"And here's my broadside next, men. I'll go nowhere, and do nothing
without the advice of Salvation Yeo and Robert Drew; and if any man in
the ship knows better than these two, let him up, and we'll give him a
hearing. Eh, _Pelicans_?"
There was a grunt of approbation from the Pelicans; and Amyas returned
to the charge.
"We have five shots between wind and water, and one somewhere below.
Can we face a gale of wind in that state, or can we not?"
Silence.
"Can we get home with a leak in our bottom?"
Silence.
"Come along now! Here's the wind again round with the sun, and up to
the northwest. In shore with her."
Sulkily enough, but unable to deny the necessity, the men set to work,
and the vessel's head was put toward the land; but when she began to
slip through the water, the leak increased so fast that they were kept
hard at work at the pumps for the rest of the afternoon.
The current had by this time brought them abreast of the bay of
Higuerote. As they ran inward, all eyes were strained greedily to find
some opening in the mangrove belt: but none was to be seen for some
time. The lead was kept going; and every fresh heave announced
shallower water.
"We shall have very shoal work of those mangroves, Yeo," said Amyas; "I
doubt whether we shall do aught now, unless we find a river's mouth."
"If the Lord thinks a river good for us, sir, he'll show us one." So
on they went, keeping a southeast course, and at last an opening in the
mangrove belt was hailed with a cheer from the older hands, though the
majority shrugged their shoulders, as men going open-eyed to
destruction.
Of the mouth they sent in Drew and Cary with a boat, and watched
anxiously for an hour. The boat returned with a good report of two
fathoms of water over the bar, impenetrable forests for two miles up,
the river sixty yards broad, and no sign of man. The river's banks
were soft and sloping mud, fit for careening.
"Safe quarters, sir," said Yeo, privately, "as far as Spaniards go. I
hope in God it may be as safe from fevers."
"Beggars must not be choosers," said Amyas. So in they went.
They towed the ship up about half-a-mile to a point where she could not
be seen from the seaward; and there moored her to the mangrove-stems.
Amyas ordered a boat out, and went up the river himself to reconnoiter.
He rowed some three miles, till the river narrowed suddenly, and was
all but covered in by the interlacing boughs of mighty trees. There
was no sign that man had been there since the making of the world.
He dropped down the stream again, thoughtfully and sadly. How many
years ago was it that he had passed this river's mouth? Three days.
And yet how much had passed in them! Don Guzman found and lost--Rose
found and lost--a great victory gained, and yet lost--perhaps his ship
lost--above all, his brother lost.
Lost! O God, how should he find his brother?
Some strange bird out of the woods made mournful answer--"Never, never,
never!"
How should he face his mother?
"Never, never, never!" walled the bird again; and Amyas smiled
bitterly, and said "Never!" likewise.
The night mist began to steam and wreath upon the foul beer-colored
stream. The loathy floor of liquid mud lay bare beneath the mangrove
forest. Upon the endless web of interarching roots great purple crabs
were crawling up and down. They would have supped with pleasure upon
Amyas's corpse; perhaps they might sup on him after all; for a heavy
sickening graveyard smell made his heart sink within him, and his
stomach heave; and his weary body, and more weary soul, gave themselves
up helplessly to the depressing influence of that doleful place. The
black bank of dingy leathern leaves above his head, the endless
labyrinth of stems and withes (for every bough had lowered its own
living cord, to take fresh hold of the foul soil below); the web of
roots, which stretched away inland till it was lost in the shades of
evening--all seemed one horrid complicated trap for him and his; and
even where, here and there, he passed the mouth of a lagoon, there was
no opening, no relief--nothing but the dark ring of mangroves. Wailing
sadly, sad-colored mangrove-hens ran off across the mud into the dreary
dark. The hoarse night-raven, hid among the roots, startled the
voyagers with a sudden shout, and then all was again silent as a grave.
The loathy alligators lounging in the slime lifted their horny eyelids
lazily, and leered upon him as he passed with stupid savageness. Lines
of tall herons stood dimly in the growing gloom, like white fantastic
ghosts, watching the passage of the doomed boat. All was foul, sullen,
weird as witches' dream. If Amyas had seen a crew of skeletons glide
down the stream behind him, with Satan standing at the helm, he would
scarcely have been surprised. What fitter craft could haunt that
Stygian flood?