Chapter Twenty One.

Chapter Twenty One.“Where there’s a Will there’s a Way.”A glorious, a delicious morning, with the mists passing away in wisps of vapour before the bright sunshine, the leaves dripping with dew, and bird and insect life in full activity.But it was everything for the eye and nothing for the inner man. Waking from a most restful sleep meant also the awakening to a sensation of ravenous hunger, and directly after to the terrible depression caused by the loss sustained on the previous day and their position—alone, and without the means of obtaining food.When Rob started up he found Brazier in earnest conversation with Shaddy, and in a few minutes the boy learned that their guide had been about from the moment he could see to make up the fire, and then he had been searching in all directions for traces of their companions.“And you feel sure that they have gone?” Brazier was saying when Rob joined them.“Certain sure, sir.”“But I still cling to the belief that we have blundered into the wrong place in our weariness and the darkness last night. Why, Naylor, there must be hundreds of similar spots to this along the banks of the river.”“Might say thousands, sir; but you needn’t cling no more to no hopes, for this is the right spot, sure enough.”“How do you know?” cried Rob.“’Cause there’s the mark where the boat’s head touched ground, where we landed, and our footmarks in the mud.”“And those of the men?” cried Brazier hastily.“No, sir; they none of them landed. There’s your footmarks, Mr Rob’s, and mine as plain as can be, and the water has shrunk a bit away since we made ’em yesterday. No, sir, there’s no hope that way.”“Then what ever are we to do, man?” cried Brazier.“Like me to tell you the worst, sir?”“Yes, speak out; we may as well know.”Shaddy was silent for a few moments, and then said,—“Well, gen’lemen, those fellows have gone off with the boat and all in it. The guns and things was too much for ’em, and they’ve gone to feast for a bit and then die off like flies. They’ll never work enough by themselves to row that boat back to Paraguay river, for one won’t obey the other. They’ll be like a watch without a key.”“Then they have gone down the river?” said Rob.“Yes, sir, wherever it takes them, and they’ll shoot a bit and fish a bit till they’ve used all the powder and lost their lines. So much for them. Let’s talk about ourselves. Well, gentlemen, we might make a sort of raft thing of wood and bundles of rushes,—can’t make a boat for want of an axe,—and we might float down the stream, but I’m afraid it would only be to drown ourselves, or be pulled off by the critters in the water.”“But the land, Shaddy!” cried Rob. “Can’t we really walk along the bank back to where we started?”“You saw yesterday, sir,” said Shaddy grimly.“But couldn’t we find a way across the forest to some point on the great river, Naylor?” said Brazier.“No, sir, and we’ve got to face what’s before us. No man can get through that great forest without chopping his way with an axe, and he’d want two or three lifetimes to do it in, if he could find food as he went. I’m talking as one who has tried all this sort o’ thing for many years, and I’m telling you the simple truth when I say that, situated as we are, we’ve either got to stop here till help comes, or go down the river on some kind of raft.”“Then why not do that and risk the dangers?” cried Rob.“Yes,” said Brazier. “Why not do that? No help can possibly come here unless Indians pass by in a canoe.”“Which they won’t, sir, and if they did they’d kill us as they would wild beasts. I don’t believe there’s an Indian for a hundred miles.”“Then what do you propose doing first?” asked Brazier.“Trying to kill the wolf, sir.”“What! hunger?”“Yes, sir. He’s a-gnawing away at me awful. Let’s see what berries and fruit we can find, and then try whether we can’t get hold of a fish.”“But we are forgetting all about poor Joe,” said Rob in agonised tones.“That we ain’t, sir. I know you’re not, and if you’ll show me what I can do more than I did last evening and afternoon to find the poor boy, here’s Shadrach Naylor ready to risk his life any way to save him. But set me to do it, for I can’t see no way myself. Can you?”Rob was silent, and Brazier shook his head.“You see, it’s like this, sir,” continued Shaddy: “people as have never been in these woods can’t understand what it means, when it’s just this: Shut your eyes and go a dozen yards, turn round, and you’re lost. There’s nothing to guide you but your own footsteps, and you can’t see them. You may live for a few days by chewing leaves, and then it’s lie down and die, wishing you were a monkey or a bird. That’s the truth, gentlemen.”“Then you give up in despair, Naylor?” said Brazier angrily.“Not I, sir—not the sort o’ man. What I say is, we can’t do no good by wasting our strength in looking for Mr Joe. We’ve got to try and save our own lives by stopping where we are.”“And what shall we do first?”“Use our brains, sir, and find something to eat, as I said afore. There’s fruit to find, fish, birds, and monkeys to catch. Snakes ain’t bad eating. There’s plenty of water, and— Oh, we’re not going to die yet. Two big men and a small one, and all got knives; so come along, and let’s see what we can do.”Shaddy turned to the fire, taking out his knife and trying the edge.“First thing I want, Mr Rob, is a bit of hard half-burnt wood—forked bit, out of which I can make a big fish-hook, a long shank and a short one. It must be hard and tough, and— Why, hullo! I didn’t see these here before.”“What?” asked Rob and Brazier in a breath, and their companion pointed down at the earth.“Fresh footmarks, gen’lemen,” said Shaddy.“Joe’s?” cried Rob.“Nay, my lad; it’s a lion’s, and he has been prowling round about our fire in the night.”Rob started, and thought of his realistic dream, but he was faint, confused in intellect, and could not fit the puzzle together then.“Well, he hasn’t eaten either of us,” said Shaddy, with a grim smile, “and he’d better mind what he’s about, or we’ll eat him. Ah, here we are!” he exclaimed, pouncing upon a piece of burning wood. “Now you take your cap, Mr Rob, and hunt all round for any fruit you can find. Don’t be wasteful and pick any that ain’t ripe. Leave that for another day. We shall want it. And don’t go in the forest. There’s more to be found at the edge than inside, because you can’t get to the tops of the trees; and don’t eat a thing till I’ve seen it, because there’s plenty poisonous as can be.”“All right!” said Rob, and he turned to go.“And cheer up, both of you,” said their companion. “We won’t starve while there’s traps to be made, and bows and arrows, and fishing tackle. Now, Mr Brazier, please, you’ll sit down on that dead tree, take off that silk handkercher from your neck, and pull out threads from it one by one, tie ’em together, and wind ’em up round a bit of stick. Soon as I’ve made this big rough wooden hook, I’ll lay the silk up into a line.”“But you’ve no bait,” said Brazier, who was already taking off his necktie.“No bait, sir? Mr Rob’s going to find some wild oranges or sour sops, or something, and if he don’t I still mean to have a fish. Why, if I can’t find nothing else I’ll have a bait if I come down to cutting off one of my toes—perhaps one o’ Mr Rob’s would be tenderer or more tempting—or my tongue p’r’aps, for I do talk too much. Work, both of you; I’ll soon have a bait, for I want my breakfast like mad.”Rob hurried off, but did not reach the great trees which surrounded the open spot, for at the third clump of bushes he came upon an orange-coloured fruit growing upon a vine-like plant in abundance. It seemed to be some kind of passion-flower, and, in spite of Shaddy’s warning, he tasted one, to find it of a pleasant, sweetish, acid flavour.Gathering a capful, he returned at once to where his companions in misfortune were hard at work.“Hullo!” growled Shaddy. “Soon back! What have you got, my lad? Kind o’ granadillas, eh? Well, they’re good to eat, but not much to make a breakfast of. Better wait till I’ve done a bit o’ conjuring and turned some of ’em into a fish. There, what do you say to that for a hook?”He held up his piece of wood carving, which was about four inches long and two across, something in this shape:—“Not much of a hook, Mr Rob, sir, but tough enough to hold a fish if we can coax him to swallow it by covering it with the fruit. We can get three of them juicy things on the shank and point. So now for the line! How are you getting on, Mr Brazier, sir?”“Very slowly, Naylor,” said Brazier, with a sigh.“All the more surer, sir. You help, Mr Rob, sir, and I’ll lay up some of my cotton handkercher for the snood. No; second thoughts is best. I’ll make a loose hank of it, so that the fish’s teeth may go through if he tries to bite the line, which of course he will.”The result was that in an hour or so a silk line of about twenty yards in length was twisted up and attached to the loose cotton bottom secured to the hook. This was baited, and, after selecting a suitable spot, Shaddy climbed out upon a half-fallen tree whose trunk projected over the river, and dropped his line into a deep eddying pool, where the water ran round and round in a way which made Rob feel giddy.There was a steep slope just here, so that the bank was not flooded, and hence the angler was able to drop his line at once into deep water, where the action of the whirling current sufficed to suck the bait right down, while Brazier and Rob looked on with the interest of those who depended upon success to give them the food from the want of which they were suffering keenly.“Now then,” said Shaddy cheerfully, “if the bait don’t come off, if a fish takes it, if there are any here, if the hook don’t break and the line give way, I may catch our breakfast. Plenty of ifs, Mr Rob, sir! Remember the big doradoes we caught up yonder?”“Oh, if you could catch one now!” replied the lad.“Ah, if I could, sir! Perhaps I shall, but I don’t want a big one. Now for it!”A quarter of an hour passed away, during which time Shaddy pulled up and examined his bait twice, to see if it was safe, but there was no sign of fish there, though out in mid-stream and toward the farther shore there was evidently abundance, the water being disturbed and some big fellow springing out every now and then, to come down with a mighty splash, scattering the sparkling drops in all directions.“I shall have to come down to a toe, Mr Rob, sir,” said Shaddy grimly. “The fish don’t seem to care for fruit so early in the morning. It’s all very well for dessert, but they like a substantial meal first. Now then, get your knife ready. Whose is it to be? Shall we pull straws for the lot?”“Try a little farther this way, Shaddy,” said Rob, ignoring the remark.“Right, sir! I will,” said Shaddy, shifting the position of his bait, “but it strikes me we’ve got into a ’gator hole, and consequently there’s no fish.”“Do you think they can see you?”“No, sir. Water’s too thick. Look yonder.”“What at?”“Monkeys in that tree watching us. Now if you’d got a bow and arrows you might bring one or two down.”“What for?”“What for, my lad?” cried the guide in astonishment. “And he asks what for, when we’re all starving. Why, to eat, of course.”“Ugh! I’m not so hungry as that!” cried Rob, with a shudder.“You ain’t? Well, my lad, I am, and so I tell you. They’re capital eating. Why, I remember once when I was up the river with a party we all had— A fish! a fish!” he cried as upon raising his line, to see if the bait were all right, he suddenly felt a fierce tug; and the next minute the pool began to be agitated in a peculiar way.“Here, Mr Rob, I’m going to hand you the line, and you’ve got to run him out at once upon the bank. If I try to play him he’s sure to go. There, I’ll ease him down, and he’ll think it’s all right and be quiet. Then you draw in gently, and as soon as he feels the hook run him right out, and you, Mr Brazier, sir, stand ready at the water’s edge to mind he don’t get back. Mind, I don’t say it ain’t a small ’gator all the same.”He passed the end of the line to Rob as the captive, whatever it was, now lay quiet, but as soon as the lad began to draw the line ashore there was another heavy tug.“Run him out, sir, not hand over hand; run and turn your back,” shouted Shaddy, and as fast as he could get over the tangled growth amongst the trees Rob obeyed, with the result that he drew a large golden-scaled fish right out of the river and up the bank a couple of yards, when something parted, and Shaddy uttered a yell as he saw the captive flapping back toward the pool.“Gone! gone!” cried Rob in dismay. “I knew—”He said no more for the moment, and then uttered a shout of delight as he saw the efficacy of their guide’s arrangements, for before the fish reached the edge Brazier had thrown himself upon it, and paying no heed to slime, spines, or sharp teeth, he thrust his hands beneath, and flung it far up toward where Rob in turn carried on the attack.The next minute Shaddy was beside them, knife in hand, with which he rapidly killed, cleaned, and scaled the fish, finding the tough hook broken in two before chopping off a couple of great palm-like leaves, in which he wrapped his prize as he trotted toward the fire. Then with a half-burned branch, he raked a hole in the glowing embers, laid down the fish, raked the embers over again, and said,—“Not to be touched for half an hour. Who’ll come and try for more solid fruit?”If Rob’s spirits had not been so low he would have been amused by the boyish manner of their companion as he led them here and there. At the edge of the forest he mounted and climbed about a tree till he was well out on a great branch, from which he shook down a shower of great fruit that looked like cricket-balls, but which on examination proved to be the hard husks of some kind of nut.“What are these?” cried Rob.“Don’t you know ’em?” said Shaddy as soon as he had descended.“No.”“Yes, you do, my lad. You’ve seen ’em in London lots of times,” and hammering a couple together, he broke open one and showed the contents: to wit, so many Brazil nuts packed together in a round form like the carpels of an orange.“I never knew they grew like that,” cried Rob eagerly.“And I must confess my ignorance, too,” said Brazier.“Ah, there’s lots to learn in this world, gen’lemen,” said Shaddy quietly. “Not a very good kind o’ nut, but better than nothing. Bit too oily for me, but they’ll serve as bread for our fish if we get a couple of big stones for nutcrackers. They’re precious hard.”“Then we shan’t starve yet,” cried Rob as he loaded himself with the cannon-ball-like fruit—pockets, cap, and as many as he could hold in his arms.“Starve? I should think not,” cried Shaddy, “and these here outsides’ll have to serve for teacups.”“Without tea, Shaddy?”“Who says so, my lad? You wait, and we’ll find cocoa and mate, and who knows but what we may hit upon coffee and chocolate? Why, I won’t swear as we don’t find sugar-cane. ’T all events, we’re going to try.”“Well, Naylor, you are putting a different complexion on our prospects,” said Brazier, who had joined them.“Yes, sir, white one instead of a black one. Next thing is to get a roof over our heads ready for the heavy rains, and then we’ve got to save all the feathers of the birds we catch or shoot for feather beds. We shall have a splendid place before we’ve done, and you can mark out as big an estate as you like. But come along; I’m thinking that fish must be done.”Upon Shaddy sweeping its envelope clean of the embers, he found it was quite done, and soon served it out brown and juicy upon a great banana-like leaf.“Now, gentlemen, grace! and fall to,” said their cook merrily. “Nuts afterwards when I’ve found two big stones.”There was not much of the delicious fish left when a quarter of an hour had passed, and then Rob uttered a grumble.It was very good, he said, only they had no salt.“If you’d only spoken a bit sooner, Master Rob, I could have got you some pepper,” said Shaddy, “but salt? Ah, there you beat me altogether. It’s too far to send down to the sea.”

A glorious, a delicious morning, with the mists passing away in wisps of vapour before the bright sunshine, the leaves dripping with dew, and bird and insect life in full activity.

But it was everything for the eye and nothing for the inner man. Waking from a most restful sleep meant also the awakening to a sensation of ravenous hunger, and directly after to the terrible depression caused by the loss sustained on the previous day and their position—alone, and without the means of obtaining food.

When Rob started up he found Brazier in earnest conversation with Shaddy, and in a few minutes the boy learned that their guide had been about from the moment he could see to make up the fire, and then he had been searching in all directions for traces of their companions.

“And you feel sure that they have gone?” Brazier was saying when Rob joined them.

“Certain sure, sir.”

“But I still cling to the belief that we have blundered into the wrong place in our weariness and the darkness last night. Why, Naylor, there must be hundreds of similar spots to this along the banks of the river.”

“Might say thousands, sir; but you needn’t cling no more to no hopes, for this is the right spot, sure enough.”

“How do you know?” cried Rob.

“’Cause there’s the mark where the boat’s head touched ground, where we landed, and our footmarks in the mud.”

“And those of the men?” cried Brazier hastily.

“No, sir; they none of them landed. There’s your footmarks, Mr Rob’s, and mine as plain as can be, and the water has shrunk a bit away since we made ’em yesterday. No, sir, there’s no hope that way.”

“Then what ever are we to do, man?” cried Brazier.

“Like me to tell you the worst, sir?”

“Yes, speak out; we may as well know.”

Shaddy was silent for a few moments, and then said,—

“Well, gen’lemen, those fellows have gone off with the boat and all in it. The guns and things was too much for ’em, and they’ve gone to feast for a bit and then die off like flies. They’ll never work enough by themselves to row that boat back to Paraguay river, for one won’t obey the other. They’ll be like a watch without a key.”

“Then they have gone down the river?” said Rob.

“Yes, sir, wherever it takes them, and they’ll shoot a bit and fish a bit till they’ve used all the powder and lost their lines. So much for them. Let’s talk about ourselves. Well, gentlemen, we might make a sort of raft thing of wood and bundles of rushes,—can’t make a boat for want of an axe,—and we might float down the stream, but I’m afraid it would only be to drown ourselves, or be pulled off by the critters in the water.”

“But the land, Shaddy!” cried Rob. “Can’t we really walk along the bank back to where we started?”

“You saw yesterday, sir,” said Shaddy grimly.

“But couldn’t we find a way across the forest to some point on the great river, Naylor?” said Brazier.

“No, sir, and we’ve got to face what’s before us. No man can get through that great forest without chopping his way with an axe, and he’d want two or three lifetimes to do it in, if he could find food as he went. I’m talking as one who has tried all this sort o’ thing for many years, and I’m telling you the simple truth when I say that, situated as we are, we’ve either got to stop here till help comes, or go down the river on some kind of raft.”

“Then why not do that and risk the dangers?” cried Rob.

“Yes,” said Brazier. “Why not do that? No help can possibly come here unless Indians pass by in a canoe.”

“Which they won’t, sir, and if they did they’d kill us as they would wild beasts. I don’t believe there’s an Indian for a hundred miles.”

“Then what do you propose doing first?” asked Brazier.

“Trying to kill the wolf, sir.”

“What! hunger?”

“Yes, sir. He’s a-gnawing away at me awful. Let’s see what berries and fruit we can find, and then try whether we can’t get hold of a fish.”

“But we are forgetting all about poor Joe,” said Rob in agonised tones.

“That we ain’t, sir. I know you’re not, and if you’ll show me what I can do more than I did last evening and afternoon to find the poor boy, here’s Shadrach Naylor ready to risk his life any way to save him. But set me to do it, for I can’t see no way myself. Can you?”

Rob was silent, and Brazier shook his head.

“You see, it’s like this, sir,” continued Shaddy: “people as have never been in these woods can’t understand what it means, when it’s just this: Shut your eyes and go a dozen yards, turn round, and you’re lost. There’s nothing to guide you but your own footsteps, and you can’t see them. You may live for a few days by chewing leaves, and then it’s lie down and die, wishing you were a monkey or a bird. That’s the truth, gentlemen.”

“Then you give up in despair, Naylor?” said Brazier angrily.

“Not I, sir—not the sort o’ man. What I say is, we can’t do no good by wasting our strength in looking for Mr Joe. We’ve got to try and save our own lives by stopping where we are.”

“And what shall we do first?”

“Use our brains, sir, and find something to eat, as I said afore. There’s fruit to find, fish, birds, and monkeys to catch. Snakes ain’t bad eating. There’s plenty of water, and— Oh, we’re not going to die yet. Two big men and a small one, and all got knives; so come along, and let’s see what we can do.”

Shaddy turned to the fire, taking out his knife and trying the edge.

“First thing I want, Mr Rob, is a bit of hard half-burnt wood—forked bit, out of which I can make a big fish-hook, a long shank and a short one. It must be hard and tough, and— Why, hullo! I didn’t see these here before.”

“What?” asked Rob and Brazier in a breath, and their companion pointed down at the earth.

“Fresh footmarks, gen’lemen,” said Shaddy.

“Joe’s?” cried Rob.

“Nay, my lad; it’s a lion’s, and he has been prowling round about our fire in the night.”

Rob started, and thought of his realistic dream, but he was faint, confused in intellect, and could not fit the puzzle together then.

“Well, he hasn’t eaten either of us,” said Shaddy, with a grim smile, “and he’d better mind what he’s about, or we’ll eat him. Ah, here we are!” he exclaimed, pouncing upon a piece of burning wood. “Now you take your cap, Mr Rob, and hunt all round for any fruit you can find. Don’t be wasteful and pick any that ain’t ripe. Leave that for another day. We shall want it. And don’t go in the forest. There’s more to be found at the edge than inside, because you can’t get to the tops of the trees; and don’t eat a thing till I’ve seen it, because there’s plenty poisonous as can be.”

“All right!” said Rob, and he turned to go.

“And cheer up, both of you,” said their companion. “We won’t starve while there’s traps to be made, and bows and arrows, and fishing tackle. Now, Mr Brazier, please, you’ll sit down on that dead tree, take off that silk handkercher from your neck, and pull out threads from it one by one, tie ’em together, and wind ’em up round a bit of stick. Soon as I’ve made this big rough wooden hook, I’ll lay the silk up into a line.”

“But you’ve no bait,” said Brazier, who was already taking off his necktie.

“No bait, sir? Mr Rob’s going to find some wild oranges or sour sops, or something, and if he don’t I still mean to have a fish. Why, if I can’t find nothing else I’ll have a bait if I come down to cutting off one of my toes—perhaps one o’ Mr Rob’s would be tenderer or more tempting—or my tongue p’r’aps, for I do talk too much. Work, both of you; I’ll soon have a bait, for I want my breakfast like mad.”

Rob hurried off, but did not reach the great trees which surrounded the open spot, for at the third clump of bushes he came upon an orange-coloured fruit growing upon a vine-like plant in abundance. It seemed to be some kind of passion-flower, and, in spite of Shaddy’s warning, he tasted one, to find it of a pleasant, sweetish, acid flavour.

Gathering a capful, he returned at once to where his companions in misfortune were hard at work.

“Hullo!” growled Shaddy. “Soon back! What have you got, my lad? Kind o’ granadillas, eh? Well, they’re good to eat, but not much to make a breakfast of. Better wait till I’ve done a bit o’ conjuring and turned some of ’em into a fish. There, what do you say to that for a hook?”

He held up his piece of wood carving, which was about four inches long and two across, something in this shape:—

“Not much of a hook, Mr Rob, sir, but tough enough to hold a fish if we can coax him to swallow it by covering it with the fruit. We can get three of them juicy things on the shank and point. So now for the line! How are you getting on, Mr Brazier, sir?”

“Very slowly, Naylor,” said Brazier, with a sigh.

“All the more surer, sir. You help, Mr Rob, sir, and I’ll lay up some of my cotton handkercher for the snood. No; second thoughts is best. I’ll make a loose hank of it, so that the fish’s teeth may go through if he tries to bite the line, which of course he will.”

The result was that in an hour or so a silk line of about twenty yards in length was twisted up and attached to the loose cotton bottom secured to the hook. This was baited, and, after selecting a suitable spot, Shaddy climbed out upon a half-fallen tree whose trunk projected over the river, and dropped his line into a deep eddying pool, where the water ran round and round in a way which made Rob feel giddy.

There was a steep slope just here, so that the bank was not flooded, and hence the angler was able to drop his line at once into deep water, where the action of the whirling current sufficed to suck the bait right down, while Brazier and Rob looked on with the interest of those who depended upon success to give them the food from the want of which they were suffering keenly.

“Now then,” said Shaddy cheerfully, “if the bait don’t come off, if a fish takes it, if there are any here, if the hook don’t break and the line give way, I may catch our breakfast. Plenty of ifs, Mr Rob, sir! Remember the big doradoes we caught up yonder?”

“Oh, if you could catch one now!” replied the lad.

“Ah, if I could, sir! Perhaps I shall, but I don’t want a big one. Now for it!”

A quarter of an hour passed away, during which time Shaddy pulled up and examined his bait twice, to see if it was safe, but there was no sign of fish there, though out in mid-stream and toward the farther shore there was evidently abundance, the water being disturbed and some big fellow springing out every now and then, to come down with a mighty splash, scattering the sparkling drops in all directions.

“I shall have to come down to a toe, Mr Rob, sir,” said Shaddy grimly. “The fish don’t seem to care for fruit so early in the morning. It’s all very well for dessert, but they like a substantial meal first. Now then, get your knife ready. Whose is it to be? Shall we pull straws for the lot?”

“Try a little farther this way, Shaddy,” said Rob, ignoring the remark.

“Right, sir! I will,” said Shaddy, shifting the position of his bait, “but it strikes me we’ve got into a ’gator hole, and consequently there’s no fish.”

“Do you think they can see you?”

“No, sir. Water’s too thick. Look yonder.”

“What at?”

“Monkeys in that tree watching us. Now if you’d got a bow and arrows you might bring one or two down.”

“What for?”

“What for, my lad?” cried the guide in astonishment. “And he asks what for, when we’re all starving. Why, to eat, of course.”

“Ugh! I’m not so hungry as that!” cried Rob, with a shudder.

“You ain’t? Well, my lad, I am, and so I tell you. They’re capital eating. Why, I remember once when I was up the river with a party we all had— A fish! a fish!” he cried as upon raising his line, to see if the bait were all right, he suddenly felt a fierce tug; and the next minute the pool began to be agitated in a peculiar way.

“Here, Mr Rob, I’m going to hand you the line, and you’ve got to run him out at once upon the bank. If I try to play him he’s sure to go. There, I’ll ease him down, and he’ll think it’s all right and be quiet. Then you draw in gently, and as soon as he feels the hook run him right out, and you, Mr Brazier, sir, stand ready at the water’s edge to mind he don’t get back. Mind, I don’t say it ain’t a small ’gator all the same.”

He passed the end of the line to Rob as the captive, whatever it was, now lay quiet, but as soon as the lad began to draw the line ashore there was another heavy tug.

“Run him out, sir, not hand over hand; run and turn your back,” shouted Shaddy, and as fast as he could get over the tangled growth amongst the trees Rob obeyed, with the result that he drew a large golden-scaled fish right out of the river and up the bank a couple of yards, when something parted, and Shaddy uttered a yell as he saw the captive flapping back toward the pool.

“Gone! gone!” cried Rob in dismay. “I knew—”

He said no more for the moment, and then uttered a shout of delight as he saw the efficacy of their guide’s arrangements, for before the fish reached the edge Brazier had thrown himself upon it, and paying no heed to slime, spines, or sharp teeth, he thrust his hands beneath, and flung it far up toward where Rob in turn carried on the attack.

The next minute Shaddy was beside them, knife in hand, with which he rapidly killed, cleaned, and scaled the fish, finding the tough hook broken in two before chopping off a couple of great palm-like leaves, in which he wrapped his prize as he trotted toward the fire. Then with a half-burned branch, he raked a hole in the glowing embers, laid down the fish, raked the embers over again, and said,—

“Not to be touched for half an hour. Who’ll come and try for more solid fruit?”

If Rob’s spirits had not been so low he would have been amused by the boyish manner of their companion as he led them here and there. At the edge of the forest he mounted and climbed about a tree till he was well out on a great branch, from which he shook down a shower of great fruit that looked like cricket-balls, but which on examination proved to be the hard husks of some kind of nut.

“What are these?” cried Rob.

“Don’t you know ’em?” said Shaddy as soon as he had descended.

“No.”

“Yes, you do, my lad. You’ve seen ’em in London lots of times,” and hammering a couple together, he broke open one and showed the contents: to wit, so many Brazil nuts packed together in a round form like the carpels of an orange.

“I never knew they grew like that,” cried Rob eagerly.

“And I must confess my ignorance, too,” said Brazier.

“Ah, there’s lots to learn in this world, gen’lemen,” said Shaddy quietly. “Not a very good kind o’ nut, but better than nothing. Bit too oily for me, but they’ll serve as bread for our fish if we get a couple of big stones for nutcrackers. They’re precious hard.”

“Then we shan’t starve yet,” cried Rob as he loaded himself with the cannon-ball-like fruit—pockets, cap, and as many as he could hold in his arms.

“Starve? I should think not,” cried Shaddy, “and these here outsides’ll have to serve for teacups.”

“Without tea, Shaddy?”

“Who says so, my lad? You wait, and we’ll find cocoa and mate, and who knows but what we may hit upon coffee and chocolate? Why, I won’t swear as we don’t find sugar-cane. ’T all events, we’re going to try.”

“Well, Naylor, you are putting a different complexion on our prospects,” said Brazier, who had joined them.

“Yes, sir, white one instead of a black one. Next thing is to get a roof over our heads ready for the heavy rains, and then we’ve got to save all the feathers of the birds we catch or shoot for feather beds. We shall have a splendid place before we’ve done, and you can mark out as big an estate as you like. But come along; I’m thinking that fish must be done.”

Upon Shaddy sweeping its envelope clean of the embers, he found it was quite done, and soon served it out brown and juicy upon a great banana-like leaf.

“Now, gentlemen, grace! and fall to,” said their cook merrily. “Nuts afterwards when I’ve found two big stones.”

There was not much of the delicious fish left when a quarter of an hour had passed, and then Rob uttered a grumble.

It was very good, he said, only they had no salt.

“If you’d only spoken a bit sooner, Master Rob, I could have got you some pepper,” said Shaddy, “but salt? Ah, there you beat me altogether. It’s too far to send down to the sea.”

Chapter Twenty Two.Brave Efforts.That same afternoon after a quiet discussion of their position, the result of which was to convince Brazier and Rob of the utter hopelessness of any attempt to escape, they joined with Shaddy in the most sensible thing they could do, namely, an attempt to forget their sorrow and misery in hard work.“If we want to be healthy,” Shadrach had said, “we must first thing get a shelter over our heads where we can sleep at nights, clear of the heavy dews, and which we can have ready next time it comes on to rain.”A suitable position was soon found high up where no flood was likely to reach, and presenting several attractions.First, it was at the head of the clearing exactly facing the river, so that a passing boat could be seen. Secondly, it was between two great trees, apparently twins, whose smooth columnar trunks ran up some twenty feet without a branch; after that they were one mass of dense foliage, which drooped down nearly to the ground and looked thick enough to throw off, as the leafage lay bough above bough, any fall of rain short of a waterspout.The trees were about twelve feet apart, and from a distance the boughs had so intermingled that they looked like one.“That’s the spot, sir!” Shaddy exclaimed. “Now then, the first thing is to find a branch that will do for a ridge pole.”That first thing proved to be the most difficult they could have undertaken, for a long search showed nothing portable at all likely to answer the purpose; and though palm after palm was found, all were too substantial to be attacked by pocket-knives. They were getting in despair, when Rob hit upon one close down to the river, which the united strength of all three, after Rob had climbed it and by his weight dragged the top down within reach, sufficed to lever out of the saturated ground.As soon as the young palm was down, Shaddy set Brazier and Rob to cut off the roots and leaves, which latter they were told to stack ready for use, from where they hung six or eight feet long, while he—Shaddy—knife in hand, busied himself in cutting long lianas and canes to act as ropes.An hour later they had the young palm bound tightly to the trees about six feet from the ground, after which branches were cut and carried, so that they could be laid with the thick ends against the ridge pole and the leaves resting upon the ground from end to end.This done, others were laid on in the same way, the leaves and twigs fitting in so accurately that after a busy two hours they had a strong shed of branches ready for stopping up at one end with thorns and more boughs, while Rob had to climb up the slope and thatch the place with the palm leaves, forming a roof impervious to any ordinary rain.“That will do for sleeping, eh, gen’lemen?” said Shaddy. “We’ll finish it another time. We can rest in shelter. Now then for getting our wages—I mean a decent supper.”Rob had been conscious for some time past of sundry faint sensations; now he knew that they meant hunger, and as they left the hut they had made he did not look forward with any great feelings of appetite to a meal of nuts.But it soon became evident that Shaddy had other ideas, for he went to the fire again to obtain a hardened piece of wood for fashioning into a hook, when an idea struck Rob, and he turned to their guide eagerly.“Did you ever sniggle eels?” he said.“Did I ever what, sir?”“Sniggle eels.”Shaddy shook his head.“No. I’ve bobbed for ’em, and set night lines, and caught ’em in baskets and eel traps after storms. Is either of them sniggling?”“No,” cried Rob eagerly, “and you might catch fish perhaps that way. I’ll show you; I mean, I’ll tell you. You take a big needle, and tie a piece of strong thin silk to it right in the middle.”“Ay, I see,” said Shaddy.“Then you push the needle right into a big worm, and stick the point of the needle into a long thin pole, and push the worm into a hole in a bank where eels are.”“Yes, I see.”“Then one of the eels swallows the worm, and you pull the line.”“And the worm comes out.”“No, it does not,” said Rob. “As it’s tied in the middle, it is pulled right across the eel’s throat, and you can catch it without being obliged to use a hook.”“That’s noo and good,” said Shaddy eagerly. “I could fish for doradoes that way, but I’ve got no needle.”“Wouldn’t this do, Shaddy?” said the lad, and he took a steel needle-like toothpick out of the handle of his pocket-knife.“The very thing!” cried Shaddy, slapping his leg, and, after tying his newly made line to the little steel implement in the way described, he bound over it with a silken thread a portion of the refuse of the fish they had previously caught. Going to his former place, he cast in his line, and in five minutes it was fast to a good-sized fish, which after a struggle was landed safely, while before long another was caught as well.“Man never knows what he can do till he tries,” cried Shaddy merrily. “Why, we can live like princes, gentlemen. No fear of starving! Fish as often as we like to catch ’em, and then there’s birds and other things to come. You don’t feel dumpy now, Mr Rob, do you?”“I don’t know, Shaddy. I’m very hungry and tired.”“Wait till we’ve had supper, my lad, and then we’ll see what we can do about making a bow and arrows.”As he spoke he rapidly cleaned the fish, treated them as before, and placed them in the embers, which were glowing still.While the fish cooked Shaddy busied himself in crushing some of the nuts by using one stone as a hammer, another as an anvil, and some of them he set to roast by way of a change.By the time the fish were ready the sun was rapidly going down, and when the meal was at an end—a meal so delicious, in spite of the surroundings, that it was eaten with the greatest of enjoyment—it was too dark to see about bows and arrows, and the disposition of all three was for sleep.So the boughs collected on the previous night were carried in beneath the shelter and made into beds, upon which, after well making up the fire, all stretched themselves, and, utterly wearied out by the arduous toil of the day, fell asleep at once, in spite of the chorus of nocturnal creatures around, among which a couple of cicadas settled in their rudely made roof and kept up a harsh chirping loud enough to have kept awake any one who had not gone through as much work as two ordinary men.“But it can’t be morning,” thought Rob as he was awakened by Shaddy touching him on the shoulder, and then he uttered his thought aloud.“Well, if it ain’t, my lad, the sun’s made a mistake, for he’ll be up directly. Coming out?”“Yes; wait till I wake Mr Brazier.”“Nay; let him be till we’ve got breakfast ready, my lad. He looked regularly done up last night. He can’t bear it all like young chaps such as we.”Rob laughed, and then a cloud came over him as he stepped out into the soft grey morning, for he had caught sight of the hurrying river, and this brought up the boat and the loss of his companion and friend.“Look here, Mr Rob,” said Shaddy, changing the current of the boy’s thoughts directly, “I’ve been thinking out that bow and arrow business.”“Yes, Shaddy.”“And I’ve found out some splendid tackle for making arrows.”“What! this morning? Then you have been out and about!”“Yes, soon as I could see my way. I found a bed of reeds which will make capital arrows with a point of hard wood a bit burned, and there’s no end of ’em, so there’s our shot all straight as— well, as arrows. Now you and I are going to get a fish and put him to cook, and after that we’ll try and find a bit of wood good enough for a bow.”“And where’s your string, Shaddy?”“Round your neck, sir. You don’t think you’re going to indulge in such luxuries as silk han’kerchers at a time like this, do you? Because, if you do, I don’t; so you’ll have to pull out all the threads and wind ’em up, like Mr Brazier did. His han’kercher will do for fishing-lines. Yours shall be bow-strings. Why, who knows but what we may get a deer? Anyhow we may get one of them carpinchos, and not bad eating, either.”The fish was soon caught in the swift clear water, but all attempts to take another failed. It was, however, ample for their meal, and after it had been placed in the fire, which had never been allowed to go out since first lit, Rob’s companion pointed out more footprints of a puma, and soon after those of a deer, both animals having evidently been in the opening within the last few hours, from the freshness of the prints.The reeds for the arrows were cut, and proved to be firm, strong, and light, but the selection of a branch for the bow proved to be more of a task. One was, however, decided upon at last, roughly trimmed, and thrown on the fire for a few minutes to harden, and it was while the pair were busy over this task, watching the tough wood carefully, that Brazier found them, apologising for his so-called idleness and eagerly asking what he should do to help.“Nothing, sir, at present, but have your breakfast. Would you mind picking a few plates and a dish, Mr Rob? Let’s have the green pattern again.”Rob smiled as he went to the arum-like plant which had supplied him before, and returned to the fire just as Shaddy was apologising seriously for its being fish again for breakfast and promising a change before night.The apology was uncalled for, the freshly caught, newly roasted fish proving to be delicious; and roasted nuts, though they were not chestnuts and were often flavoured with burned oil, were anything but a bad substitute for bread.“There, gen’lemen,” said Shaddy as they finished, “next thing seems to be to go down to the waterside and have a good drink of nature’s own tea and coffee. Worse things than water, I can tell you. I always think to myself when I’ve nothing else that what was good enough for Adam and Eve ought to be good enough for me.”“Water’s delicious,” cried Rob as they reached a convenient place and lay down to scoop up the cool clear fluid with their hands and drink heartily.“So it is, Mr Rob, sir, ’llcious,” said Shaddy; “but wait a bit, and you shall have something to put in the water, if it’s only fruit juice to flavour it. But what I want to find is some of those leaves they make into South American tea.”Just then Shaddy smiled and rose to his knees, watching Brazier, who had moved off thirty or forty yards away.“What are you laughing at?” asked Rob.“Mr Brazier’s want of good manners, sir. Don’t seem the thing for a gen’leman like him to go washing his face and hands in his tea and coffee-cup; now do it?”“Plenty of room, Shaddy!” said Rob. “I’m going to follow his example.”He stretched out over the water from the bank, reached down his hands, and began to bathe his face, the water feeling deliciously cool to his brow and eyes as he scooped up handsful, and he was just revelling in an extra good quantity, when he uttered an ejaculation of alarm, for he felt himself seized by the collar as if he were about to be hurled into the river, but it proved only to be Shaddy snatching him away.“Why did you do that?” cried Rob angrily, as he pressed the water out of his eyes and darted a resentful look at the big rough fellow, who stood looking at him coolly.“’Cause we wanted you to be useful, my lad, and because you didn’t want to go below yonder and feed the fishes,” replied Shaddy, laughing. “Didn’t you see that ’gator?”“No. Where? Was it near me?”“Pretty near, sir. I happened to look, and saw him coming slowly nearer and nearer, ready for making a dash at you, and as I’d neither gun nor spear to tackle him, I had to pull you out of the way.”“Was it big?” said Rob, with a shudder.“No, sir, only a little one, about six foot long, but quite strong enough to have hung on and overbalanced you into the water, where there would have been plenty more to help him. Now I tell you what, sir, Mr Brazier had better be told to be careful,” continued Shaddy. “Ah, he sees danger; so it’s all right.”For Brazier suddenly shrank away from the edge of the river, rose, and called to them.“Take care, Rob!” he shouted; “the water here swarms with alligators. One little wretch was coming at me just now.”“Yes, sir, better mind!” cried Shaddy. “We’ve just had one here.” Then turning to Rob,—“Now, Master Rob, sir, what do you say to our spending the day making bows and arrows?”“I’m ready.”“And perhaps, Mr Brazier, sir, you wouldn’t mind trying for another fish for dinner, in case we don’t get our shooting tackle ready.”Brazier nodded, and soon after prepared to fish, but even in their peculiar strait he could not refrain from looking longingly at plant, insect, and bird, especially at a great bunch of orchids which were pendent from a bough.He did not seem likely to have much success in the pool or eddy where the other fish had been caught, and soon after moved off to another place, but meanwhile Rob and Shaddy were busy in the extreme, the latter making some half-charred pieces of wood from the fire into little hardened points ready for Rob to fix into the cleft he split in the end of each reed and then binding them tightly in, making a notch for the bow-string at the other end, and laying them down one by one finished for the sheaf he had set himself to prepare.These done, Rob began upon the silken bow-string, pulling out the threads from his neckerchief and tying them together till he had wound up what promised to be enough, afterwards doubling and twisting them tightly, while Shaddy was whistling softly and using his pocket-knife as if it were a spoke-shave to fine down the thick end of the piece of wood intended for the bow.“Strikes me, Mr Rob,” he said, “that we shall have to use this very gingerly, or it will soon break. I know what I wish I had.”“What?” asked Rob.“Rib of an old buffalo or a dead horse.”“What for?”“To make a bow, my lad. It would only be a short one, but wonderfully strong. You’d have to use short arrows, and it would be hard to pull, but with a bow like that you could send an arrow through a deer. But as we haven’t got one, nor any chance of finding one, we must do the best with this.”Rob watched with the greatest of interest the progress of the bow, busying himself the while with the string, which was finished first; and as it displayed a disposition to unwind and grow slack, it was thoroughly wetted and stretched between two boughs to dry.“Shall you succeed in getting a bow made?” said Brazier, coming up.“Oh yes, sir, I think so,” said the guide; “better bow than archer, I’m thinking, without Mr Rob here surprises us all by proving himself a clever shot.”“Don’t depend upon me,” said Rob mournfully, for his thoughts were upon Joe and his sad end, and when by an effort he got rid of these depressing ideas, his mind filled with those of the Indians turning against them in so cowardly a way, leaving them to live or die, just as it might happen, while they escaped with the plunder in the boat.“What are you thinking about, Rob?” said Brazier, after speaking to him twice without eliciting an answer.“Of the men stealing our boat. It was so cruel.”“Don’t you fret about it, Mr Rob! They’ll soon get their doo of punishment for it. Worst day’s work they ever did in their lives. You’d think that chaps like they would have known better, but they’re just like children. They see something pretty, and they’ll do anything to get hold of it, and when they’ve got it they find it’s of no use to ’em and are tired of it in an hour. I’ll be bound to say they’re wishing they hadn’t gone and were back along of us.”“Then they may repent and come?” said Brazier.Shaddy uttered a low chuckling sound.“And I shall save my collection after all.”“Don’t you think it, sir!” said Shaddy seriously. “They couldn’t get back, as I said; and if they could they daren’t, on account of you and me. They’ve got a wholesome kind of respect for an Englishman, and no more dare face us now than fly.”Brazier sighed.“Oh, never mind, sir!” said Shaddy cheerily. “Things might be worse than they are. We’re alive, and can find means to live. We don’t know but what we may get away all right after all. If I might give you my advice—”“Give it, by all means,” said Brazier.“Well then, sir, seeing that you came out to collect your flowers and plants, I should say, ‘Go on collecting just as you did before, and wait in hopes of a boat coming along.’”“But it might be years first.”“Very well, sir; wait years for it. You’d have made a fine collection by that time.”Brazier smiled sadly as he thought of his dried-up specimens.“Me and Mr Rob here will find plenty of some sort or another for the kitchen, so as you needn’t trouble about that. What do you say?”“That you teach good philosophy, and I’ll take your advice. Not much virtue in it, Rob,” he said, smiling, “for we cannot help ourselves. There, I will do as you suggest as soon as we have made a few more arrangements for our stay.”“You leave them to us, sir,” said Shaddy. “Mr Rob and I are quite strong enough crew for the job, and I saw some wonderful fine plants right at the edge of the forest yonder. I’d go and try for ’em now, sir.”“Shaddy’s afraid that some one will come along and pick them first,” cried Rob, laughing.“No fear, sir, unless it’s some big, saucy monkey doing it out of imitation and mischief. What do you say?”“I say yes,” replied Brazier. “It would be wrong to despair and foolish to neglect my chance now that I am thrown by accident among the natural history objects I came so many thousand miles to find.”As he spoke he moved off in the direction pointed out by their guide, while Shaddy chuckled directly they were alone.“That’s the way, Mr Rob,” he said; “give him something to think about and make him busy. ‘A merry heart goes all the day; a sad one tires in a mile,’ so the old song says. Mind, I don’t mean he’s merry, but he’ll be busy, and that’s next door to it. Now then, I’m ready. Let’s get the string on and bend our bow.”

That same afternoon after a quiet discussion of their position, the result of which was to convince Brazier and Rob of the utter hopelessness of any attempt to escape, they joined with Shaddy in the most sensible thing they could do, namely, an attempt to forget their sorrow and misery in hard work.

“If we want to be healthy,” Shadrach had said, “we must first thing get a shelter over our heads where we can sleep at nights, clear of the heavy dews, and which we can have ready next time it comes on to rain.”

A suitable position was soon found high up where no flood was likely to reach, and presenting several attractions.

First, it was at the head of the clearing exactly facing the river, so that a passing boat could be seen. Secondly, it was between two great trees, apparently twins, whose smooth columnar trunks ran up some twenty feet without a branch; after that they were one mass of dense foliage, which drooped down nearly to the ground and looked thick enough to throw off, as the leafage lay bough above bough, any fall of rain short of a waterspout.

The trees were about twelve feet apart, and from a distance the boughs had so intermingled that they looked like one.

“That’s the spot, sir!” Shaddy exclaimed. “Now then, the first thing is to find a branch that will do for a ridge pole.”

That first thing proved to be the most difficult they could have undertaken, for a long search showed nothing portable at all likely to answer the purpose; and though palm after palm was found, all were too substantial to be attacked by pocket-knives. They were getting in despair, when Rob hit upon one close down to the river, which the united strength of all three, after Rob had climbed it and by his weight dragged the top down within reach, sufficed to lever out of the saturated ground.

As soon as the young palm was down, Shaddy set Brazier and Rob to cut off the roots and leaves, which latter they were told to stack ready for use, from where they hung six or eight feet long, while he—Shaddy—knife in hand, busied himself in cutting long lianas and canes to act as ropes.

An hour later they had the young palm bound tightly to the trees about six feet from the ground, after which branches were cut and carried, so that they could be laid with the thick ends against the ridge pole and the leaves resting upon the ground from end to end.

This done, others were laid on in the same way, the leaves and twigs fitting in so accurately that after a busy two hours they had a strong shed of branches ready for stopping up at one end with thorns and more boughs, while Rob had to climb up the slope and thatch the place with the palm leaves, forming a roof impervious to any ordinary rain.

“That will do for sleeping, eh, gen’lemen?” said Shaddy. “We’ll finish it another time. We can rest in shelter. Now then for getting our wages—I mean a decent supper.”

Rob had been conscious for some time past of sundry faint sensations; now he knew that they meant hunger, and as they left the hut they had made he did not look forward with any great feelings of appetite to a meal of nuts.

But it soon became evident that Shaddy had other ideas, for he went to the fire again to obtain a hardened piece of wood for fashioning into a hook, when an idea struck Rob, and he turned to their guide eagerly.

“Did you ever sniggle eels?” he said.

“Did I ever what, sir?”

“Sniggle eels.”

Shaddy shook his head.

“No. I’ve bobbed for ’em, and set night lines, and caught ’em in baskets and eel traps after storms. Is either of them sniggling?”

“No,” cried Rob eagerly, “and you might catch fish perhaps that way. I’ll show you; I mean, I’ll tell you. You take a big needle, and tie a piece of strong thin silk to it right in the middle.”

“Ay, I see,” said Shaddy.

“Then you push the needle right into a big worm, and stick the point of the needle into a long thin pole, and push the worm into a hole in a bank where eels are.”

“Yes, I see.”

“Then one of the eels swallows the worm, and you pull the line.”

“And the worm comes out.”

“No, it does not,” said Rob. “As it’s tied in the middle, it is pulled right across the eel’s throat, and you can catch it without being obliged to use a hook.”

“That’s noo and good,” said Shaddy eagerly. “I could fish for doradoes that way, but I’ve got no needle.”

“Wouldn’t this do, Shaddy?” said the lad, and he took a steel needle-like toothpick out of the handle of his pocket-knife.

“The very thing!” cried Shaddy, slapping his leg, and, after tying his newly made line to the little steel implement in the way described, he bound over it with a silken thread a portion of the refuse of the fish they had previously caught. Going to his former place, he cast in his line, and in five minutes it was fast to a good-sized fish, which after a struggle was landed safely, while before long another was caught as well.

“Man never knows what he can do till he tries,” cried Shaddy merrily. “Why, we can live like princes, gentlemen. No fear of starving! Fish as often as we like to catch ’em, and then there’s birds and other things to come. You don’t feel dumpy now, Mr Rob, do you?”

“I don’t know, Shaddy. I’m very hungry and tired.”

“Wait till we’ve had supper, my lad, and then we’ll see what we can do about making a bow and arrows.”

As he spoke he rapidly cleaned the fish, treated them as before, and placed them in the embers, which were glowing still.

While the fish cooked Shaddy busied himself in crushing some of the nuts by using one stone as a hammer, another as an anvil, and some of them he set to roast by way of a change.

By the time the fish were ready the sun was rapidly going down, and when the meal was at an end—a meal so delicious, in spite of the surroundings, that it was eaten with the greatest of enjoyment—it was too dark to see about bows and arrows, and the disposition of all three was for sleep.

So the boughs collected on the previous night were carried in beneath the shelter and made into beds, upon which, after well making up the fire, all stretched themselves, and, utterly wearied out by the arduous toil of the day, fell asleep at once, in spite of the chorus of nocturnal creatures around, among which a couple of cicadas settled in their rudely made roof and kept up a harsh chirping loud enough to have kept awake any one who had not gone through as much work as two ordinary men.

“But it can’t be morning,” thought Rob as he was awakened by Shaddy touching him on the shoulder, and then he uttered his thought aloud.

“Well, if it ain’t, my lad, the sun’s made a mistake, for he’ll be up directly. Coming out?”

“Yes; wait till I wake Mr Brazier.”

“Nay; let him be till we’ve got breakfast ready, my lad. He looked regularly done up last night. He can’t bear it all like young chaps such as we.”

Rob laughed, and then a cloud came over him as he stepped out into the soft grey morning, for he had caught sight of the hurrying river, and this brought up the boat and the loss of his companion and friend.

“Look here, Mr Rob,” said Shaddy, changing the current of the boy’s thoughts directly, “I’ve been thinking out that bow and arrow business.”

“Yes, Shaddy.”

“And I’ve found out some splendid tackle for making arrows.”

“What! this morning? Then you have been out and about!”

“Yes, soon as I could see my way. I found a bed of reeds which will make capital arrows with a point of hard wood a bit burned, and there’s no end of ’em, so there’s our shot all straight as— well, as arrows. Now you and I are going to get a fish and put him to cook, and after that we’ll try and find a bit of wood good enough for a bow.”

“And where’s your string, Shaddy?”

“Round your neck, sir. You don’t think you’re going to indulge in such luxuries as silk han’kerchers at a time like this, do you? Because, if you do, I don’t; so you’ll have to pull out all the threads and wind ’em up, like Mr Brazier did. His han’kercher will do for fishing-lines. Yours shall be bow-strings. Why, who knows but what we may get a deer? Anyhow we may get one of them carpinchos, and not bad eating, either.”

The fish was soon caught in the swift clear water, but all attempts to take another failed. It was, however, ample for their meal, and after it had been placed in the fire, which had never been allowed to go out since first lit, Rob’s companion pointed out more footprints of a puma, and soon after those of a deer, both animals having evidently been in the opening within the last few hours, from the freshness of the prints.

The reeds for the arrows were cut, and proved to be firm, strong, and light, but the selection of a branch for the bow proved to be more of a task. One was, however, decided upon at last, roughly trimmed, and thrown on the fire for a few minutes to harden, and it was while the pair were busy over this task, watching the tough wood carefully, that Brazier found them, apologising for his so-called idleness and eagerly asking what he should do to help.

“Nothing, sir, at present, but have your breakfast. Would you mind picking a few plates and a dish, Mr Rob? Let’s have the green pattern again.”

Rob smiled as he went to the arum-like plant which had supplied him before, and returned to the fire just as Shaddy was apologising seriously for its being fish again for breakfast and promising a change before night.

The apology was uncalled for, the freshly caught, newly roasted fish proving to be delicious; and roasted nuts, though they were not chestnuts and were often flavoured with burned oil, were anything but a bad substitute for bread.

“There, gen’lemen,” said Shaddy as they finished, “next thing seems to be to go down to the waterside and have a good drink of nature’s own tea and coffee. Worse things than water, I can tell you. I always think to myself when I’ve nothing else that what was good enough for Adam and Eve ought to be good enough for me.”

“Water’s delicious,” cried Rob as they reached a convenient place and lay down to scoop up the cool clear fluid with their hands and drink heartily.

“So it is, Mr Rob, sir, ’llcious,” said Shaddy; “but wait a bit, and you shall have something to put in the water, if it’s only fruit juice to flavour it. But what I want to find is some of those leaves they make into South American tea.”

Just then Shaddy smiled and rose to his knees, watching Brazier, who had moved off thirty or forty yards away.

“What are you laughing at?” asked Rob.

“Mr Brazier’s want of good manners, sir. Don’t seem the thing for a gen’leman like him to go washing his face and hands in his tea and coffee-cup; now do it?”

“Plenty of room, Shaddy!” said Rob. “I’m going to follow his example.”

He stretched out over the water from the bank, reached down his hands, and began to bathe his face, the water feeling deliciously cool to his brow and eyes as he scooped up handsful, and he was just revelling in an extra good quantity, when he uttered an ejaculation of alarm, for he felt himself seized by the collar as if he were about to be hurled into the river, but it proved only to be Shaddy snatching him away.

“Why did you do that?” cried Rob angrily, as he pressed the water out of his eyes and darted a resentful look at the big rough fellow, who stood looking at him coolly.

“’Cause we wanted you to be useful, my lad, and because you didn’t want to go below yonder and feed the fishes,” replied Shaddy, laughing. “Didn’t you see that ’gator?”

“No. Where? Was it near me?”

“Pretty near, sir. I happened to look, and saw him coming slowly nearer and nearer, ready for making a dash at you, and as I’d neither gun nor spear to tackle him, I had to pull you out of the way.”

“Was it big?” said Rob, with a shudder.

“No, sir, only a little one, about six foot long, but quite strong enough to have hung on and overbalanced you into the water, where there would have been plenty more to help him. Now I tell you what, sir, Mr Brazier had better be told to be careful,” continued Shaddy. “Ah, he sees danger; so it’s all right.”

For Brazier suddenly shrank away from the edge of the river, rose, and called to them.

“Take care, Rob!” he shouted; “the water here swarms with alligators. One little wretch was coming at me just now.”

“Yes, sir, better mind!” cried Shaddy. “We’ve just had one here.” Then turning to Rob,—

“Now, Master Rob, sir, what do you say to our spending the day making bows and arrows?”

“I’m ready.”

“And perhaps, Mr Brazier, sir, you wouldn’t mind trying for another fish for dinner, in case we don’t get our shooting tackle ready.”

Brazier nodded, and soon after prepared to fish, but even in their peculiar strait he could not refrain from looking longingly at plant, insect, and bird, especially at a great bunch of orchids which were pendent from a bough.

He did not seem likely to have much success in the pool or eddy where the other fish had been caught, and soon after moved off to another place, but meanwhile Rob and Shaddy were busy in the extreme, the latter making some half-charred pieces of wood from the fire into little hardened points ready for Rob to fix into the cleft he split in the end of each reed and then binding them tightly in, making a notch for the bow-string at the other end, and laying them down one by one finished for the sheaf he had set himself to prepare.

These done, Rob began upon the silken bow-string, pulling out the threads from his neckerchief and tying them together till he had wound up what promised to be enough, afterwards doubling and twisting them tightly, while Shaddy was whistling softly and using his pocket-knife as if it were a spoke-shave to fine down the thick end of the piece of wood intended for the bow.

“Strikes me, Mr Rob,” he said, “that we shall have to use this very gingerly, or it will soon break. I know what I wish I had.”

“What?” asked Rob.

“Rib of an old buffalo or a dead horse.”

“What for?”

“To make a bow, my lad. It would only be a short one, but wonderfully strong. You’d have to use short arrows, and it would be hard to pull, but with a bow like that you could send an arrow through a deer. But as we haven’t got one, nor any chance of finding one, we must do the best with this.”

Rob watched with the greatest of interest the progress of the bow, busying himself the while with the string, which was finished first; and as it displayed a disposition to unwind and grow slack, it was thoroughly wetted and stretched between two boughs to dry.

“Shall you succeed in getting a bow made?” said Brazier, coming up.

“Oh yes, sir, I think so,” said the guide; “better bow than archer, I’m thinking, without Mr Rob here surprises us all by proving himself a clever shot.”

“Don’t depend upon me,” said Rob mournfully, for his thoughts were upon Joe and his sad end, and when by an effort he got rid of these depressing ideas, his mind filled with those of the Indians turning against them in so cowardly a way, leaving them to live or die, just as it might happen, while they escaped with the plunder in the boat.

“What are you thinking about, Rob?” said Brazier, after speaking to him twice without eliciting an answer.

“Of the men stealing our boat. It was so cruel.”

“Don’t you fret about it, Mr Rob! They’ll soon get their doo of punishment for it. Worst day’s work they ever did in their lives. You’d think that chaps like they would have known better, but they’re just like children. They see something pretty, and they’ll do anything to get hold of it, and when they’ve got it they find it’s of no use to ’em and are tired of it in an hour. I’ll be bound to say they’re wishing they hadn’t gone and were back along of us.”

“Then they may repent and come?” said Brazier.

Shaddy uttered a low chuckling sound.

“And I shall save my collection after all.”

“Don’t you think it, sir!” said Shaddy seriously. “They couldn’t get back, as I said; and if they could they daren’t, on account of you and me. They’ve got a wholesome kind of respect for an Englishman, and no more dare face us now than fly.”

Brazier sighed.

“Oh, never mind, sir!” said Shaddy cheerily. “Things might be worse than they are. We’re alive, and can find means to live. We don’t know but what we may get away all right after all. If I might give you my advice—”

“Give it, by all means,” said Brazier.

“Well then, sir, seeing that you came out to collect your flowers and plants, I should say, ‘Go on collecting just as you did before, and wait in hopes of a boat coming along.’”

“But it might be years first.”

“Very well, sir; wait years for it. You’d have made a fine collection by that time.”

Brazier smiled sadly as he thought of his dried-up specimens.

“Me and Mr Rob here will find plenty of some sort or another for the kitchen, so as you needn’t trouble about that. What do you say?”

“That you teach good philosophy, and I’ll take your advice. Not much virtue in it, Rob,” he said, smiling, “for we cannot help ourselves. There, I will do as you suggest as soon as we have made a few more arrangements for our stay.”

“You leave them to us, sir,” said Shaddy. “Mr Rob and I are quite strong enough crew for the job, and I saw some wonderful fine plants right at the edge of the forest yonder. I’d go and try for ’em now, sir.”

“Shaddy’s afraid that some one will come along and pick them first,” cried Rob, laughing.

“No fear, sir, unless it’s some big, saucy monkey doing it out of imitation and mischief. What do you say?”

“I say yes,” replied Brazier. “It would be wrong to despair and foolish to neglect my chance now that I am thrown by accident among the natural history objects I came so many thousand miles to find.”

As he spoke he moved off in the direction pointed out by their guide, while Shaddy chuckled directly they were alone.

“That’s the way, Mr Rob,” he said; “give him something to think about and make him busy. ‘A merry heart goes all the day; a sad one tires in a mile,’ so the old song says. Mind, I don’t mean he’s merry, but he’ll be busy, and that’s next door to it. Now then, I’m ready. Let’s get the string on and bend our bow.”

Chapter Twenty Three.A Sudden Alarm.The silken string Rob had twisted was found to be quite dry, and pretty well kept its shape as it was formed into a loop and passed over the end of the bow nicked for its reception, and after bending secured with a couple of hitches over the other.“Now, Mr Rob, sir, try it, and send one of your arrows as far as you can. Never mind losing it; we can soon make plenty more. That’s the way! Steady! Easy and well, sir! Now then, off it goes!”Twang! went the bow-string, and away flew the arrow high up toward the river, describing its curve and falling at last without the slightest splash into the water.“Well done!” cried Shaddy, who had watched the flight of the arrow, shading his eyes with his hand. “That’s good enough for anything. A little practice, and you’ll hit famously.”“Oh, I don’t know, Shaddy.”“Well, but I do, sir. If Indians can kill birds, beasts, and fish with their bows and arrows, surely a young Englishman can.”“I shall try, Shaddy.”“Of course you will, and try means win, and win means making ourselves comfortable till we are taken off.”“Then you think we shall be some day?”“Please God, my lad!” said Shaddy calmly. “Look! Yonder goes Mr Brazier. He’s forgetting his troubles in work, and that’s what we’ve got to do, eh?”Rob shook his head.“Ah, you’re thinking about poor young Jovanni, sir,” said Shaddy sadly, “and you mustn’t. It won’t do him no good, nor you neither. Bring that bow and arrows along with us. I’m going to try and get a bamboo to make a spear thing, with a bit of hard wood for a point, and it may be useful by-and-by.”Rob took up the bow and arrows, but laid the larger part of his sheaf down again, contenting himself with half a dozen, and following Shaddy along the edge of the forest to what looked like a clump of reeds, but which proved to be a fringe of bamboos fully fourteen feet high.Shaddy soon selected a couple of these suitable for his purpose, and had before long trimmed them down to spear shafts nine feet in length.“There, sir,” he said, “we’ll get a couple of heads fitted into these to-night. First thing is to get something else to eat, so let’s try for fruit or a bird. Now, if we could only come upon a deer!”“Not likely, as we want one,” responded Rob, who was looking round in search of Mr Brazier, and now caught sight of him right at the far end of the clearing, evidently engaged in cutting down some of his favourite plants.“Mr Brazier is busy,” said Rob; “but isn’t it a pity to let him waste time in getting what can never be wanted?”“How do we know that?” replied Shaddy. “Even if they’re not, I did it for the best.”“But is it safe to leave him alone?”“Safe as it is for us to go out here alone into the forest.”“Are we going into the forest?”“Must, my lad—a little way.”“But are there likely to be any Indians about?”“I should say not, Mr Rob, so come along.”Shaddy led the way to where the clearing ceased and the dense growth of the primeval forest began, and after hesitating a little and making a few observations as to the position of the sun—observations absolutely necessary if a traveller wished to find his way back—the guide plunged in amongst the dense growth, threading his way in through the trees, which grew more and more thickly for a short distance and then opened out a little, whereupon Shaddy halted and began to reconnoitre carefully, holding up his band to enforce silence and at the end of a few minutes saying eagerly to Rob,—“Here you are, my lad! Now’s our chance. There’s nearly a dozen in that big tree to the right yonder, playing about among the branches, good big ones, too. Now you steal forward a bit, keeping under cover, then lay all your arrows down but one, take a good long aim, and let it go. Bring one down if you can.”“What birds are they?” whispered Rob.“Who said anything about birds?” replied Shaddy sourly; “I said monkeys.”“No.”“Well, I meant to, my lad. There: on you go.”“Monkey—a little man,” said Rob, shaking his head. “No, I couldn’t shoot one of them.”“Here, give us hold of the bow and arrow, then, my lad,” cried the old sailor. “’Tisn’t a time for being nice. Better shoot a monkey and eat it than for me and Mr Brazier to have to kill and eat you.”Rob handed the newly made weapons, and Shaddy took them grumblingly.“Not the sort of tackle I’m used to,” he said. “Bound to say I could do far better with a gun.”He fitted the notch of the arrow to the string and drew the bow a little as if to try it; then moving off a few yards under cover of the trees, Rob was about to follow him, but he turned back directly.“Don’t you come,” he said; “better let me try alone. Two of us might scare ’em.”But Shaddy did not have any occasion to go further, for all at once, as if in obedience to a signal, the party of monkeys in the forest a short distance before them came leaping from tree to tree till they were in the one beneath which the two travellers were waiting, stopped short, and began to stare down wonderingly at them, one largish fellow holding back the bough above his head in a singularly human way, while his face looked puzzled as well as annoyed.“Like a young savage Indian more than an animal,” said Shaddy softly, as he prepared to shoot. “Now I wonder whether I can bring him down.”“Don’t shoot at it, Shaddy!” said Rob, laying his hand upon his guide’s arm.“Must, my lad. Can’t afford to be particular. There, don’t you look if you don’t like it! Now then!”He raised the bow, and, after the fashion off our forefathers, drew the arrow right to the head, and was about to let it fly after a long and careful aim; but being, as he had intimated, not used to that sort of tackle, he kept his forefinger over the reed arrow till he had drawn it to the head, when, just as he had taken aim and was about to launch it at the unfortunate monkey, the reed bent and snapped in two.Probably it was the sharp snap made by the arrow which took the monkey’s attention, for it suddenly set up a peculiarly loud chattering, which acted as a lead to its companions, for the most part hidden among the boughs, and it required very little stretch of the imagination to believe it to be a burst of derisive laughter at the contemptible nature of the weapons raised against their leader’s life.“Oh, that’s the way you take it, is it, my fine fellow?” cried Shaddy, shaking the bow at the monkey. “Here, give us another arrow, Mr Rob, sir; I’ll teach him to laugh better than that. I feel as if I can hit him now.”Rob made no attempt to hand the arrow, but Shaddy took one from him, fitted it to the string, raised it to the required height, and was about to draw the reed to its full length, but eased it back directly and left go to rub his head.“See him now, Mr Rob, sir?”“No,” said Rob, looking carefully upward among the branches; and, to his great satisfaction, not one of the curious little four-handed animals was visible.“Right!” said Shaddy. “He has saved his skin this time. Here, take the bow again. It may be a bird we see next.”“Hadn’t we better go back to the river?” said Rob. “Perhaps I should be able to shoot a duck if I saw one swimming about.”“Daresay you would, my lad,” said the old sailor drily, “send the arrow right through one; but what I say is, if the ’gators want a duck killed they’d better kill it themselves.”“I don’t understand you,” said Rob.“Understand, my lad? Why, suppose you shoot a duck, it will be on the water, won’t it?”“Of course!”“Then how are you going to get it off?”“I forgot that,” said Rob. “Impossible, of course.”“Come on, then, and don’t let’s waste time. We’ll keep along here and get some fruit, perhaps, and find birds at the same time.”Their journey through the forest was very short before they were startled by a sudden rush and bound through the undergrowth. So sudden was it that both stopped short listening, but the sound ceased in a few moments.“What’s that?” whispered Rob.“Deer, I thought at first, my lad; but it could not have been, because a deer would have gone on racing through the forest, and one would have heard the sounds dying away, not end suddenly like those did. You see, there was a sudden rustle, and then it stopped, as if whatever it was had been started up by our coming and then settled down again to hide and watch us.”“Indian?” whispered Rob uneasily.“Nay, more like some great cat. Strikes me it was one of the spotted tigers, and a hardened arrow’s not much good against one of those beasts. I say, let’s strike off in the other direction, and try if we can find something there. Cats are awkward beasts to deal with even when they’re small. When it comes to one as strong as a horse, the best way to fight ’em is to get out of their way.”Shaddy took a few steps forward so as to be able to peer up through a green shaft among the trees to the sunshine and satisfy himself as to their position, and then led off again.“Can’t be too particular, Mr Rob, sir,” he said; “stitch in time saves nine. Bit of observation now may save us hours of walking and fighting our way through the tangle.”Rob noted his companion’s careful management, and that whenever they had to pass round a tree which stood right in their way Shaddy was very exact about starting afresh exactly straight, and after a time in making off again to their left, so as to hit the river near the clearing. But for some time they found nothing to take their attention.“And that’s the way of it,” said Shaddy in reply to an observation of Rob’s. “You generally find what you are not looking for. Now, if we wanted plenty of fine hardwood timber, here it is, and worth fortunes in London town, and worth nothing here. I’d give the lot, Mr Rob, for one of our fine old Devonshire apple-trees, well loaded down with yellow-faced, red-cheeked pippins, though even then we’ve no flour to make a dumpling.”“And no saucepan to cook it in.”“Oh, we could do without that, my lad. Worse things than baked dumplings.”“Are we going right, Shaddy?” said Rob suddenly.The old sailor took an observation, as he called it, before he answered, so as to make sure.“Yes,” he said thoughtfully, “and if we keep straight on we shall hit the clearing. Strikes me that if we go pretty straight we shall come upon Mr Brazier loaded down to sinking point with plants, and glad of a bit of help to carry ’em. Don’t you be down-hearted, sir! This is a bit of experience; and here we are! something at last.”As he spoke he pointed to a tree where the sun penetrated a little, and they could see that it was swarming with small birds evidently busy over the fruit it bore. Shaddy was pressing forward, but Rob caught his arm.“What is it, lad?”“Look!” whispered Rob. “What’s that?”“Eh? Where? See a tiger?”“No, that horrible-looking thing walking along the branch. It has gone now.”“Ugly monkey?”“Oh no,” whispered Rob, “a curious creature. Alligators don’t climb trees, do they?”“Never saw one,” said Shaddy. “Might if they were taught, but it wouldn’t be a pleasant job to teach one. Well, where is it?”“Gone,” whispered Rob. “No; there it is on that branch where it is so dark.”“I see him,” said Shaddy in a subdued tone. “Ought to have known. Now then, your bow and arrows! That’s a skinful of good meat for us. You won’t mind shooting that?”“No,” said Rob, quickly fitting an arrow to the string, “I don’t mind shooting that. But not to eat, thank you.”“You will not be so particular soon. That’s iguana, and as good as chicken. Ready?”Rob nodded.“Keep behind the trees, then, and creep slowly forward till you are pretty close—I daresay you’ll be able to—and then aim at his shoulder, and send the arrow right through.”“I will,” said Rob drily, “if I can.”“Make up your mind to it, my lad. We want that sort of food.”“You may,” thought Rob as he began to stalk the curious old-world, dragon-like beast, which was running about the boughs of a great tree in complete ignorance of the neighbourhood of human beings, probably even of their existence.The lad’s heart beat heavily as he crept from tree to tree in full want of faith as to his ability to draw a bow-string with effect; for his experience only extended to watching ladies shooting at targets in an archery meeting; and as he drew nearer, stepping very softly from shelter to shelter and then peering out to watch the reptile, he had an admirable opportunity for noting its shape and peculiarities, none of which created an appetite for trying its chicken-like flesh. He gazed at a formidable-looking animal with wide mouth, a hideous pouch beneath its jaw, and a ridge of sharp-looking, teeth-like spines along its back ending in a long, fine, bony tail. These, with its fierce eye and scaly skin, and a habit of inflating itself, made it appear an object which might turn and attack an aggressor.This struck Rob very strongly as he stopped at last peering round the bole of a huge tree. He was about thirty yards from the lizard now, and in a position which commanded its side as it stood gazing straight before it at some object, bird or insect, in front.It was just the position for resting the bow-arm against the tree for steadiness of aim, and feeling that he could do no better, but doubtful of his skill and quite as doubtful of the likelihood of the wooden arrow-head piercing the glistening skin of the iguana, Rob took a careful aim, as he drew his arrow to his ear in good old archer style, and let his missile fly.Roughly made, unfeathered, and sent by a tyro, it was no wonder that it flew far wide of the mark, striking a bough away to the left and then dropping from twig to twig till it reached the undergrowth below.Where it struck was some distance from the lizard, and the sound and the falling of the reed gave it the idea that the danger point was there, so that it directed its attention in that quarter, stood very erect, and swelled itself out fiercely.This gave Rob ample time to fit another arrow to his string, correct his aim, and loosen the shaft after drawing it to the head. This one whizzed by the iguana, making it flinch slightly; but treating it as if it had been a bird which had suddenly flashed by, the lizard fixed its eyes on the spot where this second arrow struck.“I shall never hit the thing,” thought Rob as he fitted another arrow and corrected his aim still more, but this time too much, for the arrow flew off to the lizard’s right.“Three arrows gone!” muttered the lad as he prepared for another try, took a long aim, and, to his great delight, saw the missile strike the bough just below where the iguana stood, but only for it to make a rush forward out of his sight.“But I should have hit it if I had only aimed a little higher,” he thought.The lizard being invisible, he was about to return to Shaddy, thinking of his companion’s disappointment, when, to his surprise, he suddenly saw the reptile reappear upon a lower branch, where it stood watchful and eager, and once more presenting a splendid opportunity for a skilled archer.“It’s of no good,” thought Rob. “I must practise every day at a mark,” and once more taking aim without exercising much care, but more with an idea of satisfying his companion if he were watching his actions than of hitting his mark, he drew the arrow quickly to the head, gave one glance along the slight reed at the iguana, the bow-string twanged, and the next moment the reptile was gone.“That settles it,” said Rob as he listened to the rustling of the leaves and twigs; “but I must have gone pretty near for it to have leaped off the bough in such a hurry. I’ll be bound to say poor old Joe would have made a better shot. Italian! Genoese archers!” he continued thoughtfully. “No, they were cross-bow-men. Poor old Joe, though! Oh, how shocking it does seem for a bright handsome lad like he was to—”“Here! hi! T’other way, my lad! He dropped down like a stone.”“No, no; leaped like a deer off the branch. I saw him.”“Well, so did I,” cried Shaddy, hurrying up. “The arrow went clean through him.”“Nonsense!”“Nonsense, sir? What do you mean?”“I did not go near him.”“What? Why, you shot him right through the shoulder. I haven’t got much to boast about except my eye, and I’ll back that against some people’s spy-glasses. That iguana’s lying down there at the bottom of the tree dead as a last year’s butterfly, and I can put my foot right on the place. Come along.”Rob smiled, raised his eyebrows a little, and followed.“Better let him convince himself,” he thought; and as Shaddy forced back the low boughs and held them apart for his companion to follow, he went on talking.“I knew you could do it by the way you handled your bow and arrow. Your eyes are as straight as mine is, and I watched you as you sent an arrow first one side and then another till you got the exact range, and then it was like kissing your hand: just a pull of the string, off goes the arrow, and down drops the lizard, and a fine one, too. Round that trunk, my lad! There you are, and there he lies, just down in that tuft of grass.”“Where?” said Rob banteringly. “Why, Shaddy, I thought your eye was better than spy-glasses.”Shaddy made a dash at the tuft of thick growth beneath the bough where the iguana had stood, searched about, and then rose and took off his cap to give his head a scratch.“Well, I never!” he said in a tone full of disappointment; “I was as sure as sure that you hit that thing right through.”He looked round about, and then all at once made a rush at a spot whence came a faint rustling; and the next minute he returned dragging the iguana by the tail, with the half of the arrow through its shoulder.“Now then,” he cried, “was I right, or was I wrong? He made a big scramble to get away, and hid himself in that bush all but his tail. My word, Mr Rob, sir, what a shot you will make!”“Nonsense, Shaddy!” said the lad, looking down with a mingling of compunction and pride at his prize.“Ah, you may call it nonsense, Mr Rob. I calls it skill.”“Why, it was a mere accident.”“Hark at him!” cried Shaddy, looking round at the trees as if to call their attention to the lad’s words. “Says it was an accident when I told him to aim straight at the thing’s shoulder, and there’s the arrow right through it from one side to the other, and the poor brute dead as dead.”“But I hardly aimed at it, Shaddy,” protested Rob.“Of course you didn’t. A good shot just makes up his mind to hit a thing, and he hits it same as you did that lizard. Well, sir, that’s one trouble off my mind; and I can say thankfully we shan’t starve. There’ll be times when the river’s so flooded that we can’t fish, and then we might have come worst off; but you can shoot us birds and beasts. Then we can find eggs, and lay traps, and search for fruit. Why, Mr Rob, sir, we’re going to have our bread buttered on both sides, and we can keep Mr Brazier going while he collects. It looked very black indeed time back, but the sun’s shining in on us now. We shall be a bit like prisoners, but where are you going to find a more beautiful prison for people who want to study natural history? Hooray I look here, too—mushrooms.”“What, those great funguses?”“To be sure: they’re good eating. I know ’em, sir. Found ’em before, and learnt to eat ’em off the Indians. Here, wait a moment; let’s take enough of ’em for supper, and then get back to the kitchen and have a turn at cooking. That’s enough,” he continued, picking up from the mouldering stump of a huge decaying tree a great cluster of fungi; “those others’ll do for another time.”“I hope you will not be disappointed in my shooting next time,” said Rob, taking the cluster of mushroom growth and thrusting an arrow through it like a skewer. “I have very little faith in it myself, Shaddy.”“More likely to do good, and I believe in you all the more, Mr Rob,” said the man, seizing the lizard, tying its legs together with a band of twisted twigs, thrusting his bamboos through, and swinging the prize over his shoulder. “If you went puffing and blowing about and saying you was going to shoot this, and hit that, I should begin to wonder how ever we were to get our next dinner. Never you mind about feeling afraid for yourself. ‘Modesty’s the best policy,’ as the old saying goes, or something like it. Now then, best foot foremost! Tread in my steps, and I think I can lead you straight for the head of the clearing, pretty close to home, sweet home. D’yer mind what I say?” he continued, with a queer smile. “Think. I ain’t quite sure, my lad, but I’ll try.”Shaddy took a fresh observation, and then gave a satisfied nod of the head.“Forrard!” he said; and he made off as if full of confidence, while Rob followed behind, taking care of his mushrooms and watching the nodding head of the iguana low down at Shaddy’s back in a curiously grim fashion, and thinking that it looked anything but attractive as an object for the cook’s art.They had been walking nearly an hour, very slowly—for it was difficult work to avoid the tangled growth which hemmed them in—when Shaddy, who had been chatting away pleasantly about the trees and their ill-luck in not finding more fruit out in the forest, warning his companion, too, every now and then about ant-hills and thorns, suddenly exclaimed, “Wonder what luck Mr Brazier’s had?” and almost directly after as they entered an open place where orchids were growing, some of which had suggested the man’s last speech, he cried, “Why, hullo! Look here, Mr Rob; look here,” and as he pointed down at the dead leaves beneath their feet, Rob started back with a shudder of horror, and looked wildly round for the cause of that which he saw.

The silken string Rob had twisted was found to be quite dry, and pretty well kept its shape as it was formed into a loop and passed over the end of the bow nicked for its reception, and after bending secured with a couple of hitches over the other.

“Now, Mr Rob, sir, try it, and send one of your arrows as far as you can. Never mind losing it; we can soon make plenty more. That’s the way! Steady! Easy and well, sir! Now then, off it goes!”

Twang! went the bow-string, and away flew the arrow high up toward the river, describing its curve and falling at last without the slightest splash into the water.

“Well done!” cried Shaddy, who had watched the flight of the arrow, shading his eyes with his hand. “That’s good enough for anything. A little practice, and you’ll hit famously.”

“Oh, I don’t know, Shaddy.”

“Well, but I do, sir. If Indians can kill birds, beasts, and fish with their bows and arrows, surely a young Englishman can.”

“I shall try, Shaddy.”

“Of course you will, and try means win, and win means making ourselves comfortable till we are taken off.”

“Then you think we shall be some day?”

“Please God, my lad!” said Shaddy calmly. “Look! Yonder goes Mr Brazier. He’s forgetting his troubles in work, and that’s what we’ve got to do, eh?”

Rob shook his head.

“Ah, you’re thinking about poor young Jovanni, sir,” said Shaddy sadly, “and you mustn’t. It won’t do him no good, nor you neither. Bring that bow and arrows along with us. I’m going to try and get a bamboo to make a spear thing, with a bit of hard wood for a point, and it may be useful by-and-by.”

Rob took up the bow and arrows, but laid the larger part of his sheaf down again, contenting himself with half a dozen, and following Shaddy along the edge of the forest to what looked like a clump of reeds, but which proved to be a fringe of bamboos fully fourteen feet high.

Shaddy soon selected a couple of these suitable for his purpose, and had before long trimmed them down to spear shafts nine feet in length.

“There, sir,” he said, “we’ll get a couple of heads fitted into these to-night. First thing is to get something else to eat, so let’s try for fruit or a bird. Now, if we could only come upon a deer!”

“Not likely, as we want one,” responded Rob, who was looking round in search of Mr Brazier, and now caught sight of him right at the far end of the clearing, evidently engaged in cutting down some of his favourite plants.

“Mr Brazier is busy,” said Rob; “but isn’t it a pity to let him waste time in getting what can never be wanted?”

“How do we know that?” replied Shaddy. “Even if they’re not, I did it for the best.”

“But is it safe to leave him alone?”

“Safe as it is for us to go out here alone into the forest.”

“Are we going into the forest?”

“Must, my lad—a little way.”

“But are there likely to be any Indians about?”

“I should say not, Mr Rob, so come along.”

Shaddy led the way to where the clearing ceased and the dense growth of the primeval forest began, and after hesitating a little and making a few observations as to the position of the sun—observations absolutely necessary if a traveller wished to find his way back—the guide plunged in amongst the dense growth, threading his way in through the trees, which grew more and more thickly for a short distance and then opened out a little, whereupon Shaddy halted and began to reconnoitre carefully, holding up his band to enforce silence and at the end of a few minutes saying eagerly to Rob,—

“Here you are, my lad! Now’s our chance. There’s nearly a dozen in that big tree to the right yonder, playing about among the branches, good big ones, too. Now you steal forward a bit, keeping under cover, then lay all your arrows down but one, take a good long aim, and let it go. Bring one down if you can.”

“What birds are they?” whispered Rob.

“Who said anything about birds?” replied Shaddy sourly; “I said monkeys.”

“No.”

“Well, I meant to, my lad. There: on you go.”

“Monkey—a little man,” said Rob, shaking his head. “No, I couldn’t shoot one of them.”

“Here, give us hold of the bow and arrow, then, my lad,” cried the old sailor. “’Tisn’t a time for being nice. Better shoot a monkey and eat it than for me and Mr Brazier to have to kill and eat you.”

Rob handed the newly made weapons, and Shaddy took them grumblingly.

“Not the sort of tackle I’m used to,” he said. “Bound to say I could do far better with a gun.”

He fitted the notch of the arrow to the string and drew the bow a little as if to try it; then moving off a few yards under cover of the trees, Rob was about to follow him, but he turned back directly.

“Don’t you come,” he said; “better let me try alone. Two of us might scare ’em.”

But Shaddy did not have any occasion to go further, for all at once, as if in obedience to a signal, the party of monkeys in the forest a short distance before them came leaping from tree to tree till they were in the one beneath which the two travellers were waiting, stopped short, and began to stare down wonderingly at them, one largish fellow holding back the bough above his head in a singularly human way, while his face looked puzzled as well as annoyed.

“Like a young savage Indian more than an animal,” said Shaddy softly, as he prepared to shoot. “Now I wonder whether I can bring him down.”

“Don’t shoot at it, Shaddy!” said Rob, laying his hand upon his guide’s arm.

“Must, my lad. Can’t afford to be particular. There, don’t you look if you don’t like it! Now then!”

He raised the bow, and, after the fashion off our forefathers, drew the arrow right to the head, and was about to let it fly after a long and careful aim; but being, as he had intimated, not used to that sort of tackle, he kept his forefinger over the reed arrow till he had drawn it to the head, when, just as he had taken aim and was about to launch it at the unfortunate monkey, the reed bent and snapped in two.

Probably it was the sharp snap made by the arrow which took the monkey’s attention, for it suddenly set up a peculiarly loud chattering, which acted as a lead to its companions, for the most part hidden among the boughs, and it required very little stretch of the imagination to believe it to be a burst of derisive laughter at the contemptible nature of the weapons raised against their leader’s life.

“Oh, that’s the way you take it, is it, my fine fellow?” cried Shaddy, shaking the bow at the monkey. “Here, give us another arrow, Mr Rob, sir; I’ll teach him to laugh better than that. I feel as if I can hit him now.”

Rob made no attempt to hand the arrow, but Shaddy took one from him, fitted it to the string, raised it to the required height, and was about to draw the reed to its full length, but eased it back directly and left go to rub his head.

“See him now, Mr Rob, sir?”

“No,” said Rob, looking carefully upward among the branches; and, to his great satisfaction, not one of the curious little four-handed animals was visible.

“Right!” said Shaddy. “He has saved his skin this time. Here, take the bow again. It may be a bird we see next.”

“Hadn’t we better go back to the river?” said Rob. “Perhaps I should be able to shoot a duck if I saw one swimming about.”

“Daresay you would, my lad,” said the old sailor drily, “send the arrow right through one; but what I say is, if the ’gators want a duck killed they’d better kill it themselves.”

“I don’t understand you,” said Rob.

“Understand, my lad? Why, suppose you shoot a duck, it will be on the water, won’t it?”

“Of course!”

“Then how are you going to get it off?”

“I forgot that,” said Rob. “Impossible, of course.”

“Come on, then, and don’t let’s waste time. We’ll keep along here and get some fruit, perhaps, and find birds at the same time.”

Their journey through the forest was very short before they were startled by a sudden rush and bound through the undergrowth. So sudden was it that both stopped short listening, but the sound ceased in a few moments.

“What’s that?” whispered Rob.

“Deer, I thought at first, my lad; but it could not have been, because a deer would have gone on racing through the forest, and one would have heard the sounds dying away, not end suddenly like those did. You see, there was a sudden rustle, and then it stopped, as if whatever it was had been started up by our coming and then settled down again to hide and watch us.”

“Indian?” whispered Rob uneasily.

“Nay, more like some great cat. Strikes me it was one of the spotted tigers, and a hardened arrow’s not much good against one of those beasts. I say, let’s strike off in the other direction, and try if we can find something there. Cats are awkward beasts to deal with even when they’re small. When it comes to one as strong as a horse, the best way to fight ’em is to get out of their way.”

Shaddy took a few steps forward so as to be able to peer up through a green shaft among the trees to the sunshine and satisfy himself as to their position, and then led off again.

“Can’t be too particular, Mr Rob, sir,” he said; “stitch in time saves nine. Bit of observation now may save us hours of walking and fighting our way through the tangle.”

Rob noted his companion’s careful management, and that whenever they had to pass round a tree which stood right in their way Shaddy was very exact about starting afresh exactly straight, and after a time in making off again to their left, so as to hit the river near the clearing. But for some time they found nothing to take their attention.

“And that’s the way of it,” said Shaddy in reply to an observation of Rob’s. “You generally find what you are not looking for. Now, if we wanted plenty of fine hardwood timber, here it is, and worth fortunes in London town, and worth nothing here. I’d give the lot, Mr Rob, for one of our fine old Devonshire apple-trees, well loaded down with yellow-faced, red-cheeked pippins, though even then we’ve no flour to make a dumpling.”

“And no saucepan to cook it in.”

“Oh, we could do without that, my lad. Worse things than baked dumplings.”

“Are we going right, Shaddy?” said Rob suddenly.

The old sailor took an observation, as he called it, before he answered, so as to make sure.

“Yes,” he said thoughtfully, “and if we keep straight on we shall hit the clearing. Strikes me that if we go pretty straight we shall come upon Mr Brazier loaded down to sinking point with plants, and glad of a bit of help to carry ’em. Don’t you be down-hearted, sir! This is a bit of experience; and here we are! something at last.”

As he spoke he pointed to a tree where the sun penetrated a little, and they could see that it was swarming with small birds evidently busy over the fruit it bore. Shaddy was pressing forward, but Rob caught his arm.

“What is it, lad?”

“Look!” whispered Rob. “What’s that?”

“Eh? Where? See a tiger?”

“No, that horrible-looking thing walking along the branch. It has gone now.”

“Ugly monkey?”

“Oh no,” whispered Rob, “a curious creature. Alligators don’t climb trees, do they?”

“Never saw one,” said Shaddy. “Might if they were taught, but it wouldn’t be a pleasant job to teach one. Well, where is it?”

“Gone,” whispered Rob. “No; there it is on that branch where it is so dark.”

“I see him,” said Shaddy in a subdued tone. “Ought to have known. Now then, your bow and arrows! That’s a skinful of good meat for us. You won’t mind shooting that?”

“No,” said Rob, quickly fitting an arrow to the string, “I don’t mind shooting that. But not to eat, thank you.”

“You will not be so particular soon. That’s iguana, and as good as chicken. Ready?”

Rob nodded.

“Keep behind the trees, then, and creep slowly forward till you are pretty close—I daresay you’ll be able to—and then aim at his shoulder, and send the arrow right through.”

“I will,” said Rob drily, “if I can.”

“Make up your mind to it, my lad. We want that sort of food.”

“You may,” thought Rob as he began to stalk the curious old-world, dragon-like beast, which was running about the boughs of a great tree in complete ignorance of the neighbourhood of human beings, probably even of their existence.

The lad’s heart beat heavily as he crept from tree to tree in full want of faith as to his ability to draw a bow-string with effect; for his experience only extended to watching ladies shooting at targets in an archery meeting; and as he drew nearer, stepping very softly from shelter to shelter and then peering out to watch the reptile, he had an admirable opportunity for noting its shape and peculiarities, none of which created an appetite for trying its chicken-like flesh. He gazed at a formidable-looking animal with wide mouth, a hideous pouch beneath its jaw, and a ridge of sharp-looking, teeth-like spines along its back ending in a long, fine, bony tail. These, with its fierce eye and scaly skin, and a habit of inflating itself, made it appear an object which might turn and attack an aggressor.

This struck Rob very strongly as he stopped at last peering round the bole of a huge tree. He was about thirty yards from the lizard now, and in a position which commanded its side as it stood gazing straight before it at some object, bird or insect, in front.

It was just the position for resting the bow-arm against the tree for steadiness of aim, and feeling that he could do no better, but doubtful of his skill and quite as doubtful of the likelihood of the wooden arrow-head piercing the glistening skin of the iguana, Rob took a careful aim, as he drew his arrow to his ear in good old archer style, and let his missile fly.

Roughly made, unfeathered, and sent by a tyro, it was no wonder that it flew far wide of the mark, striking a bough away to the left and then dropping from twig to twig till it reached the undergrowth below.

Where it struck was some distance from the lizard, and the sound and the falling of the reed gave it the idea that the danger point was there, so that it directed its attention in that quarter, stood very erect, and swelled itself out fiercely.

This gave Rob ample time to fit another arrow to his string, correct his aim, and loosen the shaft after drawing it to the head. This one whizzed by the iguana, making it flinch slightly; but treating it as if it had been a bird which had suddenly flashed by, the lizard fixed its eyes on the spot where this second arrow struck.

“I shall never hit the thing,” thought Rob as he fitted another arrow and corrected his aim still more, but this time too much, for the arrow flew off to the lizard’s right.

“Three arrows gone!” muttered the lad as he prepared for another try, took a long aim, and, to his great delight, saw the missile strike the bough just below where the iguana stood, but only for it to make a rush forward out of his sight.

“But I should have hit it if I had only aimed a little higher,” he thought.

The lizard being invisible, he was about to return to Shaddy, thinking of his companion’s disappointment, when, to his surprise, he suddenly saw the reptile reappear upon a lower branch, where it stood watchful and eager, and once more presenting a splendid opportunity for a skilled archer.

“It’s of no good,” thought Rob. “I must practise every day at a mark,” and once more taking aim without exercising much care, but more with an idea of satisfying his companion if he were watching his actions than of hitting his mark, he drew the arrow quickly to the head, gave one glance along the slight reed at the iguana, the bow-string twanged, and the next moment the reptile was gone.

“That settles it,” said Rob as he listened to the rustling of the leaves and twigs; “but I must have gone pretty near for it to have leaped off the bough in such a hurry. I’ll be bound to say poor old Joe would have made a better shot. Italian! Genoese archers!” he continued thoughtfully. “No, they were cross-bow-men. Poor old Joe, though! Oh, how shocking it does seem for a bright handsome lad like he was to—”

“Here! hi! T’other way, my lad! He dropped down like a stone.”

“No, no; leaped like a deer off the branch. I saw him.”

“Well, so did I,” cried Shaddy, hurrying up. “The arrow went clean through him.”

“Nonsense!”

“Nonsense, sir? What do you mean?”

“I did not go near him.”

“What? Why, you shot him right through the shoulder. I haven’t got much to boast about except my eye, and I’ll back that against some people’s spy-glasses. That iguana’s lying down there at the bottom of the tree dead as a last year’s butterfly, and I can put my foot right on the place. Come along.”

Rob smiled, raised his eyebrows a little, and followed.

“Better let him convince himself,” he thought; and as Shaddy forced back the low boughs and held them apart for his companion to follow, he went on talking.

“I knew you could do it by the way you handled your bow and arrow. Your eyes are as straight as mine is, and I watched you as you sent an arrow first one side and then another till you got the exact range, and then it was like kissing your hand: just a pull of the string, off goes the arrow, and down drops the lizard, and a fine one, too. Round that trunk, my lad! There you are, and there he lies, just down in that tuft of grass.”

“Where?” said Rob banteringly. “Why, Shaddy, I thought your eye was better than spy-glasses.”

Shaddy made a dash at the tuft of thick growth beneath the bough where the iguana had stood, searched about, and then rose and took off his cap to give his head a scratch.

“Well, I never!” he said in a tone full of disappointment; “I was as sure as sure that you hit that thing right through.”

He looked round about, and then all at once made a rush at a spot whence came a faint rustling; and the next minute he returned dragging the iguana by the tail, with the half of the arrow through its shoulder.

“Now then,” he cried, “was I right, or was I wrong? He made a big scramble to get away, and hid himself in that bush all but his tail. My word, Mr Rob, sir, what a shot you will make!”

“Nonsense, Shaddy!” said the lad, looking down with a mingling of compunction and pride at his prize.

“Ah, you may call it nonsense, Mr Rob. I calls it skill.”

“Why, it was a mere accident.”

“Hark at him!” cried Shaddy, looking round at the trees as if to call their attention to the lad’s words. “Says it was an accident when I told him to aim straight at the thing’s shoulder, and there’s the arrow right through it from one side to the other, and the poor brute dead as dead.”

“But I hardly aimed at it, Shaddy,” protested Rob.

“Of course you didn’t. A good shot just makes up his mind to hit a thing, and he hits it same as you did that lizard. Well, sir, that’s one trouble off my mind; and I can say thankfully we shan’t starve. There’ll be times when the river’s so flooded that we can’t fish, and then we might have come worst off; but you can shoot us birds and beasts. Then we can find eggs, and lay traps, and search for fruit. Why, Mr Rob, sir, we’re going to have our bread buttered on both sides, and we can keep Mr Brazier going while he collects. It looked very black indeed time back, but the sun’s shining in on us now. We shall be a bit like prisoners, but where are you going to find a more beautiful prison for people who want to study natural history? Hooray I look here, too—mushrooms.”

“What, those great funguses?”

“To be sure: they’re good eating. I know ’em, sir. Found ’em before, and learnt to eat ’em off the Indians. Here, wait a moment; let’s take enough of ’em for supper, and then get back to the kitchen and have a turn at cooking. That’s enough,” he continued, picking up from the mouldering stump of a huge decaying tree a great cluster of fungi; “those others’ll do for another time.”

“I hope you will not be disappointed in my shooting next time,” said Rob, taking the cluster of mushroom growth and thrusting an arrow through it like a skewer. “I have very little faith in it myself, Shaddy.”

“More likely to do good, and I believe in you all the more, Mr Rob,” said the man, seizing the lizard, tying its legs together with a band of twisted twigs, thrusting his bamboos through, and swinging the prize over his shoulder. “If you went puffing and blowing about and saying you was going to shoot this, and hit that, I should begin to wonder how ever we were to get our next dinner. Never you mind about feeling afraid for yourself. ‘Modesty’s the best policy,’ as the old saying goes, or something like it. Now then, best foot foremost! Tread in my steps, and I think I can lead you straight for the head of the clearing, pretty close to home, sweet home. D’yer mind what I say?” he continued, with a queer smile. “Think. I ain’t quite sure, my lad, but I’ll try.”

Shaddy took a fresh observation, and then gave a satisfied nod of the head.

“Forrard!” he said; and he made off as if full of confidence, while Rob followed behind, taking care of his mushrooms and watching the nodding head of the iguana low down at Shaddy’s back in a curiously grim fashion, and thinking that it looked anything but attractive as an object for the cook’s art.

They had been walking nearly an hour, very slowly—for it was difficult work to avoid the tangled growth which hemmed them in—when Shaddy, who had been chatting away pleasantly about the trees and their ill-luck in not finding more fruit out in the forest, warning his companion, too, every now and then about ant-hills and thorns, suddenly exclaimed, “Wonder what luck Mr Brazier’s had?” and almost directly after as they entered an open place where orchids were growing, some of which had suggested the man’s last speech, he cried, “Why, hullo! Look here, Mr Rob; look here,” and as he pointed down at the dead leaves beneath their feet, Rob started back with a shudder of horror, and looked wildly round for the cause of that which he saw.

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