"Don't they bite, sir?"
"Bite?"
_Smick! smack! flap_!
"Oh, murder!"
"What's the matter, sir?"
"My hand."
"Hurt it, sir?"
"I should think I have."
"You should wait till they've sucked 'emselves full and then hit 'em;
they're lazy then. Too quick for you now."
"The wretches! I shall be spotted all over, like a currant dumpling. I
say, Shaddy, do they always bite like this?"
"Well, yes, sir," said the man addressed, about as ugly a specimen of
humanity as could be met in a day's march, for he had only one eye, and
beneath that a peculiar, puckered scar extending down to the corner of
his mouth, shaggy short hair, neither black nor grey--a kind of
pepper-and-salt colour--yellow teeth in a very large mouth, and a skin
so dark and hairy that he looked like some kind of savage, dressed in a
pair of canvas trousers and a shirt that had once been scarlet, but was
now stained, faded, and rubbed into a neutral grub or warm earthy tint.
He wore no braces, but a kind of belt of what seemed to be snake or
lizard skin, fastened with either a silver or pewter buckle. Add to
this the fact that his feet were bare, his sleeves rolled up over his
mahogany-coloured arms, and that his shirt was open at the throat,
showing his full neck and hairy chest; add also that he was about five
feet, nine, very broad-shouldered and muscular, and you have Shadrach
Naylor, about the last person any one would take to be an Englishman or
select for a companion on a trip up one of the grandest rivers of South
America.
But there he was that hot, sunny day, standing up in the stern of the
broad, lightly built boat which swung by a long rope some fifty feet
behind a large schooner, of shallow draught but of lofty rig, so that
her tremendous tapering masts might carry their sails high above the
trees which formed a verdant wall on each side of the great river, and
so catch the breeze when all below was sheltered and calm.
The schooner was not anchored, but fast aground upon one of the shifting
sand-banks that made navigation difficult. Here she was likely to lie
until the water rose, or a fresh cool wind blew from the south and
roughened the dull silvery gleaming surface into waves where she could
roll and rock and work a channel for herself through the sand, and sail
onward tugging the boat which swung behind.
It was hot, blistering hot! and all was very still save for the rippling
murmur of the flowing river and the faint buzz of the insect plagues
which had come hunting from the western shore, a couple of hundred yards
away, while the eastern was fully two miles off, and the voices of the
man and the boy he addressed sounded strange in the vast solitudes
through which the mighty river ran.
Not that these two were alone, for there were five more occupants of the
boat, one a white man--from his dress--a leg being visible beneath a
kind of awning formed of canvas, the other four, Indians or
half-breeds--from the absence of clothing and the colour of their skins
as they lay forward--fast asleep, like the occupant of the covered-in
portion.
The great schooner was broad and Dutch-like in its capacious beam, and
manned by a fair-sized crew, but not a soul was visible, for it was
early in the afternoon; the vessel was immovable, and all on board were
fast asleep.
Shadrach Naylor, too, had been having his nap, with his pipe in his
mouth, but it had fallen out with a rap in the bottom of the boat, and
this had awakened him with a start to pick it up. He valued that pipe
highly as one of his very few possessions--a value not visible to any
one else, for intrinsically, if it had been less black and not quite so
much chipped, it might have been worth a farthing English current coin
of the realm.
So Shadrach Naylor, familiarly known as "Shaddy," opened his one eye so
as to find his pipe, picked it up, and was in the act of replacing it in
his mouth prior to closing his eye again, when the sharp, piercing, dark
orb rested upon Rob Harlow, seated in the stern, roasting in the sun,
and holding a line that trailed away overboard into the deep water
behind the sand-bank.
Perhaps it was from being so ugly a man and knowing it that Shaddy had a
great liking for Rob Harlow, who was an English lad, sun-burnt,
brown-haired, well built, fairly athletic, at most sixteen, very
good-looking, and perfectly ignorant of the fact.
So Shaddy rose from forward, and, with his toes spreading out like an
Indian's, stepped from thwart to thwart till he was alongside of Rob, of
whom he asked the question respecting the biting, his inquiry relating
to the fish, while Rob's reply applied to the insects which worried him
in their search for juicy portions of his skin.
But they were not allowed to feed in peace, for Rob smacked and slapped
sharply, viciously, but vainly, doing far more injury to himself than to
the gnat-like flies, so, to repeat his words,--
"I say, Shaddy, do they always bite like this?"
"Well, yes, sir," said Shaddy, "mostlings. It's one down and t'other
come on with them. It's these here in the morning, and when they've
done the sand-flies take their turn till sun goes down, and then out
comes the skeeters to make a night of it."
"Ugh!" ejaculated Rob, giving himself a vicious rub. "I'm beginning to
wish I hadn't come. It's horrible."
"Not it, youngster. You'll soon get used to 'em. I don't mind; they
don't hurt me. Wait a bit, and, pretty little creeturs, you'll like
it."
"What! Like being bitten?"
"To be sure, sir. 'Livens you up a bit in this hot sleepy country; does
your skin good; stimmylates, like, same as a rub with a good rough towel
at home."
Rob gave vent to a surly grunt and jerked his line.
"I don't believe there are any fish here," he said.
"No fish! Ah! that's what we boys used to say o' half-holidays when we
took our tackle to Clapham Common to fish the ponds there. We always
used to say there was no fish beside the tiddlers, and them you could
pull out as fast as you liked with a bit o' worm without a hook, but
there was fish there then--big perch and whacking carp, and now and then
one of us used to get hold of a good one, and then we used to sing quite
another song.--I say, sir!"
"Well?"
"This here's rather different to Clapham Common, isn't it?"
"Yes," said Rob, "but it isn't what I expected."
"What did you 'spect, then? Ain't the river big enough for you?"
"Oh! it's big enough," said the lad, snatching his line in. "Didn't
seem like a river down behind there."
"Right, my lad; like being at sea, ain't it?"
"Yes, and it's all so flat where you can see the shore. An ashy, dusty,
dreary place, either too hot or too cold! Why, I wouldn't live at Monte
Video or Buenos Ayres for all the money in the world."
"And right you'd be, my lad, says Shadrach Naylor. Ah! Why, look at
that! Fish is fish all the world over. You don't expect they'll bite
at a bare hook, do you?"
"Bother the bait! it's off again," said Rob, who had just pulled in the
line. "It always seems to come off."
"Not it, lad. There, I'll put a bit o' meat on for you. It's them
little beggars nibbles it off.--There you are; that's a good bait.
Perhaps you may get a bite this time. As I says, fish is fish all the
world over, and they're the most onaccountable things there is. One day
they're savage after food; next day you may hold a bait close to their
noses, and they won't look at it. But you're hot and tired, my lad.
Why don't you do as others do, take to your sister?"
"My sister!" cried Rob, staring. "I haven't got one."
"I didn't say sister," said Shaddy, showing his yellow teeth; "I said
sister--nap."
"I know you did," grumbled Rob; "why don't you say siesta?"
"'Cause I don't care about making mouthfuls of small words, my lad."
_Splash_! went the freshly thrown-in bait.
"I don't like sleeping in the middle of the day," said Rob as he took a
fresh hold of his line.
"Wait a bit, my lad, and you'll like getting a snooze on there when you
can get a chance. And so you're a bit disappynted in the country, are
you?"
"Yes, but it's been getting better the last few days."
"Yes," said Shaddy, "ever so much; and as soon as you get used to it
you'll say it's the beautifullest place in the world."
Rob turned to him quickly, his irritation passing away.
"Yes, it is getting beautiful," he said; "the trees all along that side
are very grand."
"Ah," said Shaddy, replacing the great sheath-knife with which he had
been cutting up his tobacco in his belt, "and it's bigger and wilder
when we get higher up. I don't wonder at their calling it the Grand
Chaco."
"The trees are wonderful," said Rob softly as he gazed at the great wall
of verdure.
"And it's wonderfuller inside as you go on and up the little rivers or
creeks. Just you wait a bit, my lad, and you'll see. I can show you
things as'll open your eyes. You won't think the place dull."
"I suppose we are getting up toward quite the middle of South America,
aren't we?"
"Getting that way, my lad, but not yet. Wasn't that a bite?"
"No," replied Rob confidently. "I say, Shaddy, are there really any
good fish in this river? Isn't it too big?"
"Wants a big river to hold big fish in, millions of 'em, big as you are.
Wait, and you'll see."
"But one gets so tired of waiting."
"But we has to wait all the same, and how those 'Talians get up and down
as they do is always a wonder to me. I suppose they like waiting, and
having their snoozes in the hot sun. 'Tis their nature to. Naples is
hot enough, but not like this."
"Have you been to Italy?"
"'Ain't many places I haven't been to, my lad."
"But you've been here a long time."
"Nigh upon twenty year up and down; and when I go to a place I like to
forage and ferret about, being fond of a bit o' sport. That's how it is
I know so much of the country up here. Couldn't help larning it. No
credit to a man then."
"What are you looking at?" said Rob.
"Nothing, but looking out for squalls."
"Change of weather?"
"Nay, not yet. I meant Indian squalls. I didn't know as there were to
be no watch kept, or I wouldn't have slept. It ain't safe, my lad, to
go to sleep close to the shore this side."
"Why! Wild beasts?"
"Nay, wild Indians, as hates the whites, and would come out from under
the trees in their canoes and attack us if they knowed we were here. I
told the skipper so, but he's like them 'talians: knows everything
himself, so that he as good as told me to mind my own business, and so I
did. But this side of the river's all savage and wild, my lad. The
people had rough hard times with the old Spaniards, so that every white
man's a Spaniard to them, and if they get a chance it's spear or club."
Rob looked rather nervously along the interlacing trees hung with the
loveliest of vine and creeper, and then jerked his line.
"Ah, it's all right enough, sir, if you keep your eyes open. I can't,
you see: only one."
"How did you lose your eye, Shaddy?"
"Tiger," said the man shortly.
"There are no tigers here," said Rob. "They are in India."
"I know that. Striped ones they are, and bigger than these here. I've
known 'em swim off from Johore across to Singapore--though they're big
cats--and then lie in wait for the poor Chinese coolie chaps and carry
'em off. They call these big spotted chaps tigers, though, out here;
but they're jaggers: that's what they are. Call 'em painters up in
Texas and Arizona and them parts north. Jaggered my eye out anyhow."
"How was it?"
"I was shooting, and after lying in wait for one of the beggars for
nights, I saw my gentleman--coming after a calf he was--and I shot him.
`Dead!' I says, for he just gave one snarly cry, turned over on his
back, clawed about a bit, and then lay down on his side, and I went up,
knife in hand, meaning to have his spotted skin."
Shaddy stopped and laid his hand over the scar and empty eye cavity, as
if they throbbed still.
"Well?" cried Rob eagerly.
"No; it wasn't well, my lad. All the worst's coming. He wasn't dead a
bit, and before I knew where I was, he sent my rifle flying, and he had
me. It was one leap and a wipe down the face with his right paw, and
then his jaws were fixed in my right shoulder, and down I went on my
back. If I hadn't twisted a bit he'd have torn me with his hind claws
same as a cat does a great rat, and then I shouldn't have been here to
be your guide. As it was, he kicked and tore up the earth, and then he
left go of my shoulder and turned over on his side, and died in real
earnest."
"The bullet had taken effect?"
"Nay, my lad; it was my knife. I thought it was my turn again, and, as
I had it in my hand, I felt for his heart, and found it."
"How horrible!"
"Yes, it was, my lad, very; but I won that game. I didn't get the skin
money, for I didn't care for it then. I couldn't see very well. Why, I
was quite blind for a month after, and then all the strength of two eyes
seemed to go into this one. Painters they call 'em nor'ard, as I said;
and he painted me prettily, didn't he, right down this cheek? Never saw
a girl who thought me handsome enough to want to marry me."
Shaddy laughed.
"What is it?" said Rob.
"I was thinking about Mr Brazier yonder when I came to you at Buenos
Ayres."
"What, when he was waiting for the guide Captain Ossolo said he could
recommend?"
Shaddy nodded.
"He looked quite scared at me. Most people do; and the captain had
quite a job to persuade him that I should be the very man."
"Yes, and it was not till the captain said he would not get one half so
good that he engaged you."
"That's so, my lad. But I am a rum 'un, ain't I?"
"You're not nice-looking, Shaddy," said Rob, gazing at him thoughtfully;
"but I never notice it now, and--well, yes, you are always very kind to
me. I like you," added the boy frankly.
Shaddy's one eye flashed, and he did not look half so ferocious.
"Thank ye, my lad," he cried, stretching out his great hand. "Would you
mind laying your fist in there and saying that again?"
Rob laughed, looked full in the man's eye, and laid his hand in the
broad palm, but wished the next moment that he had not, for the fingers
closed over his with a tremendous grip.
"I say, you hurt!" he cried.
"Ay, I suppose so," said Shaddy, loosing his grip a little. "I forgot
that. Never mind. It was meant honest, and Mr Brazier shan't repent
bringing me."
"I don't think he does now," said Rob. "He told me yesterday that you
were a staunch sort of fellow."
"Ah! thank ye," said Shaddy, smiling more broadly; and his ruffianly,
piratical look was superseded by a frank aspect which transformed him.
"You see, Mr Harlow, I'm a sort of a cocoa-nutty fellow, all shaggy
husk outside. You find that pretty tough till you get through it, and
then you ain't done, for there's the shell, and that's hard enough to
make you chuck me away; but if you persevere with me, why, there inside
that shell is something that ain't peach, nor orange, nor soft banana,
but not such very bad stuff after all."
"I should think it isn't," cried Rob. "I say, it would make some of our
boys at home stare who only know cocoa-nut all hard and woody, and the
milk sickly enough to throw away, if they could have one of the
delicious creamy nuts that we get here."
"Yes, my lad, they're not bad when you're thirsty, nor the oranges
either."
"Delicious!" cried Rob.
"Ay. I've lived for weeks at a time on nothing but oranges and
cocoanuts, and a bit of fish caught just now and then with my hands,
when I've been exploring like and hunting for gold."
"For gold? Is there gold about here?"
"Lots, my lad, washed down the rivers. I've often found it."
"Then you ought to be rich."
The man chuckled.
"Gold sounds fine, sir, but it's a great cheat. My 'sperience of gold
has always been that it takes two pounds' worth of trouble to get one
pound's worth o' metal. So that don't pay. Seems to me from what I
hear that it's the same next door with dymons."
"Next door?"
"Well, up yonder in Brazil. I should say your Mr Brazier will do
better collecting vegetables, if so be he can find any one to buy 'em
afterwards. What do you call 'em--orkards?"
"Orchids," said Rob.
"But who's going to buy 'em?"
"Oh, I don't know," said Rob, laughing. "There are plenty of people
glad to get them in England for their hothouses. Besides, there are the
botanists always very eager to see any new kinds."
"Better try and get some new kinds o' birds. There's lots here with
colours that make your eyes ache. They'd be better than vegetables.
Why, right up north--I've never seen any down here--there's little humpy
birds a bit bigger than a cuckoo, with tails a yard long and breasts
ever so much ruddier than robins', and all the rest of a green that
shines as if the feathers were made of copper and gold mixed."
"Mr Brazier hasn't come after birds."
"Well then, look here; I can put him up to a better way of making money.
What do you say to getting lots of things to send to the 'Logical
Gardens? Lions and tigers and monkeys--my word, there are some rum
little beggars of monkeys out here."
"No lions in America, Shaddy."
"Oh, ain't there, my lad? I'll show you plenty, leastwise what we calls
lions here. I'll tell you what--snakes and serpents. They'd give no
end for one of our big water-snakes. My word, there are some whackers
up these rivers."
"How big?" said Rob, hiding a smile--"two hundred feet long?"
"Gammon!" growled Shaddy; "I ain't one of your romancing sort. Truth's
big enough for me. So's the snakes I've seen. I've had a skin of one
fellow six-and-twenty foot long, and as opened out nearly nine foot laid
flat. I dessay it stretched a bit in the skinning, but it shrunk a bit
in the drying, so that was about its size, and I've seen more than one
that must have been longer, though it's hard to measure a twisting,
twirling thing with your eye when it's worming its way through mud and
water and long grass."
"Water-snakes, eh?" said Rob, who was beginning to be impressed by the
man's truth.
"Ay, water-snakes. They're anti-bilious sort of things, as some folks
calls 'em--can't live out of the water and dies in."
He laughed merrily as he said this.
"That's true enough, my lad, for they wants both land and water. I've
seen 'em crawl into a pool and curl themselves up quite comfortable at
the bottom and lie for hours together. You could see 'em with the water
clear as cryschial. Other times they seem to like to be in the sun.
But wait a bit, and I'll show 'em to you, ugly beggars, although they're
not so very dangerous after all. Always seemed as scared of me as I was
of--hist! don't move. Just cast your eye round a bit to starboard and
look along the shore."
Rob turned his eye quickly, and saw a couple of almost naked Indians
standing on an open patch beneath the trees, each holding a long, thin
lance in his hand. They were watching the water beneath the bank very
attentively, as if in search of something, just where quite a field of
lilies covered the river, leaving only a narrow band clear, close to the
bank.
"Don't take no notice of 'em," said Shaddy; "they're going fishing."
"Wish them better luck than I've had," said Rob. "Fishing! Those are
their rods, then; I thought they were spears."
"So they are, my lad," whispered Shaddy. "They're off. No fish there."
As he spoke the two living-bronze figures disappeared among the trees as
silently as they had come.
"Of course there are no fish," said Rob wearily as he drew in his
baitless line, the strong gimp hook being quite bare. "Hullo, here
comes Joe!"