Rob Harlow's Adventures Part 1

Rob Harlow's Adventures.

by George Manville Fenn.

CHAPTER ONE.

TWO TRAVELLERS.

"Don't they bite, sir?"

"Bite?"

_Smick! smack! flap_!

"Oh, murder!"

"What's the matter, sir?"

"My hand."

"Hurt it, sir?"

"I should think I have."

"You should wait till they've sucked 'emselves full and then hit 'em; they're lazy then. Too quick for you now."

"The wretches! I shall be spotted all over, like a currant dumpling. I say, Shaddy, do they always bite like this?"

"Well, yes, sir," said the man addressed, about as ugly a specimen of humanity as could be met in a day's march, for he had only one eye, and beneath that a peculiar, puckered scar extending down to the corner of his mouth, s.h.a.ggy short hair, neither black nor grey--a kind of pepper-and-salt colour--yellow teeth in a very large mouth, and a skin so dark and hairy that he looked like some kind of savage, dressed in a pair of canvas trousers and a shirt that had once been scarlet, but was now stained, faded, and rubbed into a neutral grub or warm earthy tint.

He wore no braces, but a kind of belt of what seemed to be snake or lizard skin, fastened with either a silver or pewter buckle. Add to this the fact that his feet were bare, his sleeves rolled up over his mahogany-coloured arms, and that his shirt was open at the throat, showing his full neck and hairy chest; add also that he was about five feet, nine, very broad-shouldered and muscular, and you have Shadrach Naylor, about the last person any one would take to be an Englishman or select for a companion on a trip up one of the grandest rivers of South America.

But there he was that hot, sunny day, standing up in the stern of the broad, lightly built boat which swung by a long rope some fifty feet behind a large schooner, of shallow draught but of lofty rig, so that her tremendous tapering masts might carry their sails high above the trees which formed a verdant wall on each side of the great river, and so catch the breeze when all below was sheltered and calm.

The schooner was not anch.o.r.ed, but fast aground upon one of the shifting sand-banks that made navigation difficult. Here she was likely to lie until the water rose, or a fresh cool wind blew from the south and roughened the dull silvery gleaming surface into waves where she could roll and rock and work a channel for herself through the sand, and sail onward tugging the boat which swung behind.

It was hot, blistering hot! and all was very still save for the rippling murmur of the flowing river and the faint buzz of the insect plagues which had come hunting from the western sh.o.r.e, a couple of hundred yards away, while the eastern was fully two miles off, and the voices of the man and the boy he addressed sounded strange in the vast solitudes through which the mighty river ran.

Not that these two were alone, for there were five more occupants of the boat, one a white man--from his dress--a leg being visible beneath a kind of awning formed of canvas, the other four, Indians or half-breeds--from the absence of clothing and the colour of their skins as they lay forward--fast asleep, like the occupant of the covered-in portion.

The great schooner was broad and Dutch-like in its capacious beam, and manned by a fair-sized crew, but not a soul was visible, for it was early in the afternoon; the vessel was immovable, and all on board were fast asleep.

Shadrach Naylor, too, had been having his nap, with his pipe in his mouth, but it had fallen out with a rap in the bottom of the boat, and this had awakened him with a start to pick it up. He valued that pipe highly as one of his very few possessions--a value not visible to any one else, for intrinsically, if it had been less black and not quite so much chipped, it might have been worth a farthing English current coin of the realm.

So Shadrach Naylor, familiarly known as "Shaddy," opened his one eye so as to find his pipe, picked it up, and was in the act of replacing it in his mouth prior to closing his eye again, when the sharp, piercing, dark orb rested upon Rob Harlow, seated in the stern, roasting in the sun, and holding a line that trailed away overboard into the deep water behind the sand-bank.

Perhaps it was from being so ugly a man and knowing it that Shaddy had a great liking for Rob Harlow, who was an English lad, sun-burnt, brown-haired, well built, fairly athletic, at most sixteen, very good-looking, and perfectly ignorant of the fact.

So Shaddy rose from forward, and, with his toes spreading out like an Indian's, stepped from thwart to thwart till he was alongside of Rob, of whom he asked the question respecting the biting, his inquiry relating to the fish, while Rob's reply applied to the insects which worried him in their search for juicy portions of his skin.

But they were not allowed to feed in peace, for Rob smacked and slapped sharply, viciously, but vainly, doing far more injury to himself than to the gnat-like flies, so, to repeat his words,--

"I say, Shaddy, do they always bite like this?"

"Well, yes, sir," said Shaddy, "mostlings. It's one down and t'other come on with them. It's these here in the morning, and when they've done the sand-flies take their turn till sun goes down, and then out comes the skeeters to make a night of it."

"Ugh!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Rob, giving himself a vicious rub. "I'm beginning to wish I hadn't come. It's horrible."

"Not it, youngster. You'll soon get used to 'em. I don't mind; they don't hurt me. Wait a bit, and, pretty little creeturs, you'll like it."

"What! Like being bitten?"

"To be sure, sir. 'Livens you up a bit in this hot sleepy country; does your skin good; stimmylates, like, same as a rub with a good rough towel at home."

Rob gave vent to a surly grunt and jerked his line.

"I don't believe there are any fish here," he said.

"No fish! Ah! that's what we boys used to say o' half-holidays when we took our tackle to Clapham Common to fish the ponds there. We always used to say there was no fish beside the tiddlers, and them you could pull out as fast as you liked with a bit o' worm without a hook, but there was fish there then--big perch and whacking carp, and now and then one of us used to get hold of a good one, and then we used to sing quite another song.--I say, sir!"

"Well?"

"This here's rather different to Clapham Common, isn't it?"

"Yes," said Rob, "but it isn't what I expected."

"What did you 'spect, then? Ain't the river big enough for you?"

"Oh! it's big enough," said the lad, s.n.a.t.c.hing his line in. "Didn't seem like a river down behind there."

"Right, my lad; like being at sea, ain't it?"

"Yes, and it's all so flat where you can see the sh.o.r.e. An ashy, dusty, dreary place, either too hot or too cold! Why, I wouldn't live at Monte Video or Buenos Ayres for all the money in the world."

"And right you'd be, my lad, says Shadrach Naylor. Ah! Why, look at that! Fish is fish all the world over. You don't expect they'll bite at a bare hook, do you?"

"Bother the bait! it's off again," said Rob, who had just pulled in the line. "It always seems to come off."

"Not it, lad. There, I'll put a bit o' meat on for you. It's them little beggars nibbles it off.--There you are; that's a good bait.

Perhaps you may get a bite this time. As I says, fish is fish all the world over, and they're the most onaccountable things there is. One day they're savage after food; next day you may hold a bait close to their noses, and they won't look at it. But you're hot and tired, my lad.

Why don't you do as others do, take to your sister?"

"My sister!" cried Rob, staring. "I haven't got one."

"I didn't say sister," said Shaddy, showing his yellow teeth; "I said sister--nap."

"I know you did," grumbled Rob; "why don't you say siesta?"

"'Cause I don't care about making mouthfuls of small words, my lad."