Rob Harlow's Adventures Part 47

"In an ordinary way, sir, yes, one would say it's a duty--what a man should do," replied the guide gravely; "and I don't deny there's dangers about. But we've done all we can do, as men without weapons, by lighting that fire. I shall wake up now and then to throw on some branches and then lie down again. We can do no good more than we have done, and at a time like this I always think it is a man's duty to say, 'Can I do anything else?' and, if he feels he can't, just say his bit of prayer and leave it to One above to watch over him through the dark hours of the night."

"Amen," said Brazier solemnly, and half an hour after, a pile of freshly broken-off boughs had been laid near the fire, and all lay down in perfect faith and trust to sleep and wait for the next day.

Shaddy dropped off at once, while Brazier lay talking in a low tone to Rob, trying to instil some hopefulness.

"Please G.o.d," he said at last, "day will bring us help and counsel, my lad, and perhaps give prospects of finding poor Joe."

He ceased speaking, and directly after Rob knew by his regular breathing that he too was asleep. But that greatest blessing would not come to the boy, and he lay gazing now at the dancing flames, now trying to pierce the darkness beyond, and ever and again seeing dangers in the apparently moving shadows cast by the fire.

There were the noises, too, in the forest and along the river bank, sounding more appalling than ever, and as he listened and tried to picture the various creatures that howled, shrieked, and uttered those curious cries, he fully expected to hear that peculiar terror-inspiring sound which had puzzled even Shaddy, the old traveller and sojourner in the forest wilds.

The horrible cry did not come, but as Rob lay there, too weary to sleep, too much agitated by the events of the day to grow calm and fit for rest, that sound always seemed to the lad as if it were about to break out close to where he lay, and the fancy made his breath come short and thick, till the remembrance of his boy-comrade once more filled his mind, and he lay trying to think out some way by which it was possible that Joe had escaped that day. These thoughts stayed in his mind as the fire died out from before his heavy eyes, and at last, in spite of all, he too slept heavily, and dreamed of the young Italian coming to him holding out his hand frankly and then in foreign fashion leaning toward him and kissing him on the cheek.

At the touch Rob leaped back into wakefulness, rose to his elbow, and looked sharply round, perfectly convinced that his cheek had been touched, and that, though in his sleep, he had felt warm breath across his face.

But there was nothing to see save the blazing fire, whose snapping and crackling mingled with the croaking, hissing, and strange cries from the forest. Fire-flies glided here and there, and scintillated about the bushes; Brazier and Shaddy both slept hard; and the peculiar cry of a jaguar or other cat-like animal came softly from somewhere at a distance.

"Fancy!" said Rob softly as he sank down, thinking of Shaddy's last words that night. The troubles of the day died away, and he dropped off fast asleep again, to begin once more dreaming of Joe, and that they were together in the cabin of the boat side by side.

And it all seemed so real, that dream; he could feel the warmth from the young Italian's body in the narrow s.p.a.ce, and it appeared to him that Joe moved uneasily when there was a louder cry than usual in the forest and crept closer to him for protection, even going so far as to lay an arm across his chest, inconveniencing him and feeling hot and heavy, but he refrained from stirring, for fear of waking him up.

Then the dream pa.s.sed away, and he was awake, wondering whether he really was in the cabin again, with Joe beside him. No; he was lying on the boughs beside the fire, but so real had that dream seemed that the fancy was on him still that he could feel the warmth of Joe's body and the boy's arm across his chest.

"And it was all a dream," thought Rob, with the bitter tears rising to his eyes, as he gazed upward at the trees, "a dream--a dream!"

No, it was no dream. He was awake now, and there was a heavy arm across his chest and a head by his side.

"Joe! Oh, Joe!" cried Rob aloud; and he grasped at the arm, touched it, felt its pressure for an instant, and then it was gone, while at his cry both Shaddy and Brazier sprang up.

"What is it?"

"I--I--think I must have been dreaming," said Rob excitedly. "I woke with a start, fancying Joe had come back, and that he was lying down beside me."

"A dream, Rob, my lad!" said Brazier, with a sigh. "Lie down again, boy; your brain is over-excited. Try once more to sleep."

Rob obeyed, feeling weak and hysterical; but after a few minutes sleep came once more, and it was morning when he reopened his eyes.

CHAPTER TWENTY ONE.

"WHERE THERE'S A WILL THERE'S A WAY."

A glorious, a delicious morning, with the mists pa.s.sing away in wisps of vapour before the bright sunshine, the leaves dripping with dew, and bird and insect life in full activity.

But it was everything for the eye and nothing for the inner man. Waking from a most restful sleep meant also the awakening to a sensation of ravenous hunger, and directly after to the terrible depression caused by the loss sustained on the previous day and their position--alone, and without the means of obtaining food.

When Rob started up he found Brazier in earnest conversation with Shaddy, and in a few minutes the boy learned that their guide had been about from the moment he could see to make up the fire, and then he had been searching in all directions for traces of their companions.

"And you feel sure that they have gone?" Brazier was saying when Rob joined them.

"Certain sure, sir."

"But I still cling to the belief that we have blundered into the wrong place in our weariness and the darkness last night. Why, Naylor, there must be hundreds of similar spots to this along the banks of the river."

"Might say thousands, sir; but you needn't cling no more to no hopes, for this is the right spot, sure enough."

"How do you know?" cried Rob.

"'Cause there's the mark where the boat's head touched ground, where we landed, and our footmarks in the mud."

"And those of the men?" cried Brazier hastily.

"No, sir; they none of them landed. There's your footmarks, Mr Rob's, and mine as plain as can be, and the water has shrunk a bit away since we made 'em yesterday. No, sir, there's no hope that way."

"Then what ever are we to do, man?" cried Brazier.

"Like me to tell you the worst, sir?"

"Yes, speak out; we may as well know."

Shaddy was silent for a few moments, and then said,--

"Well, gen'lemen, those fellows have gone off with the boat and all in it. The guns and things was too much for 'em, and they've gone to feast for a bit and then die off like flies. They'll never work enough by themselves to row that boat back to Paraguay river, for one won't obey the other. They'll be like a watch without a key."

"Then they have gone down the river?" said Rob.

"Yes, sir, wherever it takes them, and they'll shoot a bit and fish a bit till they've used all the powder and lost their lines. So much for them. Let's talk about ourselves. Well, gentlemen, we might make a sort of raft thing of wood and bundles of rushes,--can't make a boat for want of an axe,--and we might float down the stream, but I'm afraid it would only be to drown ourselves, or be pulled off by the critters in the water."

"But the land, Shaddy!" cried Rob. "Can't we really walk along the bank back to where we started?"

"You saw yesterday, sir," said Shaddy grimly.

"But couldn't we find a way across the forest to some point on the great river, Naylor?" said Brazier.

"No, sir, and we've got to face what's before us. No man can get through that great forest without chopping his way with an axe, and he'd want two or three lifetimes to do it in, if he could find food as he went. I'm talking as one who has tried all this sort o' thing for many years, and I'm telling you the simple truth when I say that, situated as we are, we've either got to stop here till help comes, or go down the river on some kind of raft."

"Then why not do that and risk the dangers?" cried Rob.

"Yes," said Brazier. "Why not do that? No help can possibly come here unless Indians pa.s.s by in a canoe."

"Which they won't, sir, and if they did they'd kill us as they would wild beasts. I don't believe there's an Indian for a hundred miles."

"Then what do you propose doing first?" asked Brazier.

"Trying to kill the wolf, sir."

"What! hunger?"