The three sufferers had no illness to fight against, and began to regain
their normal strength very rapidly, while nature was hiding the
destruction wrought upon the face of the land at a rapid rate. Tropical
showers washed the mud left by the flood from leaf and twig, and the
lower boughs, which had been stripped of leaves by the rushing waters,
put forth new ones, so that in a very few days' time not many traces of
the flood were visible, save where banks had crumbled in and great gaps
of broken earth stood out.
Fully equipped once more, Brazier, as he regained his strength, went on
adding to his collection of choice plants, which had come back to him
intact; and as they dropped on and on down the river, finding clearings
at pretty frequent intervals, greater and greater grew the natural
stores of botanical treasures, so that the collector was more than
satisfied with Shaddy's guiding.
"But what I want to know is how we are to get back," Rob said over and
over again. "We shall never be able to pull the boat up again."
Shaddy chuckled.
"Might have another big storm and a flood, Mr Rob," he said, "and get
back as Mr Jovanni did."
"But you don't mean to go back that way?"
"Right, sir! I don't. But you go on with your fishing and shooting,
and let Mr Brazier do his vegetables up in his baskets. Leave the rest
to me."
The task was left to him, and they went on down the river day after day
till one evening they rounded a bend, and, in obedience to their
leader's orders, the boat was rowed into a narrow stream which joined
that which they had left, the junction being plainly marked by the
distinct colour of the waters.
"Going up this, Naylor?" asked Brazier wonderingly.
"Yes, sir. It's the place I've been making for, and I'm thinking you'll
find something quite fresh along here, for it leads up into higher
ground on and on into the mountains, where the trees and flowers are
quite different."
"Of course--yes," said Brazier eagerly. "Let's go up it."
"But there's one thing to be said, sir."
"What's that?"
"We shall have to be careful."
"Is the river dangerous?"
"Tidy, sir; but we can get over that. It's the Indians."
"Indians?"
"Yes, sir; some of them may be along the side, but if we are on the
watch and take care, being well armed and a fairly strong party, I think
they are not likely to interfere with us much."
Rob pricked up his ears at this as they began gliding up the stream,
noting the difference directly, for it was far less powerful, the men
having no difficulty at all in forcing the boat along, save here and
there where they encountered a rapid, up which they thrust the boat with
poles.
"Did you hear what old Shaddy said?" Rob whispered to his companion.
"Yes. We shall have to look out then and have our guns ready."
"But have the Indians guns?"
"No, spears and blowpipes, through which they send poisoned arrows."
"Ugh!" ejaculated Rob uneasily.
"Horrid things! Shaddy has often told me about them," said Joe.
"What has he often told you about, my lad?"
The boys started, for the old sailor had approached them unheard.
"Indians' blowpipes," said Joe.
"Ah, yes; they're not nice things, my lads. Can't say as I would like
to be killed by one of their arrows."
"Why?" said Rob. "What are they like?"
"Stop a moment, my lad, and I'll tell you."
He left them to give some instructions to the men as to the use of their
poles, but returned directly.
"Know what we're doing now?" he said, with one of his dry quaint smiles
on his weather-beaten face.
"Yes, going up this river."
"Right, my lad! But we're going upstairs like. You'll see we shall
keep on rowing along smooth stretches where the water seems easy; then
we shall come to rapids and have to pole on against a swift rush of
water, and every time we get to the top of the rapid into smooth water
we shall have gone up one of my water steps, and so by degrees get right
up into the mountains."
"Why are we going up into the mountains? Is it to get back to the main
river?" said Rob.
"Wait a bit, my lad, and you'll see. Besides, Mr Brazier'll get plants
up here such as he never saw before. But you were talking about the
Indians and their blowpipes. I don't mind the blowpipes; it's the
arrows."
"Poisonous?"
"Horrid, my lad. They're only little bits of things with a tuff of
cotton at one end and the wood at the other sharpened into a point, but
they dip it into poison, and just before they shoot it out of the
blowpipe they hold it nipped between the jaws of one of those little
sharp-toothed piranis, then give it a bit of a twirl with their fingers,
and the teeth saw it nearly through."
"What's the use of that?" asked Rob.
"Makes it so that the arrow breaks off and leaves the point in the
wound. Anything don't live very long with one of those points left in
its skin."
"Think we shall meet any Indians, Shaddy?" said Joe.
"Maybe yes, my lad; maybe no. You never know. They come and go like
wild beasts--tigers, lions, and such-like."
"Do you think my lion will follow us, Shaddy?" said Rob eagerly.
"No, my lad; I don't. He had a long swim before him to get to shore;
and it's my belief that he would be 'tacked and pulled under before he
had gone very far."
"How horrible!"
"Yes, my lad; seems horrid, but I don't know. Natur's very curious. If
he was pulled under to be eaten it was only to stop him from pulling
other creatures down and eating them. That's the way matters go on out
in these forests where life swarms, and from top to bottom one thing's
killing and eating another. It's even so with the trees, as I've told
you: the biggest and strongest kill the weak 'uns, and live upon 'em.
It's all nature's way, my lads, and a good one."
"Well, we don't want the Indians to kill us, Shaddy," said Rob merrily.
"And they shan't, my lad, if I can help it. Perhaps we mayn't see any
of them, and one side of the river's safe, so we shall keep that side;
but if they come any of their nonsense with us they must be taught to
keep to themselves with a charge or two of small shot. If that don't
teach them to leave respectable people alone they must taste larger
shot. I don't want to come to bullets 'cept as a last resource."
"I should have liked to have found the puma again," said Rob after a
time.
"Perhaps it's as well not, my lad," said their guide. "It was all very
well, and he liked you, but some day he'd have grown older, and he'd
have turned rusty, and there would have been a fight, and before he was
killed you might have been badly clawed. Wild beasts don't tame very
well. You can trust dogs and cats, which are never so happy as when
they are with human folk; but I never knew any one who did very well
with other things. Ah, here's another of my steps!"
He went to his men again, for they were rowing along a smooth-gliding
reach, at the end of which rough water appeared, and all hands were
called into requisition to help the boat up the long stretch of rapids,
at the end of which, as they glided into smooth water again, Shaddy
declared that they had mounted a good twenty feet.
Day after day was spent in this steady journeying onward. The weather
was glorious, and the forest on either side looked as if it had never
been trod by man. So full of wonders, too, was it for Brazier, that
again and again as night closed in, and they moored on their right to
some tree for the men to land and light their fire and cook, he thanked
their guide for bringing him, as the first botanist, to a region where
every hour he collected treasures.
"And some folk would sneer at the pretty things, and turn away because
they weren't gold, or silver, or precious stones," muttered Shaddy.
All this time almost imperceptibly they were rising and climbing
Shaddy's water steps, as he had called them. They fished and had
success enough to keep their larder well stocked. Birds were shot such
as were excellent eating, and twice over Shaddy brought down iguanas,
which, though looked upon with distrust by the travellers, were welcomed
by the boatmen, who were loud in their praise.
It was a dream-like existence, and wonderfully restful to the lads who
had passed through so many troubles, while the boat presented an
appearance, with its load of drying specimens, strongly suggestive of
there being very little room for more.