Old Gold Part 21

"It does not seem as if we need go any farther, Brace," said Sir Humphrey.

"So I was thinking," said the former. "Look at those lovely humming-birds. Why, they're not so big by a long way as the b.u.t.terflies."

"I was looking," said Sir Humphrey, "and longing for a tiny gun loaded with dry sand or water, to bring some of them down. Look at the bright blue steely gleams of their forked tails."

"No, no," whispered Brace, as if afraid to speak aloud lest the glorious vision of colour should pa.s.s away; "I meant those tiny fellows all blue and emerald-green there, with the tufts of snowy-white down above their legs. Oh, what a pity!"

The last words were said as the blaze of blossom and flitting colour pa.s.sed away, for as the boat glided on they pa.s.sed in amongst the veil of drooping leaves and twigs which brushed over their heads and shoulders, and were at once in a soft twilight, looking up into a wilderness of trunks and boughs, where for some moments after the sudden change all looked strangely obscure and dense.

But there was plenty to see there as the men laid in their oars and one in the bows thrust out the hook to take hold of a branch here and there and drag the boat along towards a more open part, which soon took the form of a vegetable tunnel, proving to be an arched-in muddy creek, amongst whose overhanging cover something was in motion, but what it was did not become evident for a few minutes in the gloom.

"Is it a great serpent?" said Brace huskily.

"No," said Briscoe quickly. "A party of monkeys playing at follow-my-leader. Look, there they go, close after one another. It looks just like some great reptile, but you can see now. They're afraid of the boat."

He had hardly spoken when the latter quivered from the effects of a sudden concussion.

"Take care," said Sir Humphrey. "You've run upon a sunken trunk."

"No, sir," said the man in the bows, as he held on to a tree with the boat-hook; "that wasn't our doing. It was one of they alligators gave us a slap with his tail. Look at the water. There he goes."

The man was right enough, for the water was eddying violently from the pa.s.sage of something beneath, and proof was given directly after, by the appearance of a dark gnarled something a few inches above the surface, this something curving over and being in the act of disappearing, when, carried away by the excitement of the moment, Brace raised his double gun, took a quick aim, and fired, with the result that there was a tremendous splash, the appearance of a flattened tail for a moment, and amidst a discordant screaming from overhead, the occupants of the boat had a glimpse of what seemed to be a writhing hank of enormously thick chocolate and tawny-yellow cable, which seemed to have been thrown from above, to fall with another splash into the water some twenty yards in front of where the boat lay. Then there was a momentary gleam of colour as the object writhed and twined, and then the muddy water rose and fell and washed among the trunks which rose straight from the surface, while for a few moments no one spoke, but every eye was directed at the spot where the water quivered as if something was in motion beneath.

"I fired at the alligator," said Brace, turning to his brother with a half-startled look.

"Yes, and scared that big snake," said Briscoe. "He was having a nap tied up in a knot on some big branch. I've seen 'em sometimes hanging over the side in thick folds. You tumbled him over with the startling.

Warning to him to take a turn round the branch with his tail."

"Be ready to fire," said Brace hurriedly. "It is sure to come up again to try and creep into a tree."

"No," said Briscoe quietly. "He won't show himself again for hours."

"Nonsense," said Brace impatiently; "it would be drowned."

Briscoe smiled good-humouredly.

"Drowned?" he said. "Just about as much as an eel would. Nice place this for a bathe, what with the alligators and the anacondas. Not much chance for a man if one of those brutes took hold of him. Pull him under in a moment."

"Do you think one of those creatures would attack in the water?" said Sir Humphrey.

"I've seen one drag a pig down," said Briscoe. "They're as much at home in the water as out, and they can swim as easily as a water-snake."

"Then there's nothing to prevent that thing from thrusting out its head and seizing one of us," said Brace.

"Nothing at all," replied Briscoe, and then he smiled as he saw the men exchanging glances and Dan taking out a keen bowie-knife. "But he won't. He'll lie down below there among the roots for hours, I daresay.

If he did come up of course we should give him a shot."

"Ugh!" said Brace, shuddering. "But what are we going to do?"

"Push on up the creek," said his brother. "We may come to an open part.

Go on, my lads."

The man with the boat-hook went on catching the boughs and drawing the boat along, and twice over a splash and the following movement of the water amongst the mossy, muddy tree-trunks told of the presence of some loathsome reptile; but the men sat fast, gazing stolidly to right and left in search of danger, and more than once Brace gave a glance at his double gun as if to see that it was c.o.c.ked and ready.

The sensation was not pleasant, and it attacked everyone in the boat.

The American might be right, they thought, and the serpent remain startled and quiescent down in the depths of the muddy water, but still they felt the possibility of that terrible head darting out at a victim, and a low sigh of relief rose again and again as the distance from where the serpent fell increased.

It was plain enough now that they were in a winding creek whose sides were dense with trunks and branches forming an impenetrable barrier had there been the slightest inclination to land; but all thought of this pa.s.sed away almost from the beginning. In fact, it was perfectly clear that the only way to penetrate the forest was to go up some waterway such as the one they were in, and this they followed slowly for a few hundred yards, the man with the boat-hook cleverly guiding the vessel in and out amongst the many obstacles, till the place grew darker and darker through the density of the foliage overhead.

The creek was for the most part painfully still--painfully, for the weird gloom raised up the idea that thousands of eyes were watching their movements, and that at any moment some terrible attack might be made.

That they were surrounded by living creatures they had ample proof given them by strange rustlings among the branches overhead, and sometimes by a sudden hasty rush which, as Briscoe said, might be anything.

"What do you mean by anything?" said Brace, in a low voice.

"Snake, monkey, big bird, or cat; but, you see, everything is afraid of us and scuffling away as hard as it can, even in the water. Look at that."

"Yes, I see," said Brace, "another alligator."

For the American had drawn his attention to a wave raised up by something rushing past the bows of the boat.

"Well, I don't know about that," said Briscoe; "I rather fancy that was one of those gar-fish--alligator gars, they call 'em in the States.

They're great pikey fish with tremendous teeth."

"But not big like that?"

"Oh, but they're big enough and precious fierce and strong. I shouldn't wonder at all if that was one of the brutes."

"What's that?" asked Sir Humphrey, a couple of hours later, for the man with the boat-hook turned and spoke.

"Don't see as I can get any farther, sir; the boat's about wedged in here, and there don't seem any way of getting on without we had a saw."

"Is there no room to right or left?" said Brace. "It seems a pity to go back yet."

"P'raps you'd take a look, gen'lemen," said the sailor.

Brace was in the act of laying down his gun when his brother, who was before him, stood up, and then uttered a sharp e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n, close upon a dull tw.a.n.ging sound from somewhere forward among the trees.

"What is it, Free?" cried Brace excitedly.

"An arrow," said Sir Humphrey sharply. "Here, quick, Brace; it may be poisoned. You, Mr Briscoe, keep a good look-out for--"

The rest of his speech was stopped by the sharp report of the American's gun, who fired as he half-knelt in the stern of the boat, aiming just above the men's heads.

The next moment he and his man fired again, and as the report died out the occupants of the boat could hear a splashing sound as of paddles some little distance in advance.