There was a fascination about that night scene which kept Brace and his
brother on deck for hours trying to pierce the black darkness, and
whenever they made up their minds that it was time to go down to their
berths something was sure to happen in the mysterious forest depths or
near at hand in the river.
One time it was a piercing cry as of someone in agony; at another a
sneering, chuckling laugh taken up in a chorus as if by a mocking party
of strange watchers, who, accustomed to the darkness, could see
everything going on aboard the brig; whisperings; sounds of crawling
creatures passing over sticky mud and wallowing impatiently in their
efforts to get along; peculiar angry barkings uttered by the alligators;
and a dreadful rustling in the trees, which Brace felt certain must be
caused by huge serpents winding in and out amongst the branches.
He suggested this to the captains who uttered a grunt.
"Very likely," he said. "They do creep about in that way after the
monkeys. 'Tis their nature to. This is the sort of country for those
gentlemen, both the dry ones and the wet ones."
"I don't understand you," said Brace. "Oh, you mean the boas and the
anacondas."
"That's right, squire, and I daresay we shall see some tidy big ones.
Yes, that sounds like one working about. Ah! he struck at it and
missed, I should say. Bit disappointing, for snakes like their suppers
as well as other people, and I'm going down to have mine. Are you
coming?"
"No," said Brace decisively; "I'm going to stay up here and listen."
Sir Humphrey and Briscoe elected to do the same, and for another hour
they listened, and watched the display made by the fireflies; while
every now and then, as the muddy water trickled and seemed to whisper
against the sides of the brig, the listeners were startled by some
strange splash close by, which sounded to them as if the river swarmed
with huge creatures which kept on swimming around and beneath the
vessel, partly attracted by curiosity as to the new visitor to their
habitat, partly resenting its presence by splashing and beating the
surface as they rose or dived.
"It's all very interesting," said Briscoe at last, "and I could stop
here all night watching and listening; but we must have sleep, or we
shall be no good to-morrow, so I'll say good night, gentlemen. If
anything happens, my gun and rifle are both loaded, and I'll come on
deck directly."
"That's right," said Brace sharply. "But what can happen?"
"Who can say?" replied the American. "We know we're in a wild country,
perhaps the very first of all people who have come so far into the
forest, and we don't know what enemies may come. I'm pretty sure of
two: stinging insects and fever; but there's no telling what may come
out of the dark jungles. We're pretty safe from wild beasts, but for
aught we know we may have been watched by savages ever since the
morning. Savages generally have canoes, bows, spears, and clubs. I
don't say it's likely, but some of them might come creeping aboard in
the night, and if I was captain I should arm the watch. Ugh! what's
that?" he cried, in a horrified tone.
"Barrel of my rifle, Mr Briscoe," said Lynton quietly, from out of the
darkness.
"Why did you do that?" said the American sharply.
"Only to show you that the watch is armed, sir; and if there is anything
unpleasant in the night we shan't be long in letting you know."
Another hour passed before Sir Humphrey and his brother went below, and
then their first act was to thrust cartridges into their guns and
rifles, and to lay them with their ammunition-belts ready to hand; but
even after that precaution sleep was slow in coming to Brace's pillow,
for he lay listening to the rush, gurgle, and splash of the river till
the strange sounds grew confused and died out, all but a peculiar
rustling that seemed to be made by a huge serpent creeping among the
branches of the trees: and this puzzled the listener, for it was
impossible that trees and a huge reptile could be out in the middle of
the great muddy river.
Then it seemed that the anchor which held them fast out in mid-stream
must have dragged and the brig have been carried by an eddy close in
shore, to run aground, so that the masts were tangled with the
overhanging boughs.
Thoughts came fast after this, but more and more confused, till they
were so mixed that the listener could pick out nothing clear from what
had become a mental tangle in which he grew so weary that nothing seemed
to matter in the least, and he did not trouble about anything more till
a voice said:
"Come, Brace, isn't it time you roused up?"
The reply was a dull thump on the floor caused by the young man rolling
out of his berth, to find his brother half-dressed, and that the
troubles of the night had been merely dreams, for a glance out of the
cabin window showed that the brig's stern was in mid-stream, with the
muddy water turned to ruddy gold by the rising sun, in whose rays the
current flashed and looked glorious beyond the power of words to paint.
The banks of trees which dipped their boughs right into the stream,
instead of looking mysteriously black, were also glowing with colour,
and in several parts full of moving life, as birds of brilliant hues
flitted from bough to bough, and an excited company of active monkeys
swung themselves here and there in their eagerness to get a view of the
strange object which had invaded their forest home.
It was settled at once over breakfast that a boat should be manned
directly after the meal, so that a landing might be effected on one or
the other shore, the forest promising endless attractions for the
naturalists.
"All right, gentlemen," said Captain Banes; "the boat shall be ready,
for there isn't a breath of air this morning."
"Why do you speak like that?" said Sir Humphrey, noting the captain's
manner. "What has the wind to do with it?"
"Only that if there was a breeze I should advise you to take advantage
of it and go on up the river, for you'll do no good here except by
shooting from the boat."
"Oh, but we must land and go up country a bit," cried Brace.
"It isn't to be done, squire," said the captain. "Take your glass when
you go on deck, and you'll see that the forest is all one tangle,
through which you'd have to cut your way, unless you can find a creek
and pole the boat along among the trees."
"There must be a creek in yonder," said Briscoe, "where we heard that
great alligator splashing."
"Well, try, gentlemen," said the captain, smiling; "there's nothing done
without: only don't go and overdo it, for you'll find it terribly hot
and steamy under the trees."
"I'll see to that," said Sir Humphrey quietly; and soon after, well
provided with arms and ammunition, the party stepped into the boat, the
men dropped their oars into the water with a splash, and in an instant
there was a tremendous eddy and a little wave arose, showing the course
made by some startled inhabitant of the river--fish or reptile, probably
the latter, disturbed from where it had lain in the shadow of the brig.
"Might have had a shot if the water had been clear," said Brace
excitedly. "I've got ball in one barrel."
"Good plan," said Briscoe, "for you never know what you may see next.
I'd keep an eye upward amongst the low boughs of the trees. Use yours,
too, Dan."
Brace was already carrying out that plan, attracted as he was by the
sight of parrots and the glimpses of green and scarlet he kept seeing--
brilliant tints that evidently formed part of the gorgeous livery worn
by the macaws which made a home high up amongst the top branches of the
huge trees.
Brace glanced back at the brig swinging in midstream by her chain, with
her square sails hanging motionless in the hot air; and then as the men
dipped their oars gently, the boat glided close in towards the
overhanging boughs, which displayed every tint of rich tropical green.
One was literally covered from the water's edge to its summit with a
gorgeous sheet of brilliant scarlet blossoms, over which flitted
butterfly and beetle, a very living museum of the most beautiful insects
the travellers had ever seen.
"It does not seem as if we need go any farther, Brace," said Sir
Humphrey.
"So I was thinking," said the former. "Look at those lovely
humming-birds. Why, they're not so big by a long way as the
butterflies."
"I was looking," said Sir Humphrey, "and longing for a tiny gun loaded
with dry sand or water, to bring some of them down. Look at the bright
blue steely gleams of their forked tails."
"No, no," whispered Brace, as if afraid to speak aloud lest the glorious
vision of colour should pass away; "I meant those tiny fellows all blue
and emerald-green there, with the tufts of snowy-white down above their
legs. Oh, what a pity!"
The last words were said as the blaze of blossom and flitting colour
passed away, for as the boat glided on they passed in amongst the veil
of drooping leaves and twigs which brushed over their heads and
shoulders, and were at once in a soft twilight, looking up into a
wilderness of trunks and boughs, where for some moments after the sudden
change all looked strangely obscure and dense.
But there was plenty to see there as the men laid in their oars and one
in the bows thrust out the hook to take hold of a branch here and there
and drag the boat along towards a more open part, which soon took the
form of a vegetable tunnel, proving to be an arched-in muddy creek,
amongst whose overhanging cover something was in motion, but what it was
did not become evident for a few minutes in the gloom.
"Is it a great serpent?" said Brace huskily.
"No," said Briscoe quickly. "A party of monkeys playing at
follow-my-leader. Look, there they go, close after one another. It
looks just like some great reptile, but you can see now. They're afraid
of the boat."
He had hardly spoken when the latter quivered from the effects of a
sudden concussion.
"Take care," said Sir Humphrey. "You've run upon a sunken trunk."
"No, sir," said the man in the bows, as he held on to a tree with the
boat-hook; "that wasn't our doing. It was one of they alligators gave
us a slap with his tail. Look at the water. There he goes."
The man was right enough, for the water was eddying violently from the
passage of something beneath, and proof was given directly after, by the
appearance of a dark gnarled something a few inches above the surface,
this something curving over and being in the act of disappearing, when,
carried away by the excitement of the moment, Brace raised his double
gun, took a quick aim, and fired, with the result that there was a
tremendous splash, the appearance of a flattened tail for a moment, and
amidst a discordant screaming from overhead, the occupants of the boat
had a glimpse of what seemed to be a writhing hank of enormously thick
chocolate and tawny-yellow cable, which seemed to have been thrown from
above, to fall with another splash into the water some twenty yards in
front of where the boat lay. Then there was a momentary gleam of colour
as the object writhed and twined, and then the muddy water rose and fell
and washed among the trunks which rose straight from the surface, while
for a few moments no one spoke, but every eye was directed at the spot
where the water quivered as if something was in motion beneath.
"I fired at the alligator," said Brace, turning to his brother with a
half-startled look.
"Yes, and scared that big snake," said Briscoe. "He was having a nap
tied up in a knot on some big branch. I've seen 'em sometimes hanging
over the side in thick folds. You tumbled him over with the startling.
Warning to him to take a turn round the branch with his tail."
"Be ready to fire," said Brace hurriedly. "It is sure to come up again
to try and creep into a tree."
"No," said Briscoe quietly. "He won't show himself again for hours."
"Nonsense," said Brace impatiently; "it would be drowned."
Briscoe smiled good-humouredly.
"Drowned?" he said. "Just about as much as an eel would. Nice place
this for a bathe, what with the alligators and the anacondas. Not much
chance for a man if one of those brutes took hold of him. Pull him
under in a moment."
"Do you think one of those creatures would attack in the water?" said
Sir Humphrey.
"I've seen one drag a pig down," said Briscoe. "They're as much at home
in the water as out, and they can swim as easily as a water-snake."
"Then there's nothing to prevent that thing from thrusting out its head
and seizing one of us," said Brace.
"Nothing at all," replied Briscoe, and then he smiled as he saw the men
exchanging glances and Dan taking out a keen bowie-knife. "But he
won't. He'll lie down below there among the roots for hours, I daresay.
If he did come up of course we should give him a shot."
"Ugh!" said Brace, shuddering. "But what are we going to do?"
"Push on up the creek," said his brother. "We may come to an open part.
Go on, my lads."
The man with the boat-hook went on catching the boughs and drawing the
boat along, and twice over a splash and the following movement of the
water amongst the mossy, muddy tree-trunks told of the presence of some
loathsome reptile; but the men sat fast, gazing stolidly to right and
left in search of danger, and more than once Brace gave a glance at his
double gun as if to see that it was cocked and ready.
The sensation was not pleasant, and it attacked everyone in the boat.
The American might be right, they thought, and the serpent remain
startled and quiescent down in the depths of the muddy water, but still
they felt the possibility of that terrible head darting out at a victim,
and a low sigh of relief rose again and again as the distance from where
the serpent fell increased.
It was plain enough now that they were in a winding creek whose sides
were dense with trunks and branches forming an impenetrable barrier had
there been the slightest inclination to land; but all thought of this
passed away almost from the beginning. In fact, it was perfectly clear
that the only way to penetrate the forest was to go up some waterway
such as the one they were in, and this they followed slowly for a few
hundred yards, the man with the boat-hook cleverly guiding the vessel in
and out amongst the many obstacles, till the place grew darker and
darker through the density of the foliage overhead.
The creek was for the most part painfully still--painfully, for the
weird gloom raised up the idea that thousands of eyes were watching
their movements, and that at any moment some terrible attack might be
made.
That they were surrounded by living creatures they had ample proof given
them by strange rustlings among the branches overhead, and sometimes by
a sudden hasty rush which, as Briscoe said, might be anything.
"What do you mean by anything?" said Brace, in a low voice.
"Snake, monkey, big bird, or cat; but, you see, everything is afraid of
us and scuffling away as hard as it can, even in the water. Look at
that."
"Yes, I see," said Brace, "another alligator."
For the American had drawn his attention to a wave raised up by
something rushing past the bows of the boat.
"Well, I don't know about that," said Briscoe; "I rather fancy that was
one of those gar-fish--alligator gars, they call 'em in the States.
They're great pikey fish with tremendous teeth."
"But not big like that?"
"Oh, but they're big enough and precious fierce and strong. I shouldn't
wonder at all if that was one of the brutes."
"What's that?" asked Sir Humphrey, a couple of hours later, for the man
with the boat-hook turned and spoke.
"Don't see as I can get any farther, sir; the boat's about wedged in
here, and there don't seem any way of getting on without we had a saw."
"Is there no room to right or left?" said Brace. "It seems a pity to go
back yet."
"P'raps you'd take a look, gen'lemen," said the sailor.
Brace was in the act of laying down his gun when his brother, who was
before him, stood up, and then uttered a sharp ejaculation, close upon a
dull twanging sound from somewhere forward among the trees.
"What is it, Free?" cried Brace excitedly.
"An arrow," said Sir Humphrey sharply. "Here, quick, Brace; it may be
poisoned. You, Mr Briscoe, keep a good look-out for--"
The rest of his speech was stopped by the sharp report of the American's
gun, who fired as he half-knelt in the stern of the boat, aiming just
above the men's heads.
The next moment he and his man fired again, and as the report died out
the occupants of the boat could hear a splashing sound as of paddles
some little distance in advance.