The Irishman returned this evening for the week-end, his errand being
to help us start on our way on Tuesday next. His train was late--he
arrived just before daylight faded. I heard them say, “He has some one
with him, who can it be...?” It was the Swede again, poor man having
been prevailed upon to return.
Our Mexican “Apache” went across to fetch them. Suddenly I heard
screams and shouts, “They’re in--they’re in!” I leaped out of my sick
bed, flung on a dressing gown and went outside the tent and saw two
men in the water making for the bank. It was the Irishman saving the
terrified Swede.
The current had been too strong and the Texas boy was frantically
trying to hold the swamping boat to the wire hawser that spanned the
river, to save it from being lost. But he could not hold, and in
another moment he and it were floating rapidly amid-stream, heading for
the rapids.
It was not until afterwards that I learned he could not swim. No one
has yet understood why he was not drowned. He went over the falls and
was engulfed underneath the capsized boat. The river divides here into
two currents. By mercy of Providence the boat was swept along by the
current that runs into shore instead of by the other, which would have
carried him straight on down.
He came ashore having displayed great calm and courage. When his safety
was realized the next problem was how to get the other two across the
river, the terrified Swede could not swim, the Irishman had gone back
to the mainland for him. They could come across without much difficulty
and risk, half in, half out of the water hand over hand on the wire
hawser. The Swede stood shivering on the bank, he would not contemplate
it. The Irishman accomplished it, went back and forth three times to
fetch him--two men from our side went across with ropes to help him. He
was immovable. Rather would he return all the long hard weary way to
Micos in the dark and take his chance of village hospitality, and catch
a train for Tampico in the morning.
I think if I were a man I would rather drown, than admit before so many
people that I was afraid to attempt what the others proved could be
done with safety. After such a journey, to be so near home, to see the
goal just across the way--to be so tired--so hungry and so wet, and not
to make the final effort to get there. Well--he went back.
The evening seemed to me a strange corroboration of my last night’s
musings. The river rises, and it rises--and in four days time, I have
to cross it by the ferry.