Chapter Six.A False Alarm.“It looks bad for them, poor fellows!” said my uncle, shading his eyes to gaze seaward. “The captain means to have them back.”“Nonsense! uncle,” I said; “it’s a false alarm. That’s not our ship.”“Not our ship?” he cried, springing up. “Of course it’s not. And whatever she is those on board don’t see us.”We stood watching for a few minutes before I ran to the boat and got the glass out of the locker to have a good look.“Well, what do you make of her?” said my uncle.“I don’t know what she is,” I said; “but there are only two people on deck—one forward and the other leaning half asleep over the wheel. Here, I’ll go and call those two back.”“You’d call in vain,” said my uncle, as I replaced the glass in the case. “They’re beyond earshot, and you could not find them.”“What are we to do then, uncle?” I said.“Have breakfast, my boy. I want mine.”“But those two poor fellows?”“Well, they took fright, Nat. A guilty conscience needs no accuser. They had run from their ship, and the sight of one was enough to make them feel that they were being sought.”“But we ought to do something, uncle,” I said.“We can’t do anything but wait, my lad,” he replied. “There, don’t be uneasy; they’ll come back as soon as they’ve got over the scaring. I daresay we shall see or hear of them before night.”My uncle’s words brought back the hungry feeling which had been swept away, and I saw to the breakfast, making the coffee and frizzling some slices of bacon, the meal being thoroughly enjoyable, eaten there in the shade of a great tree, while everything around looked beautiful in the extreme; and it was not until my morning hunger was nearly appeased that the flies and the flying thoughts of our late companions tormented me much.Then they began to get worse; and in a fit of sympathy I felt ashamed of enjoying my meal so well while those two poor fellows were suffering from hunger and fear.“What’s the matter, Nat?” said my uncle; and then, “Look! Who’d have thought of seeing humming-birds so near the sea?”I did not reply, for I did not know which part of my uncle’s remark to answer first; so I stared at the lovely little birds flitting about some flowers.“Steamer’s getting a good way along,” said my uncle, after a few minutes’ silence. “Here, I must have two or three of those little beauties.”“They’re not quetzals, uncle,” I said, smiling.“No; but I’m not going to miss getting rare specimens, Nat. We may not find the quetzals, and we must not go back empty-handed. Is the anchor quite fast?”“Yes, uncle, perfectly,” I said.“Then let’s get what good birds we can while we’re waiting. The sound of our guns may bring those fellows back.”He was right, for about mid-day, when we were busily preparing some skins of the lovely little humming-birds we had shot, I caught up the gun by my side, for their was a peculiar piping cry.“What bird’s that?” I said, in a sharp whisper.“Pee-wew!” came softly.“Some kind of sea bird,” said my uncle. “It sounds like a gull.”I laughed, and laid down my gun.“Why are you doing that?” said my uncle.“Pee-wee!” came the cry again.“Pee-wee!” I whistled, and then I shouted aloud, “All right! Steamer’s gone.”There was the cracking of twigs and a loud rustling sound, followed by the sight of Pete, who crept out from among the bushes, hot, panting, and with face and hands terribly scratched.“Sure she’s gone, Master Nat?” he said dolefully.“Sure? Yes,” I cried. “It wasn’t our ship at all.”“There, I knowed it warn’t all the time, only Bill Cross said he was sure it were. Here, come out! Way he! it’s all right.”The carpenter forced his way out of the jungle soon after, glaring at Pete.“Here,” he cried gruffly, “what d’ye mean by scaring a fellow like that?”“It warn’t me,” cried Pete. “You said it was our ship coming after us.”“Never mind, now,” said my uncle. “Set the fire going again, and get yourselves some breakfast; but don’t be in such a hurry to take fright next time. We’d better have our dinner at the same time, Nat; and if there’s any wind this evening we’ll sail southward.”There was plenty of wind, and so quite early in the afternoon the anchor was placed on board, Pete tucked up his trousers and ran the boat out, and then scrambled in to help with the sail. Then, as the boat careened over and glided away, he and his companion gave a hearty cheer.We sailed along the coast southward for days and days, always finding plenty to interest and a few specimens worth shooting, both Bill and Pete looking on with the most intense interest at the skinning and preserving, till one day the latter said confidently:“I could do that, Mr Nat.”“Very well,” I said; “you shall try with one of the next birds I shoot.”“At last,” cried my uncle a day or two later, and, seizing the tiller, he steered the boat straight for a wide opening and into what seemed to be a lake, so surrounded were we by tropical trees.But the current we met soon showed that we were at the mouth of a good-sized river, and the wind being in our favour, we ran up it a dozen miles or so before evening.For a long time the shores right and left had been closing in, and our progress growing slower, for the forest, which had been at some distance, now came down to the water’s edge, the trees were bigger, and for the last two miles we had sailed very slowly, shut in as we were by the great walls of verdure which towered far above the top of our mast and completely shut out the wind.Fortunately, the river was deep and sluggish so that progression was comparatively easy, and every hundred yards displayed something tempting to so ardent a naturalist as my uncle.Not always pleasant, though, for the sluggish waters swarmed with huge alligators, and every now and then one plunged in from the bank with a mighty splash.Some of the first we saw were approached innocently enough—for to unaccustomed eyes they looked like muddy logs floating down stream, and Pete laughed at me when I told him to lift his oar as we passed one so drowsy that it paid no heed.“Raise your oar-blade,” I said, as we glided along, “or that brute may turn angry and upset us.”I was sitting holding the tiller, steering, and Bill Cross held the other oar, while my uncle, tired out by a tramp ashore, was lying down forward, fast asleep, in the shadow cast by the sail, which kept on filling and flapping—for in the reach we had now entered the wind was hardly felt.“I never saw a tree run at a boat, Master Nat,” said Pete, as he raised his oar-blade. But before we had half passed the sleeping reptile the boy gave it a sudden chop on the back, and then, horrified by the consequence of his act, he started up in his place, plunged overboard into the deep, muddy water on the other side, and disappeared.For a moment or two I thought that we were all going to follow, for the reptile struck the boat a tremendous blow with its tail as it plunged down, raising the river in waves and eddies, and making our craft dance so that the water nearly came over the side, and we all clung to the nearest object to our hands.“What’s that?” cried my uncle.“Alligator,” I said, in a startled tone.“Where’s the boy?”“Gone overboard.”“Not seized by one of the loathsome monsters?”“Oh, no, sir,” said Bill, who looked rather startled. “He chopped it, and it scared him over the side.”“Well, where is he?” cried my uncle, appealing to me, while I looked vainly over the surface, which was now settling down.“I—I don’t know,” I stammered. “He went over somewhere here.”“But where did he come up?” cried my uncle. “Haven’t you seen him?”I was silent, for a terrible feeling of dread kept me from speaking, and my uncle turned to the carpenter.“No, sir, I haven’t seen him,” was the reply.“Let the boat drift down. Don’t pull, man, you’re sending us over to the other side. Stop a moment.”My uncle hurriedly took Pete’s place, seized the oar that was swinging from the rowlock, and began to pull so as to keep the boat from drifting, while I steered.“Hadn’t you better let her go down a bit, sir?” said the carpenter. “He may be drifting, and will come up lower.”“But the lad could swim,” said my uncle, as I began to feel a horrible chill which made my hands grow clammy.“Swim? Yes, sir—like a seal. I’m getting skeart. One of they great lizardy things must have got him.”“Cease rowing!” cried my uncle, and he followed my example of standing up in the boat and scanning the surface, including the nearest shore—that on our left, where the trees came right down to the water.They stopped together, and let the boat drift slowly with the current downward and backward, till all at once there was a light puff of hot wind which filled the sail, and we mastered the current, once more gliding slowly up stream, with the water pattering against the sides and bows.But there was no sign of Pete, and having failed to take any bearings, or to remember by marks on the shore whereabouts he had gone down, we were quite at fault, so that when the wind failed again and the boat drifted back, it was impossible to say where we had seen the last of the poor lad.I felt choking. Something seemed to rise in my throat, and I could only sit there dumb and motionless, till all at once, as the wind sprang up again, filled the sail, and the boat heeled over, the necessity of doing something to steer her and keep her in the right direction sent a thrill through me, and I did what I ought to have done before.For, as the water rattled again under the bows and we glided on, I shouted aloud—“Pete, lad, where are you?”“Ahoy!” came from a distance higher up, farther than we could have deemed possible after so much sailing.“Hooray!” shouted the carpenter. “Why he’s got ashore yonder.”“Where did the hail come from, Nat?” said my uncle, with a sigh of relief.“Seemed to be from among the trees a hundred yards forward there to the left.”“Run her close in, then, and hail, my lad,” he cried.He had hardly spoken before the wind failed again, and they bent to their oars.“Where are you, Pete?” I shouted.“Here, among the trees,” came back, and I steered the boat in the direction, eagerly searching the great green wall of verdure, but seeing nothing save a bird or two.“Are you ashore?” I shouted.“Nay! It’s all water underneath me. Come on, sir. Here I am.”A few more strokes of the oars ran us close in beneath the pendent boughs, and the next minute the carpenter caught hold of one of the overhanging branches and kept the boat there, while Pete descended from where he had climbed, to lower himself into the boat and sit down shivering and dripping.“Thought he’d got me, sir,” he said, looking white. “I dived down, though, and only come up once, but dove again so as to come up under the trees; and then I found a place where I could pull myself up. It was precious hard, though. I kep’ ’specting one of ’em would pull me back, till I was up yonder; and it arn’t safe there.”“Why not?” I said.“There’s great monkeys yonder, and the biggest snake I ever see, Master Nat.”“But did you not see the boat? Didn’t you see us hunting for you?” said my uncle angrily.“No, sir; I had all I could do to swim to one of the trees, diving down so as the ’gators shouldn’t see me; and when I did get up into the tree, you’d gone back down the river, so that I couldn’t see nothing of you.”“But why didn’t you shout, Pete?” said the carpenter. “Everyone’s been afraid you was drowned.”“Who was going to shout when there was a great snake curled up in knots like a ship’s fender right over your head? Think I wanted to wake him up? Then there was two great monkeys.”“Great monkeys!” said my uncle. “Pray, how big were they?”“Dunno, sir, but they looked a tidy size, and whenever I moved they begun to make faces and call me names.”“What did they call you, Pete?” I said.“I dunno, Master Nat. You see, it was all furren, and I couldn’t understand it; but one of ’em was horrid howdacious: he ran along a bough till he was right over my head, and then he took hold with his tail and swung himself to and fro and chattered, and said he’d drop on my head if I dared to move.”“Are you sure he said that, Pete?” said my uncle drily.“Well, sir, I can’t be quite sure, because I couldn’t understand him; but it seemed something like that.”“Yes, but I’m afraid there was a good deal of imagination in it, Pete, and that you have bad eyes.”“Oh, no, sir,” said Pete; “my eyes are all right.”“They cannot be,” said my uncle; “they must magnify terribly. Now then, take off your wet clothes, wring them out, and hang them up in the sun, while we look after this huge serpent and the gigantic monkeys. Draw the boat along by the boughs, Cross, till we can look through that opening. Be ready with your gun, Nat. Put in a couple of those swanshot cartridges. You shall do the shooting.”I hurriedly changed the charges in my double gun and sat in my place, looking up eagerly, trying to pierce the green twilight and tangle of crossing boughs, while Pete slowly slipped off his dripping shirt and trousers, watching me the while.“See anything yet?” said my uncle, as he helped Cross to push the boat along, pulling the boughs aside, which forced him to lower the sail and unship the mast.“No, uncle; the boughs are too thick—yes—yes, I can see a monkey hanging by his tail.”“A six-footer? Bring him down, then. We must have his skin.”“Six-footer? No!” I said. “It’s about as big as a fat baby.”“I thought so,” said my uncle. “Never mind the poor little thing; look-out for the monstrous snake. I daresay it’s one of the anacondas crept up out of the river. See it?”“No, uncle; but there might be a dozen up there.”“Keep on looking. You must see it if it’s as big as Pete here says. Was it close to the trunk, my lad?”“Not very, sir; it was just out a little way, where the boughs spread out.”“I see it!” I cried. “Keep the boat quite still. It’s curled up all in a knot.”“A hundred feet long?” said my uncle, laughing.“Not quite, uncle.”“Well, fifty?”“I don’t think so, uncle.”“Five-and-twenty, then?”“Oh, no,” I said; “it’s rather hard to tell, because of the way she folds double about; but I should think it’s twelve feet long.”“I thought so,” said my uncle. “Pete, you’ll have to wear diminishing glasses.”“That aren’t the one, sir,” said Pete gruffly.“Shall I shoot, uncle?”“No; we don’t want the skin, and it would be a very unpleasant task to take it off. Push off, Cross, and let’s go up the stream. I want to get to clearer parts, where we can land and make some excursions.”Pete hung his head when I looked at him, but he said no more, and a couple of hours after, with his clothes thoroughly dry, he was helping to navigate the boat, rowing, poling, and managing the sail till night fell, when we once more moored to a great tree trunk, as we had made a practice all the way up, and slept in safety on board, with the strange noises of the forest all around.
“It looks bad for them, poor fellows!” said my uncle, shading his eyes to gaze seaward. “The captain means to have them back.”
“Nonsense! uncle,” I said; “it’s a false alarm. That’s not our ship.”
“Not our ship?” he cried, springing up. “Of course it’s not. And whatever she is those on board don’t see us.”
We stood watching for a few minutes before I ran to the boat and got the glass out of the locker to have a good look.
“Well, what do you make of her?” said my uncle.
“I don’t know what she is,” I said; “but there are only two people on deck—one forward and the other leaning half asleep over the wheel. Here, I’ll go and call those two back.”
“You’d call in vain,” said my uncle, as I replaced the glass in the case. “They’re beyond earshot, and you could not find them.”
“What are we to do then, uncle?” I said.
“Have breakfast, my boy. I want mine.”
“But those two poor fellows?”
“Well, they took fright, Nat. A guilty conscience needs no accuser. They had run from their ship, and the sight of one was enough to make them feel that they were being sought.”
“But we ought to do something, uncle,” I said.
“We can’t do anything but wait, my lad,” he replied. “There, don’t be uneasy; they’ll come back as soon as they’ve got over the scaring. I daresay we shall see or hear of them before night.”
My uncle’s words brought back the hungry feeling which had been swept away, and I saw to the breakfast, making the coffee and frizzling some slices of bacon, the meal being thoroughly enjoyable, eaten there in the shade of a great tree, while everything around looked beautiful in the extreme; and it was not until my morning hunger was nearly appeased that the flies and the flying thoughts of our late companions tormented me much.
Then they began to get worse; and in a fit of sympathy I felt ashamed of enjoying my meal so well while those two poor fellows were suffering from hunger and fear.
“What’s the matter, Nat?” said my uncle; and then, “Look! Who’d have thought of seeing humming-birds so near the sea?”
I did not reply, for I did not know which part of my uncle’s remark to answer first; so I stared at the lovely little birds flitting about some flowers.
“Steamer’s getting a good way along,” said my uncle, after a few minutes’ silence. “Here, I must have two or three of those little beauties.”
“They’re not quetzals, uncle,” I said, smiling.
“No; but I’m not going to miss getting rare specimens, Nat. We may not find the quetzals, and we must not go back empty-handed. Is the anchor quite fast?”
“Yes, uncle, perfectly,” I said.
“Then let’s get what good birds we can while we’re waiting. The sound of our guns may bring those fellows back.”
He was right, for about mid-day, when we were busily preparing some skins of the lovely little humming-birds we had shot, I caught up the gun by my side, for their was a peculiar piping cry.
“What bird’s that?” I said, in a sharp whisper.
“Pee-wew!” came softly.
“Some kind of sea bird,” said my uncle. “It sounds like a gull.”
I laughed, and laid down my gun.
“Why are you doing that?” said my uncle.
“Pee-wee!” came the cry again.
“Pee-wee!” I whistled, and then I shouted aloud, “All right! Steamer’s gone.”
There was the cracking of twigs and a loud rustling sound, followed by the sight of Pete, who crept out from among the bushes, hot, panting, and with face and hands terribly scratched.
“Sure she’s gone, Master Nat?” he said dolefully.
“Sure? Yes,” I cried. “It wasn’t our ship at all.”
“There, I knowed it warn’t all the time, only Bill Cross said he was sure it were. Here, come out! Way he! it’s all right.”
The carpenter forced his way out of the jungle soon after, glaring at Pete.
“Here,” he cried gruffly, “what d’ye mean by scaring a fellow like that?”
“It warn’t me,” cried Pete. “You said it was our ship coming after us.”
“Never mind, now,” said my uncle. “Set the fire going again, and get yourselves some breakfast; but don’t be in such a hurry to take fright next time. We’d better have our dinner at the same time, Nat; and if there’s any wind this evening we’ll sail southward.”
There was plenty of wind, and so quite early in the afternoon the anchor was placed on board, Pete tucked up his trousers and ran the boat out, and then scrambled in to help with the sail. Then, as the boat careened over and glided away, he and his companion gave a hearty cheer.
We sailed along the coast southward for days and days, always finding plenty to interest and a few specimens worth shooting, both Bill and Pete looking on with the most intense interest at the skinning and preserving, till one day the latter said confidently:
“I could do that, Mr Nat.”
“Very well,” I said; “you shall try with one of the next birds I shoot.”
“At last,” cried my uncle a day or two later, and, seizing the tiller, he steered the boat straight for a wide opening and into what seemed to be a lake, so surrounded were we by tropical trees.
But the current we met soon showed that we were at the mouth of a good-sized river, and the wind being in our favour, we ran up it a dozen miles or so before evening.
For a long time the shores right and left had been closing in, and our progress growing slower, for the forest, which had been at some distance, now came down to the water’s edge, the trees were bigger, and for the last two miles we had sailed very slowly, shut in as we were by the great walls of verdure which towered far above the top of our mast and completely shut out the wind.
Fortunately, the river was deep and sluggish so that progression was comparatively easy, and every hundred yards displayed something tempting to so ardent a naturalist as my uncle.
Not always pleasant, though, for the sluggish waters swarmed with huge alligators, and every now and then one plunged in from the bank with a mighty splash.
Some of the first we saw were approached innocently enough—for to unaccustomed eyes they looked like muddy logs floating down stream, and Pete laughed at me when I told him to lift his oar as we passed one so drowsy that it paid no heed.
“Raise your oar-blade,” I said, as we glided along, “or that brute may turn angry and upset us.”
I was sitting holding the tiller, steering, and Bill Cross held the other oar, while my uncle, tired out by a tramp ashore, was lying down forward, fast asleep, in the shadow cast by the sail, which kept on filling and flapping—for in the reach we had now entered the wind was hardly felt.
“I never saw a tree run at a boat, Master Nat,” said Pete, as he raised his oar-blade. But before we had half passed the sleeping reptile the boy gave it a sudden chop on the back, and then, horrified by the consequence of his act, he started up in his place, plunged overboard into the deep, muddy water on the other side, and disappeared.
For a moment or two I thought that we were all going to follow, for the reptile struck the boat a tremendous blow with its tail as it plunged down, raising the river in waves and eddies, and making our craft dance so that the water nearly came over the side, and we all clung to the nearest object to our hands.
“What’s that?” cried my uncle.
“Alligator,” I said, in a startled tone.
“Where’s the boy?”
“Gone overboard.”
“Not seized by one of the loathsome monsters?”
“Oh, no, sir,” said Bill, who looked rather startled. “He chopped it, and it scared him over the side.”
“Well, where is he?” cried my uncle, appealing to me, while I looked vainly over the surface, which was now settling down.
“I—I don’t know,” I stammered. “He went over somewhere here.”
“But where did he come up?” cried my uncle. “Haven’t you seen him?”
I was silent, for a terrible feeling of dread kept me from speaking, and my uncle turned to the carpenter.
“No, sir, I haven’t seen him,” was the reply.
“Let the boat drift down. Don’t pull, man, you’re sending us over to the other side. Stop a moment.”
My uncle hurriedly took Pete’s place, seized the oar that was swinging from the rowlock, and began to pull so as to keep the boat from drifting, while I steered.
“Hadn’t you better let her go down a bit, sir?” said the carpenter. “He may be drifting, and will come up lower.”
“But the lad could swim,” said my uncle, as I began to feel a horrible chill which made my hands grow clammy.
“Swim? Yes, sir—like a seal. I’m getting skeart. One of they great lizardy things must have got him.”
“Cease rowing!” cried my uncle, and he followed my example of standing up in the boat and scanning the surface, including the nearest shore—that on our left, where the trees came right down to the water.
They stopped together, and let the boat drift slowly with the current downward and backward, till all at once there was a light puff of hot wind which filled the sail, and we mastered the current, once more gliding slowly up stream, with the water pattering against the sides and bows.
But there was no sign of Pete, and having failed to take any bearings, or to remember by marks on the shore whereabouts he had gone down, we were quite at fault, so that when the wind failed again and the boat drifted back, it was impossible to say where we had seen the last of the poor lad.
I felt choking. Something seemed to rise in my throat, and I could only sit there dumb and motionless, till all at once, as the wind sprang up again, filled the sail, and the boat heeled over, the necessity of doing something to steer her and keep her in the right direction sent a thrill through me, and I did what I ought to have done before.
For, as the water rattled again under the bows and we glided on, I shouted aloud—
“Pete, lad, where are you?”
“Ahoy!” came from a distance higher up, farther than we could have deemed possible after so much sailing.
“Hooray!” shouted the carpenter. “Why he’s got ashore yonder.”
“Where did the hail come from, Nat?” said my uncle, with a sigh of relief.
“Seemed to be from among the trees a hundred yards forward there to the left.”
“Run her close in, then, and hail, my lad,” he cried.
He had hardly spoken before the wind failed again, and they bent to their oars.
“Where are you, Pete?” I shouted.
“Here, among the trees,” came back, and I steered the boat in the direction, eagerly searching the great green wall of verdure, but seeing nothing save a bird or two.
“Are you ashore?” I shouted.
“Nay! It’s all water underneath me. Come on, sir. Here I am.”
A few more strokes of the oars ran us close in beneath the pendent boughs, and the next minute the carpenter caught hold of one of the overhanging branches and kept the boat there, while Pete descended from where he had climbed, to lower himself into the boat and sit down shivering and dripping.
“Thought he’d got me, sir,” he said, looking white. “I dived down, though, and only come up once, but dove again so as to come up under the trees; and then I found a place where I could pull myself up. It was precious hard, though. I kep’ ’specting one of ’em would pull me back, till I was up yonder; and it arn’t safe there.”
“Why not?” I said.
“There’s great monkeys yonder, and the biggest snake I ever see, Master Nat.”
“But did you not see the boat? Didn’t you see us hunting for you?” said my uncle angrily.
“No, sir; I had all I could do to swim to one of the trees, diving down so as the ’gators shouldn’t see me; and when I did get up into the tree, you’d gone back down the river, so that I couldn’t see nothing of you.”
“But why didn’t you shout, Pete?” said the carpenter. “Everyone’s been afraid you was drowned.”
“Who was going to shout when there was a great snake curled up in knots like a ship’s fender right over your head? Think I wanted to wake him up? Then there was two great monkeys.”
“Great monkeys!” said my uncle. “Pray, how big were they?”
“Dunno, sir, but they looked a tidy size, and whenever I moved they begun to make faces and call me names.”
“What did they call you, Pete?” I said.
“I dunno, Master Nat. You see, it was all furren, and I couldn’t understand it; but one of ’em was horrid howdacious: he ran along a bough till he was right over my head, and then he took hold with his tail and swung himself to and fro and chattered, and said he’d drop on my head if I dared to move.”
“Are you sure he said that, Pete?” said my uncle drily.
“Well, sir, I can’t be quite sure, because I couldn’t understand him; but it seemed something like that.”
“Yes, but I’m afraid there was a good deal of imagination in it, Pete, and that you have bad eyes.”
“Oh, no, sir,” said Pete; “my eyes are all right.”
“They cannot be,” said my uncle; “they must magnify terribly. Now then, take off your wet clothes, wring them out, and hang them up in the sun, while we look after this huge serpent and the gigantic monkeys. Draw the boat along by the boughs, Cross, till we can look through that opening. Be ready with your gun, Nat. Put in a couple of those swanshot cartridges. You shall do the shooting.”
I hurriedly changed the charges in my double gun and sat in my place, looking up eagerly, trying to pierce the green twilight and tangle of crossing boughs, while Pete slowly slipped off his dripping shirt and trousers, watching me the while.
“See anything yet?” said my uncle, as he helped Cross to push the boat along, pulling the boughs aside, which forced him to lower the sail and unship the mast.
“No, uncle; the boughs are too thick—yes—yes, I can see a monkey hanging by his tail.”
“A six-footer? Bring him down, then. We must have his skin.”
“Six-footer? No!” I said. “It’s about as big as a fat baby.”
“I thought so,” said my uncle. “Never mind the poor little thing; look-out for the monstrous snake. I daresay it’s one of the anacondas crept up out of the river. See it?”
“No, uncle; but there might be a dozen up there.”
“Keep on looking. You must see it if it’s as big as Pete here says. Was it close to the trunk, my lad?”
“Not very, sir; it was just out a little way, where the boughs spread out.”
“I see it!” I cried. “Keep the boat quite still. It’s curled up all in a knot.”
“A hundred feet long?” said my uncle, laughing.
“Not quite, uncle.”
“Well, fifty?”
“I don’t think so, uncle.”
“Five-and-twenty, then?”
“Oh, no,” I said; “it’s rather hard to tell, because of the way she folds double about; but I should think it’s twelve feet long.”
“I thought so,” said my uncle. “Pete, you’ll have to wear diminishing glasses.”
“That aren’t the one, sir,” said Pete gruffly.
“Shall I shoot, uncle?”
“No; we don’t want the skin, and it would be a very unpleasant task to take it off. Push off, Cross, and let’s go up the stream. I want to get to clearer parts, where we can land and make some excursions.”
Pete hung his head when I looked at him, but he said no more, and a couple of hours after, with his clothes thoroughly dry, he was helping to navigate the boat, rowing, poling, and managing the sail till night fell, when we once more moored to a great tree trunk, as we had made a practice all the way up, and slept in safety on board, with the strange noises of the forest all around.
Chapter Seven.Snakes and Pumas.It was a relief at last, after many days of hard work, sailing and rowing and poling over the shallows by means of the light bamboos we cut upon the banks, to find that we were well above the dense, jungle-like forest where, save in places, landing was impossible. Instead of creeping along between the two high walls of verdure, the river ran clear, shallow, and sparkling, among gravelly beds and rocks; while, though the growth was abundant on banks, there were plenty of open places full of sunshine and shadow, where flowers bloomed and birds far brighter in colour flitted from shrub to shrub, or darted in flocks among the trees. Mountains rose up in the distance, and every now and then we had glorious peeps of the valleys, which near at hand were of the richest golden-green, but in the distance gradually grew from amethyst into the purest blue.“At last!” cried Uncle Dick, for we had reached the outskirts of the land he sought—one with the natural roads necessary; for by careful management we contrived to penetrate some distance up the various streams which came down from the mountains to join the main river, and when we had forced the boat up a little stream till it was aground, we there camped and made expeditions on foot in all directions, coming back to the boat with our treasures.It was difficult to decide which stream to try, and one in particular whose mouth we passed several times in our journeys to and fro attracted me—I could not tell why—and I suggested more than once that we should go up it; but Uncle Dick shook his head.“It is the least likely, Nat,” he said on one occasion, and when, after several expeditions, I proposed it again, because most of those we tried evidently bore to the north, while this had a southward tendency, he refused tetchily.“Can’t you see how covered it is with water-weed and tangled growth? It would be impossible to go up there without a small canoe.”So I said no more, but contented myself with his choice.For of treasures we had plenty, the wild mountain valleys swarming with beautifully plumaged birds, especially with those tiny little objects which were actually less than some of the butterflies and moths.These humming-birds we generally shot with sand, sometimes merely with the wad of the cartridge, and even at times brought them down by the concussion caused by firing with powder only, when very near.I was never tired of examining these little gems of the bird world, and wondering at their excessive beauty in their dazzling hues, exactly like those of the precious stones from which they are named—ruby, emerald, topaz, sapphire, amethyst, and the like.“It caps me,” Pete used to say, as he stared with open mouth when I carefully skinned the tiny creatures to preserve them.Then came the day when, after a long tramp along with Pete, we found ourselves at the end of a narrow valley, with apparently no farther progress to be made.We had started, after an early breakfast in the boat, and left my uncle there to finish off the drying of some skins ready for packing in a light case of split bamboo which the carpenter had made; and with one gun over my shoulder, a botanist’s collecting-box for choice birds, and Pete following with another gun and a net for large birds slung over his shoulder, we had tramped on for hours, thinking nothing of the heat and the sun-rays which flashed off the surface of the clear shallow stream we were following, for the air came down fresh and invigorating from the mountains.We had been fairly successful, for I had shot four rare humming-birds; but so far we had seen no specimens of the gorgeous quetzal, and it was for these that our eyes wandered whenever we reached a patch of woodland, but only to startle macaws, parroquets, or the clumsy-looking—but really light and active—big-billed toucans, which made Pete shake his head.“They’re all very well, with their orange and red throats, or their pale primrose or white, Master Nat; but I don’t see no good in birds having great bills like that.”We had a bit of an adventure, too, that was rather startling, as we slowly climbed higher in tracking the course of the little stream towards its source in the mountain. As we toiled on where the rocks rose like walls on either side, and the ground was stony and bare, the rugged glittering in the sunshine, Pete had got on a few yards ahead through my having paused to transfer a gorgeous golden-green beetle to our collecting-box.I was just thinking that the absence of grass or flowers was probably due to the fact that the flooded stream must at times run all over where we were walking, the narrow valley looking quite like the bed of a river right up to the rocks on either side, when Pete shouted to me—“Come and look, Master Nat. What’s this here? Want to take it?”I looked, and then fired the quickest shot I ever discharged in my life. I hardly know how I managed it; but one moment I was carrying my gun over my shoulder, the next I had let the barrels fall into my left hand and fired.Pete leapt off the ground, uttering a yell which would have made anyone who could have looked on imagine that I had shot him. He dropped the gun he carried and turned round to face me.“What did you do that for, Master Nat?” he cried.“For that,” I said, pointing, and then raising my piece to my shoulder, I fired again at something writhing and twining among the loose stones.“Thought you meant to shoot me, sir,” said Pete, picking up the gun and covering a dint he had made in the stock, as he stared down at the object that was now dying fast. “Well, it’s of no good now. You’ve reg’larly spoiled it.”“Do you know what that is?” I said, with my heart beating fast.“Course I do,” he said with a laugh. “Snake.”“Yes, the most deadly snake out here. If I had waited till you touched it you would have been stung; and that generally means death.”“My word!” said Pete, shrinking away. “Think of it, sir! Shouldn’t have liked that, Master Nat. What snake is it?”“A rattlesnake.”“I didn’t hear him rattle. But I was just going to lay hold of him behind his ears and pick him up.”“And yet uncle told you to beware of poisonous snakes.”“Ah! so he did, sir; but I wasn’t thinking about what he said then. So that’s his rattle at the end of his tail, with a sting in it.”“Nonsense!” I cried. “Rattlesnakes do not sting.”“Hark at him!” cried Pete, addressing nobody. Then to me—“Why, you said just now they did.”“I meant bite.”“But wapses have their stings in their tails.”“But rattlesnakes do not,” I said. “Look here.”I drew the hunting knife I carried, and with one chop took off the dangerous reptile’s head. Then picking it up I opened the jaws and showed him the two keen, hollow, poisonous fangs which rose erect when the jaws gaped.“Seem too little to do any harm, Master Nat,” said Pete, rubbing his head. “Well, I shall know one of them gentlemen another time.—Oh, don’t chuck it away!” he cried. “I should like to put that head in a box and save it.”“Too late, Pete,” I said, for I had just sent the head flying into the rippling stream; and after reloading we went on again till it seemed as if we were quite shut in.For right in front was a towering rock, quite perpendicular above a low archway, at whose foot the stream rushed gurgling out, while the sides of the narrow ravine in which we were rose up like a wall.“We shall have to go back, Pete, I suppose,” I said, as I looked upon either side.“I wouldn’t, sir,” he replied; “it’s early yet.”“But we couldn’t climb up there.”“Oh, yes, we could, sir, if we took it a bit at a time.”Pete was right. I had looked at the task all at once, but by taking it a bit at a time we slowly climbed up and up till we reached to where there was a gentle slope dotted with patches of woodland, and looking more beautiful than the part we had travelled over that day.It was just as we had drawn ourselves up on to the gentle slope which spread away evidently for miles, that Pete laid his hand upon my arm and pointed away to the left.“Look!” he whispered; “thing like a great cat. There she goes.”But I did not look, for I had caught sight of a couple of birds gliding through the air as if they were finishing their flight and about to alight.“Look there!” I panted excitedly, as I watched for the place where the birds would pitch, which proved to be out of sight, beyond a clump of trees.“This way, Master Nat,” whispered Pete.“No, no; this way,” I said hoarsely. And I hurried forward, having to get over about a hundred yards before I could reach the patch behind which the birds had disappeared.My heart beat faster with excitement as well as exertion as I checked my pace on reaching the trees and began to creep softly along in their shelter, till all at once there was a harsh scream, followed by a dozen more, as a little flock of lovely green parroquets took flight, and Pete stopped short for me to fire.But I did not; I only kept on, wondering whether the objects of my search would take fright.They did the next moment, and I fired at what seemed like a couple of whirring patches of orange, one of which to my great joy fell, while the other went right away in a straight line, showing that it had not been touched.“That’s got him!” cried Pete excitedly. And he ran forward to pick up the bird, while I began to reload, but stopped in astonishment, for from some bushes away to the left, in a series of bounds, a magnificent puma sprang into sight, and seemed to be racing Pete so as to get first to the fallen bird.Pete was nearest, and would have been there first, but he suddenly caught sight of the great active cat and stopped short.This had the effect of making the puma stop short too, and stand lashing its tail and staring at Pete as if undecided what to do.I ought to have behaved differently, but I was as much taken by surprise as Pete, and I, too, stood staring instead of reloading my gun, while it never once occurred to the lad that he had one already charged in his hand.Suddenly, to my astonishment, he snatched off his straw hat.“Shoo!” he cried, and sent it skimming through the air at the puma.The effect was all he desired, for the beautiful animal sprang round and bounded away towards the nearest patch of forest, Pete after him till he reached his hat, which he picked up in triumph and stuck on his head again, grinning as he returned.“That’s the way to scare that sort, Master Nat,” he cried. And he reached me again just as I stooped to pick up the fallen bird.“Cock of the Rocks, Pete,” I cried triumphantly, too much excited to think about the puma.“Is he, sir?” said Pete. “Well, he ran away like a hen.”“No, no! I mean this bird. Isn’t it a beauty?”“He just is, sir. Lives on oranges, I s’pose, to make him that colour.”“I don’t know what it lived on,” I said as I regularly gloated over the lovely bird with its orange plumage and soft wheel-like crest of feathers from beak to nape. “This must go in your net, Pete; but you must carry it very carefully.”“I will, Master Nat. Going back now?”“Back? No,” I cried. “We must follow up that other one. I saw which way it flew. Uncle will be in ecstasies at our having found a place where they come.”“Will he, sir? Thought it was golden-green birds with long tails. Quizzals. That one’s got hardly any tail at all.”“He wants these too,” I said, closing the breech of my gun. “Come along.”“But how about that there big cat, sir? He’s gone down that way.”“We must fire at it if it comes near again, or you must throw your hat,” I said, laughing.“All right, sir, you know. Only if he or she do turn savage, it might be awkward.”“I don’t think they’re dangerous animals, Pete,” I said; “and we must have that other bird, and we may put up more. Here, I’ll go first.”“Nay, play fair, Master Nat,” said Pete; “let’s go side by side.”“Yes, but a little way apart. Open out about thirty feet, and then let’s go forward slowly. I think we shall find it among those trees yonder.”“The big cat, sir?” said Pete.“No, no!” I cried; “the other bird, the cock of the rocks. Now then, forward.”A little flock of brightly-coloured finches flew up before we had gone a hundred yards, but I was so excited by the prospect of getting my prize’s mate that these seemed of no account, and we went on, my intention being to fire at the cock of the rocks, and nothing else, unless the golden plumage of a quetzal flashed into sight.In another five minutes we had forgotten all about the puma, for we were leaving the trees where it had disappeared away to our left, and we went on and on, starting birds again and again, till we had passed over a quarter of a mile and were pushing on amongst open clumps of bushes with patches of woodland here and there.Pete was abreast of me with the other gun, and I was sweeping the ground before me in search of the orange plumage of the bird I sought, which might spring up at any time, when I had to pass round a pile of rugged stones half covered with herbage.“Sort of place for snakes to bask,” I said to myself, as I gave it a little wider berth, when all at once, to my surprise, up rose with a whirr not the bird I sought, but a little flock of seven or eight, and as I raised my gun to fire at the group of whizzing orange—Thud!Something heavy had bounded from the pile of stone I had passed, to alight full upon my shoulders.Bang, bang! went both barrels of my gun, and the next moment I was down, spread-eagle fashion, on my face, conscious of the fact that what was probably the puma’s mate had bounded right upon me as I stooped forward to fire, and as I heard Pete utter a yell of horror, the beast’s muzzle was pressed down on the back of my neck, and its hot breath stirred the roots of my hair.
It was a relief at last, after many days of hard work, sailing and rowing and poling over the shallows by means of the light bamboos we cut upon the banks, to find that we were well above the dense, jungle-like forest where, save in places, landing was impossible. Instead of creeping along between the two high walls of verdure, the river ran clear, shallow, and sparkling, among gravelly beds and rocks; while, though the growth was abundant on banks, there were plenty of open places full of sunshine and shadow, where flowers bloomed and birds far brighter in colour flitted from shrub to shrub, or darted in flocks among the trees. Mountains rose up in the distance, and every now and then we had glorious peeps of the valleys, which near at hand were of the richest golden-green, but in the distance gradually grew from amethyst into the purest blue.
“At last!” cried Uncle Dick, for we had reached the outskirts of the land he sought—one with the natural roads necessary; for by careful management we contrived to penetrate some distance up the various streams which came down from the mountains to join the main river, and when we had forced the boat up a little stream till it was aground, we there camped and made expeditions on foot in all directions, coming back to the boat with our treasures.
It was difficult to decide which stream to try, and one in particular whose mouth we passed several times in our journeys to and fro attracted me—I could not tell why—and I suggested more than once that we should go up it; but Uncle Dick shook his head.
“It is the least likely, Nat,” he said on one occasion, and when, after several expeditions, I proposed it again, because most of those we tried evidently bore to the north, while this had a southward tendency, he refused tetchily.
“Can’t you see how covered it is with water-weed and tangled growth? It would be impossible to go up there without a small canoe.”
So I said no more, but contented myself with his choice.
For of treasures we had plenty, the wild mountain valleys swarming with beautifully plumaged birds, especially with those tiny little objects which were actually less than some of the butterflies and moths.
These humming-birds we generally shot with sand, sometimes merely with the wad of the cartridge, and even at times brought them down by the concussion caused by firing with powder only, when very near.
I was never tired of examining these little gems of the bird world, and wondering at their excessive beauty in their dazzling hues, exactly like those of the precious stones from which they are named—ruby, emerald, topaz, sapphire, amethyst, and the like.
“It caps me,” Pete used to say, as he stared with open mouth when I carefully skinned the tiny creatures to preserve them.
Then came the day when, after a long tramp along with Pete, we found ourselves at the end of a narrow valley, with apparently no farther progress to be made.
We had started, after an early breakfast in the boat, and left my uncle there to finish off the drying of some skins ready for packing in a light case of split bamboo which the carpenter had made; and with one gun over my shoulder, a botanist’s collecting-box for choice birds, and Pete following with another gun and a net for large birds slung over his shoulder, we had tramped on for hours, thinking nothing of the heat and the sun-rays which flashed off the surface of the clear shallow stream we were following, for the air came down fresh and invigorating from the mountains.
We had been fairly successful, for I had shot four rare humming-birds; but so far we had seen no specimens of the gorgeous quetzal, and it was for these that our eyes wandered whenever we reached a patch of woodland, but only to startle macaws, parroquets, or the clumsy-looking—but really light and active—big-billed toucans, which made Pete shake his head.
“They’re all very well, with their orange and red throats, or their pale primrose or white, Master Nat; but I don’t see no good in birds having great bills like that.”
We had a bit of an adventure, too, that was rather startling, as we slowly climbed higher in tracking the course of the little stream towards its source in the mountain. As we toiled on where the rocks rose like walls on either side, and the ground was stony and bare, the rugged glittering in the sunshine, Pete had got on a few yards ahead through my having paused to transfer a gorgeous golden-green beetle to our collecting-box.
I was just thinking that the absence of grass or flowers was probably due to the fact that the flooded stream must at times run all over where we were walking, the narrow valley looking quite like the bed of a river right up to the rocks on either side, when Pete shouted to me—
“Come and look, Master Nat. What’s this here? Want to take it?”
I looked, and then fired the quickest shot I ever discharged in my life. I hardly know how I managed it; but one moment I was carrying my gun over my shoulder, the next I had let the barrels fall into my left hand and fired.
Pete leapt off the ground, uttering a yell which would have made anyone who could have looked on imagine that I had shot him. He dropped the gun he carried and turned round to face me.
“What did you do that for, Master Nat?” he cried.
“For that,” I said, pointing, and then raising my piece to my shoulder, I fired again at something writhing and twining among the loose stones.
“Thought you meant to shoot me, sir,” said Pete, picking up the gun and covering a dint he had made in the stock, as he stared down at the object that was now dying fast. “Well, it’s of no good now. You’ve reg’larly spoiled it.”
“Do you know what that is?” I said, with my heart beating fast.
“Course I do,” he said with a laugh. “Snake.”
“Yes, the most deadly snake out here. If I had waited till you touched it you would have been stung; and that generally means death.”
“My word!” said Pete, shrinking away. “Think of it, sir! Shouldn’t have liked that, Master Nat. What snake is it?”
“A rattlesnake.”
“I didn’t hear him rattle. But I was just going to lay hold of him behind his ears and pick him up.”
“And yet uncle told you to beware of poisonous snakes.”
“Ah! so he did, sir; but I wasn’t thinking about what he said then. So that’s his rattle at the end of his tail, with a sting in it.”
“Nonsense!” I cried. “Rattlesnakes do not sting.”
“Hark at him!” cried Pete, addressing nobody. Then to me—
“Why, you said just now they did.”
“I meant bite.”
“But wapses have their stings in their tails.”
“But rattlesnakes do not,” I said. “Look here.”
I drew the hunting knife I carried, and with one chop took off the dangerous reptile’s head. Then picking it up I opened the jaws and showed him the two keen, hollow, poisonous fangs which rose erect when the jaws gaped.
“Seem too little to do any harm, Master Nat,” said Pete, rubbing his head. “Well, I shall know one of them gentlemen another time.—Oh, don’t chuck it away!” he cried. “I should like to put that head in a box and save it.”
“Too late, Pete,” I said, for I had just sent the head flying into the rippling stream; and after reloading we went on again till it seemed as if we were quite shut in.
For right in front was a towering rock, quite perpendicular above a low archway, at whose foot the stream rushed gurgling out, while the sides of the narrow ravine in which we were rose up like a wall.
“We shall have to go back, Pete, I suppose,” I said, as I looked upon either side.
“I wouldn’t, sir,” he replied; “it’s early yet.”
“But we couldn’t climb up there.”
“Oh, yes, we could, sir, if we took it a bit at a time.”
Pete was right. I had looked at the task all at once, but by taking it a bit at a time we slowly climbed up and up till we reached to where there was a gentle slope dotted with patches of woodland, and looking more beautiful than the part we had travelled over that day.
It was just as we had drawn ourselves up on to the gentle slope which spread away evidently for miles, that Pete laid his hand upon my arm and pointed away to the left.
“Look!” he whispered; “thing like a great cat. There she goes.”
But I did not look, for I had caught sight of a couple of birds gliding through the air as if they were finishing their flight and about to alight.
“Look there!” I panted excitedly, as I watched for the place where the birds would pitch, which proved to be out of sight, beyond a clump of trees.
“This way, Master Nat,” whispered Pete.
“No, no; this way,” I said hoarsely. And I hurried forward, having to get over about a hundred yards before I could reach the patch behind which the birds had disappeared.
My heart beat faster with excitement as well as exertion as I checked my pace on reaching the trees and began to creep softly along in their shelter, till all at once there was a harsh scream, followed by a dozen more, as a little flock of lovely green parroquets took flight, and Pete stopped short for me to fire.
But I did not; I only kept on, wondering whether the objects of my search would take fright.
They did the next moment, and I fired at what seemed like a couple of whirring patches of orange, one of which to my great joy fell, while the other went right away in a straight line, showing that it had not been touched.
“That’s got him!” cried Pete excitedly. And he ran forward to pick up the bird, while I began to reload, but stopped in astonishment, for from some bushes away to the left, in a series of bounds, a magnificent puma sprang into sight, and seemed to be racing Pete so as to get first to the fallen bird.
Pete was nearest, and would have been there first, but he suddenly caught sight of the great active cat and stopped short.
This had the effect of making the puma stop short too, and stand lashing its tail and staring at Pete as if undecided what to do.
I ought to have behaved differently, but I was as much taken by surprise as Pete, and I, too, stood staring instead of reloading my gun, while it never once occurred to the lad that he had one already charged in his hand.
Suddenly, to my astonishment, he snatched off his straw hat.
“Shoo!” he cried, and sent it skimming through the air at the puma.
The effect was all he desired, for the beautiful animal sprang round and bounded away towards the nearest patch of forest, Pete after him till he reached his hat, which he picked up in triumph and stuck on his head again, grinning as he returned.
“That’s the way to scare that sort, Master Nat,” he cried. And he reached me again just as I stooped to pick up the fallen bird.
“Cock of the Rocks, Pete,” I cried triumphantly, too much excited to think about the puma.
“Is he, sir?” said Pete. “Well, he ran away like a hen.”
“No, no! I mean this bird. Isn’t it a beauty?”
“He just is, sir. Lives on oranges, I s’pose, to make him that colour.”
“I don’t know what it lived on,” I said as I regularly gloated over the lovely bird with its orange plumage and soft wheel-like crest of feathers from beak to nape. “This must go in your net, Pete; but you must carry it very carefully.”
“I will, Master Nat. Going back now?”
“Back? No,” I cried. “We must follow up that other one. I saw which way it flew. Uncle will be in ecstasies at our having found a place where they come.”
“Will he, sir? Thought it was golden-green birds with long tails. Quizzals. That one’s got hardly any tail at all.”
“He wants these too,” I said, closing the breech of my gun. “Come along.”
“But how about that there big cat, sir? He’s gone down that way.”
“We must fire at it if it comes near again, or you must throw your hat,” I said, laughing.
“All right, sir, you know. Only if he or she do turn savage, it might be awkward.”
“I don’t think they’re dangerous animals, Pete,” I said; “and we must have that other bird, and we may put up more. Here, I’ll go first.”
“Nay, play fair, Master Nat,” said Pete; “let’s go side by side.”
“Yes, but a little way apart. Open out about thirty feet, and then let’s go forward slowly. I think we shall find it among those trees yonder.”
“The big cat, sir?” said Pete.
“No, no!” I cried; “the other bird, the cock of the rocks. Now then, forward.”
A little flock of brightly-coloured finches flew up before we had gone a hundred yards, but I was so excited by the prospect of getting my prize’s mate that these seemed of no account, and we went on, my intention being to fire at the cock of the rocks, and nothing else, unless the golden plumage of a quetzal flashed into sight.
In another five minutes we had forgotten all about the puma, for we were leaving the trees where it had disappeared away to our left, and we went on and on, starting birds again and again, till we had passed over a quarter of a mile and were pushing on amongst open clumps of bushes with patches of woodland here and there.
Pete was abreast of me with the other gun, and I was sweeping the ground before me in search of the orange plumage of the bird I sought, which might spring up at any time, when I had to pass round a pile of rugged stones half covered with herbage.
“Sort of place for snakes to bask,” I said to myself, as I gave it a little wider berth, when all at once, to my surprise, up rose with a whirr not the bird I sought, but a little flock of seven or eight, and as I raised my gun to fire at the group of whizzing orange—Thud!
Something heavy had bounded from the pile of stone I had passed, to alight full upon my shoulders.
Bang, bang! went both barrels of my gun, and the next moment I was down, spread-eagle fashion, on my face, conscious of the fact that what was probably the puma’s mate had bounded right upon me as I stooped forward to fire, and as I heard Pete utter a yell of horror, the beast’s muzzle was pressed down on the back of my neck, and its hot breath stirred the roots of my hair.
Chapter Eight.A Lucky Escape.For a few minutes, or a few moments, I cannot tell which, I lay there half stunned.Then I began to think that I should be torn to pieces and devoured, and my next vivid thought took the form of a question—Will it hurt much?This set me wondering whether I was already badly injured, and as I had read that people who are seriously hurt do not feel pain at the time, I took it for granted that I was in a very sad state. But all the same I did not feel torn by the creature’s claws, nor yet as if its teeth had been driven into the back of my neck, though I supposed that they had been. What I did feel was that the puma was heavy, soft, and very hot.“Then I can’t be hurt,” I reasoned with myself at last, “or I should feel the pain now,” and with this I began to think it was time to do something; but I hesitated about beginning, for I could make no use of my discharged gun.There was my knife, though, if I could get it out from its sheath in my belt, and feeling that, if it were to come to a struggle, my empty hands would be no match for the puma’s teeth and claws, I began to steal my fingers towards my belt.I stopped directly, though, for at the first movement there was a deep shuddering growl at the nape of my neck, and it seemed to run down my spine and out at the tips of my fingers and toes. It was just as if the puma were saying—“You just lie still, or I’ll bite.”That must have been the meaning, for I lay quite still with the great heat drops tickling my face and running in the roots of my hair, while the puma crouched upon my back so that I could feel its shape exactly.“What can I do?” I said to myself, and then I remembered the old story about the traveller and the bear—how he shammed death, and the bear left him. That was what I felt that I must do, and I lay perfectly still in the hope that the puma would leave me, though it seemed quite to approve of its couch, and lay close, breathing steadily, so that I felt the rise and fall of its breast against my back.Just when I was beginning to feel faint with the heat and excitement, a thrill ran through me, for from somewhere close at hand, but invisible to me in the position I occupied, I heard Pete’s voice—“Oh, Master Nat, Master Nat! Are you killed?”“No,” I cried; but I said no more, for there was a savage growl, a snap, and I felt myself seized at the back of the neck and shaken, but the puma had only seized the collar of my loose jacket, so that I was unhurt still.“What shall I do, Master Nat?” cried Pete.The puma loosed its hold of the collar of my jacket, and I felt it raise its head as if looking in the direction of Pete, and it growled fiercely again.“Shoot, Pete, shoot!” I cried, feeling that at all risks I must speak.The puma’s teeth gripped my collar again, and I could fell its claws glide out of their sheaths like a cat’s and press upon my shoulders, giving me a warning of what the beast could do.But its attention was taken off directly by Pete’s voice, and it raised its head again and growled at him as if daring him to approach and rob it of its prey.For Pete cried in a despairing tone—“I dursn’t shoot, Master Nat, I dursn’t shoot. I aren’t clever with a gun, and I should hit you.”I knew this was quite true, and that under the circumstances I dared not have fired, so I lay perfectly still, trying to think out what to do, for the animal seemed determined not to leave me, and I began to grow giddy as well as faint.Then I started, for there was a rustling of the grass and a sharp crack, as if Pete had trodden upon a dead twig.The puma growled again furiously, and then as I started, seized my collar tight in its teeth and shook me, for the sharp report of the gun Pete carried rang out, followed by that of a second barrel, when I heard the loud whirr of wings, and felt sure that three or four more specimens of the lovely orange-tinted birds I sought had been scared into flight.But the firing in the air had not scared the puma, which lowered its head again and seized my collar, clinging tightly, and working its claws in and out of their sheaths.“It’s no good, Master Nat,” cried Pete; “it don’t frighten him a bit. Shall I run back and tell the doctor?”“No,” I said softly, so as not to irritate the puma; “you could not get back till after dark, and I should be dead before then.”“What shall I do then, Master Nat? What shall I do? I want to save you, but I’m such a coward. I don’t care, though; he shall have my knife into him if I die for it! Ah, I know!” he cried exultingly, “Whoo—hoo—oo—oo—oo!”To my astonishment and delight, just as I was nearly fainting, the puma gave a furious growl and a tremendous bound, leaving me free, and as I struggled to my feet, panting and exhausted, I caught sight of Pete twenty yards away in the act of picking up his straw hat, with which he returned to me, grinning with delight.“That done it,” he cried. “He couldn’t understand it a bit, I sent my old hat skimming at him, and I say, he did cut away. I say, you aren’t much hurt, are you, sir?”“N–no,” I said hesitatingly, “I think not. Look at my neck and shoulder. See if they bleed.”“Yes,” cried Pete excitedly, “he’s got hold of you at the back o’ the neck and ragged you. Where’s your hankychy?”I turned deathly sick with horror as I drew out my handkerchief and gave it to him; and then I felt ashamed of myself, for Pete burst out laughing.“He aren’t touched your neck, Master Nat,” he cried, “on’y got hold of the collar of your jacket and chawed it a bit. I say, who’d ha’ thought an old straw hat was better than a gun!”“Can we get some water?” I said hoarsely.“Yes, there’s some trickles down into a bit of a pool yonder, where I found my hat. Come on.”A few minutes later I was bathing my hands and face, after we had lain down and drunk heartily of the sweet, cool, clear water, to rise up refreshed, and as the puma had disappeared, feeling as if the danger through which we had passed was very far away.“How d’yer feel now, Master Nat?” asked Pete.“Oh, better; much better,” I said quickly.“Good job he didn’t begin eating of you, ain’t it, sir?”“Yes, Pete, a very good job,” I said heartily.“Then let’s go on and shoot some more of them yaller birds.”I shook my head as I held out one hand, which was trembling.“I don’t think I could hit a bird now, Pete, after that upset.”“Oh, yes, you could, sir,” he cried. “Let’s go on; and I say, if you see my gentleman again, you pepper him, and he won’t come near us any more.”“I don’t know, Pete,” I said thoughtfully; “the pain might make it more vicious. Let’s get back to the boat. I feel as if I’ve done quite enough for one day.”I finished reloading my gun as I spoke, so as to be ready for emergencies, and turned to retrace our steps to the rocky descent to the stream, when Pete touched my arm.“Coming back here to drink,” he whispered.I forgot all about the shock and nervousness the next moment, as I saw the flutter of approaching wings, and directly after my gun rang out with two reports, while as the smoke floated away, Pete triumphantly ran to where a couple of the orange birds had fallen.“I say, Master Nat,” he said, “you can shoot. Wish I could do that. You seem just to hold the gun up and it’s done. I knew you could. They are beauties. Something better worth taking back than we had before.”The birds’ plumage was carefully smoothed, and without further adventure we reached the top of the vast rocky wall and descended to the stream, where we had another refreshing draught close to the mouth of the natural arch through which the water flowed, and then tramped back to the boat, reaching it at sundown, where my uncle was, as I had said, in ecstasies with the beautiful birds we had brought.I was as pleased, but just then I thought more of the pleasant roast-bird supper and the coffee that awaited us, and paid more attention to these than anything else.Over the supper, though, I related our experience with the pumas, and my uncle looked serious.“You got off well, Nat,” he said. “They are not dangerous beasts, though, unless attacked and hurt. I’d give them as wide a berth in future as I could. I’m thankful that you had such an escape.”
For a few minutes, or a few moments, I cannot tell which, I lay there half stunned.
Then I began to think that I should be torn to pieces and devoured, and my next vivid thought took the form of a question—Will it hurt much?
This set me wondering whether I was already badly injured, and as I had read that people who are seriously hurt do not feel pain at the time, I took it for granted that I was in a very sad state. But all the same I did not feel torn by the creature’s claws, nor yet as if its teeth had been driven into the back of my neck, though I supposed that they had been. What I did feel was that the puma was heavy, soft, and very hot.
“Then I can’t be hurt,” I reasoned with myself at last, “or I should feel the pain now,” and with this I began to think it was time to do something; but I hesitated about beginning, for I could make no use of my discharged gun.
There was my knife, though, if I could get it out from its sheath in my belt, and feeling that, if it were to come to a struggle, my empty hands would be no match for the puma’s teeth and claws, I began to steal my fingers towards my belt.
I stopped directly, though, for at the first movement there was a deep shuddering growl at the nape of my neck, and it seemed to run down my spine and out at the tips of my fingers and toes. It was just as if the puma were saying—
“You just lie still, or I’ll bite.”
That must have been the meaning, for I lay quite still with the great heat drops tickling my face and running in the roots of my hair, while the puma crouched upon my back so that I could feel its shape exactly.
“What can I do?” I said to myself, and then I remembered the old story about the traveller and the bear—how he shammed death, and the bear left him. That was what I felt that I must do, and I lay perfectly still in the hope that the puma would leave me, though it seemed quite to approve of its couch, and lay close, breathing steadily, so that I felt the rise and fall of its breast against my back.
Just when I was beginning to feel faint with the heat and excitement, a thrill ran through me, for from somewhere close at hand, but invisible to me in the position I occupied, I heard Pete’s voice—
“Oh, Master Nat, Master Nat! Are you killed?”
“No,” I cried; but I said no more, for there was a savage growl, a snap, and I felt myself seized at the back of the neck and shaken, but the puma had only seized the collar of my loose jacket, so that I was unhurt still.
“What shall I do, Master Nat?” cried Pete.
The puma loosed its hold of the collar of my jacket, and I felt it raise its head as if looking in the direction of Pete, and it growled fiercely again.
“Shoot, Pete, shoot!” I cried, feeling that at all risks I must speak.
The puma’s teeth gripped my collar again, and I could fell its claws glide out of their sheaths like a cat’s and press upon my shoulders, giving me a warning of what the beast could do.
But its attention was taken off directly by Pete’s voice, and it raised its head again and growled at him as if daring him to approach and rob it of its prey.
For Pete cried in a despairing tone—
“I dursn’t shoot, Master Nat, I dursn’t shoot. I aren’t clever with a gun, and I should hit you.”
I knew this was quite true, and that under the circumstances I dared not have fired, so I lay perfectly still, trying to think out what to do, for the animal seemed determined not to leave me, and I began to grow giddy as well as faint.
Then I started, for there was a rustling of the grass and a sharp crack, as if Pete had trodden upon a dead twig.
The puma growled again furiously, and then as I started, seized my collar tight in its teeth and shook me, for the sharp report of the gun Pete carried rang out, followed by that of a second barrel, when I heard the loud whirr of wings, and felt sure that three or four more specimens of the lovely orange-tinted birds I sought had been scared into flight.
But the firing in the air had not scared the puma, which lowered its head again and seized my collar, clinging tightly, and working its claws in and out of their sheaths.
“It’s no good, Master Nat,” cried Pete; “it don’t frighten him a bit. Shall I run back and tell the doctor?”
“No,” I said softly, so as not to irritate the puma; “you could not get back till after dark, and I should be dead before then.”
“What shall I do then, Master Nat? What shall I do? I want to save you, but I’m such a coward. I don’t care, though; he shall have my knife into him if I die for it! Ah, I know!” he cried exultingly, “Whoo—hoo—oo—oo—oo!”
To my astonishment and delight, just as I was nearly fainting, the puma gave a furious growl and a tremendous bound, leaving me free, and as I struggled to my feet, panting and exhausted, I caught sight of Pete twenty yards away in the act of picking up his straw hat, with which he returned to me, grinning with delight.
“That done it,” he cried. “He couldn’t understand it a bit, I sent my old hat skimming at him, and I say, he did cut away. I say, you aren’t much hurt, are you, sir?”
“N–no,” I said hesitatingly, “I think not. Look at my neck and shoulder. See if they bleed.”
“Yes,” cried Pete excitedly, “he’s got hold of you at the back o’ the neck and ragged you. Where’s your hankychy?”
I turned deathly sick with horror as I drew out my handkerchief and gave it to him; and then I felt ashamed of myself, for Pete burst out laughing.
“He aren’t touched your neck, Master Nat,” he cried, “on’y got hold of the collar of your jacket and chawed it a bit. I say, who’d ha’ thought an old straw hat was better than a gun!”
“Can we get some water?” I said hoarsely.
“Yes, there’s some trickles down into a bit of a pool yonder, where I found my hat. Come on.”
A few minutes later I was bathing my hands and face, after we had lain down and drunk heartily of the sweet, cool, clear water, to rise up refreshed, and as the puma had disappeared, feeling as if the danger through which we had passed was very far away.
“How d’yer feel now, Master Nat?” asked Pete.
“Oh, better; much better,” I said quickly.
“Good job he didn’t begin eating of you, ain’t it, sir?”
“Yes, Pete, a very good job,” I said heartily.
“Then let’s go on and shoot some more of them yaller birds.”
I shook my head as I held out one hand, which was trembling.
“I don’t think I could hit a bird now, Pete, after that upset.”
“Oh, yes, you could, sir,” he cried. “Let’s go on; and I say, if you see my gentleman again, you pepper him, and he won’t come near us any more.”
“I don’t know, Pete,” I said thoughtfully; “the pain might make it more vicious. Let’s get back to the boat. I feel as if I’ve done quite enough for one day.”
I finished reloading my gun as I spoke, so as to be ready for emergencies, and turned to retrace our steps to the rocky descent to the stream, when Pete touched my arm.
“Coming back here to drink,” he whispered.
I forgot all about the shock and nervousness the next moment, as I saw the flutter of approaching wings, and directly after my gun rang out with two reports, while as the smoke floated away, Pete triumphantly ran to where a couple of the orange birds had fallen.
“I say, Master Nat,” he said, “you can shoot. Wish I could do that. You seem just to hold the gun up and it’s done. I knew you could. They are beauties. Something better worth taking back than we had before.”
The birds’ plumage was carefully smoothed, and without further adventure we reached the top of the vast rocky wall and descended to the stream, where we had another refreshing draught close to the mouth of the natural arch through which the water flowed, and then tramped back to the boat, reaching it at sundown, where my uncle was, as I had said, in ecstasies with the beautiful birds we had brought.
I was as pleased, but just then I thought more of the pleasant roast-bird supper and the coffee that awaited us, and paid more attention to these than anything else.
Over the supper, though, I related our experience with the pumas, and my uncle looked serious.
“You got off well, Nat,” he said. “They are not dangerous beasts, though, unless attacked and hurt. I’d give them as wide a berth in future as I could. I’m thankful that you had such an escape.”
Chapter Nine.Through the Cavern.My uncle accompanied me in my next and several other visits to the upper valley, with the result that we obtained as many specimens of the beautiful orange birds as we required, and in addition several rare kinds of humming-birds; but strangely enough, anxious as I was that my uncle should see one of the pumas they were never encountered once.The whole of the upper valley was very lovely, and the air, from its being so high up among the mountains, deliciously cool.“It seems a pity,” my uncle said, “that nobody lives here.” For as far as we could make out in our many journeys, human beings had never penetrated its solitudes.“Yes,” I said, on one of these occasions, “it is a glorious place, uncle, and anyone might make it a lovely garden with hardly any trouble; but I shouldn’t like to live here after all.”“Why?” he said. “You seem very hard to please.”“The place isn’t perfect, uncle,” I said.“No place is, but I don’t see much to find fault with. Oh, you mean that we can find no quetzals.”“No, I did not,” I said. “I meant we find too many rattlesnakes.”“Ah, yes, they are a nuisance, Nat; but they always get out of our way if they can, and so long as they don’t bite us we need not complain. Well, we have pretty well explored this valley, and it is time we tried another. We must get farther to the south.”“Why not strike off, then, from the top of the great cliff above the arch, and try and find where the stream dives down?”“What!” he said; “you don’t think, then, that the stream rises entirely there?”“No,” I said; “I fancy it dives underground when it reaches a mountain, and comes out where we saw.”“Quite likely,” he said, jumping at the idea. “We’ll try, for we have had some beautiful specimens from the woodlands on the banks of that stream. Perhaps we may find my golden-green trogons up there after all, for I feel sure that there are some to be found up among the head-waters of the river.”The next day preparations were made for our expedition, and as the country we were in seemed to be so completely uninhabited from its unsuitability for agricultural purposes, and the little attraction it had for hunters other than such as we, there was no occasion to mind leaving the boat.The carpenter and Pete were in high glee at the news that they were to accompany us, and in the intervals of packing up, their delight was expressed by furtive punches and slaps delivered when one or the other was not looking.“I am glad, Mr Nat,” Bill Cross said to me when we were alone for a few minutes overnight. “I’m not grumbling, sir, and I like making cases and cooking and washing, but I do feel sometimes as if I’d give anything to be able to shoulder a gun and come along with you gents, shooting and hunting for curiosities.”“Well, you’ll have a fine chance now, Bill,” I said.“Yes, sir, and it’ll just be a treat; for I haven’t had much of the fun so far, have I?”“Fun?” I said.“Yes, sir; it’s fun to a chap like me who when he goes to sleep of a night it’s with the feeling that there’s a day’s work done.”“So it is with all of us,” I said. “I work very hard; so does my uncle.”“Yes, sir; but don’t you see that what’s work to you as can go and do is seems like play to me as is obliged to stay in camp—I mean with the boat. But as I was going to say, after a night’s rest when one wakes up it’s always to begin another day’s work! But there, don’t you think I’m grumbling, sir, because I arn’t; for I’ve never been so happy in my life before as since I’ve been out here with you and the doctor. What time do we start to-morrow?”“Breakfast before daylight, and start as soon as we can see,” I replied.“Right, sir; I’ll be ready.”There was so little novelty in a fresh trip to me then, that I dropped asleep as soon as I lay down in the tent under a big tree ashore, and it seemed like the next minute when the carpenter in his gruff voice called to us that breakfast was nigh ready.I looked up, to see his face by the lanthorn he had brought alight, as he hung it from a hook on the tent-pole; and then after making sure that my uncle was awake, I hurried out into the darkness, where Pete was busy frizzling bacon over the glowing embers, ran down into the fresh, cool water for my bath, and came out with my blood seeming to dance through my veins.Our breakfast was soon dispatched, and before the sun rose the tent had been fastened up, our guns and satchels shouldered and swung, and in addition Cross carried a coil of rope and the lanthorn, now out and freshly trimmed.“Be useful,” he said, with a sage nod of the head. “S’pose we shall be out all night.”The next minute he and Pete shouldered the extra guns and the packs they were to carry in case our trip lasted over more than a couple of days; and we set off in single file steadily up the side of the stream between the walls of rock, and sometimes wading across it to find better ground. Twice over we waded in the middle of the water, where it was sandy, and found it nowhere over our knees.In due time we reached the spot where the walls of the gorge had drawn together and the end was closed by the perpendicular mountain at whose foot was the little natural arch out of which the water came gurgling swiftly. Here my uncle stopped for the load-bearers to have a short rest before we began to climb upward to Puma Vale, as I had dubbed it.Pete and Cross used their loads as seats, and the latter, who had not seen the place before, sat looking about attentively, while my uncle took out his little double-glass and examined the towering mountain for signs of birds upon the ledges or trees which clung to the sides.The carpenter turned to me and nodded.“Strange pretty place, Mr Nat,” he cried, “and it’s just like Pete said it was. Going up yonder to try and find the river again farther on, aren’t we?”“Yes, and I think we shall find it.”“Wouldn’t it be better to keep on up it? Should be sure of it then.”“But don’t you see that we can go no farther?” I said wonderingly.“No, sir, I don’t. Water’s not above eighteen inches deep, and it’s nice sandy bottom.”“But it nearly touches the top of the arch,” I said.“Just there it do, sir, but that’s only the doorway; it may be ever so high inside. P’raps I’m wrong, though. You’ve tried it, then?”“What, tried to get under that horrible dark arch? Oh, no!”“Why not?” said the man coolly. “I don’t see nothing horrid. Dessay it’ll be dark, but we’ve a lanthorn.”“But we should have to wade, and in the darkness we might go down some horrible hole.”Cross shook his head.“Nay,” he said; “you might do that if the water was running the other way downward, but we should have to go up stream with the water coming to us. We shouldn’t find any holes; what we should find more likely would be waterfalls, and have to climb up ’em.”“What’s that?” cried my uncle, who had caught part of what was said, and he was told the rest.“Let’s have a look, Nat,” he said, and slipping off our boots and stockings we waded on over the soft sand to where the water came rushing out through the arch, stooping down and peering in as we listened to the gurgling and whispering of the water.“Shall we have the lanthorn, and I’ll stoop down and see if the roof gets higher farther in?” I said.“Would you mind doing it?” said my uncle.“I don’t think I should like it much,” I said; “but I’ll try.”“Let me go, Master Nat, sir,” said Pete eagerly; “I won’t mind.”“Sounds as if there’s plenty of room inside, sir,” said Cross, who had followed our example and waded in.“Let’s see,” said my uncle, stooping down, after cocking his gun. Then holding it as if it were a pistol, he reached in as far as he could and fired both barrels.The reports sounded dull and smothered, and as we listened my uncle said:“It is only a narrow passage, I think.”Then he was silent, for the reports were repeated ten times as loudly, and went on reverberating again and again, from farther and farther away, till they gradually grew indistinct and strange, for there was a strange dull roar growing louder and louder till the echoes were drowned, while the roar seemed to come on and on, till without hesitation on anyone’s part we turned and ran splashing out of the stream to the shore, to escape from a dark rushing cloud which came streaming out of the mouth of the cave with screams, hisses, and whisperings, out and away down the narrow ravine till it seemed to be filled with birds and bats, while a strange black-beetly odour assailed our nostrils.“No doubt about there being plenty of room, lads,” said my uncle, as he laughed at our scared faces, for the sudden rush out was startling.“Is them owls, sir?” said the carpenter, staring.“No, no,” replied my uncle; “they are something of the goat-sucker tribe—night-birds which build in caves; but a good half of what we see are bats.”“Yes, I can see they’re bats, sir, and the biggest I ever did see. Well, they won’t hurt us, sir?”“No, but they’re terribly afraid we shall hurt them,” said my uncle. “Well, Nat, what do you say? Shall we explore the underground river?”I felt as if I should like to say, “No, I would rather not,” but the pride within me made me take the other view of the matter.“Yes,” I said, “of course,” and the sense of unwillingness was forgotten in the desire to laugh at the look of horror in Pete’s face as he stared appealingly from one to the other.“You won’t mind, Cross?” said my uncle.“No, sir; I should like it,” replied the man.“Light the lanthorn.”“Shall we take our loads with us, uncle?” I said.“Certainly. If the way through is short we shall want them at the other side. If it is long we shall want some refreshments on the way.”“But suppose—” I began, and then I stopped.“Suppose what?” said my uncle.“Suppose the river does not pass through the mountain, but comes from deep down somewhere.”“The more interesting the discovery of its hidden source, my lad. But that is not likely. Look at the rock. What is it—granite or gneiss?”“No,” I said; “limestone.”“Well, you ought to know how limestone ridges are honeycombed with water-formed caverns. We have several examples at home. If this subterranean river came bubbling up from somewhere in the interior and the rock were granite, I should expect it to be hot.”“And it’s quite cold, sir,” said Cross.“Oh, no, just pleasantly cool. I don’t think there’s a doubt about its having its source higher up in the mountains; but whether it has dived down for a few hundred yards or a few miles we can only know by exploring.”“Well, Cross,” I said to the carpenter, “will this be fun enough for you?”“Splendid, sir,” said the man enthusiastically. “I never had a treat like this.”“Master Nat,” whispered Pete, “am I to come too?”“Of course,” I said. “Tuck up your trousers as high as you can.”“But suppose we have to swim, sir?”“Look here, Pete,” I said, “you don’t want to come.”“No, sir. Can’t help it, sir, but I never could a-bear the dark.”“Then I’ll ask my uncle to let you stop behind.”“What!” cried the poor fellow fiercely, “leave me behind, and you go? That you just won’t, sir. I’d go if it was twice as dark.”I saw him set his teeth, and then, as my uncle gave the word, he climbed up to a verdant cleft with Cross to cut four stout bamboos about six feet long to act as walking-staves.“We must always be ready to feel our way and try the depth,” said Uncle Dick; “and avoid any holes. If it grows deeper as we go on and there is no bare rock at the sides, of course we must return.”A few minutes later our guns were slung across our backs, the loads taken up, and, each armed with a staff, we made our start—Cross, as he held the lanthorn, asking leave to lead the way.“We shan’t be able to do it, Master Nat,” whispered Pete, as we followed in turn, Pete last, for it was very hard work, the barrels of our guns scraping again and again against the roof during the first twenty yards or so; but Pete had hardly uttered the above words before I saw Cross raise the lanthorn higher. Then my uncle began to walk erect, and directly after I found on raising my staff that I could not touch the roof, while a sharp whistle uttered by our lanthorn-bearer was echoed from far on high.“Plenty of room upwards, sir,” cried Cross.“Yes,” said my uncle.“Ugh! what a horrid place, Master Nat!” whispered Pete, who kept as close to me as he could. “Do mind, sir.”“Mind what?” I said.“The holes. If you step into one of them there’s no knowing how deep they are. They must be just like wells.”“How do you know?” I said gruffly; and he was silent, giving me time to look to right and left and forward, as far as the light of the lanthorn would allow.There was not much to see—only a faint halo of light, with reflections sometimes from dripping rocks; but it seemed that there was no shore to the river on either side such as would afford footing, while as far as I could make out the stream was about the same width as it was outside.There was the dancing light on ahead, playing strangely on the surface of the gliding waters, and all around black darkness, while the vast cavern in which we were, seemed to be filled with strange sounds, splashings, ripplings, whisperings, and their echoes.“Hear that, Master Nat?” said Pete, getting close beside me and grasping my arm.“Of course I can,” I said pettishly, for it was bad enough to suffer from one’s own feelings, without being troubled at such a time by others.“But—oh, there it goes again,” he whispered.“What goes again?” I said.“That, sir. I dunno what it is, but there seems to be lots of ’em. Bill Cross stirs ’em up with the stick and the light, and they swims off both sides, and then you can hear ’em splashing with their tails as they come back again.”“Nonsense!” I said. “That’s all imagination.”“Oh, no, it aren’t, sir,” he whispered. “I say, what did you say was the name of them big snakes that lives part of their time in the water?”“Anacondas.”“That’s them, sir. We’ve got all amongst ’em here, and they’ll be having one of us directly.”“Pooh! There’s nothing alive in this dark place,” I said scornfully.“What! Why, wasn’t it alive with birds and bats?”“Oh, yes, but I don’t believe there’s a fish in these dark waters.”“Fish! Oh, I don’t mind fish, sir, as long as they aren’t sharks. It’s them conders I can’t bear. It wouldn’t so much matter if we were in the dark, but we’ve brought a light to show ’em where we are.”“There are no snakes here,” I said angrily.“It’s all very well for you to say so, Master Nat,” he replied; “but you just listen. There! Hear that?”“Yes, the splash against the side of the wave we make in wading.”Pete was about to say something more, but just then my uncle turned his head.“Use your bamboo well, Nat,” he said, “in case of there being any cracks; but the bottom seems very level, and the depth keeps about the same. Nice and cool here. Keep close up. What’s that, Cross?”“Only a stone standing right up, sir; water washes round it. It’s best to keep right in the middle, I think.”“You must judge about that,” said my uncle. “Go on.”“How far do you think we’ve come, sir, now?”“About a quarter of a mile, I should say.”“That’s what I thought, sir,” said the carpenter, and he waded steadily on, with us following.After a time it grew very monotonous, but we persevered, finding the underground river sometimes a little deeper, then shallower, so that the water rippled just above our ankles, while we knew at times that the cavern was wide and high, at others that it closed in on either side, and twice over the roof was so close that I could touch it with my stick.The times when it opened out were plain enough, for our splashings or voices echoed and went whispering far away. But otherwise the journey was very tame, and as the feeling of awe died away, the journey seemed uncommonly free from danger, for I felt it was absurd to imagine the waters to be peopled with strange creatures.We had been wading on for quite a couple of hours, when the water began to grow more sluggish, and to flow very quietly, rising, too, higher and higher, till it was above our waists, and the light reflected from the surface showed that it was very smooth.“Keep on, sir?” said Cross.“Yes,” said my uncle. “Keep on till it nearly touches your chin. Then we’ll turn back.”Pete uttered a low groan, but followed in a despairing way, while we went on for another quarter of an hour, with the water deeper and deeper, and at last, to our great delight, my uncle said:“There, the water is rippling up in my beard, so it is time to go back.”“Hah!” ejaculated Pete, and then he groaned, for Cross said:“Not so deep now as it was ten minutes ago, sir.”“Are you sure?”“Yes, sir. I know by my stick. I keep my hand so that it touches the water, and I’ve had to move it twice in the last five minutes. It’s not so deep now by three inches.”“Go on, then,” said my uncle, and we followed, to find the water getting shallower rapidly now. Ten minutes later it was below my waist, and in another ten minutes not above mid-thigh; but it had evidently widened out, for our voices seemed to go off far away into the distance, and my uncle suddenly said:“Why, Nat, the river must have widened out into a regular lake. How shall we find the place where it narrows again?”“Foller that there sound, sir, I think,” said Cross.“What sound?” I said.“That, sir; listen. I can hear where it seems to be rushing in ever so far away.”“Yes, I can hear it now,” I said.“Forward, then,” said my uncle, and with the water once more but little above our knees we waded steadily on after the light which Cross bore breast-high.“Cheer up, Pete,” I said; “we must be getting on now. Why, if it came to the worst we could turn back.”“Never find the way, sir,” he said bitterly, and then he uttered a yell, closely following upon a sharp ejaculation from the carpenter, who suddenly placed his foot in some cavity of the smooth floor, fell forward with an echoing splash, and the next moment the lanthorn disappeared beneath the gleaming surface, leaving us in utter darkness.Wash, wash, ripple, ripplewent the water, and the cries whispered away as fading echoes, and then Pete’s voice rose in a piteous wail.“I knowed it, I knowed it,” he said. “We shall never see the light again. Oh, help, Master Nat, help! Here’s one of them water-conders got me by the leg to pull me down.”A cry that went to my heart and sent a shudder through every nerve, for the darkness seemed so thick that it might be felt.
My uncle accompanied me in my next and several other visits to the upper valley, with the result that we obtained as many specimens of the beautiful orange birds as we required, and in addition several rare kinds of humming-birds; but strangely enough, anxious as I was that my uncle should see one of the pumas they were never encountered once.
The whole of the upper valley was very lovely, and the air, from its being so high up among the mountains, deliciously cool.
“It seems a pity,” my uncle said, “that nobody lives here.” For as far as we could make out in our many journeys, human beings had never penetrated its solitudes.
“Yes,” I said, on one of these occasions, “it is a glorious place, uncle, and anyone might make it a lovely garden with hardly any trouble; but I shouldn’t like to live here after all.”
“Why?” he said. “You seem very hard to please.”
“The place isn’t perfect, uncle,” I said.
“No place is, but I don’t see much to find fault with. Oh, you mean that we can find no quetzals.”
“No, I did not,” I said. “I meant we find too many rattlesnakes.”
“Ah, yes, they are a nuisance, Nat; but they always get out of our way if they can, and so long as they don’t bite us we need not complain. Well, we have pretty well explored this valley, and it is time we tried another. We must get farther to the south.”
“Why not strike off, then, from the top of the great cliff above the arch, and try and find where the stream dives down?”
“What!” he said; “you don’t think, then, that the stream rises entirely there?”
“No,” I said; “I fancy it dives underground when it reaches a mountain, and comes out where we saw.”
“Quite likely,” he said, jumping at the idea. “We’ll try, for we have had some beautiful specimens from the woodlands on the banks of that stream. Perhaps we may find my golden-green trogons up there after all, for I feel sure that there are some to be found up among the head-waters of the river.”
The next day preparations were made for our expedition, and as the country we were in seemed to be so completely uninhabited from its unsuitability for agricultural purposes, and the little attraction it had for hunters other than such as we, there was no occasion to mind leaving the boat.
The carpenter and Pete were in high glee at the news that they were to accompany us, and in the intervals of packing up, their delight was expressed by furtive punches and slaps delivered when one or the other was not looking.
“I am glad, Mr Nat,” Bill Cross said to me when we were alone for a few minutes overnight. “I’m not grumbling, sir, and I like making cases and cooking and washing, but I do feel sometimes as if I’d give anything to be able to shoulder a gun and come along with you gents, shooting and hunting for curiosities.”
“Well, you’ll have a fine chance now, Bill,” I said.
“Yes, sir, and it’ll just be a treat; for I haven’t had much of the fun so far, have I?”
“Fun?” I said.
“Yes, sir; it’s fun to a chap like me who when he goes to sleep of a night it’s with the feeling that there’s a day’s work done.”
“So it is with all of us,” I said. “I work very hard; so does my uncle.”
“Yes, sir; but don’t you see that what’s work to you as can go and do is seems like play to me as is obliged to stay in camp—I mean with the boat. But as I was going to say, after a night’s rest when one wakes up it’s always to begin another day’s work! But there, don’t you think I’m grumbling, sir, because I arn’t; for I’ve never been so happy in my life before as since I’ve been out here with you and the doctor. What time do we start to-morrow?”
“Breakfast before daylight, and start as soon as we can see,” I replied.
“Right, sir; I’ll be ready.”
There was so little novelty in a fresh trip to me then, that I dropped asleep as soon as I lay down in the tent under a big tree ashore, and it seemed like the next minute when the carpenter in his gruff voice called to us that breakfast was nigh ready.
I looked up, to see his face by the lanthorn he had brought alight, as he hung it from a hook on the tent-pole; and then after making sure that my uncle was awake, I hurried out into the darkness, where Pete was busy frizzling bacon over the glowing embers, ran down into the fresh, cool water for my bath, and came out with my blood seeming to dance through my veins.
Our breakfast was soon dispatched, and before the sun rose the tent had been fastened up, our guns and satchels shouldered and swung, and in addition Cross carried a coil of rope and the lanthorn, now out and freshly trimmed.
“Be useful,” he said, with a sage nod of the head. “S’pose we shall be out all night.”
The next minute he and Pete shouldered the extra guns and the packs they were to carry in case our trip lasted over more than a couple of days; and we set off in single file steadily up the side of the stream between the walls of rock, and sometimes wading across it to find better ground. Twice over we waded in the middle of the water, where it was sandy, and found it nowhere over our knees.
In due time we reached the spot where the walls of the gorge had drawn together and the end was closed by the perpendicular mountain at whose foot was the little natural arch out of which the water came gurgling swiftly. Here my uncle stopped for the load-bearers to have a short rest before we began to climb upward to Puma Vale, as I had dubbed it.
Pete and Cross used their loads as seats, and the latter, who had not seen the place before, sat looking about attentively, while my uncle took out his little double-glass and examined the towering mountain for signs of birds upon the ledges or trees which clung to the sides.
The carpenter turned to me and nodded.
“Strange pretty place, Mr Nat,” he cried, “and it’s just like Pete said it was. Going up yonder to try and find the river again farther on, aren’t we?”
“Yes, and I think we shall find it.”
“Wouldn’t it be better to keep on up it? Should be sure of it then.”
“But don’t you see that we can go no farther?” I said wonderingly.
“No, sir, I don’t. Water’s not above eighteen inches deep, and it’s nice sandy bottom.”
“But it nearly touches the top of the arch,” I said.
“Just there it do, sir, but that’s only the doorway; it may be ever so high inside. P’raps I’m wrong, though. You’ve tried it, then?”
“What, tried to get under that horrible dark arch? Oh, no!”
“Why not?” said the man coolly. “I don’t see nothing horrid. Dessay it’ll be dark, but we’ve a lanthorn.”
“But we should have to wade, and in the darkness we might go down some horrible hole.”
Cross shook his head.
“Nay,” he said; “you might do that if the water was running the other way downward, but we should have to go up stream with the water coming to us. We shouldn’t find any holes; what we should find more likely would be waterfalls, and have to climb up ’em.”
“What’s that?” cried my uncle, who had caught part of what was said, and he was told the rest.
“Let’s have a look, Nat,” he said, and slipping off our boots and stockings we waded on over the soft sand to where the water came rushing out through the arch, stooping down and peering in as we listened to the gurgling and whispering of the water.
“Shall we have the lanthorn, and I’ll stoop down and see if the roof gets higher farther in?” I said.
“Would you mind doing it?” said my uncle.
“I don’t think I should like it much,” I said; “but I’ll try.”
“Let me go, Master Nat, sir,” said Pete eagerly; “I won’t mind.”
“Sounds as if there’s plenty of room inside, sir,” said Cross, who had followed our example and waded in.
“Let’s see,” said my uncle, stooping down, after cocking his gun. Then holding it as if it were a pistol, he reached in as far as he could and fired both barrels.
The reports sounded dull and smothered, and as we listened my uncle said:
“It is only a narrow passage, I think.”
Then he was silent, for the reports were repeated ten times as loudly, and went on reverberating again and again, from farther and farther away, till they gradually grew indistinct and strange, for there was a strange dull roar growing louder and louder till the echoes were drowned, while the roar seemed to come on and on, till without hesitation on anyone’s part we turned and ran splashing out of the stream to the shore, to escape from a dark rushing cloud which came streaming out of the mouth of the cave with screams, hisses, and whisperings, out and away down the narrow ravine till it seemed to be filled with birds and bats, while a strange black-beetly odour assailed our nostrils.
“No doubt about there being plenty of room, lads,” said my uncle, as he laughed at our scared faces, for the sudden rush out was startling.
“Is them owls, sir?” said the carpenter, staring.
“No, no,” replied my uncle; “they are something of the goat-sucker tribe—night-birds which build in caves; but a good half of what we see are bats.”
“Yes, I can see they’re bats, sir, and the biggest I ever did see. Well, they won’t hurt us, sir?”
“No, but they’re terribly afraid we shall hurt them,” said my uncle. “Well, Nat, what do you say? Shall we explore the underground river?”
I felt as if I should like to say, “No, I would rather not,” but the pride within me made me take the other view of the matter.
“Yes,” I said, “of course,” and the sense of unwillingness was forgotten in the desire to laugh at the look of horror in Pete’s face as he stared appealingly from one to the other.
“You won’t mind, Cross?” said my uncle.
“No, sir; I should like it,” replied the man.
“Light the lanthorn.”
“Shall we take our loads with us, uncle?” I said.
“Certainly. If the way through is short we shall want them at the other side. If it is long we shall want some refreshments on the way.”
“But suppose—” I began, and then I stopped.
“Suppose what?” said my uncle.
“Suppose the river does not pass through the mountain, but comes from deep down somewhere.”
“The more interesting the discovery of its hidden source, my lad. But that is not likely. Look at the rock. What is it—granite or gneiss?”
“No,” I said; “limestone.”
“Well, you ought to know how limestone ridges are honeycombed with water-formed caverns. We have several examples at home. If this subterranean river came bubbling up from somewhere in the interior and the rock were granite, I should expect it to be hot.”
“And it’s quite cold, sir,” said Cross.
“Oh, no, just pleasantly cool. I don’t think there’s a doubt about its having its source higher up in the mountains; but whether it has dived down for a few hundred yards or a few miles we can only know by exploring.”
“Well, Cross,” I said to the carpenter, “will this be fun enough for you?”
“Splendid, sir,” said the man enthusiastically. “I never had a treat like this.”
“Master Nat,” whispered Pete, “am I to come too?”
“Of course,” I said. “Tuck up your trousers as high as you can.”
“But suppose we have to swim, sir?”
“Look here, Pete,” I said, “you don’t want to come.”
“No, sir. Can’t help it, sir, but I never could a-bear the dark.”
“Then I’ll ask my uncle to let you stop behind.”
“What!” cried the poor fellow fiercely, “leave me behind, and you go? That you just won’t, sir. I’d go if it was twice as dark.”
I saw him set his teeth, and then, as my uncle gave the word, he climbed up to a verdant cleft with Cross to cut four stout bamboos about six feet long to act as walking-staves.
“We must always be ready to feel our way and try the depth,” said Uncle Dick; “and avoid any holes. If it grows deeper as we go on and there is no bare rock at the sides, of course we must return.”
A few minutes later our guns were slung across our backs, the loads taken up, and, each armed with a staff, we made our start—Cross, as he held the lanthorn, asking leave to lead the way.
“We shan’t be able to do it, Master Nat,” whispered Pete, as we followed in turn, Pete last, for it was very hard work, the barrels of our guns scraping again and again against the roof during the first twenty yards or so; but Pete had hardly uttered the above words before I saw Cross raise the lanthorn higher. Then my uncle began to walk erect, and directly after I found on raising my staff that I could not touch the roof, while a sharp whistle uttered by our lanthorn-bearer was echoed from far on high.
“Plenty of room upwards, sir,” cried Cross.
“Yes,” said my uncle.
“Ugh! what a horrid place, Master Nat!” whispered Pete, who kept as close to me as he could. “Do mind, sir.”
“Mind what?” I said.
“The holes. If you step into one of them there’s no knowing how deep they are. They must be just like wells.”
“How do you know?” I said gruffly; and he was silent, giving me time to look to right and left and forward, as far as the light of the lanthorn would allow.
There was not much to see—only a faint halo of light, with reflections sometimes from dripping rocks; but it seemed that there was no shore to the river on either side such as would afford footing, while as far as I could make out the stream was about the same width as it was outside.
There was the dancing light on ahead, playing strangely on the surface of the gliding waters, and all around black darkness, while the vast cavern in which we were, seemed to be filled with strange sounds, splashings, ripplings, whisperings, and their echoes.
“Hear that, Master Nat?” said Pete, getting close beside me and grasping my arm.
“Of course I can,” I said pettishly, for it was bad enough to suffer from one’s own feelings, without being troubled at such a time by others.
“But—oh, there it goes again,” he whispered.
“What goes again?” I said.
“That, sir. I dunno what it is, but there seems to be lots of ’em. Bill Cross stirs ’em up with the stick and the light, and they swims off both sides, and then you can hear ’em splashing with their tails as they come back again.”
“Nonsense!” I said. “That’s all imagination.”
“Oh, no, it aren’t, sir,” he whispered. “I say, what did you say was the name of them big snakes that lives part of their time in the water?”
“Anacondas.”
“That’s them, sir. We’ve got all amongst ’em here, and they’ll be having one of us directly.”
“Pooh! There’s nothing alive in this dark place,” I said scornfully.
“What! Why, wasn’t it alive with birds and bats?”
“Oh, yes, but I don’t believe there’s a fish in these dark waters.”
“Fish! Oh, I don’t mind fish, sir, as long as they aren’t sharks. It’s them conders I can’t bear. It wouldn’t so much matter if we were in the dark, but we’ve brought a light to show ’em where we are.”
“There are no snakes here,” I said angrily.
“It’s all very well for you to say so, Master Nat,” he replied; “but you just listen. There! Hear that?”
“Yes, the splash against the side of the wave we make in wading.”
Pete was about to say something more, but just then my uncle turned his head.
“Use your bamboo well, Nat,” he said, “in case of there being any cracks; but the bottom seems very level, and the depth keeps about the same. Nice and cool here. Keep close up. What’s that, Cross?”
“Only a stone standing right up, sir; water washes round it. It’s best to keep right in the middle, I think.”
“You must judge about that,” said my uncle. “Go on.”
“How far do you think we’ve come, sir, now?”
“About a quarter of a mile, I should say.”
“That’s what I thought, sir,” said the carpenter, and he waded steadily on, with us following.
After a time it grew very monotonous, but we persevered, finding the underground river sometimes a little deeper, then shallower, so that the water rippled just above our ankles, while we knew at times that the cavern was wide and high, at others that it closed in on either side, and twice over the roof was so close that I could touch it with my stick.
The times when it opened out were plain enough, for our splashings or voices echoed and went whispering far away. But otherwise the journey was very tame, and as the feeling of awe died away, the journey seemed uncommonly free from danger, for I felt it was absurd to imagine the waters to be peopled with strange creatures.
We had been wading on for quite a couple of hours, when the water began to grow more sluggish, and to flow very quietly, rising, too, higher and higher, till it was above our waists, and the light reflected from the surface showed that it was very smooth.
“Keep on, sir?” said Cross.
“Yes,” said my uncle. “Keep on till it nearly touches your chin. Then we’ll turn back.”
Pete uttered a low groan, but followed in a despairing way, while we went on for another quarter of an hour, with the water deeper and deeper, and at last, to our great delight, my uncle said:
“There, the water is rippling up in my beard, so it is time to go back.”
“Hah!” ejaculated Pete, and then he groaned, for Cross said:
“Not so deep now as it was ten minutes ago, sir.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes, sir. I know by my stick. I keep my hand so that it touches the water, and I’ve had to move it twice in the last five minutes. It’s not so deep now by three inches.”
“Go on, then,” said my uncle, and we followed, to find the water getting shallower rapidly now. Ten minutes later it was below my waist, and in another ten minutes not above mid-thigh; but it had evidently widened out, for our voices seemed to go off far away into the distance, and my uncle suddenly said:
“Why, Nat, the river must have widened out into a regular lake. How shall we find the place where it narrows again?”
“Foller that there sound, sir, I think,” said Cross.
“What sound?” I said.
“That, sir; listen. I can hear where it seems to be rushing in ever so far away.”
“Yes, I can hear it now,” I said.
“Forward, then,” said my uncle, and with the water once more but little above our knees we waded steadily on after the light which Cross bore breast-high.
“Cheer up, Pete,” I said; “we must be getting on now. Why, if it came to the worst we could turn back.”
“Never find the way, sir,” he said bitterly, and then he uttered a yell, closely following upon a sharp ejaculation from the carpenter, who suddenly placed his foot in some cavity of the smooth floor, fell forward with an echoing splash, and the next moment the lanthorn disappeared beneath the gleaming surface, leaving us in utter darkness.
Wash, wash, ripple, ripplewent the water, and the cries whispered away as fading echoes, and then Pete’s voice rose in a piteous wail.
“I knowed it, I knowed it,” he said. “We shall never see the light again. Oh, help, Master Nat, help! Here’s one of them water-conders got me by the leg to pull me down.”
A cry that went to my heart and sent a shudder through every nerve, for the darkness seemed so thick that it might be felt.