THE SEA-COW’S LULLABY.
It was an anxious moment, or rather succession of moments, for those in
the _Wondership_. Luckily there was but little air stirring, and that
little was blowing from a direction which brought the big craft down
over the floating boy.
Jack watched his opportunity like a mousing cat. As the grapnel in
which he was standing, holding with one hand to the rope, swung above
Dick, he leaned out and with a swift, sure grasp drew the lad up. They
saw him disengage the life-jacket from the unconscious young reporter
and envelop his own body in it.
[Illustration: He leaned out and with a swift, sure grasp drew the lad
up.—_Page_ 144.]
This done, he deliberately secured Dick to the grapnel by looping the
rope around the boy’s body and fastening it with one of the forked
ends. Then he slipped off into the water and shouted to Tom, to “call
all hands” to haul Dick up to safety.
“But what about you?” cried Tom in an agony of distress.
“I’ll get along till you lower the rope again. Haul up now and be
quick!”
There was nothing to be done but to obey the gritty lad’s order. Inch
by inch they hauled on the rope till at last Dick could be reached and
pulled on board. No time was then lost in lowering the rope to Jack.
It was not any too soon. Attracted no doubt by the furious flurry of
the battle between the whale and the sword-fish, several fish with
triangular fins were to be seen cruising about in the vicinity.
“Sharks!” cried Captain Sprowl; but it hardly needed his warning cry to
apprise the boys of the nature of this new peril.
Fortunately, Jack kept his head and made a prodigious splashing in the
water whenever a fin came close. This had the effect of scaring off
the sharks for the time being, although had Jack delayed an instant in
grasping the rope, securing himself, and giving the word to haul up
quickly, there is little doubt that they would have rushed at him _en
masse_ and made escape impossible. As it was, Captain Sprowl had his
rifle ready to shoot the first one that drew near the boy, but luckily
there was no need of his shooting.
By the time the sharks had rallied from their temporary alarm Jack was
being hoisted upward, and within a few minutes was once more on board.
Congratulations on his daring act were loud and hearty and, as may be
imagined, when Dick came to himself his thanks were not rendered the
less sincere by the knowledge that the plucky young inventor had risked
his life to save him.
When all was in readiness the engine was set in motion once more, and
the machine shot ahead still on a due westerly course. Before long
there was visible, on the western horizon, a dim blue line that at
first looked like a bank of low-lying clouds.
It was Tom who first proclaimed it for what it was:
“Land ho!” he sung out in nautical fashion, and a ringing cheer was the
response.
“What part of the country is it, I wonder?” exclaimed Jack. “I hope we
will land near a town or settlement of some sort.”
Captain Sprowl looked dubious.
“Hard telling what we’ll strike,” he said, “but we’d best be prepared
not to find any hotels or _tably de hoteys_ around, unless the ‘gators
and sea-cows have started one since I was on this coast last.”
“Ever here before?” asked Dick, who by this time had fully recovered.
“Shipwrecked off this coast in the _Mary Anne McKim_ of Baltimore in
‘86,” was the brief reply.
As they drew nearer to land they saw that the coast which faced them
was apparently well-wooded. The towering forms of palms and other
large trees could be made out some time before any other details were
distinguishable.
On closer view, however, they saw that the country was undulating and
hilly. A long line of dense forest rose, seemingly, directly from the
water. It stretched north and south as far as the eye could reach. It
was, in fact, the great primeval forest that clothes this part of South
America from the seacoast to the foothills of the Andes, two thousand
miles to the west.
“Just as I thought,” grunted Captain Sprowl, laying aside the
binoculars with which he had been scrutinizing the coast; “it’s a
limber-go-shiftless sort of a place; but at any rate it’s better than
nothing. It’s dry land, anyhow.”
They all concurred in this view. It was something to look forward to
after their buffeting at the hands of the ocean,—this prospect of
setting foot on what the captain called “terrier firmer” once more.
As the _Wondership_ winged its way closer to the coast, Jack began
to look about for a place to land. At first sight there was none
visible. The massive dark crowns of shady mangoes, the towering forms
of the palms and certain stately dome-like and somber trees, shot up
everywhere above the surrounding forest, which grew as densely as weeds
in a neglected pasture.
On a white strip of beach the surf hurled itself thunderously, spuming
and foaming up to the very roots of the trees.
“Doesn’t look very promising for a landing,” remarked Tom, gazing about
quite as anxiously as Jack for a landing place.
“I should say not,” was the reply of the boy at the steering wheel.
“Maybe the woods will open out more when we get over them,” rejoined
Tom.
“I hope so.”
“Can’t we land on the beach?” asked Mr. Chadwick.
“Not a chance,” rejoined Jack. “I wouldn’t dare to come down on that
tiny strip of sand. A slight miscalculation would put us in the surf.
The ship would be ruined and we might be drowned.”
“Well, as the poet said, ‘all as goes up must come down,’” remarked the
captain sententiously, “so I s’pose we’ll find some place to drop.”
“No bird ever flew so high it didn’t have to light,” put in Dick
whimsically, whereat they all had a laugh.
“Well, at all events, it looks as if we were destined to have the place
to ourselves,” remarked Mr. Chadwick.
“I wouldn’t be too sure,” responded Captain Sprowl, pessimistically.
For some reason or other the old mariner did not look entirely at ease.
He scanned the tree-grown coast anxiously with his binoculars.
They were just about over the crashing surf when above its roar a most
peculiar sound fell upon their ears.
It came swelling over the woods and was startlingly like the cry of
someone shouting out in agony.
“What in the name of time is that?” cried Tom, turning a rather alarmed
face on the others.
“Indians!” shouted Dick. “We’d better steer clear of here.”
“Idt vos somevuns in pain,” declared the German savant nervously.
Again came the cry. A long shuddering wail that fairly made their flesh
creep. They no longer tried to disguise their alarm, but exchanged
disquieted looks.
“It is someone suffering pain,” declared Mr. Chadwick. “Better look to
your rifles, boys.”
But Captain Sprowl held up his hand to command silence. The grizzled
old sailor listened intently for a minute. He was waiting for a
repetition of the cry that had so disturbed them.
All at once it came once more,—a moaning, long-drawn sigh this time. It
was like the cry of a suffering sinner on his death-bed.
“It’s an awful sound!” shuddered Tom nervously.
“Awful, but blamed human,” put in Captain Sprowl with a sigh of relief,
like a gust of wind. “That’s nothin’ more alarmin’ than a sea-cow
singin’ her evenin’ song.”