Rob Harlow's Adventures Part 13

"Then I'm glad I spoke," said Shaddy drily, "Spoiled your trip, lad, if you'd shot me, for I must have gone overboard, and if I'd come up again I don't bleeve as you'd have picked me up. Taken ever so long to get the boat free in the dark, and if you hadn't picked me up I don't see how you could have got on in the jungle. Look here, now you two gents have taken to gunning, I wouldn't shoot if I were you without asking a question or two first."

"But suppose it is a jaguar coming at us?" said Joe.

"Well, if it's a jagger he won't answer, and you had better shoot. Same with the lions or bears."

"Bears?" said Rob eagerly; "are there bears here?"

"Ay, lad! and plenty of 'em, not your big Uncle Ephrems, like there is in the Rocky Mountains--grizzlies, you know--but black bears, and pretty big, and plenty savage enough to satisfy any reasonable hunter, I mean one who don't expect too much. Wait a bit, and you'll get plenty of shooting to keep the pot going without reckoning them other things as Mr Brazier's come out to hunt. What d'yer call 'em, awk'ards or orchards--which was it?"

"Orchids," said Rob.

"Oh! ah! yes, orchids. What's best size shot for bringing o' them down?"

"Don't answer him, Rob; it's only his gammon, and he thinks it's witty,"

said Joe.

Shaddy chuckled, and it was evident that his joke amused him.

"There," he said, "it ain't worth while for three on us to be keeping watch. One's enough, and the others can sleep, so, as I'm here, you two may as well go and roost."

"No," said Rob promptly; "my time isn't up."

"No, my lad, not by two hours, I should say; but I'll let you off the rest, for it's a-many years since I was up this part, and I want to sit and think it out before we start as soon as it's light."

But Rob firmly refused to give up his task till the time set down by Mr Brazier for him to be relieved. Joe as stubbornly refused to return to his bed, and so it was that when the birds gave note of the coming of the day, after the weird chorus had gradually died away in the forest they were still seated upon one of the thwarts, watching for the first warm rays of the sun to tinge the dense river mist with rose.

CHAPTER SIX.

THROUGH THE GREEN CURTAIN.

A fair breeze sprang up with the sun, and the boat glided up stream for many miles before a halt was called, in a bend where the wind railed them. Here, as on previous occasions, a fire was lit, and the breakfast prepared and eaten almost in silence, for Brazier's thoughts were far up the river and away among the secret recesses of nature, where he hoped to be soon gazing upon vegetation never yet seen by civilised man, while Rob and Joe were just as thoughtful, though their ideas ran more upon the wild beasts and lovely birds of this tropic land, into which as they penetrated mile after mile it was to see something ever fresh and attractive.

Shaddy, too, was very silent, and sat scanning the western sh.o.r.e more and more attentively as the hours pa.s.sed, and they were once more gliding up stream, the wind serving again and again as they swept round some bend.

The sun grew higher, and the heat more intense, the slightest movement as they approached noon making a dew break out over Rob's brow; but the warmth was forgotten in the beauty of the sh.o.r.e and the abundance of life visible around.

But at last the heat produced such a sense of drowsiness that Rob turned to Joe.

"I say, wouldn't an hour or two be nice under the shade of a tree?"

"Yes," said Brazier, who had overheard him. "We must have a rest now; the sides of the boat are too hot to touch. Hullo! where are we going?"

he continued. "Why, he's steering straight for the western sh.o.r.e."

Brazier involuntarily stooped and took his gun from where it hung in loops under the canvas awning, and then stood watching the dense wall of verdure they were approaching till, as they drew nearer, their way was through acres upon acres of lilies, whose wide-spreading leaves literally covered the calm river with their dark green discs, dotted here and there with great buds or dazzlingly white blossoms.

The boat cut its way through these, leaving a narrow ca.n.a.l of clear water at first, in which fish began to leap as if they had been disturbed; but before the boat had gone very far the leaves gradually closed in, and no sign of its pa.s.sage was left.

"I don't see where we are to land," said Brazier, as he stood in front of the canvas cabin scanning the sh.o.r.e.

"No; there is no place," said Rob, as they glided out of the lily field into clear water, the great wall of trees tangled together with creepers being now about two hundred yards away.

"Go and ask. No; leave him alone," said Brazier, altering his mind.

"He'll take us into a suitable place, I daresay."

Just then Shaddy, from where he was steering, shouted to the men, who lowered the sail at once; but the boat still glided on straight for the sh.o.r.e.

"Why, he's going to run her head right into the bank," cried Rob, though the said bank was rendered invisible by the curtain of pendent boughs and vines which hung right down to the water.

"How beautiful!" exclaimed Brazier, as he gazed at cl.u.s.ters of snowy blossoms draping one of the trees. "We must have some of those, Rob."

"I say," cried Joe, "what makes the boat keep on going?"

"Impetus given by the sail," replied Brazier. "But it couldn't have kept on all this time," cried the lad, "and we're going faster."

"We do seem to be," said Brazier; "but it is only that we are in an eddy. There always is one close in by the banks of a swift stream."

"But that goes upward while the stream goes down," cried Joe. "This is going straight in toward the trees."

"Better sit down, every one," shouted Shaddy. "Lower that spar, my lads," he added, in the _patois_ the men used.

Down went the mast in a sloping position, so that it rested against the canvas cabin. But Rob hardly noticed this in the excitement of their position. For there was no doubt about it: some invisible force had apparently seized the boat, and was carrying it swiftly forward to dash it upon the sh.o.r.e.

But that was not Brazier's view of the question. "The river is flooded here and overrunning the bank," he cried. "Hi! Naylor! Do you see where you're going?"

"Right, sir. Sit down."

But Brazier, who had risen, did not sit down, for he was quite startled, expecting that the next moment the boat would be capsized, and that they would all be left to the mercy of the reptiles and fish which haunted the rapid waters.

"Hi!" he shouted again. "Naylor, are you mad?"

"No, sir, not yet," was the reply. "Better sit down. Mind your hat!"

For all through this the boat was gliding slowly but straight for the curtain of leaves and flowers which hid the bank of the western side of the river; and as the position seemed perilous to Rob, he saw with astonishment that the four Indian boatmen lay calmly back furling up the sail as if nothing was the matter, or else showing that they had perfect faith in their leader and steersman, who was not likely to lead them into danger.

What followed only took moments. They were out in the dazzling sunshine, were rapidly, as it seemed, approaching the bank, and directly after plunged right into the lovely curtain of leaves and flowers which swept over them as they glided on over the surface of the swiftly running clear black water, the sun entirely screened and all around them a delicious twilight, with densely planted, tall, columnar trees apparently rising out of the flood on either hand, while a rush and splash here and there told that they were disturbing some of the dwellers in these shades.

"What does this mean?" said Brazier, stooping to recover his hat which had been swept off on to the canvas awning, and which he only just recovered before it slipped into the stream.

There was no answer to the question as they watched, and then they saw light before them, which rapidly brightened till they glided into sunshine and found that they had pa.s.sed through a second curtain of leaves, and were in a little river of some hundred yards wide, with lovely verdure on either side rising like some gigantic hedge to shut them in; in fact, a miniature reproduction of the grand stream they had so lately left.

"Why, Naylor," cried Brazier, "I thought you were going to run us ash.o.r.e or capsize us."

"Yes, sir, I know you did," was the reply.

"But where are we? What place is this?"