in the depths of the muddy water, but still they felt the possibility of that terrible head darting out at a victim, and a low sigh of relief rose again and again as the distance from where the serpent fell increased.It was plain enough now that they were in a winding creek whose sides were dense with trunks and branches forming an impenetrable barrier had there been the slightest inclination to land; but all thought of this passed away almost from the beginning. In fact, it was perfectly clear that the only way to penetrate the forest was to go up some waterway such as the one they were in, and this they followed slowly for a few hundred yards, the man with the boat-hook cleverly guiding the vessel in and out amongst the many obstacles, till the place grew darker and darker through the density of the foliage overhead.The creek was for the most part painfully still—painfully, for the weird gloom raised up the idea that thousands of eyes were watching their movements, and that at any moment some terrible attack might be made.That they were surrounded by living creatures they had ample proof given them by strange rustlings among the branches overhead, and sometimes by a sudden hasty rush which, as Briscoe said, might be anything.“What do you mean by anything?” said Brace, in a low voice.“Snake, monkey, big bird, or cat; but, you see, everything is afraid of us and scuffling away as hard as it can, even in the water. Look at that.”“Yes, I see,” said Brace, “another alligator.”For the American had drawn his attention to a wave raised up by something rushing past the bows of the boat.“Well, I don’t know about that,” said Briscoe; “I rather fancy that was one of those gar-fish—alligator gars, they call ’em in the States. They’re great pikey fish with tremendous teeth.”“But not big like that?”“Oh, but they’re big enough and precious fierce and strong. I shouldn’t wonder at all if that was one of the brutes.”“What’s that?” asked Sir Humphrey, a couple of hours later, for the man with the boat-hook turned and spoke.“Don’t see as I can get any farther, sir; the boat’s about wedged in here, and there don’t seem any way of getting on without we had a saw.”“Is there no room to right or left?” said Brace. “It seems a pity to go back yet.”“P’raps you’d take a look, gen’lemen,” said the sailor.Brace was in the act of laying down his gun when his brother, who was before him, stood up, and then uttered a sharp ejaculation, close upon a dull twanging sound from somewhere forward among the trees.“What is it, Free?” cried Brace excitedly.“An arrow,” said Sir Humphrey sharply. “Here, quick, Brace; it may be poisoned. You, Mr Briscoe, keep a good look-out for—”The rest of his speech was stopped by the sharp report of the American’s gun, who fired as he half-knelt in the stern of the boat, aiming just above the men’s heads.The next moment he and his man fired again, and as the report died out the occupants of the boat could hear a splashing sound as of paddles some little distance in advance.
There was a fascination about that night scene which kept Brace and his brother on deck for hours trying to pierce the black darkness, and whenever they made up their minds that it was time to go down to their berths something was sure to happen in the mysterious forest depths or near at hand in the river.
One time it was a piercing cry as of someone in agony; at another a sneering, chuckling laugh taken up in a chorus as if by a mocking party of strange watchers, who, accustomed to the darkness, could see everything going on aboard the brig; whisperings; sounds of crawling creatures passing over sticky mud and wallowing impatiently in their efforts to get along; peculiar angry barkings uttered by the alligators; and a dreadful rustling in the trees, which Brace felt certain must be caused by huge serpents winding in and out amongst the branches.
He suggested this to the captains who uttered a grunt.
“Very likely,” he said. “They do creep about in that way after the monkeys. ’Tis their nature to. This is the sort of country for those gentlemen, both the dry ones and the wet ones.”
“I don’t understand you,” said Brace. “Oh, you mean the boas and the anacondas.”
“That’s right, squire, and I daresay we shall see some tidy big ones. Yes, that sounds like one working about. Ah! he struck at it and missed, I should say. Bit disappointing, for snakes like their suppers as well as other people, and I’m going down to have mine. Are you coming?”
“No,” said Brace decisively; “I’m going to stay up here and listen.”
Sir Humphrey and Briscoe elected to do the same, and for another hour they listened, and watched the display made by the fireflies; while every now and then, as the muddy water trickled and seemed to whisper against the sides of the brig, the listeners were startled by some strange splash close by, which sounded to them as if the river swarmed with huge creatures which kept on swimming around and beneath the vessel, partly attracted by curiosity as to the new visitor to their habitat, partly resenting its presence by splashing and beating the surface as they rose or dived.
“It’s all very interesting,” said Briscoe at last, “and I could stop here all night watching and listening; but we must have sleep, or we shall be no good to-morrow, so I’ll say good night, gentlemen. If anything happens, my gun and rifle are both loaded, and I’ll come on deck directly.”
“That’s right,” said Brace sharply. “But what can happen?”
“Who can say?” replied the American. “We know we’re in a wild country, perhaps the very first of all people who have come so far into the forest, and we don’t know what enemies may come. I’m pretty sure of two: stinging insects and fever; but there’s no telling what may come out of the dark jungles. We’re pretty safe from wild beasts, but for aught we know we may have been watched by savages ever since the morning. Savages generally have canoes, bows, spears, and clubs. I don’t say it’s likely, but some of them might come creeping aboard in the night, and if I was captain I should arm the watch. Ugh! what’s that?” he cried, in a horrified tone.
“Barrel of my rifle, Mr Briscoe,” said Lynton quietly, from out of the darkness.
“Why did you do that?” said the American sharply.
“Only to show you that the watch is armed, sir; and if there is anything unpleasant in the night we shan’t be long in letting you know.”
Another hour passed before Sir Humphrey and his brother went below, and then their first act was to thrust cartridges into their guns and rifles, and to lay them with their ammunition-belts ready to hand; but even after that precaution sleep was slow in coming to Brace’s pillow, for he lay listening to the rush, gurgle, and splash of the river till the strange sounds grew confused and died out, all but a peculiar rustling that seemed to be made by a huge serpent creeping among the branches of the trees: and this puzzled the listener, for it was impossible that trees and a huge reptile could be out in the middle of the great muddy river.
Then it seemed that the anchor which held them fast out in mid-stream must have dragged and the brig have been carried by an eddy close in shore, to run aground, so that the masts were tangled with the overhanging boughs.
Thoughts came fast after this, but more and more confused, till they were so mixed that the listener could pick out nothing clear from what had become a mental tangle in which he grew so weary that nothing seemed to matter in the least, and he did not trouble about anything more till a voice said:
“Come, Brace, isn’t it time you roused up?”
The reply was a dull thump on the floor caused by the young man rolling out of his berth, to find his brother half-dressed, and that the troubles of the night had been merely dreams, for a glance out of the cabin window showed that the brig’s stern was in mid-stream, with the muddy water turned to ruddy gold by the rising sun, in whose rays the current flashed and looked glorious beyond the power of words to paint. The banks of trees which dipped their boughs right into the stream, instead of looking mysteriously black, were also glowing with colour, and in several parts full of moving life, as birds of brilliant hues flitted from bough to bough, and an excited company of active monkeys swung themselves here and there in their eagerness to get a view of the strange object which had invaded their forest home.
It was settled at once over breakfast that a boat should be manned directly after the meal, so that a landing might be effected on one or the other shore, the forest promising endless attractions for the naturalists.
“All right, gentlemen,” said Captain Banes; “the boat shall be ready, for there isn’t a breath of air this morning.”
“Why do you speak like that?” said Sir Humphrey, noting the captain’s manner. “What has the wind to do with it?”
“Only that if there was a breeze I should advise you to take advantage of it and go on up the river, for you’ll do no good here except by shooting from the boat.”
“Oh, but we must land and go up country a bit,” cried Brace.
“It isn’t to be done, squire,” said the captain. “Take your glass when you go on deck, and you’ll see that the forest is all one tangle, through which you’d have to cut your way, unless you can find a creek and pole the boat along among the trees.”
“There must be a creek in yonder,” said Briscoe, “where we heard that great alligator splashing.”
“Well, try, gentlemen,” said the captain, smiling; “there’s nothing done without: only don’t go and overdo it, for you’ll find it terribly hot and steamy under the trees.”
“I’ll see to that,” said Sir Humphrey quietly; and soon after, well provided with arms and ammunition, the party stepped into the boat, the men dropped their oars into the water with a splash, and in an instant there was a tremendous eddy and a little wave arose, showing the course made by some startled inhabitant of the river—fish or reptile, probably the latter, disturbed from where it had lain in the shadow of the brig.
“Might have had a shot if the water had been clear,” said Brace excitedly. “I’ve got ball in one barrel.”
“Good plan,” said Briscoe, “for you never know what you may see next. I’d keep an eye upward amongst the low boughs of the trees. Use yours, too, Dan.”
Brace was already carrying out that plan, attracted as he was by the sight of parrots and the glimpses of green and scarlet he kept seeing—brilliant tints that evidently formed part of the gorgeous livery worn by the macaws which made a home high up amongst the top branches of the huge trees.
Brace glanced back at the brig swinging in midstream by her chain, with her square sails hanging motionless in the hot air; and then as the men dipped their oars gently, the boat glided close in towards the overhanging boughs, which displayed every tint of rich tropical green.
One was literally covered from the water’s edge to its summit with a gorgeous sheet of brilliant scarlet blossoms, over which flitted butterfly and beetle, a very living museum of the most beautiful insects the travellers had ever seen.
“It does not seem as if we need go any farther, Brace,” said Sir Humphrey.
“So I was thinking,” said the former. “Look at those lovely humming-birds. Why, they’re not so big by a long way as the butterflies.”
“I was looking,” said Sir Humphrey, “and longing for a tiny gun loaded with dry sand or water, to bring some of them down. Look at the bright blue steely gleams of their forked tails.”
“No, no,” whispered Brace, as if afraid to speak aloud lest the glorious vision of colour should pass away; “I meant those tiny fellows all blue and emerald-green there, with the tufts of snowy-white down above their legs. Oh, what a pity!”
The last words were said as the blaze of blossom and flitting colour passed away, for as the boat glided on they passed in amongst the veil of drooping leaves and twigs which brushed over their heads and shoulders, and were at once in a soft twilight, looking up into a wilderness of trunks and boughs, where for some moments after the sudden change all looked strangely obscure and dense.
But there was plenty to see there as the men laid in their oars and one in the bows thrust out the hook to take hold of a branch here and there and drag the boat along towards a more open part, which soon took the form of a vegetable tunnel, proving to be an arched-in muddy creek, amongst whose overhanging cover something was in motion, but what it was did not become evident for a few minutes in the gloom.
“Is it a great serpent?” said Brace huskily.
“No,” said Briscoe quickly. “A party of monkeys playing at follow-my-leader. Look, there they go, close after one another. It looks just like some great reptile, but you can see now. They’re afraid of the boat.”
He had hardly spoken when the latter quivered from the effects of a sudden concussion.
“Take care,” said Sir Humphrey. “You’ve run upon a sunken trunk.”
“No, sir,” said the man in the bows, as he held on to a tree with the boat-hook; “that wasn’t our doing. It was one of they alligators gave us a slap with his tail. Look at the water. There he goes.”
The man was right enough, for the water was eddying violently from the passage of something beneath, and proof was given directly after, by the appearance of a dark gnarled something a few inches above the surface, this something curving over and being in the act of disappearing, when, carried away by the excitement of the moment, Brace raised his double gun, took a quick aim, and fired, with the result that there was a tremendous splash, the appearance of a flattened tail for a moment, and amidst a discordant screaming from overhead, the occupants of the boat had a glimpse of what seemed to be a writhing hank of enormously thick chocolate and tawny-yellow cable, which seemed to have been thrown from above, to fall with another splash into the water some twenty yards in front of where the boat lay. Then there was a momentary gleam of colour as the object writhed and twined, and then the muddy water rose and fell and washed among the trunks which rose straight from the surface, while for a few moments no one spoke, but every eye was directed at the spot where the water quivered as if something was in motion beneath.
“I fired at the alligator,” said Brace, turning to his brother with a half-startled look.
“Yes, and scared that big snake,” said Briscoe. “He was having a nap tied up in a knot on some big branch. I’ve seen ’em sometimes hanging over the side in thick folds. You tumbled him over with the startling. Warning to him to take a turn round the branch with his tail.”
“Be ready to fire,” said Brace hurriedly. “It is sure to come up again to try and creep into a tree.”
“No,” said Briscoe quietly. “He won’t show himself again for hours.”
“Nonsense,” said Brace impatiently; “it would be drowned.”
Briscoe smiled good-humouredly.
“Drowned?” he said. “Just about as much as an eel would. Nice place this for a bathe, what with the alligators and the anacondas. Not much chance for a man if one of those brutes took hold of him. Pull him under in a moment.”
“Do you think one of those creatures would attack in the water?” said Sir Humphrey.
“I’ve seen one drag a pig down,” said Briscoe. “They’re as much at home in the water as out, and they can swim as easily as a water-snake.”
“Then there’s nothing to prevent that thing from thrusting out its head and seizing one of us,” said Brace.
“Nothing at all,” replied Briscoe, and then he smiled as he saw the men exchanging glances andDan taking out a keen bowie-knife. “But he won’t. He’ll lie down below there among the roots for hours, I daresay. If he did come up of course we should give him a shot.”
“Ugh!” said Brace, shuddering. “But what are we going to do?”
“Push on up the creek,” said his brother. “We may come to an open part. Go on, my lads.”
The man with the boat-hook went on catching the boughs and drawing the boat along, and twice over a splash and the following movement of the water amongst the mossy, muddy tree-trunks told of the presence of some loathsome reptile; but the men sat fast, gazing stolidly to right and left in search of danger, and more than once Brace gave a glance at his double gun as if to see that it was cocked and ready.
The sensation was not pleasant, and it attacked everyone in the boat. The American might be right, they thought, and the serpent remain startled and quiescent down in the depths of the muddy water, but still they felt the possibility of that terrible head darting out at a victim, and a low sigh of relief rose again and again as the distance from where the serpent fell increased.
It was plain enough now that they were in a winding creek whose sides were dense with trunks and branches forming an impenetrable barrier had there been the slightest inclination to land; but all thought of this passed away almost from the beginning. In fact, it was perfectly clear that the only way to penetrate the forest was to go up some waterway such as the one they were in, and this they followed slowly for a few hundred yards, the man with the boat-hook cleverly guiding the vessel in and out amongst the many obstacles, till the place grew darker and darker through the density of the foliage overhead.
The creek was for the most part painfully still—painfully, for the weird gloom raised up the idea that thousands of eyes were watching their movements, and that at any moment some terrible attack might be made.
That they were surrounded by living creatures they had ample proof given them by strange rustlings among the branches overhead, and sometimes by a sudden hasty rush which, as Briscoe said, might be anything.
“What do you mean by anything?” said Brace, in a low voice.
“Snake, monkey, big bird, or cat; but, you see, everything is afraid of us and scuffling away as hard as it can, even in the water. Look at that.”
“Yes, I see,” said Brace, “another alligator.”
For the American had drawn his attention to a wave raised up by something rushing past the bows of the boat.
“Well, I don’t know about that,” said Briscoe; “I rather fancy that was one of those gar-fish—alligator gars, they call ’em in the States. They’re great pikey fish with tremendous teeth.”
“But not big like that?”
“Oh, but they’re big enough and precious fierce and strong. I shouldn’t wonder at all if that was one of the brutes.”
“What’s that?” asked Sir Humphrey, a couple of hours later, for the man with the boat-hook turned and spoke.
“Don’t see as I can get any farther, sir; the boat’s about wedged in here, and there don’t seem any way of getting on without we had a saw.”
“Is there no room to right or left?” said Brace. “It seems a pity to go back yet.”
“P’raps you’d take a look, gen’lemen,” said the sailor.
Brace was in the act of laying down his gun when his brother, who was before him, stood up, and then uttered a sharp ejaculation, close upon a dull twanging sound from somewhere forward among the trees.
“What is it, Free?” cried Brace excitedly.
“An arrow,” said Sir Humphrey sharply. “Here, quick, Brace; it may be poisoned. You, Mr Briscoe, keep a good look-out for—”
The rest of his speech was stopped by the sharp report of the American’s gun, who fired as he half-knelt in the stern of the boat, aiming just above the men’s heads.
The next moment he and his man fired again, and as the report died out the occupants of the boat could hear a splashing sound as of paddles some little distance in advance.
Chapter Eleven.Grim Danger.Brace felt an icy chill run through him, and for a few moments he was paralysed.Not longer, for directly after a thrill of excitement set every nerve throbbing.Laying down his gun, he snatched his knife from its sheath, thrust the point inside the sleeve of his brother’s flannel shirt, ripped it to the shoulder, and laid bare the great white biceps muscle, in which the head of an arrow was embedded, so nearly passing through that as Brace placed his hand beneath the arm he could feel the point of the missile.“Don’t hesitate,” whispered Sir Humphrey. “Poisoned or not poisoned, that arrow must be extracted. Will you cut down to it or shall I let Briscoe?”“I’ll do it,” said Brace, through his set teeth; “but I can’t help hurting you, Free: I must do that.”“Go on. Act,” said his brother firmly. “I’mnot a child. Cut boldly.”Brace placed the point of the knife close to the shaft of the arrow, his hand trembling so that he could not keep the point still. Then he was as firm as a rock, for the thought came to him that he must be doing wrong to make so terrible a cut, and he knew that he risked dividing some important vessel.The knife fell into the bottom of the boat with a loud jangling sound, for the right idea had come, and Brace played the surgeon as if he had been trained to the profession.Keeping his left hand beneath his brother’s arm just clear of the raised skin where the point of the arrow pressed, he seized the shaft firmly, gave a sudden thrust, and forced the arrow-head right through, keeping up the pressure till both barbs were well clear, and with them four or five inches of the thin bamboo.“Now, one of you,” he cried to Dan, “pick up my knife and cut through the arrow.”The man grasped the idea, and with one cut divided the shaft, while in less time than it takes to tell it Brace pulled with his left hand, and the part of the shaft in the wound was drawn right through, while the blood began to flow.The next moment Brace’s lips were applied to the wound, first on one side and then on the other, making it bleed more freely; and this he supplemented by holding his brother’s arm over the side and bathing and pressing the wound.“It may be a false alarm, lad,” said Sir Humphrey, speaking slowly and calmly; “but it is as well to take the precaution.”“Yes, of course,” said Brace huskily, and his heart sank low and the chill of dread increased, for as he sucked the wound where the arrow had entered he was conscious of a strange pungent acid taste, which clung to his lips and caused a stinging sensation at the tip of his tongue.He scooped up a little water in the hollow of his hand and then snatched it away, flinging the water over his brother’s face, for he was conscious of a sharp pricking sensation as if he had scarified the skin against a thorn.But he plunged his hand into the water again and raised it quickly to his mouth to wash away the bitter taste before applying his lips once more to the wounded arm.This time the water reached his mouth, but he felt a repetition of the pricking in his fingers, and to his astonishment two tiny silvery fish fell into the bottom of the boat, while he found that two of his fingers were red.But he had no time to think of self, and he worked hard bathing and encouraging the bleeding from both orifices of the wound and applying his lips to them again and again.Sir Humphrey was sitting motionless in the bottom of the boat with his back against the side, bearing the pain he suffered patiently, and lighting bravely to master the mental agony which attacked him with suggestions of all the horrors that attend a poisoned wound.Meanwhile Briscoe had not been idle. The keen inquisitiveness of his nature was now shown in a very different way, for his eyes were searching the depths of the forest as he peered through the gloom among the dimly-seen trunks again, and he fired twice in the direction from which the splashing of paddles had been heard.He never turned his head nor shifted his eyes for a moment from that point, reloading by touch alone, while after he had fired the first shot he took upon himself to give orders to the sailors in a stern, firm voice.“Get back to the brig as fast as you can, my lads.”It was not until he had assured himself of the fact that their enemy was in retreat that he turned for a moment to where Brace was busy with his amateur surgery.“That’s right,” he said; “I shouldn’t bandage it up yet. Let it bleed, in case the arrow was smeared with anything nasty. It’s hardly likely that it was, though.”As he spoke he picked up the barbed head, glanced at it, and then slipped it into his pocket in the most indifferent way.“I wouldn’t fidget about that,” he said to Sir Humphrey. “Most of the things we hear are old women’s tales. Here, hold my gun,” he added sharply to his man.He thrust an arm round Sir Humphrey, just as his eyes were closing and he glided slowly along the side of the boat.The next moment he too leaned over to scoop up some water and trickle it over the fainting man’s face.“Bah!” he ejaculated, “how sharp they are!” For a little silvery fish, which in company with a shoal had darted at his finger, fell with a pat on the wounded man’s breast, and lay quivering and leaping till it disappeared through the grating at the bottom of the boat.“Does that fainting mean danger?” cried Brace excitedly.“Oh, no. Let his head go right down, and he’ll soon come to.”“But you are of opinion that the arrow was poisoned,” whispered Brace, in a whisper which was expressive of painful anxiety.“It had been smeared with some stuff by an ignorant savage; but it may not be poisonous to human beings, and even if it were you’ve been drawing it all away from the wound.”“Oh, make haste, men; make haste,” cried Brace excitedly.“Let ’em be, my lad,” said Briscoe; “they’re doing their best. Come, keep cool, for your brother’s sake.”“Oh, don’t talk like that,” cried Brace wildly. “Look at him: he’s dying and we right away in the forest like this.”“You keep cool,” said the American sternly. “He isn’t dying nor anything like it. Only fainting from the shock, and he’ll soon come to. It won’t help him for you to turn hysterical like a girl. You began right; now keep it up.”“What, shall I go on doing something to the wound?”“No, I’d let that be now. You must have cleared it from anything that wiped off as the arrow passed in, and he’s a strong, brave fellow. There, look: he’s coming to.”Sir Humphrey’s eyelids had begun to quiver, and at the end of a few minutes he had quite recovered consciousness.He lay back gazing straight up at the boughs of the trees, beneath which they were passing more quickly now, for they were gliding along with the current; but twice over he let his eyes rest upon those of his brother, and he lightly pressed the young man’s hand.“It’s very unlucky,” he said. “So unexpected and uncalled for. I hardly expected that we should have to encounter this.”“They’re a treacherous lot,” said Briscoe quietly. “It’s enough to make a man fire upon them at sight. Wound hurt much?”“It feels as if a red-hot iron had been thrust through it,” said Sir Humphrey.“Glad of it,” said the American, who was taking the affair in a very calm manner.“What!” exclaimed Brace, as he turned round quickly with flashing eyes.“Glad of it, sir. Good sign. Fine, healthy pain. Now, if it had felt numb and dull I shouldn’t have liked it, for it would have sounded as if something nasty was on the arrow. There, you keep a good heart, and we’ll soon have you back on board. Then you can have a few hours’ sleep, and you’ll be all right by night.”“I hope so,” said Sir Humphrey calmly, and he closed his eyes once more, while Brace turned his upon his companion with a look full of wild anxiety, but only to receive a quiet nod and a reassuring smile in return.“I don’t think there are any more near,” said Briscoe, “and I don’t want to have the unpleasant feeling upon my conscience that I’ve killed a fellow-creature; but if any more of them send arrows in this direction, Dan and I will shoot at sight, and we’re uncommonly good shots.”He had hardly uttered the last words when there was a sharp whirr as if a beetle had darted by the speaker’s ear, and they could see an arrow stuck quivering in a tree the boat was just passing, while Dan immediately sent a charge of buckshot crashing among the leaves.“That was a bad aim,” said the American, facing sharply round, “and I can’t see who sent it. Can you make out a bit of dark skin anywhere among the bushes, Dan?”The man shook his head as he quickly reloaded his weapon, and there was a grumbling murmur in the negative.The rustling, washing sound of the water beneath the boat as the men urged it along with all their might, everyone giving a thrust with his oar whenever he could reach a tree, was now the only thing that disturbed the silence.But the opening out of the creek into the river seemed as far off as ever, and Brace’s agony increased as he kept watching for the bright sunshine flashing from the water, but only to turn his eyes back to where his brother lay with his face looking very hard and drawn.“Can’t get a glimpse of anyone,” said Briscoe; “and I don’t think it’s of any use to fire to scare ’em. Whoever fired that last shot must be on the land, for there’s no sign of a boat. Does anyone of you hear paddling?”“No, no. We can’t hear anything moving,” came in chorus.Then Brace spoke out excitedly: “Surely we ought to be back in the river by this time! Have we missed our way?”“Well, I don’t like to say we have,” replied the American; “but it does seem a very long time before we get out of this watery swamp. Hold hard a minute, my lads, and try and make out how the stream runs.”The men ceased thrusting at the tree-trunks as soon as Briscoe had given the word, and by slow degrees the boat came to a stand, and then began to float back in the opposite direction to that in which they had been forcing it.“Why, we’re going wrong,” cried one of the men excitedly, springing up.“Well, never you mind,” said the American sharply. “Just you sit down and wait for orders. We’ll tell you which way to go.”“But—” began the man.“Silence, sir!” cried Briscoe sharply. “All! look out!”An arrow stuck in the side of the boat so close to Brace that it passed through his loose flannel shirt, pinning it to the wood; and Briscoe swung himself round and fired sharply in the direction from which it had come.The shot rattled among the leaves, and they and a few twigs came pattering down into the water, while directly after there was another report from right away to their left.“Hah! that must have come from the brig,” cried Brace.“Right,” said Briscoe. “Now then, lads, you know which way to punt her along: the creek opens out and winds about in all sorts of ways, and I daresay we could wander in a regular maze for hours; but we know which direction to make for now. You listen keenly for the next answer to my shot, Mr Brace, for I’ll fire again soon: only I should like something to fire at. See that arrow?”“Yes,” said Brace, stretching out his hand to withdraw the arrow from where it had pierced the side of the boat.“Don’t do that; let it be, and draw your flannel over the feathering. Look at the slope it takes. I fancy the man who shot that must have been seated on the branch of a tree.”“It may have been shot from a distance and taken a curve.”“No,” said Briscoe; “there are too many boughs for it to have come through. It was sent from pretty close, I should say; and between ourselves I hope we shan’t have any more. Ah, that’s right, my lads. She’s moving nicely now. I only wish you were able to row.”“Same here, sir,” growled the man handling the boat-hook; “and we wish you could bring down one of they savages as keeps on trying to hit the target, meaning we. This sort of thing aren’t pleasant here in the dark.”The American nodded, as his eyes literally glittered in the gloomy shades, for he kept on turning them in all directions, and then with his face lighting up he took a quick aim and fired away to his right, scattering leaves and sending them pattering down; but apparently with no other effect save that there was another shot fired, and certainly from a much nearer point.Just then the men gave a cheer, for as they urged the boat in the direction of the spot whence came the last shot, they caught sight of a bright ray of light.Five minutes later there was a distinct lightening of the gloom, and before many more minutes had passed the boat was forced out suddenly through a curtain of drooping boughs into the dazzling light of the open river.The “Jason” was riding at anchor quite a quarter of a mile lower down the stream, while close in shore was another of the brig’s boats, standing up in whose stern the unmistakeable figure of Captain Banes was seen.
Brace felt an icy chill run through him, and for a few moments he was paralysed.
Not longer, for directly after a thrill of excitement set every nerve throbbing.
Laying down his gun, he snatched his knife from its sheath, thrust the point inside the sleeve of his brother’s flannel shirt, ripped it to the shoulder, and laid bare the great white biceps muscle, in which the head of an arrow was embedded, so nearly passing through that as Brace placed his hand beneath the arm he could feel the point of the missile.
“Don’t hesitate,” whispered Sir Humphrey. “Poisoned or not poisoned, that arrow must be extracted. Will you cut down to it or shall I let Briscoe?”
“I’ll do it,” said Brace, through his set teeth; “but I can’t help hurting you, Free: I must do that.”
“Go on. Act,” said his brother firmly. “I’mnot a child. Cut boldly.”
Brace placed the point of the knife close to the shaft of the arrow, his hand trembling so that he could not keep the point still. Then he was as firm as a rock, for the thought came to him that he must be doing wrong to make so terrible a cut, and he knew that he risked dividing some important vessel.
The knife fell into the bottom of the boat with a loud jangling sound, for the right idea had come, and Brace played the surgeon as if he had been trained to the profession.
Keeping his left hand beneath his brother’s arm just clear of the raised skin where the point of the arrow pressed, he seized the shaft firmly, gave a sudden thrust, and forced the arrow-head right through, keeping up the pressure till both barbs were well clear, and with them four or five inches of the thin bamboo.
“Now, one of you,” he cried to Dan, “pick up my knife and cut through the arrow.”
The man grasped the idea, and with one cut divided the shaft, while in less time than it takes to tell it Brace pulled with his left hand, and the part of the shaft in the wound was drawn right through, while the blood began to flow.
The next moment Brace’s lips were applied to the wound, first on one side and then on the other, making it bleed more freely; and this he supplemented by holding his brother’s arm over the side and bathing and pressing the wound.
“It may be a false alarm, lad,” said Sir Humphrey, speaking slowly and calmly; “but it is as well to take the precaution.”
“Yes, of course,” said Brace huskily, and his heart sank low and the chill of dread increased, for as he sucked the wound where the arrow had entered he was conscious of a strange pungent acid taste, which clung to his lips and caused a stinging sensation at the tip of his tongue.
He scooped up a little water in the hollow of his hand and then snatched it away, flinging the water over his brother’s face, for he was conscious of a sharp pricking sensation as if he had scarified the skin against a thorn.
But he plunged his hand into the water again and raised it quickly to his mouth to wash away the bitter taste before applying his lips once more to the wounded arm.
This time the water reached his mouth, but he felt a repetition of the pricking in his fingers, and to his astonishment two tiny silvery fish fell into the bottom of the boat, while he found that two of his fingers were red.
But he had no time to think of self, and he worked hard bathing and encouraging the bleeding from both orifices of the wound and applying his lips to them again and again.
Sir Humphrey was sitting motionless in the bottom of the boat with his back against the side, bearing the pain he suffered patiently, and lighting bravely to master the mental agony which attacked him with suggestions of all the horrors that attend a poisoned wound.
Meanwhile Briscoe had not been idle. The keen inquisitiveness of his nature was now shown in a very different way, for his eyes were searching the depths of the forest as he peered through the gloom among the dimly-seen trunks again, and he fired twice in the direction from which the splashing of paddles had been heard.
He never turned his head nor shifted his eyes for a moment from that point, reloading by touch alone, while after he had fired the first shot he took upon himself to give orders to the sailors in a stern, firm voice.
“Get back to the brig as fast as you can, my lads.”
It was not until he had assured himself of the fact that their enemy was in retreat that he turned for a moment to where Brace was busy with his amateur surgery.
“That’s right,” he said; “I shouldn’t bandage it up yet. Let it bleed, in case the arrow was smeared with anything nasty. It’s hardly likely that it was, though.”
As he spoke he picked up the barbed head, glanced at it, and then slipped it into his pocket in the most indifferent way.
“I wouldn’t fidget about that,” he said to Sir Humphrey. “Most of the things we hear are old women’s tales. Here, hold my gun,” he added sharply to his man.
He thrust an arm round Sir Humphrey, just as his eyes were closing and he glided slowly along the side of the boat.
The next moment he too leaned over to scoop up some water and trickle it over the fainting man’s face.
“Bah!” he ejaculated, “how sharp they are!” For a little silvery fish, which in company with a shoal had darted at his finger, fell with a pat on the wounded man’s breast, and lay quivering and leaping till it disappeared through the grating at the bottom of the boat.
“Does that fainting mean danger?” cried Brace excitedly.
“Oh, no. Let his head go right down, and he’ll soon come to.”
“But you are of opinion that the arrow was poisoned,” whispered Brace, in a whisper which was expressive of painful anxiety.
“It had been smeared with some stuff by an ignorant savage; but it may not be poisonous to human beings, and even if it were you’ve been drawing it all away from the wound.”
“Oh, make haste, men; make haste,” cried Brace excitedly.
“Let ’em be, my lad,” said Briscoe; “they’re doing their best. Come, keep cool, for your brother’s sake.”
“Oh, don’t talk like that,” cried Brace wildly. “Look at him: he’s dying and we right away in the forest like this.”
“You keep cool,” said the American sternly. “He isn’t dying nor anything like it. Only fainting from the shock, and he’ll soon come to. It won’t help him for you to turn hysterical like a girl. You began right; now keep it up.”
“What, shall I go on doing something to the wound?”
“No, I’d let that be now. You must have cleared it from anything that wiped off as the arrow passed in, and he’s a strong, brave fellow. There, look: he’s coming to.”
Sir Humphrey’s eyelids had begun to quiver, and at the end of a few minutes he had quite recovered consciousness.
He lay back gazing straight up at the boughs of the trees, beneath which they were passing more quickly now, for they were gliding along with the current; but twice over he let his eyes rest upon those of his brother, and he lightly pressed the young man’s hand.
“It’s very unlucky,” he said. “So unexpected and uncalled for. I hardly expected that we should have to encounter this.”
“They’re a treacherous lot,” said Briscoe quietly. “It’s enough to make a man fire upon them at sight. Wound hurt much?”
“It feels as if a red-hot iron had been thrust through it,” said Sir Humphrey.
“Glad of it,” said the American, who was taking the affair in a very calm manner.
“What!” exclaimed Brace, as he turned round quickly with flashing eyes.
“Glad of it, sir. Good sign. Fine, healthy pain. Now, if it had felt numb and dull I shouldn’t have liked it, for it would have sounded as if something nasty was on the arrow. There, you keep a good heart, and we’ll soon have you back on board. Then you can have a few hours’ sleep, and you’ll be all right by night.”
“I hope so,” said Sir Humphrey calmly, and he closed his eyes once more, while Brace turned his upon his companion with a look full of wild anxiety, but only to receive a quiet nod and a reassuring smile in return.
“I don’t think there are any more near,” said Briscoe, “and I don’t want to have the unpleasant feeling upon my conscience that I’ve killed a fellow-creature; but if any more of them send arrows in this direction, Dan and I will shoot at sight, and we’re uncommonly good shots.”
He had hardly uttered the last words when there was a sharp whirr as if a beetle had darted by the speaker’s ear, and they could see an arrow stuck quivering in a tree the boat was just passing, while Dan immediately sent a charge of buckshot crashing among the leaves.
“That was a bad aim,” said the American, facing sharply round, “and I can’t see who sent it. Can you make out a bit of dark skin anywhere among the bushes, Dan?”
The man shook his head as he quickly reloaded his weapon, and there was a grumbling murmur in the negative.
The rustling, washing sound of the water beneath the boat as the men urged it along with all their might, everyone giving a thrust with his oar whenever he could reach a tree, was now the only thing that disturbed the silence.
But the opening out of the creek into the river seemed as far off as ever, and Brace’s agony increased as he kept watching for the bright sunshine flashing from the water, but only to turn his eyes back to where his brother lay with his face looking very hard and drawn.
“Can’t get a glimpse of anyone,” said Briscoe; “and I don’t think it’s of any use to fire to scare ’em. Whoever fired that last shot must be on the land, for there’s no sign of a boat. Does anyone of you hear paddling?”
“No, no. We can’t hear anything moving,” came in chorus.
Then Brace spoke out excitedly: “Surely we ought to be back in the river by this time! Have we missed our way?”
“Well, I don’t like to say we have,” replied the American; “but it does seem a very long time before we get out of this watery swamp. Hold hard a minute, my lads, and try and make out how the stream runs.”
The men ceased thrusting at the tree-trunks as soon as Briscoe had given the word, and by slow degrees the boat came to a stand, and then began to float back in the opposite direction to that in which they had been forcing it.
“Why, we’re going wrong,” cried one of the men excitedly, springing up.
“Well, never you mind,” said the American sharply. “Just you sit down and wait for orders. We’ll tell you which way to go.”
“But—” began the man.
“Silence, sir!” cried Briscoe sharply. “All! look out!”
An arrow stuck in the side of the boat so close to Brace that it passed through his loose flannel shirt, pinning it to the wood; and Briscoe swung himself round and fired sharply in the direction from which it had come.
The shot rattled among the leaves, and they and a few twigs came pattering down into the water, while directly after there was another report from right away to their left.
“Hah! that must have come from the brig,” cried Brace.
“Right,” said Briscoe. “Now then, lads, you know which way to punt her along: the creek opens out and winds about in all sorts of ways, and I daresay we could wander in a regular maze for hours; but we know which direction to make for now. You listen keenly for the next answer to my shot, Mr Brace, for I’ll fire again soon: only I should like something to fire at. See that arrow?”
“Yes,” said Brace, stretching out his hand to withdraw the arrow from where it had pierced the side of the boat.
“Don’t do that; let it be, and draw your flannel over the feathering. Look at the slope it takes. I fancy the man who shot that must have been seated on the branch of a tree.”
“It may have been shot from a distance and taken a curve.”
“No,” said Briscoe; “there are too many boughs for it to have come through. It was sent from pretty close, I should say; and between ourselves I hope we shan’t have any more. Ah, that’s right, my lads. She’s moving nicely now. I only wish you were able to row.”
“Same here, sir,” growled the man handling the boat-hook; “and we wish you could bring down one of they savages as keeps on trying to hit the target, meaning we. This sort of thing aren’t pleasant here in the dark.”
The American nodded, as his eyes literally glittered in the gloomy shades, for he kept on turning them in all directions, and then with his face lighting up he took a quick aim and fired away to his right, scattering leaves and sending them pattering down; but apparently with no other effect save that there was another shot fired, and certainly from a much nearer point.
Just then the men gave a cheer, for as they urged the boat in the direction of the spot whence came the last shot, they caught sight of a bright ray of light.
Five minutes later there was a distinct lightening of the gloom, and before many more minutes had passed the boat was forced out suddenly through a curtain of drooping boughs into the dazzling light of the open river.
The “Jason” was riding at anchor quite a quarter of a mile lower down the stream, while close in shore was another of the brig’s boats, standing up in whose stern the unmistakeable figure of Captain Banes was seen.
Chapter Twelve.Aboard the Brig Again.The two boats reached the anchored vessel about the same time, and Sir Humphrey, who looked ghastly, was carefully lifted on board and borne down into the cabin, where the captain examined the injured arm.Brace watched his countenance anxiously while he was doing so, feeling, as he did, ready to cling to the first hand extended to him in his terrible difficulty, for his brother lay back now half-insensible and as if overcome by a terrible feeling of drowsiness. The young man stood silently waiting for the captain to speak.“Now then, squire,” said the captain grimly, after his long examination, “do you want to hear what I think of this?”“Yes, yes, of course I do, captain,” cried Brace excitedly.“Then look here, squire, I’m not a doctor nor a surgeon; but a skipper who goes on long voyages all over the world gets to know something about physic as well as about broken bones and out-o’-joints, cuts, and scratches.”“Yes, of course, I know that,” said Brace, who was becoming very anxious about his brother’s condition, and could not understand how the captain could remain so calm and unmoved.“Well, then, this is just the same as a cut, only it happens to be a deep one that goes right through the arm.”“Yes, yes, I know that,” said Brace impatiently. “But—”“Wait a bit, squire. You young chaps are always in such a hurry. Now, I was going to say that your brother here, being a fine healthy man who don’t take liberties with his constitution, all there’d be to do would be to tie up the cut and make him a sling for his arm, keep the wound clean, and wait patiently till it had grown together again.”“But don’t you see it’s a wound from an arrow? Talk low, or he will hear you.”“Not he,” said the captain; “he don’t understand a word we’re saying—poor chap! He’s quite unconscious. I know what you mean about the poison, and I’ve seen a man once who had a poisoned arrow shot into him.”“And did he look like my brother does now?”“Not a bit, my lad; and I fancy that if there was any poison on the arrow that went through your brother’s arm, you pretty well sucked it out and washed it away.”“Then you don’t think there is any danger?” asked Brace.“That’s right, squire. I don’t think there’s any danger. Mind, I saythink, for I’m not a proper qualified man.”“But you can tell me your candid opinion about my brother’s wound,” said Brace.“Well,” replied the captain, “I’ll go so far as to say that if I’d got that hole through my arm I should be very savage, I should make use of some language, and I should say I’d shoot every Indian I saw with a bow and arrows, and of course I shouldn’t do it; but I don’t think I should make myself uncomfortable about it any more, but just leave it to Nature to cure.”“You think that he will recover, then?” said Brace eagerly.“I do,” said the captain. “What have you got to say about it, mister?”He turned to the American as he spoke, and Briscoe, who had been keenly watching the half-insensible patient all the time Brace and the captain had been speaking, rose up slowly.“I’m not a doctor, skipper,” he said, “and the only experience I have had in this way has been with rattlesnake bites.”“Well, that’s near enough for me, sir,” said the captain tartly. “I should say that the difference between the symptoms of a wound from a poisoned arrow and one caused by a poisoned tooth wouldn’t be very great.”“Perhaps not,” said Briscoe thoughtfully. “Well, I don’t quite like this drowsiness that has come over our patient; it’s ’most as if he had been given a dose of opium to soothe the pain. It is the only bad symptom I see.”“Don’t say you’re no doctor, sir,” said Captain Banes, with a low chuckle, “because it seems to me that you are.”“Why do you think so?” said Briscoe, looking at him wonderingly.“Because you’ve put your finger down on the exact spot directly.”“I do not understand you.”“Why, I mean this. What did I do, squire, when you and I were alone in the cabin when we first brought your brother aboard?”“You gave him a part of a glass of water with some laudanum in it.”“To be sure I did, to calm down the pain; and that was what I call laudanum and Mr Briscoe here calls opium.”“Then I agree with you, Captain Banes, that there are no bad symptoms at present,” said Briscoe quickly. “Let us leave him to sleep off the effect of what you have given him, and see how he looks when he wakes up.”“Eh? What is it, Dellow?” said the captain sharply, for the first mate appeared at the door of the cabin.“We want to know what’s to be done,” said the mate.“What about?” asked the captain. “What’s the matter?”“Three arrows have come aboard since you came down.”“Were you able to see who shot them?” said the captain.“No.”“Is there any wind?”“Not enough to fill a sail,” was the mate’s response.“Humph! and it’s no use to drop down lower, because I expect the Indians have canoes. Keep the men all under cover of the bulwarks, and you and Lynton can take a couple of rifles and amuse yourselves shooting any wild beasts you see on the starboard bow. But mind you all keep well under cover. You understand?”“Oh, yes, I understand,” said the mate, smiling in a peculiar way; and he went to the arms rack and took down two rifles and ammunition-belts for the second mate and himself.“Hold hard a minute,” said the captain. “Just understand this, Dellow: if they leave you alone you leave them alone. If they don’t they must take the consequences.”“I understand,” said the mate coolly. “How’s Sir Humphrey going on, sir? Is there any danger?” This was to Brace.“The captain and Mr Briscoe think there is nothing to be alarmed about,” was the reply. “I hope they are right.”“So does everybody, sir,” said the mate warmly. “He seems to be sleeping easy like.”Brace nodded.“Well, he wouldn’t be doing so if poison had got hold of him.”“Right, Dellow,” said the captain, nodding his head with satisfaction. “Look here, squire, you try and make your mind a bit easy.”“I am going to,” replied Brace.“Well, then, let Sir Humphrey have a good sleep while you go on deck with Dellow here, and take your rifle with you too. You’re a good shot, and ought to be able to bring some of those foreign archers to their senses.”“I came to collect natural-history specimens,” said Brace warmly. “I don’t want to slaughter ignorant savages.”“Then you don’t believe in that Italian law?” said the captain, with a chuckle.“Which Italian law do you mean?” said Brace, staring.“Well, Roman-Latin then, if you like. It’s all the same, isn’t it—old ItalianLex talionis. That means, serve out the chap who has served you out, don’t it?”“Something of the kind,” said Brace, smiling. “No, I don’t want to take revenge on those who are perhaps innocent.”“Just as you like, sir,” said the captain, rather gruffly; “though I don’t see where the innocence comes in. But, setting aside taking revenge, I suppose you won’t mind helping to defend the vessel if some of these fellows should come off in their canoes to attack us?”“Why, of course not,” said Brace warmly. “You know I would do my best.”“To be sure I do, squire,” said the captain, smiling. “Well, then, suppose you go and help Dellow and Lynton, and I daresay Mr Briscoe will join you as well.”“Certainly, captain,” said the American: “a few shots now may give the Indians a lesson, and save us from having to fire hundreds later on. Perhaps it will be the means of preventing them from molesting us again.”“But is anyone to remain with my brother?” said Brace.“He wants no watching, my lad. He’s best left alone. You can come down now and again to have a look at him.”
The two boats reached the anchored vessel about the same time, and Sir Humphrey, who looked ghastly, was carefully lifted on board and borne down into the cabin, where the captain examined the injured arm.
Brace watched his countenance anxiously while he was doing so, feeling, as he did, ready to cling to the first hand extended to him in his terrible difficulty, for his brother lay back now half-insensible and as if overcome by a terrible feeling of drowsiness. The young man stood silently waiting for the captain to speak.
“Now then, squire,” said the captain grimly, after his long examination, “do you want to hear what I think of this?”
“Yes, yes, of course I do, captain,” cried Brace excitedly.
“Then look here, squire, I’m not a doctor nor a surgeon; but a skipper who goes on long voyages all over the world gets to know something about physic as well as about broken bones and out-o’-joints, cuts, and scratches.”
“Yes, of course, I know that,” said Brace, who was becoming very anxious about his brother’s condition, and could not understand how the captain could remain so calm and unmoved.
“Well, then, this is just the same as a cut, only it happens to be a deep one that goes right through the arm.”
“Yes, yes, I know that,” said Brace impatiently. “But—”
“Wait a bit, squire. You young chaps are always in such a hurry. Now, I was going to say that your brother here, being a fine healthy man who don’t take liberties with his constitution, all there’d be to do would be to tie up the cut and make him a sling for his arm, keep the wound clean, and wait patiently till it had grown together again.”
“But don’t you see it’s a wound from an arrow? Talk low, or he will hear you.”
“Not he,” said the captain; “he don’t understand a word we’re saying—poor chap! He’s quite unconscious. I know what you mean about the poison, and I’ve seen a man once who had a poisoned arrow shot into him.”
“And did he look like my brother does now?”
“Not a bit, my lad; and I fancy that if there was any poison on the arrow that went through your brother’s arm, you pretty well sucked it out and washed it away.”
“Then you don’t think there is any danger?” asked Brace.
“That’s right, squire. I don’t think there’s any danger. Mind, I saythink, for I’m not a proper qualified man.”
“But you can tell me your candid opinion about my brother’s wound,” said Brace.
“Well,” replied the captain, “I’ll go so far as to say that if I’d got that hole through my arm I should be very savage, I should make use of some language, and I should say I’d shoot every Indian I saw with a bow and arrows, and of course I shouldn’t do it; but I don’t think I should make myself uncomfortable about it any more, but just leave it to Nature to cure.”
“You think that he will recover, then?” said Brace eagerly.
“I do,” said the captain. “What have you got to say about it, mister?”
He turned to the American as he spoke, and Briscoe, who had been keenly watching the half-insensible patient all the time Brace and the captain had been speaking, rose up slowly.
“I’m not a doctor, skipper,” he said, “and the only experience I have had in this way has been with rattlesnake bites.”
“Well, that’s near enough for me, sir,” said the captain tartly. “I should say that the difference between the symptoms of a wound from a poisoned arrow and one caused by a poisoned tooth wouldn’t be very great.”
“Perhaps not,” said Briscoe thoughtfully. “Well, I don’t quite like this drowsiness that has come over our patient; it’s ’most as if he had been given a dose of opium to soothe the pain. It is the only bad symptom I see.”
“Don’t say you’re no doctor, sir,” said Captain Banes, with a low chuckle, “because it seems to me that you are.”
“Why do you think so?” said Briscoe, looking at him wonderingly.
“Because you’ve put your finger down on the exact spot directly.”
“I do not understand you.”
“Why, I mean this. What did I do, squire, when you and I were alone in the cabin when we first brought your brother aboard?”
“You gave him a part of a glass of water with some laudanum in it.”
“To be sure I did, to calm down the pain; and that was what I call laudanum and Mr Briscoe here calls opium.”
“Then I agree with you, Captain Banes, that there are no bad symptoms at present,” said Briscoe quickly. “Let us leave him to sleep off the effect of what you have given him, and see how he looks when he wakes up.”
“Eh? What is it, Dellow?” said the captain sharply, for the first mate appeared at the door of the cabin.
“We want to know what’s to be done,” said the mate.
“What about?” asked the captain. “What’s the matter?”
“Three arrows have come aboard since you came down.”
“Were you able to see who shot them?” said the captain.
“No.”
“Is there any wind?”
“Not enough to fill a sail,” was the mate’s response.
“Humph! and it’s no use to drop down lower, because I expect the Indians have canoes. Keep the men all under cover of the bulwarks, and you and Lynton can take a couple of rifles and amuse yourselves shooting any wild beasts you see on the starboard bow. But mind you all keep well under cover. You understand?”
“Oh, yes, I understand,” said the mate, smiling in a peculiar way; and he went to the arms rack and took down two rifles and ammunition-belts for the second mate and himself.
“Hold hard a minute,” said the captain. “Just understand this, Dellow: if they leave you alone you leave them alone. If they don’t they must take the consequences.”
“I understand,” said the mate coolly. “How’s Sir Humphrey going on, sir? Is there any danger?” This was to Brace.
“The captain and Mr Briscoe think there is nothing to be alarmed about,” was the reply. “I hope they are right.”
“So does everybody, sir,” said the mate warmly. “He seems to be sleeping easy like.”
Brace nodded.
“Well, he wouldn’t be doing so if poison had got hold of him.”
“Right, Dellow,” said the captain, nodding his head with satisfaction. “Look here, squire, you try and make your mind a bit easy.”
“I am going to,” replied Brace.
“Well, then, let Sir Humphrey have a good sleep while you go on deck with Dellow here, and take your rifle with you too. You’re a good shot, and ought to be able to bring some of those foreign archers to their senses.”
“I came to collect natural-history specimens,” said Brace warmly. “I don’t want to slaughter ignorant savages.”
“Then you don’t believe in that Italian law?” said the captain, with a chuckle.
“Which Italian law do you mean?” said Brace, staring.
“Well, Roman-Latin then, if you like. It’s all the same, isn’t it—old ItalianLex talionis. That means, serve out the chap who has served you out, don’t it?”
“Something of the kind,” said Brace, smiling. “No, I don’t want to take revenge on those who are perhaps innocent.”
“Just as you like, sir,” said the captain, rather gruffly; “though I don’t see where the innocence comes in. But, setting aside taking revenge, I suppose you won’t mind helping to defend the vessel if some of these fellows should come off in their canoes to attack us?”
“Why, of course not,” said Brace warmly. “You know I would do my best.”
“To be sure I do, squire,” said the captain, smiling. “Well, then, suppose you go and help Dellow and Lynton, and I daresay Mr Briscoe will join you as well.”
“Certainly, captain,” said the American: “a few shots now may give the Indians a lesson, and save us from having to fire hundreds later on. Perhaps it will be the means of preventing them from molesting us again.”
“But is anyone to remain with my brother?” said Brace.
“He wants no watching, my lad. He’s best left alone. You can come down now and again to have a look at him.”