"SEAFOWLS AHOY!"
Murray lost no time in making for the spot where the two men were in
charge of the boat; but simple as the task appeared on the surface, it
proved to be far otherwise.
He had told himself that he had only to follow in reverse the
faintly-marked track taken by the black who had been their guide; and
that he set himself to do, until he felt that he must be close to the
stream that they had ascended; but if close by, it was by no means
visible, and after making a cast or two in different directions without
result, he pulled up short, the men following his example and looking at
him wonderingly.
"It was just here that we left the boat-keepers, wasn't it, Tom?" he
said.
"Don't seem like it, sir," replied the man, "'cause if it was just here,
where is it?"
"But it must have been here," cried Murray, growing irritable and
confused.
"That's what I thought, sir," said the man, "but it don't seem to be
nowhere near. What do you say, messmate?"
"I warn't a-looking out, lad," replied Titely. "You see, I didn't take
no bearings 'cause I says to mysen, `Mr Murray 'll see to that,' and
what I does was to foller with my eyes screwed back'ards over my
shoulders like a she hare at the dogs."
"Same here, messmate," says Tom May. "`Mr Murray took the bearings to
begin with,' I says to myself, `and I'll keep a sharp lookout for the
enemy, who maybe 'll try to run us down.'"
"Then you neither of you feel that you can remember the black fellow's
trail?" said Murray, speaking excitedly, and looking hard at the big
sailor the while.
"Well, I can't answer for Titely, sir," said the man.--"Why don't you
speak up like a man, messmate, and say what you know?"
"'Cause I can't, lad," replied the man addressed. "It warn't my watch,
and I telled you I was too busy looking out for squalls. I dunno which
way we ought to go, messmate. Don't you, Mr Murray, sir?"
"No, my lad; I've lost our bearings for a bit, but you two try off to
right and left while I go straight on, and the first that comes upon the
river holloa gently. Not loud, because it may bring the enemy down upon
us. Now then, off with you, and when you shout, stand fast so that we
may come and join you."
"Stand fast it is, sir," said Tom May, and without further hesitation
the three separated and began to thread the dense cane brake, each fully
expecting to come upon the windings of the overshadowed river at once.
But somehow every step seemed to lead the seekers into greater
difficulties. It was plain enough that the river must be near, for
their steps were in and out among the dense patches of cane and over
soft spongy soil into which their feet sank slightly, the earth being
springy and elastic; but though Murray expected to see the dense foliage
open out and the brake look lighter from the presence of the river, he
was disappointed again and again, and to all intents and purposes the
stream had ceased to exist.
For some minutes, as Murray strode on, the steps of his companions were
audible in two directions, and making up his mind to proceed in that
being taken by May, he struck off so as to cross the man's track.
This seemed practicable enough for a while, and he went on till the
brake began to grow more dense and he had to force his way through the
thicket. Then to his disgust he found himself entangled in a little
wilderness of thorny palms, out of which he had a hard struggle to free
himself, and he stood at last, panting and exhausted, rubbing the
bleeding spots beneath the rents in his garments which asserted
themselves plainly.
Murray rubbed himself and listened, and then listened and rubbed, but he
could not hear a sound.
"Let me see," he thought. "Oh, how vexatious, just when we ought to be
close to the boat and sending her down stream! Must be this way where I
heard Tom May--if it was Tom May. Well, it doesn't matter if it was
Titely. Let's get to either of them, and then we'll hail the other."
The lad hesitated for a few minutes longer, listening hard the while,
and then more in passion than in despair he started off in a bee line
through the thick canes, hopefully now, for the earth felt softer than
before.
"Must be right here; and as soon as I reach the river I have only to see
which way the stream runs and follow it down to where the boat lies.
Oh, look sharp, old fellow," he muttered, "for this is horrible."
He increased his pace, with the earth certainly growing softer, and then
he pulled up short, turned and darted back, for as he stepped forward
the soft spongy earth seemed suddenly to have grown horny and hard and
to heave up beneath his feet, convincing him that he had stepped upon
one of the horrible alligators of the Western swamps. There was a
violent splashing, the reptile struck to right and left, mowing down the
canes, and the midshipman, suffering from a sensation of horror and
creepiness, stopped at last, panting.
"Why, that must be the direction of the little river," he thought; "and
instead of following the horrible brute here have I run away; and now
how am I to find the way that it pointed out? That's soon done," he
said, as he thought of the broken and crushed-down canes which must mark
the alligator's track; and he began at once to search for what proved to
be absent. There were bruised and trampled growths which he sprang at
directly, but his reason soon pointed to the fact that they had not been
made by the huge lizard he had started from its lurking place where it
had crawled ashore to watch for the approach of prey, but by himself in
his flight, and though he tried over the swampy ground again and again,
it was only to grow more confused, and at last he stopped short, baffled
and enraged against himself.
"Oh!" he ejaculated, as he raised one foot to stamp it down heavily upon
the earth, with the result that he drove it through a soft crust of
tangled growth and sent up a gush of muddy, evil-smelling water, and
then had to drag his shoe out with a loud sucking sound, while the foot
he had not stamped was beginning to sink. "It's enough to drive any one
mad," he muttered. "Just as I am entrusted with something important I
go and muddle it all, and the more I try the worse the hobble grows."
He took a few steps to his right, to where the earth beneath him felt
firmer, and listened, but the floundering and scuffling of the alligator
had ceased, and he looked in vain for the traces of its passage.
"Think of it," he said, half aloud; "I trod on the brute, and it dashed
off, frightened to death, to make for the river; and then what did I
do?--Turned round and ran away as if the brute was coming after me with
its jaws opened wide ready to take me down at a mouthful! Alligators
are not crocodiles. Here, I'm a brave fellow, upon my word! I'm
getting proud of myself, and no mistake!"
He stood and listened as he looked around and tried to pierce the dense
growth, but in vain, for all was thick vegetation, and eye and ear were
exercised in vain.
There was a soft, dull, half croaking sound here and there at a distance
which suggested the existence of frogs, and from the trees whose
clustering leaves overhead turned the brake into a soft twilight, he now
and then heard the twittering of some bird. But he could see nothing,
and for a few minutes he began to give way to a feeling of despair.
"I daren't shout," he thought, "for it would be like calling the
attention of the enemy. The Yankee and his people are sure to be on the
lookout to pounce upon one, and though if they took me prisoner--they
wouldn't dare to do anything else--my being taken would not so much
matter if May or Titely got down to the boat and reached the _Seafowl_.
How do I know that they would get there? Oh, was ever poor wretch in
such a hole before!"
"Here, I must do something," he cried, at last, rousing himself to take
some action. "The river must wind about, and if I keep on I shall be
sure to come across it at last."
He started off in what he hoped was the right direction, and forced his
way through the tangled growth, to find that after a short time the
earth began to grow firmer beneath his feet; and then he stopped short.
"Must be wrong," he thought, "for the river banks were swampy."
Striking out in a fresh direction, he was not long before he found that
the ground began to yield again, and his spirits rose as he found that
he was plunging into a swampy part once more, while his heart literally
leaped as all at once right in front there was a rush as of one of the
great alligators being startled from its lair.
The lad stopped short, but only for a few moments, before mastering the
sensation of dread, and plunging on as nearly as he could make out in
the direction the great lizard had taken.
"It's afraid of me," he muttered, as he drew his dirk, "and if it turns
at bay on finding itself followed, I ought to be able to do something
with this, though it is such a stupid ornament of a thing. I'm not
afraid, and I won't be afraid, but I wish my heart didn't beat so fast,
and that choking sensation wouldn't keep on rising in my throat."
But though the lad behaved as bravely as was possible to any man, by
pressing on and determinedly following in the track of the alligator,
his heart kept on with its heavy pulsation and the perspiration streamed
down his face in the stiflingly hot swamp.
He had the satisfaction, though, of making out that the reptile was
scuffling on before him, and now he grew more accustomed to the fact he
was able to make out the creature's trail and just dimly see the
movement ahead of the thick cane growth as it rapidly writhed itself
along.
"It's getting softer," thought Murray, "so I must be getting towards the
river. Won't turn upon me and attack, will it, when it gets in its own
element?"
That was a startling thought, but it was only another difficulty in the
way of one who had mastered his natural dread and determined in his
peril to make a brave fight.
"It's no more an alligator's element than the land is," thought the lad.
"The brute's amphibious, and I don't believe it will turn upon me
unless I stick my dirk into it; and I don't care, I'll risk it, if I die
for it. I don't believe they're so tough as people say."
Then a more staggering thought assailed him, and this time, instead of
forcing his way through the tangle and dragging his feet out of the
swampy soil, he stopped short. For the hope that had sustained him
suddenly sank away. He had been feeling sure that the guide he feared
to a great extent was after all leading him towards the little river,
and that once he reached the bank he would know by the current, however
sluggish, the way down to the boat; but now the terrible thought
attacked him that the reptile might after all have its dwelling-place in
some swampy lagoon such as he had read was common in the islands and the
Southern States.
"It's of no _use_," he said to himself, as he stopped short, panting and
exhausted; "this can't be the right way. There's no clear river down
which a fellow could wade or swim; this is one of those dreadful
swamps--dismal swamps, don't they call them?--and the farther I go the
worse off I shall be. Oh, where's my pluck? Where it ought to be," he
said, answering himself; and he struggled on again, for he had awakened
to the fact that the rustling and splash made by the reptile was dying
out.
Rustling and splash, for now he awoke plainly enough to the fact that he
was sinking ankle deep at every step, and he roused himself fully once
more.
"Giving up," he panted, "just when I had won the day! Hurrah! There's
the river!" And making a tremendous effort he struggled on, for there
was the alligator floundering through mud and water now where the growth
was getting more open, and at the end of some dozen yards there was
light--golden-looking light--coming down from above. Then there was a
loud flopping, followed by a heavy splash, and the lad snatched at and
seized the boughs that closed him in, and just saved himself from
following the reptile he pursued by clinging with hands and legs to a
stout cypress, to which he held on as he indistinctly made out the
sobbing sound of the wave that the reptile had raised as it plunged into
what seemed to be the edge of a swampy lake.
"He won't come back, will he?" thought Murray, and he obeyed the natural
instinct which prompted him to drag himself up amongst the evergreen
boughs of the tree, which slowly rocked to and fro with his weight.
But the water beneath him gradually settled down, the cypress in which
he clung ceased to bend, as he got his feet settled better to support
his weight, where he could look along a dark green verdant tunnel to a
spot of golden light where the subdued sunshine fell upon a glistening
level of amber-hued water so beautiful that for a time the lad could not
withdraw his eyes.
"It's no river," he said, "but the edge of a lagoon, and it would be
madness to go any farther. Let's have a rest. Might have been worse
off after all, and it's no use to get despairing and tiring oneself out.
I should have liked this adventure if my two lads had been with me,
and--and--Yes, that's it," he groaned--"if I hadn't been sent on such a
tremendous task! There, it's of no use to despair. I've done my duty,
and no matter what happens now I can say that. Who knows what may come
next? I mustn't think I can hang here till it grows dark. I could
climb up higher, but this is a swamp, and though I might save myself
from alligators and snakes--Ugh!" he shuddered. "This is the sort of
place where they live!--I couldn't escape from fever. There, I must
hail now till some one hears me and answers, even if it's the enemy.
But it may be one of my fellows, or if not it's sure to be one of the
slaves, for there must be plenty about here."
But Frank Murray did not shout for help. Perhaps it was due to
exhaustion, that the place seemed to have a strange restful fascination,
as he hung there in the thick growth of the cypress, gazing along the
soft green tunnel at the little glistening lake, which he now saw was
full of living things, for every now and then the surface was stirred by
creatures which he made out to be tiny terrapins--water tortoise-like
creatures which just thrust out their heads and drew them beneath again.
Then water beetles skimmed about, forming glistening geometric figures
for a time before they disappeared.
Then the lad shuddered, for from the side of the bright verdure-framed
lagoon a snake writhed itself in horizontal waves across the surface and
began to climb up the foliage, to glisten as it reached where the light
fell strongest and the burnished scales flashed with bronze, silver grey
and gold.
"I wonder whether it's a poisonous snake," thought Murray; and then he
made an effort to awaken himself from the pleasant feeling of
restfulness, for he knew that he must exert himself if he intended to
find a way back to where he had been separated from his companions--
those whom he must urge on to the fulfilment of his task.
"And I have not done what I felt that I must do at all risks," he said,
as he once more made an effort to rouse himself from the drowsy inertia
which was holding him in something resembling a trance.
Drawing a deep breath, he took more tightly hold of the cypress boughs,
and was about to hail at any risk and with all his might, when he
uttered a loud sob of relief, for suddenly from somewhere far away,
came, strangely softened and subdued, though prolonged, the words--
"Ahoy-y-y! _Seafowls_ ahoy-y-y!"