Bunyip Land Part 38

Many had been the times when Jimmy and I had dashed into the river and swum about by the hour together; why not then now try to save our lives in spite of the roughness of the torrent and the horrors of the great fall I knew, too, that the fall must be at least two or three miles away, and there was always the possibility of our getting into some eddy and struggling out.

My spirits rose then at these thoughts, and I rapidly threw off part of my clothes, placing my gun and hatchet with the big knife, all tied together, in a niche of the rock, where their weight and the shelter might save them from being washed away.

As I did all this I saw the doctor look up sadly, but only to lower his head again till his chin rested upon his breast; while Jack Penny stared, and drew his knees up to his chin, embracing his legs and nodding his head sagely, as if he quite approved of what I was doing.

The only individual who made any active demonstration was Gyp, who jumped up and came to me wagging his tail and uttering a sharp bark or two. Then he ran to the water, snuffed at it, lapped a little, and threw up his head again, barking and splashing in it a little as he ran in breast-high and came back, as if intimating that he was ready at any moment for a swim.

The doctor looked up now, and a change seemed to have come over him, for he rose from where he had been seated and took my hand.

"Quite right, my lad," he said; "one must never say despair. There's a ledge there higher up where we will place the ammunition. Let's keep that dry if we can. It may not be touched by the water; even if we have to swim for our lives the guns won't hurt--that is, if they are not washed away."

It was as if he had prepared himself for the worst, and was now going to make strenuous efforts to save himself and his friends, after we had taken such precautions as we could about our stores.

Jimmy grinned and helped readily to place the various articles likely to be damaged by water as high as we could on ledges and blocks of stone, though as I did all this it was with the feeling that we were never likely to see the things again.

Still it was like doing one's duty, and I felt that then, of all times, was the hour for that.

So we worked on, with many a furtive glance at the water, which kept on encroaching till it began to lap the feet of our black companions.

But they did not stir; they remained with their positions unaltered, and still the water advanced, till the highest point of the ledge was covered, and Gyp began whining and paddling about, asking us, as it were, with his intelligent eyes, whether we did not mean to start.

"Hi! Gyp, Gyp!" shouted Jimmy just then; "up along, boy; up along!" and he patted the top of one of the stones that we had used for a breastwork.

The dog leaped up directly, placing himself three feet above the flood, and stood barking loudly.

"Yes, we can stand up there for a while," said the doctor, "and that will prolong the struggle a bit. Here, come up higher!" he cried, making signs to our black companions, who after a time came unwillingly from their lower position, splashing mournfully through the water, but evidently unwilling even then to disobey their white leader.

They grouped themselves with us close up to the breastwork, where we stood with the water rising still higher, and then all at once I felt that we must swim, for a fresh wave, the result probably of some portion of the flood that had been dammed up higher on the river course, swept upon us right to our lips, and but for the strength of our stone breastwork we must have been borne away.

As it was, we were standing by it, some on either side, and all clinging together. We withstood the heavy wrench that the water seemed to give, and held on, the only one who lost his footing being Jack Penny, who was dragged back by the doctor as the wave pa.s.sed on.

"Enough to pull your arms out of the socket," whined Jack dolefully. "I say, please don't do it again. I'd rather have to swim."

Higher and higher came the water, icily cold and numbing. The wave that pa.s.sed was succeeded by another, but that only reached to our waists, and when this had gone by there was the old slow rising of the flood as before till it was as high as our knees. Then by degrees it crept on and on till I was standing with it reaching my hips.

A fearful silence now ensued, and the thought came upon me that when the final struggle was at hand we should be so clasped together that swimming would be impossible and we must all be drowned.

And now, once more, with the water rising steadily, the old stunned helpless feeling began to creep over me, and I began to think of home in a dull heavy manner, of the happy days when I had hardly a care, and perhaps a few regrets were mixed with it all; but somehow I did not feel as if I repented of coming, save when I thought that my mother would have two sorrows now when she came to know of her loss.

Then everything seemed to be numbed; my limbs began to feel helpless, and my thoughts moved sluggishly, and in a half dreamy fashion I stood there pressed against, the rock holding tightly by the doctor on one side, by Jimmy on the other, and in another minute I knew that the rising water would be at my lips.

I remember giving a curious gasp as if my breath was going, and in imagination I recalled my sensations when, during a bathing expedition, I went down twice before Jimmy swam to my help and held me up. The water had not touched my lips--it was only at my chest, but I fancied I felt it bubbling in my nostrils and strangling me; I seemed to hear it thundering in my ears; there was the old pain at the back of my neck, and I struggled to get my hands free to beat the water like a drowning dog, but they were tightly held by my companions, how tightly probably they never knew. Then I remember that my head suddenly seemed to grow clear, and I was repeating to myself the words of a familiar old prayer when my eyes fell upon the surface of the water, and I felt as if I could not breathe.

The next minute Gyp was barking furiously, as he stood upon his hind legs resting his paws upon his master's shoulders, and Jimmy gave a loud shout.

"All a water run away, juss fa.s.s now," and as he spoke it fell a couple of inches, then a couple more, so swiftly, indeed, that the terrible pressure that held us tightly against the stones was taken off pound by pound, and before we could realise the truth the water was at my knees.

Ten minutes later it was at my feet, and before half an hour had pa.s.sed we were standing in the glorious sunshine with the rocky ledge drying fast, while the river, minute by minute, was going down, so that we felt sure if no storm came to renew the flood it would be at its old level in a couple of hours' time.

We were dripping and numbed by the icy water; but in that fierce sunshine it was wonderful how soon our wrung-out garments dried; and warmth was rapidly restored to our limbs by rocks that soon grew heated in the torrid rays.

"Big bunyip got no more water. All gone dis time," said Jimmy calmly.

"Poor black fellows tink go die. No die Jimmy. Lots a do find um fader all over big country. Water all gone, Jimmy cunning--artful, not mean die dis time. Bunyip not got 'nuff water. Give Jimmy something eat.

Ready eat half sheep and damper. Give Jimmy some eat."

We all wanted something to eat, and eagerly set to work, but soaking damper was not a very sumptuous repast; still we feasted as eagerly as if it had been the most delicious food, and all the time the water kept going down.

CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR.

HOW THE DOCTOR TOOK ME IN HAND.

It is surprising how elastic the mind is in young people, and my experience has shown me that there is a great deal of resemblance between the minds of savages and those of the young.

In this case we had all been, I may say, in a state of the most terrible despair one hour. The next, our black companions were laughing and chattering over their wet damper, and Jimmy was hopping about in the highest of glee, while I must confess to a singular feeling of exhilaration which I showed in company with Jack Penny, who, after resuming his garments, seemed to have been seized with the idea that the proper thing to do was to go round from one to another administering friendly slaps on the shoulder accompanied by nods and smiles.

I used to wish that Jack Penny would not smile, for the effect upon his smooth boyish countenance was to make him look idiotic. When the doctor smiled there was a grave kindly benevolent look in his fine heavily-bearded ma.s.sive face. When Jimmy smiled it was in a wholesale fashion, which gave you an opportunity of counting his teeth from the incisors right back to those known as wisdom-teeth at the angles of his jaws. He always smiled with all his might and made me think of the man who said he admired a crocodile because it had such a nice open countenance.

Jimmy had a nice open countenance and a large mouth; but it in no respect resembled a crocodile's. His regular teeth were white with a china whiteness, more than that of ivory, and there was a genuine good-tempered look about his features which even the distortion produced by anger did not take away. It was only the rather comic grotesqueness seen sometimes in the face of a little child when he is what his mother calls a naughty boy, and distends his mouth and closes his eyes for a genuine howl.

But Jack Penny had a smile of his own, a weak inane sickly smile that irritated instead of pleasing you, and made you always feel as if you would like to punch his head for being such a fool, when all the time he was not a fool at all, but a thoroughly good-hearted, brave, and clever fellow--true as steel--steel of the very elastic watch-spring kind, for the way in which he bent was terrible to see.

So Jack Penny went about smiling and slapping people's backs till it was time to go, and we all watched the cessation of the flood with eagerness.

The doctor, in talking, said that it was evident that this gorge ran right up into quite a mountainous region acting as a drain to perhaps a score of valleys which had been flooded by the sudden storm, and that this adventure had given us as true an idea of the nature of the interior we were about to visit as if we had studied a map.

Down went the water more and more swiftly till, as I was saying to the doctor how grand it must have been to see the flood rolling over the great fall, we saw that the rocky ledge along which we had come and that on the other side of our little haven of safety were bare and drying up, being washed perfectly clean and not showing so much as a trace of mud.

"Let us get on at once," the doctor said; "this is no road for a traveller to choose, for the first storm will again make it a death-trap."

So here we were rescued, and we started at once, every one carefully avoiding the slightest reference to the fate of our pursuers, while in the broad light of day, in place of looking terrible, the chasm was simply grand. The cool rolling water seemed to bring with it a soft sweet breeze that made us feel elastic, and refreshed us as we trudged along at an ordinary rate, for there was no fear now of pursuit.

So with one or two halts we walked on all day till I felt eager to get out from between the prison-like walls to where the trees were waving, and we could hear the voices of the birds. Here there was nothing but stone, stone as high as we could see.

It was a great drawback our not being able to converse with the bearers, but we amended this a little every hour, for Ti-hi struggled hard to make us understand how much he knew about the place and how he knew that there were such floods as this from time to time.

We managed to learn from him, too, that we should not escape from the gorge that night, and to our dismay we had to encamp on a broad shelf when the sun went down; but the night proved to be clear and calm, and morning broke without any adventure to disturb our much-needed rest.

The gorge had been widening out, though, a great deal on the previous evening, and by noon next day, when we paused for a rest after a long tramp over constantly-rising ground, we were beyond risk from any such storm as that which had nearly been our destruction, but as we rested amid some bushes beside what was a mere gurgling stream, one of several into which the river had branched, Ti-hi contrived to make us understand that we were not in safety, for there were people here who were ready to fight and kill, according to his words and pantomimic action, which Jimmy took upon himself to explain.

For days and days we journeyed on finding abundance of food in the river and on its banks by means of gun and hook and line. The blacks were clever, too, at finding for us roots and fruit, with tender shoots of some kind of gra.s.sy plant that had a sweet taste, pleasantly acid as well, bunches of which Jimmy loved to stick behind him in his waistband so that it hung down like a bushy green tail that diminished as he walked, for he kept drawing upon it till it all was gone.

Now and then, too, we came upon the great pale-green broad leaves of a banana or plantain, which was a perfect treasure.

Jimmy was generally the first to find these, for he was possessed of a fine insight into what was good for food.

"Regular fellow for the pot," Jack Penny said one day as Jimmy set up one of his loud whoops and started off at a run.