Before morning the "Jason" was pitching and tossing in a heavy sea which
had risen very suddenly, and for the next week, whenever the brothers
cared to face the rain, wind, and spray, they found Captain Banes on
deck looking very grim and anxious and evidently in no humour for
entering into conversation.
The officers and crew too looked worn and harassed with hard work and
the buffeting they had received; but it was evident that they took it
all as a matter of course, and were perfectly confident about the
ability of the brig to weather a far worse storm.
It was quite bad enough, and prolonged till the pitching of the vessel
became very wearisome; but there was one thing which always met the eyes
of the brothers when they went on deck, and that was the figure of
Briscoe tucked up in the best shelter he could find, beneath bulwark or
behind deckhouse, clad in glistening black waterproof; and smoking a big
cigar.
He always saw the brothers as soon as they appeared on deck, and if they
nodded to him he was quick to respond, but he never forced his company
upon them; and it was so too in the cabin, for he was quiet and
unobtrusive, speaking readily when spoken to, but only to subside at
once when the conversation flagged.
"What has become of his inquisitive organ, Brace?"
"That's what I was thinking: he seems quite a different man."
The storm was over at last, and one morning, as the brig was running due
west under a full press of sail, it suddenly struck Brace that the water
over the side was not so clear as it had been an hour before when he was
leaning over the bulwark gazing down into the crystalline depths, trying
to make out fish, and wondering how it was that, though there must be
millions upon millions in the ocean through which they were sailing, he
could not see one.
"We must be getting into water that has been churned up by the storm,"
thought Brace; but just then the second mate came up and he referred to
him.
"Water not so clear?" he said. "No wonder; we're right off the mouths
of the Amazon now."
"So far south?"
"Yes, and running right in. Before long the water, instead of being
like this--a bit thick--will be quite muddy, and this time to-morrow we
shall be bidding good-bye to the sea, I suppose, for some time to come."
Lynton's words were quite right, for the next day, after a most
satisfactory run, Brace stood gazing over the bows of the brig at the
thick muddy water that was churned up, and finding it hard to believe
that he was sailing up the mouth of a river; for, look which way he
would, nothing was to be seen but water, while when he tried his glass
it was with no better success.
But at last the land was to be made out on the starboard bow, or rather
what was said to be land, a long, low, hazy something on the distant
horizon.
A couple of days later there was land plain enough on both sides of the
brig, and they commenced a long, dismal progress up stream, of a
monotonous kind that was wearisome in the extreme.
As time went on, though, there was a change, and that was followed by
plenty of variety in the shape of huge trees, with all their branches
and leaves tolerably fresh, floating seaward, just as they had fallen
from the bank after the mighty stream had undermined them. In one case
there were land birds flitting about the few boughs that appeared above
the water, but generally they were gulls snatching at the small fish
attracted by the floating object.
Once there was a great matted-together patch of earth fully thirty yards
long and half as wide, a veritable island with bushes still in their
places, floating steadily seaward, and helping to explain the muddiness
of the water and the shallowness of the ocean far out and to right and
left of where the great river debouched.
Several consultations took place between the captain and Sir Humphrey as
to the course to be taken, and the latter politely asked Briscoe to join
in the discussion and give his opinion.
"No," he said; "I shan't say anything. I've only one idea about it, and
that is to sail up one of the big rivers that run out of this, one that
has not been explored before, so as to get amongst what's new."
"Well, that's what we want, isn't it, Free?" said Brace.
"Exactly."
"Then I needn't interfere in any way, gentlemen," said Briscoe. "I only
say choose your river, and let's get to work: only pick one that has
banks to it where we can land and do something."
"Then you don't want us to go as far as we can up one of the explored
rivers?" said the captain, smiling.
"Certainly not," cried Brace.
"I understand, gentlemen. Give me time, and I'll take you to just the
place you want. I know the river, but I never heard its name. It runs,
as far as I could make out, due nor'-west: that is, as far as I went up.
After that it went no one knows where."
"That's the place," cried Brace. "Is it very big?"
"Tidy, squire," said the captain. "It's very deep, and there's plenty
of room for the brig; and, what's better, the current's sluggish, so
that we can make our way."
"What about the forest? Is it far back from the waterside?"
"Hangs over it, so that one can send a boat ashore every night with a
cable to make fast to one of the great trees, and save letting down and
getting up the anchor."
"But about the river itself: can you take the brig up far--no rocks,
shoals, or waterfalls?"
"Nothing of the kind, sir," said the captain. "It's all deep, muddy,
sluggish water running through a great forest, and I should say it
carries off the drainage of hundreds of miles of country. It must come
from the mountains right away yonder, and sometimes there must be
tremendous rains to flood the stream, for I remember seeing marks of
sand and weeds and dry slime thirty or forty feet up some of the trunks,
and I should say that at times the whole country's flooded and we shall
have to look out to keep from grounding right away from the river's
course."
"You will take care of that," said Sir Humphrey, smiling.
"I shall try, sir," said the captain grimly, "for I don't think you'd
like to wake up some morning and find the brig in the middle of a
forest, waiting till the next flood-time came."
A week later, after being baffled again and again by adverse winds,
Brace and his brother stood upon the deck of the brig one evening just
as the wind dropped, as if simultaneously with the descent of the sun
like a huge globe of orange fire behind a bank of trees a hundred yards
to their left. The river, smooth and glassy, glowed in reflection from
the ruddy sky, the sails flapped, and, no longer answering to her helm,
the vessel was beginning slowly to yield to the sluggish current, when
there was a rattling sound as the chain cable ran through the
hawse-hole, and directly after the anchor took hold in the muddy bottom,
the way on the brig was checked, and she swung in mid-stream with her
bowsprit pointing out the direction of her future course--a long open
waterway between two rapidly-darkening banks of trees whose boughs
drooped over and dipped their muddied tips in the stream.
"Will this do, squire?" said the captain.
"Gloriously," said Brace; "but I thought you meant to make fast every
night to one of the trees."
"By-and-by, my lad, by-and-by, when there's a handy tree. This would be
bad landing for a boat--all one tangle of jungle, and hard to get
through. You wanted to get where it was wild: hear that?"
"Yes," said Brace excitedly, as he heard a long-drawn cry from out of
the forest, one which was answered from a distance, while the last cry
was replied to faintly from still farther away. "What's that--a
jaguar?"
"Monkey," said the captain drily, "and that grunting just beginning and
rising into a regular boom isn't made by the pumas, for I don't think
there'd be any in these great forest-lands."
"What then?" said Brace, in a low voice, as if awe-stricken by the
peculiar sounds.
"Frogs, my lad, frogs."
_Quaaak_! A peculiarly loud and strident hollow echoing cry, which was
startling in its suddenness and resembled nothing so much as a
badly-blown note upon a giant trombone.
"What's that?"
"That?" said the captain, thrusting his hat on one side so as to leave
ample room for scratching one ear. "That? Oh, that's a noise I only
remember hearing once before, and nobody could ever tell me what it was.
There's a lot of queer noises to be heard in the forest of a night, and
it always struck me that there are all kinds of wild beasts there such
as have never been heard of before and never seen."
"I dessay," said a voice behind them which made them both start round
and stare at the speaker, who had been leaning over the bulwark
unobserved.
"What's that?" said the captain sharply.
"I said I dessay," replied Briscoe; "but that thing isn't one of them."
"What is it then?" said the captain shortly.
"One of those great long-legged crane things that begin work about this
time, fishing in the swamps for frogs."
"You think the noise was made by a crane?"
"Sure of it, mister," was the reply. "I've sat up before now at the
edge of a swamp to shoot them for specimens, and there's several kinds
of that sort of bird make a row like that."
"Humph!" ejaculated the captain gruffly. "You seem to know. Perhaps,
then, you'll tell us what made that noise?"
He held up his hand, and all listened to a peculiar whirring sound which
began at a distance, came closer and closer till it seemed to pass from
under the trees, swing round the ship, and slowly die away again.
"Ah, that!" said Briscoe quietly. "Sounds like someone letting off a
firework with a bang at the end gone damp. No, I don't know what that
is. Yes, I do," he added hastily. "That's a big bird too."
"Crane?" said the captain, with an incredulous snort.
"No, sir," said the American: "different thing altogether. It's a night
bird that flies round catching beetles and moths--bird something like
our `Whip-poor-Wills' or `Chuck-Will's-widows.'"
"Bah!" said the captain.
"Yes, that's right," cried Brace: "a bird something like our English
night-hawk that sits in the dark parts of the woods and makes a whirring
sound; only it isn't half so loud as this."
"Well," said the captain grudgingly, "perhaps you're right. I'm not
good at birds. I know a gull or a goose or turkey or chicken. I give
in."
The strange whirring sound as of machinery came and went again; but the
maker was invisible, and attention was taken from it directly by a loud
splash just astern.
"Fish!" cried Brace.
"Yes, that's fish," said the captain. "No mistake about that, and you
may as well get your tackle to work, squire, for these rivers swarm with
'em, and some of them are good eating. Bit of fish would be a pleasant
change if you can supply the cook."
"But it's too dark for fishing," said Brace.
"Better chance of catching something," said the captain. "But that
isn't fish; that's something fishing."
There was no need for the captain to draw attention to the fact, for
those near him were straining their eyes towards the shore, from which a
strange beating and splashing sound arose, but apparently from beyond
the black bank of trees formed by the edge of the forest.
"There must be a lake on the other side of the bank," said Brace
eagerly.
"No," replied the captain; "only one of the creeks that run inland among
the trees. Come, do you know what that is?"
"It sounds like an alligator splashing about in shallow water," replied
Brace.
"You've hit it first time, squire. It's a big one lashing about with
its tail to stun the fish so that they float up ready for his meal.
That's right, isn't it, Mr Briscoe?"
"Quite," said the American. "I've seen them doing it in the Mississippi
swamps; but they were only small ones, five or six feet long. This one
sounds as if it were a thumper."
"Yes," said Sir Humphrey, "I suppose there are monsters in these waters.
Ah!" he continued, as the splashing grew louder; "that sounds like a
warning to us not to think of bathing while we are up the river."
"Bathing!" cried the captain. "I should think not. You can't do it
here, sir, for, besides alligators and different kinds of pike, these
waters swarm with small fish that are always savagely hungry. The big
ones are plentiful enough, but the little ones go in shoals and are as
ready to attack as the others, and they have teeth like lancets, so take
care."
The splashing ceased, and this seemed to be the signal for fresh sounds
to arise both up and down the river and from the forest depths on either
bank, till the night seemed to be alive with a strange chorus, which, as
Brace and his companions listened, culminated in a tremendous crash,
followed by a dead silence.
"Whatever is that?" whispered Brace.
"Big tree tumbled," said Briscoe carelessly.
"But there is no wind--there was no lightning."
"No," said the American, "but it had to tumble some time. You often
hear that in the woods: they go on growing and growing for hundreds of
years, and then they stop from old age and overgrowth, and begin to rot
and rot, till all at once, night or day, the top's too heavy for the
bottom, and down they come. We'll go and have a look at that one in the
morning."