Rob Harlow's Adventures Part 10

Joe looked on in silence, and a peculiar smile came over Shaddy's countenance as he saw Rob examine the back of his hand.

"Something's been biting me in the night," he said. "It bleeds."

Rob thrust in his hand again to wash away the blood, but s.n.a.t.c.hed it out the next minute, for as the ruddy fluid tinged the water there was a rush of tiny fish at his hand, and he stared at half a dozen tiny bites which he had received.

"Why, they're little fish," he cried. "Are they the piranas you talked about, Joe?"

"Yes. What do you say to a swim now?"

"I'm willing. The splashing would drive them away."

Shaddy chuckled again.

"The splashing would bring them by thousands," said Joe quietly. "You can't bathe here. Those little fish would bite at you till in a few minutes you would be covered with blood, and that would bring thousands more up to where you were."

"And they'd eat me up," said Rob mockingly.

"If somebody did not drag you out. They swarm in millions, and the bigger fish, too, are always ready to attack anything swimming in the stream."

"Come and hold the tiller here, Joe, my lad," growled Shaddy, "while I dip him a bucket of water to wash. When he knows the Paraguay like we do, he won't want to bathe. Why, Mr Rob, there's all sorts o' things here ready for a nice juicy boy, from them little piranas right up to turtles and crocodiles and big snakes, so you must do your swimming with a sponge till we get on a side river and find safe pools."

He dipped the bucket, and Rob had his wash; by that time Brazier had joined him.

"Well, Rob," he cried, "is this good enough for you? Will the place do?"

"Do?" cried Rob. "Oh, I feel as if I do not want to talk, only to sit and look at the trees. There, ain't those orchids hanging down?"

Brazier raised a little double gla.s.s which he carried to his eyes, and examined a great cl.u.s.ter of lovely blossoms hanging from an old, half-decayed branch projecting over the river.

"Yes," he cried, "lovely. Well, Naylor, how soon are we to land or run up some creek?"

"Arter two or three days," said the guide.

"But hang it, man, the bank yonder is crowded with vegetable treasures."

"What! them?" said Shaddy, with a contemptuous snort. "I don't call them anything. You just wait, sir, and trust me. You shall see something worth coming after by-and-by."

"Well, run the boat in closer to the sh.o.r.e, so that I can examine the plants as we go along. The water looks deep, and the wind's right. You could get within a dozen yards of the trees."

"I could get so as you might touch 'em, sir. There's plenty of water, but I'm not going no closer than this."

"Why?"

"Because I know that part along there. We can't see n.o.body, but I dessay there's Injuns watching us all the time from among the leaves, and if we went closer they might have a shot at us."

"Then they have guns?"

"No, sir, bows and arrows some of 'em, but mostly blowpipes."

"With poisoned arrows?"

"That's so, sir, and, what's worse, they know how to use 'em. They hit a man I knew once with a tiny bit of an arrow thing, only a wood point as broke off in the wound--wound, it weren't worth calling a wound, but the little top was poisoned, and before night he was a dead man."

"From the poison?"

"That's it, sir. He laughed at it at first. The bit of an arrow, like a thin skewer with a tuft of cotton wool on the end, didn't look as if it could hurt a strong man as I picked it up and looked where the point had been nearly sawed off all round."

"What, to make it break off?" cried Rob.

"That's so, my lad. When they're going to use an arrow they put the point between the teeth of a little fish's jaw--sort o' pirana thing like them here in the river. Then they give the arrow a twiddle round, and the sharp teeth nearly eat it through, and when it hits and sticks in a wound the point breaks off, and I wouldn't give much for any one who ever got one of those bits of sharp wood in their skins."

"What a pleasant look-out!" said Brazier. "Oh, it's right enough, sir.

The thing is to go up parts where there are no Indians, and that's where I'm going to take you. I say, look at that open patch yonder, where there's a bit o' green between the river and the trees."

"Yes, I see," said Joe quickly--"three Indians with spears."

"Right, lad!"

"I don't see them," said Brazier. "Yes," he added quickly, "I can see them now."

"Only one ain't got a spear. That's a blowpipe," said Shaddy quietly.

"What! that length?" cried Rob. "Ay, my lad, that length. The longer they are the smaller the darts, and the farther and stronger they sends 'em."

"But we don't know that they are enemies," said Brazier.

"Oh yes, you do, sir. That's the Injuns' country, and there's no doubt about it. White man's their enemy, they say, so they must be ours."

"But why?" said Rob. "We shouldn't interfere with the Indians."

"We've got a bad character with 'em, my lad. 'Tain't our fault. They tell me it's all along o' the Spaniards as come in this country first, and made slaves of 'em, and learnt 'em to make 'em good, and set 'em to work in the mines to get gold and silver for 'em till they dropped and died. Only savages they were, and so I s'pose the Spaniards thought they weren't o' no consequence. But somehow I s'pose, red as they are, they think and feel like white people, and didn't like to be robbed and beaten, and worn to death, and their children took away from 'em.

Spaniards never seemed to think as they'd mind that. Might ha' known, too, for a cat goes miaowing about a house if she loses her kittens, and a dog kicks up a big howl about its pups; while my 'sperience about wild beasts is that if you want to meddle with their young ones, you'd better shoot the old ones first."

"Yes, I'm afraid that the old Spaniards thought of nothing out here but getting gold."

"That's so, sir; and the old Indians telled their children about how they'd been used, and their children told the next lot, and so it's gone on till it's grown into a sort of religion that the Spaniard is a sort o' savage wild beast, who ought to be killed; and that ain't the worst on it."

"Then what is?" said Rob, for Shaddy looked round at him and stopped short, evidently to be asked that question.

"Why, the worst of it is, sir, that they poor hungered, savage sort o'

chaps don't know the difference between us and them Dons. English means an Englishman all the wide world over, says you; but you're wrong. He ain't out here. Englishman, or Italian, or Frenchman's a Spaniard; and they'll shoot us as soon as look at us."

"Why, you're making for the other sh.o.r.e, Naylor."

"Yes, sir. I'd ha' liked to land you yonder, but you see it ain't safe, so we'll light a fire on the other side, where it is, and get a bit o'

breakfast, for I'm thinking as it's getting pretty nigh time."

"But is it safe to land there?" asked Brazier.