DEATH RIVER
At last their first week in this new world of beauty and mystery came
to an end. At Belem they boarded a well-appointed steamer and embarked
for the thousand-mile voyage to Manaos, which is only six degrees from
the equator and one of the hottest cities of the world. There followed
another week of a life that was strange and new to the travelers from
Cornwall. There were silent, steaming days when the earth seemed to
swoon beneath the glare of the lurid sun, and only at night would a
breath of air cross the water, which gleamed like a silver
burning-glass. For their very lives' sake, white men and Indians alike
had learned to keep as quiet and cool as possible during those fiery
hours. Only Hen, coming from a race that since the birth of time had
lived close to the equator, moved about with a cheerfulness which no
amount of heat or humidity could lessen. At night, when the fatal sun
had reluctantly disappeared in a mass of pink and violet clouds, the
life-bringing breeze would blow in fresh and salt from the far-away sea,
and all living creatures would revive. The boys soon learned that, in
the mid-heat of a tropical summer, the night was the appointed time for
play and work, and they slept during the day as much as possible in
shaded, airy hammocks.
One evening, after an unusually trying day, the night wind sprang up
even before the sun had set. Here and there, across the surface of the
river, flashed snow-white swallows with dark wings. As the fire-gold of
the sun touched the horizon, the silver circle of the full moon showed
in the east, and for a moment the two great lights faced each other.
Then the sun slipped behind the rim of the world, and the moon rose
higher and higher, while the Indian crew struck up a wailing chant full
of endless verses, with a strange minor cadence like the folk-songs of
the Southern negro. Hen Pine translated the words of some of them, and
crooned the wailing melody:
"The moon is rising,
Mother, Mother,
The seven stars are weeping,
Mother, Mother,
To find themselves forsaken,
Mother, Mother."
Down the echoing channels, through the endless gloomy forests, the
cadence of the song rose and fell.
Suddenly, in the still moonlight from the river-bank came a single low
note of ethereal beauty and unutterable sorrow. Slowly it rose and
swelled, keeping its heartbreaking quality and exquisite beauty. At the
sound the men stopped singing, and it seemed as if an angel were sobbing
in the stillness. On and on the song went, running through eight lonely,
lovely notes which rose and swelled until there seemed to be nothing in
the world except that beautiful voice, finally ending in a sob which
brought the tears to Will's eyes. Then out into the moonlight flitted
the singer, a quiet-colored little brown-and-gray bird, the celebrated
solitaire, the sweetest, saddest singer of the Brazilian forest.
After all this music, supper was served. It began with a thick,
violet-colored drink in long glasses filled with cracked ice. The boys
learned from Professor Ditson that this was made from the fruit of the
assai-palm. It was strangely compounded of sweet and sour and had
besides a fragrance and a tingle which made it indescribably refreshing.
This was followed by an iced preparation made from the root of the
manioc, whose juice is poisonous, but whose pulp is wholesome and
delicious. Before being served it had been boiled with the fruit of the
miriti-palm, which added a tart sweetness to its taste which the
Northerners found most delightful. The next course was a golden-yellow
compound of a rich, nutty flavor, the fruit of the mucuju-palm, which
has a yellow, fibrous pulp so full of fat that vultures, dogs, and cats
eat it greedily. For dessert, there was a great basket of sweet lemons,
mangos, oranges, custard-apples, and other fruits.
After supper they all grouped themselves in the bow and there, in
comfortable steamer-chairs, watched the steamer plow its way through a
river of ink and silver. That day, Jud, while in his hammock, had seen,
to his horror, what seemed to be a slender vine, dangling from one of
the trees, change into a pale-green snake some eight feet long, whose
strange head was prolonged into a slender, pointed beak. Even as the old
man stared, it flashed across the deck not two feet away from him and
disappeared in another tree. So perfectly did its color blend with the
leaves that the instant it reached them it seemed to vanish from sight.
"It was the palm-snake," said Professor Ditson, after Jud told them of
his experience. "It lives on lizards, and, although venomous, has never
been known to bite a human being. If you had only been brave enough," he
went on severely, "to catch it with your naked hand, we might even now
have an invaluable record of the effects of its venom."
"What is the most venomous snake in the world?" broke in Will, as Jud
tried to think of words strong enough to express what he thought of the
scientist's suggestion.
"The hamadryad or king cobra," returned the professor. "I once secured
one over fourteen feet long."
"How did you catch it?" queried Will.
"Well," said the professor, "I came across it by a fortunate accident. I
was collecting butterflies in India at a time of the year when it is
especially pugnacious, and this particular snake dashed out of a thicket
at me. It came so unexpectedly that I had to run for my life. It seems
ridiculous that I should have done so," he went on apologetically, "but
the bite of the hamadryad is absolutely fatal. This one gained on me so
rapidly that I was at last compelled to plunge into a near-by pond,
since this variety of snake never willingly enters water."
"What happened then?" inquired Will, as the scientist came to a full
stop.
"When I reached the opposite shore, a quarter of a mile away, and was
about to land," returned the professor, "out of the rushes this same
snake reared up some six feet. With the rare intelligence which makes
the hamadryad such a favorite among collectors, it had circled the lake
and was waiting for me."
"Snappy work!" said Jud, shivering. "I can't think of any pleasanter
finish to a good swim than to find a nice fourteen-foot snake waitin'
for me. What did you do then?"
"I floated around in deep water until my assistant came and secured the
snake with a forked stick. It is now in the New York Zoölogical Gardens
at the Bronx," concluded the professor.
Jud drew a deep breath. "That reminds me," he said at last, "of a time
I once had with a pizen snake when I was a young man. I was hoein' corn
up on a side hill in Cornwall when I was about sixteen year old," he
continued. "All on a sudden I heard a rattlin' an' down the hill in one
of the furrows came rollin' a monstrous hoop-snake. You know," he
explained, "a hoop-snake has an ivory stinger in its tail an' rolls
along the ground like a hoop, an' when it strikes it straightens out an'
shoots through the air just like a spear."
"I know nothing of the kind," broke in Professor Ditson.
"Well," said Jud, unmoved by the interruption, "when I saw this snake
a-rollin' an' a-rattlin' down the hill towards me, I dived under the
fence an' put for home, leavin' my hoe stickin' up straight in the
furrow. As I slid under the fence," he went on, "I heard a thud, an'
looked back just in time to see the old hoop-snake shoot through the air
an' stick its stinger deep into the hoe-handle. It sure was a pizen
snake, all right," he went on, wagging his head solemnly. "When I came
back, an hour or so later, the snake was gone, but that hoe-handle had
swelled up pretty nigh as big as my leg."
There was a roar of laughter from Will and Joe, while Jud gazed
mournfully out over the water. Professor Ditson was vastly indignant.
"I feel compelled to state," he said emphatically, "that there is no
such thing as a hoop-snake and that no snake-venom would have any effect
on a hoe-handle."
"Have it your way," said Jud. "It ain't very polite of you to doubt my
snake story after I swallowed yours without a word."
At Manaos they left the steamer, and Professor Ditson bought for the
party a _montaria_, a big native boat without a rudder, made of plank
and propelled by narrow, pointed paddles. Although Hen and Pinto and the
Professor were used to this kind of craft, it did not appeal at all
favorably to the Northerners, who were accustomed to the light
bark-canoes and broad-bladed paddles of the Northern Indians. Joe was
especially scornful.
"This boat worse than a dug out," he objected. "It heavy and clumsy and
paddles no good either."
"You'll find it goes all right on these rivers," Professor Ditson
reassured him. "We only have a few hundred miles more, anyway before we
strike the Trail."
Under the skilful handling of Hen and Pinto, the montaria, although it
seemed unwieldly, turned out to be a much better craft than it looked;
and when the Northerners became used to the narrow paddles, the
expedition made great headway, the boys finding the wide boat far more
comfortable for a long trip than the smaller, swifter canoe.
After a day, a night, and another day of paddling, they circled a wide
bend, and there, showing like ink in the moonlight, was the mouth of
another river.
"White men call it Rio Negros, Black River," the Indian explained to the
boys; "but my people call it the River of Death."
As the professor, who was steering with a paddle, swung the prow of the
boat into the dark water, the Indian protested earnestly.
"It very bad luck, Master to enter Death River by night," he said.
"Murucututu, murucututu," muttered the witch-owl, from an overhanging
branch.
Hen joined in Pinto's protest.
"That owl be layin' a spell on us, Boss," he said. "Better wait till
mornin'."
The professor was inflexible.
"I have no patience with any such superstitions," he said. "We can cover
fully twenty-five miles before morning."
The Mundurucu shook his head and said nothing more, but Hen continued
his protests, even while paddling.
"Never knew any good luck to come when that ol' owl's around," he
remarked mournfully. "It was him that sicked them vampires on to Will
here, an' we're all in for a black time on this black ribber."
"Henry," remarked Professor Ditson, acridly, "kindly close your mouth
tightly and breathe through your nose for the next two hours. Your
conversation is inconsequential."
"Yassah, yassah," responded Hen, meekly, and the montaria sped along
through inky shadows and the silver reaches of the new river in silence.
About midnight the forest became so dense that it was impossible to
follow the channel safely, and the professor ordered the boat to be
anchored for the night. Usually it was possible to make a landing and
camp on shore, but to-night in the thick blackness of the shadowed bank,
it was impossible to see anything. Accordingly, the party, swathed in
mosquito-netting, slept as best they could in the montaria itself.
It was at the gray hour before dawn, when men sleep soundest, that Jud
was awakened by hearing a heavy thud against the side of the boat close
to his head. It was repeated, and in the half-light the old man sat up.
Once again came the heavy thud, and then, seemingly suspended in the air
above the side of the boat close to his head, hung a head of horror.
Slowly it thrust itself higher and higher, until, towering over the side
of the boat, showed the fixed gleaming eyes and the darting forked
tongue of a monstrous serpent. Paralyzed for a moment by his horror for
all snake-kind, the old man could not move, and held his breath until
the blood drummed in his ears. Only when the hideous head curved
downward toward Joe did Jud recover control of himself. His prisoned
voice came out then with a yell like a steam-siren, and he fumbled under
his left armpit for the automatic revolver which he wore in the
wilderness, night and day, strapped there in a water-proof case.
"Sucuruju! Sucuruju! Sucuruju!" shouted Pinto, aroused by Jud's yell.
"The Spirit of the River is upon us!" And he grasped his machete just as
Jud loosened his revolver.
Quick as they were, the huge anaconda, whose family includes the
largest water-snakes of the world, was even quicker. With a quick dart
of its head, it fixed its long curved teeth in the shoulder of the
sleeping boy, and in an instant, some twenty feet of glistening coils
glided over the side of the boat. The scales of the monster shone like
burnished steel, and it was of enormous girth in the middle, tapering
off at either end. Jud dared not shoot at the creature's head for fear
of wounding Joe, but sent bullets as fast as he could pull the trigger
into the great girth, which tipped the heavy boat over until the water
nearly touched the gunwale. Pinto slashed with all his might with his
machete at the back of the great snake, but it was like attempting to
cut through steel-studded leather. In spite of the attack, the coils of
the great serpent moved toward the boy, who, without a sound, struggled
to release his shoulder from the terrible grip of the curved teeth. The
anaconda, the sucuruju of the natives, rarely ever attacks a man; but
when it does, it is with difficulty driven away. This one, in spite of
steel and bullets, persisted in its attempt to engulf the body of the
struggling boy in its coils, solid masses of muscle powerful enough to
break every bone in Joe's body.
It was Hen Pine who finally saved the boy's life. Awakened by the sound
of the shots and the shouts of Jud and Pinto, he reached Joe just as one
of the fatal coils was half around him. With his bare hands he caught
hold of both of the fierce jaws and with one tremendous wrench of his
vast arms literally tore them apart. Released from their death grip, Joe
rolled to one side, out of danger. The great snake hissed fiercely, and
its deadly, lidless eyes glared into those of the man. Slowly, with
straining, knotted muscles, Hen wrenched the grim jaws farther and
farther apart. Then bracing his vast forearms, he bowed his back in one
tremendous effort that, in spite of the steel-wire muscles of the great
serpent, bent its deadly jaws backward and tore them down the sides,
ripping the tough, shimmering skin like so much paper. Slowly, with a
wrench and a shudder, the great water-boa acknowledged defeat, and its
vast body pierced, slashed, and torn, reluctantly slid over the side of
the boat.
As Hen released his grip of the torn jaws, the form of the giant serpent
showed mirrored for an instant against the moonlit water and then
disappeared in the inky depths below. Joe's thick flannel shirt had
saved his arm from any serious injury, but Professor Ditson washed out
the gashes made by the sharp curved teeth with permanganate of potash,
for the teeth of the boas and pythons, although not venomous, may bring
on blood-poisoning, like the teeth of any wild animal. Jud was far more
shaken by the adventure than Joe, who was as impassive as ever.
"Snakes, snakes, snakes!" he complained. "They live in the springs and
pop up beside the paths and drop on you out of trees. Now they're
beginnin' to creep out of the water to kill us off in our sleep. What a
country!"
"It's the abundance of reptile life which makes South America so
interesting and attractive," returned Professor Ditson, severely.
It was Pinto who prevented the inevitable and heated discussion between
the elders of the party.
"Down where I come from," he said, "lives a big water-snake many times
larger than this one, called the Guardian of the River. He at least
seventy-five feet long. We feed him goats every week. My grandfather and
his grandfather's grandfather knew him. Once," went on Pinto, "I found
him coiled up beside the river in such a big heap that I couldn't see
over the top of the coils."
"I don't know which is the worse," murmured Jud to Will, "seein' the
snakes which _are_ or hearin' about the snakes which _ain't_. Between
the two, I'm gettin' all wore out."
Then Pinto went back again to his predictions about the river they were
on.
"This river," he said, "is not called the River of Death for nothing.
The old men of my tribe say that always dangers come here by threes. One
is passed, but two more are yet to come. Never, Master, should we have
entered this river by night."
"Yes," chimed in Hen, "when I heered that ol' witch-owl I says to
myself, 'Hen Pine, there'll be somethin' bad a-doin' soon.'"
"You talk like a couple of superstitious old women," returned Professor
Ditson, irritably.
"You wait," replied the Indian, stubbornly; "two more evils yet to
come."
Pinto's prophecy was partly fulfilled with startling suddenness. The
party had finished breakfast, and the montaria was anchored in a smooth,
muddy lagoon which led from the river back some distance into the
forest. While Will and Hen fished from the bow of the boat the rest of
the party curled themselves up under the shade of the overhanging trees
to make up their lost sleep. At first, the fish bit well and the two
caught a number which looked much like the black bass of northern
waters. A minute later, a school of fresh-water flying-fish broke water
near them and flashed through the air for a full twenty yards, like a
flight of gleaming birds.
As the sun burned up the morning mist, it changed from a sullen red to a
dazzling gold and at last to a molten white, and the two fishermen
nodded over their poles as little waves of heat ran across the still
water and seemed to weigh down their eyelids like swathings of soft
wool. The prow of the boat swung lazily back and forth in the slow
current which set in from the main river. Suddenly the dark water around
the boat was muddied and discolored, as if something had stirred up the
bottom ten feet below. Then up through the clouded water drifted a vast,
spectral, grayish-white shape. Nearer and nearer to the surface it came,
while Hen and Will dozed over their poles. Will sat directly in the bow,
and his body, sagging with sleep, leaned slightly over the gunwale.
Suddenly the surface of the water was broken by a tremendous splash,
and out from its depth shot half the body of a fish nearly ten feet in
length. Its color was the gray-white of the ooze at the bottom of the
stream in which it had lain hidden until attracted to the surface by the
shadow of the montaria drifting above him. Will awakened at the hoarse
shout from Hen just in time to see yawning in front of him a mouth more
enormous than he believed any created thing possessed outside of the
whale family. It was a full five feet between the yawning jaws, which
were circled by a set of small sharp teeth. Even as he sprang back, the
monster lunged forward right across the edge of the boat and the jaws
snapped shut.
Will rolled to one side in an effort to escape the menancing depths,
and although he managed to save his head and body from the maw of the
great fish, yet the jaws closed firmly on both his extended arms,
engulfing them clear to the shoulder. The little teeth, tiny in
comparison with the size of the jaws in which they were set, hardly more
than penetrated the sleeves of his flannel shirt and pricked the skin
below, but as the monster lurched backward toward the water its great
weight drew the boy irresistibly toward the edge of the boat, although
he dug his feet into the thwarts and twined them around the seat on
which he had been sitting. Once in the river, the fatal jaws would open
again, and he felt that he would be swallowed as easily as a pike would
take in a minnow.
Even as he was dragged forward to what seemed certain death, Will did
not fail to recognize a familiar outline in the vast fish-face against
which he was held. The small, deep-set eyes, the skin like oiled
leather, long filaments extending from the side of the jaw, and the
enormous round head were nothing more than that of the catfish or
bullhead which he used to catch at night behind the mill-dam in
Cornwall, enlarged a thousand times.
Although the monster, in spite of its unwieldy size, had sprung forth,
gripped its intended prey, and started back for the water in a flash,
yet Hen Pine was even quicker. In spite of his size, there was no one in
the party quicker in an emergency than the giant negro. Even as he
sprang to his feet he disengaged the huge steel machete which always
dangled from his belt. Hen's blade, which he used as a bush-hook and a
weapon, was half again as heavy as the ordinary machete, and he always
kept it ground to a razor edge. He reached the bow just as the great,
gray, glistening body slipped back over the gunwale, dragging Will
irresistibly with it. Swinging the broad heavy blade over his head, with
every ounce of effort in his brawny body, Hen, brought the keen edge
down slantwise across the gray back of the river-monster, which tapered
absurdly small in comparison with the vast spread of the gaping jaws. It
was such a blow as Richard the Lion-hearted might have struck; and just
as his historic battle-sword would shear through triple steel plate and
flesh and bone, so that day the machete of Hen Pine, unsung in song or
story, cut through the smooth gray skin, the solid flesh beneath, and
whizzed straight on through the cartilaginous joints of the great fish's
spine, nor ever stopped until it had sunk deep into the wood of the high
gunwale of the boat itself. With a gasping sigh, the monster's head
rolled off the edge of the boat and slowly sank through the dark water,
leaving the long, severed trunk floating on the surface. Reaching out,
the negro caught the latter by one of the back fins and secured it with
a quick twist of a near-by rope.
"That's the biggest piraiba I ever see," he announced. "They're fine to
eat, an' turn about is fair play. Ol' piraiba try to eat you; now you
eat him." And while Will sat back on the seat, sick and faint from his
narrow escape, Hen proceeded to haul the black trunk aboard and carve
steaks of the white, firm-set flesh from it.
"Every year along the Madeira River this fish tip over canoes and
swallow Indians. They's more afraid of it," Hen said, "than they is of
alligators or anacondas."
When Hen woke up the rest of the party and told them of the near-tragedy
Pinto croaked like a raven.
"Sucuruju one, piraiba two; but three is yet to come," he finished
despondingly. The next two days, however, seemed to indicate that the
River had exhausted its malice against the travelers. The party paddled
through a panorama of sights and sounds new to the Northerners, and at
night camped safely on high, dry places on the banks. On the morning of
the third day the whole party started down the river before daylight and
watched the dawn of a tropical day, a miracle even more beautiful than
the sunrises of the North. One moment there was perfect blackness; then
a faint light showed in the east; and suddenly, without the slow changes
of Northern skies, the whole east turned a lovely azure blue, against
which showed a film and fretwork of white clouds, like wisps of snowy
lace.
Just as the sun came up they passed a tall and towering conical rock
which shot up three hundred feet among the trees and terminated in what
looked like a hollowed summit. Pinto told them that this was Treasure
Rock, and that nearly half a thousand years ago the Spaniards, in the
days when they were the cruel conquerors of the New World, had explored
this river. From the ancestors of Pinto's nation and from many another
lesser Indian tribe they had carried off a great treasure of gold and
emeralds and diamonds. Not satisfied with these, they had tried to
enslave the Indians and make them hunt for more. Finally, in desperation
the tribes united, stormed their persecutors' camp, killed some, and
forced the rest to flee down the river in canoes. When the Spaniards
reached the rock, they landed, and, driving iron spikes at intervals up
its steep side, managed to clamber up to the very crest and haul their
treasure and stores of water and provisions after them by ropes made of
lianas. There, safe from the arrows of their pursuers in the hollow top,
they stood siege until the winter rains began. Then, despairing of
taking the fortress, the Indians returned to their villages; whereupon
the Spaniards clambered down, the last man breaking off the iron spikes
as he came, and escaped to the Spanish settlements. Behind them, in the
inaccessible bowl on the tip-top of the rock, they left their
treasure-chest, expecting to return with the reinforcements and rescue
it. The years went by and the Spaniards came not again to Black River,
but generation after generation of Indians handed down the legend of
Treasure Rock, with the iron-bound chest on its top, awaiting him who
can scale its height.
Jud, a treasure-hunter by nature, was much impressed by Pinto's story.
"What do you think of takin' a week off and lookin' into this treasure
business?" he suggested. "I'll undertake to get a rope over the top of
this rock by a kite, or somethin' of that sort, an' then I know a young
chap by the name of Adams who would climb up there an' bring down a
trunk full of gold an' gems. What do you say?"
"Pooh!" is what Professor Amandus Ditson said, and the expedition
proceeded in spite of Jud's protests.