With Cochrane the Dauntless Part 31

"When they saw us they took us, I believe, for devils, and it was not until we had la.s.soed the strongest that we were able to overpower them. We bound them and laid them at the bottom of our canoe and took them down to the mission, which was some fifty miles below us. I was told afterwards that only one of them ever recovered his senses; the others either died raving or were hopelessly mad. From the one who recovered it was learned that as soon as they came to the point where the stream became rapid they made for the edge of the forest. At night they tied up their canoe to a tree, but in the morning when they awoke they found that the line had become untied, and that they had drifted into the forest. There they had been three days when we found them. They had lost all idea of direction, and had we been a few hours later the last voice would have been silenced, and when the flood subsided the canoe and its occupants would have rotted away, and no one would ever have known the fate that had befallen them."

"How do you find your way through a flooded forest, Hurka?"

"It is born in us as it is born in birds to make their way back to their nests. It may be that a careful examination would show that the trunks on one side are more thickly covered with creepers than the other; but we do not need to take notice of such things, or if we notice them it is without knowing it, as we are sure of our direction. We have seen Spanish travellers who had the things with which they said they could direct their course at sea, with a card that goes round and round, and always when it is steady points in one direction. This is no doubt very useful out on the plains or in a forest where there are no obstacles, but here where the woods are intercepted by numberless streams and with wide swamps, such a machine is useless to any one unless he is intimately acquainted with the country and the course of the streams. Even Indian dwellers on the sh.o.r.es of the river often, in the times of floods, get lost in the forest and lose their lives, so changed is the aspect of everything by the water."

"It must be terrible," Stephen said, as he glanced between the trunks of the trees at the still, dark water under the thick canopy. "Of course the sun must be a help."

"We do not often see the sun in times of flood, senor. Rain often falls very heavily, and even when it does not do so there is, you see, a mist in the air rising from this vast expanse of water. Besides, it is only when it is directly overhead that the sun's rays penetrate the foliage, and at that time it is too high for the shadows to afford much guidance. Among us, three shots of a gun at regular intervals is a call for aid, but in flood time it is a useless one, for the Indians, like the wild beasts, all leave, save when their huts are on eminences, and the chances of the shots being heard by human ears are small indeed. To one lost in the forest at other times it is all but certain death, but when the floods are out a man would do wisely to fire the first shot into his own head."

Day after day they travelled on, keeping just far enough out to get the benefit of the current without allowing themselves to be drawn towards the centre of the river. Even this at times was very difficult, especially when they were pa.s.sing round curves, for much of the water, instead of following the channel, made its way through the forest to the next bend in the river, and they had the greatest difficulty in preventing themselves from being drawn in among the trees by the current. At such times they were forced to launch the canoe overboard, to roll up the bottom of the raft, and to lay the great bundle of rushes across the poles now supported by the inflated skins. Only then by vigorous paddling, in which Stephen bore his part, were they able to tow this behind them across the current until they reached a point where the force of the stream was confined to the regular channel. At one point, where the river was broader than usual and the current in consequence slower, they crossed to the other bank.

"We are getting near the rapids now," Hurka said, "and this bank is the least dangerous of the two. Hitherto we have had nothing but the force of the stream to contend with, but now we shall have rocks. It is for this that we constructed the raft. Up to now we should have done far better to have come down in the canoe alone, but, once among the rocks, a touch would break her up, while the raft can sc.r.a.pe against them without injury.

You will see that the aspect of things will change altogether; the banks where the rapids are, are high and steep, and the inundations will cease for a time. Once beyond the falls we shall again be in a flat country, and the inundations will extend almost all the way down until we reach the Amazon."

"There is no way of avoiding the rapids, I suppose?" Stephen asked.

"None but by getting out and carrying everything round. At the falls this has to be done, there are no other means of pa.s.sing them. In some respects it is safer to go down the rapids now than it is in the dry season, for the greater portion of the rocks are far below the surface, and we shall pa.s.s over small falls without even noticing them."

The days as a rule pa.s.sed pleasantly enough, save where the voyagers had to work against cross currents, but at night, when they tied up to a tree, the noise was prodigious. The howling and roaring of wild beasts was incessant. Monkeys chattered in terror, and occasionally an almost human scream proclaimed that one of them had been seized by a snake, or some other enemy. The hissing of reptiles could at times be distinctly heard, and Stephen often thought that he could hear their movements in the boughs above him.

At length they approached the rapids, and the stream became still more impetuous. The Indians had cut long poles, and as they drifted down one stood at each corner of the raft, using their poles occasionally as paddles to keep it straight. Stephen remained in the canoe in the centre.

He would gladly have shared in any work that was to be done, but here he felt that he could be of no use.

"To-morrow we shall be in the full force of the rapids, senor," Hurka said. "I should advise you to lay yourself down in the bottom of the canoe and to pa.s.s the day in sleep. It will be safer so should there be an accident, for, with your weight at the bottom, the canoe will be more likely to keep upright than it otherwise would. You cannot aid us, and the speed at which we shall do the next hundred miles will be great indeed. In eight hours we shall be at the foot of the rapids."

"I will sit down at the bottom of the canoe, but I must see what is going on. I am accustomed to the aspect of a sea in a violent gale, and this great body of water, however fast it rushes, will not be more trying to the nerves than such a scene as that. There is one thing that I should wish you to do. Let each tie a light rope round his waist and fasten the other end to the canoe, and then if the raft does go to pieces you will be able to get on board, and at any rate, if she upsets we shall be together."

"We will do it if you wish, senor, but there would be danger of our capsizing the canoe."

"Not so much danger as there would be of the canoe upsetting if I were alone in it, for I should be powerless even to keep her straight, and she would go broadside on to a rock and be dashed to pieces."

"The senor is right, Hurka," Pita said gravely; "we will do as he wishes.

But the ropes must be long, so that if we are flung off the raft there will be no sudden pull on the canoe. Should there be such a misfortune I will shout to you, and we will then swim towards the boat, taking up the ropes as we go, but putting no strain upon them; when we reach the boat, one will aid the senor to steady it while the other climbs in; after that it will be easier to get the second on board."

"You still think that it is better to make a pa.s.sage than to carry the whole kit and the canoe over?"

"It would take many weeks, senor. Besides, though I have never been here before, I have heard that the difficulties are so great that the river Indians never attempt to carry even a light canoe over. I am at your service, senor, and am willing to try if you give the order, but I have been told by Indians that when the river is, as now, in flood, the danger is by no means great. Of course, we shall keep out of the full strength of the current."

Accordingly they started the next morning, and an hour after setting out were in the sweep of the rapids. The pa.s.sage was an intensely exciting one. The Indians stood, paddle in hand, one at each corner of the front of the raft; their poles lay ready to s.n.a.t.c.h up in case any rock was approached, but the paddles were needed to keep the raft from being dragged out into the full force of the current. Here the water rose in steep ridges, and had the raft got among these it would have been torn to pieces almost instantly. At the same time it was desirable not to go too near the sh.o.r.e, as the risk from submerged rocks would be greater there.

But Stephen saw that unless rocks came absolutely above the surface they would be swept over them, as the raft drew but two or three inches of water. Except in the middle, the stream rushed along with a surface broken only by tiny eddies. It was only by seeing how they flew past the banks that any idea could be formed of the speed at which they were travelling.

In eight hours it was over. Several times the paddlers had to exert themselves to the utmost to avoid spots where great swells of water showed that there were rocks below the surface, but on no occasion did the Indians have to use their poles. The bed of the river widened sharply at the foot of the rapids, and just as Stephen congratulated himself that the pa.s.sage had been safely made, he saw by an increase in the labour of the Indians that something was wrong. Standing up in the canoe he perceived that they had been shot out of the current into the back-water formed by the sudden widening of the stream, and that in this back-water was a very strong eddy sweeping round and round in a circle. This was about a hundred yards in diameter, with a depression in the centre, and round this the raft was carried at a rate that defied the efforts of the two paddlers to check.

At one moment they were within twenty yards of a flat forest-covered sh.o.r.e, and the next were near the edge of the torrent pouring down the rapids. In vain the paddlers tried to edge the raft out little by little from the whirlpool. Not only was the current too strong for them, but its surface was dotted with floating logs and branches of trees that, like themselves, coursed round and round. As long as all were travelling at the same rate and in the same direction the danger of a collision was comparatively slight, but more than once when the rowers succeeded in gaining a short distance towards the outside edge of the whirlpool, they were forced to desist suddenly and paddle straight with the current, to avoid a great log bearing down upon them.

Pita took a lariat from the canoe and prepared to throw it, so as to catch one of the branches when they neared the sh.o.r.e. He tried several times, but the distance was too great; and indeed it was necessary to catch the trees at some little distance before reaching the point opposite to them, in order to pull diagonally across the current, for a jerk when the canoe was at right angles would have torn the raft to pieces.

"Could we launch the canoe and paddle out of the whirlpool in that?"

Stephen said.

"We might do that," Hurka replied, "but a touch from any of these logs would sink her in a moment; and besides, we should be sorry to lose the raft, for we have no skins to make floats, and the rushes of which we constructed it only grow in the quiet waters of the upper river. We might take to the canoe as a last resource, but we should be very loth to do it."

"How long would the lariats be, tied together, with that piece of thin rope you brought to check the raft in dangerous places?"

"The rope is a hundred and fifty yards long, senor, the lariats reach about thirty yards."

"That would be plenty," Stephen said. "My idea is that you might fasten the end of the rope to an arrow and shoot it among the trees. It might not catch the first time, but no doubt it would after a few trials. The rope will, of course, be coiled up so as to pay out easily, and we could pull it in or pay it out as we went round and round. Each time as we approach the sh.o.r.e, we could pull on it a little and edge the raft a few feet out, slackening out again as we came to the nearest point to the trees. If there were any logs in our way of course we should not pull; thus, by choosing our opportunity, we might get her out little by little till we are outside the full force of the stream."

The Indians did not quite understand Stephen's plan, but at once agreed to try it. Pita chose his heaviest arrow and lashed the end of the rope firmly to it, close to the feathers. Stephen knotted the lariats to the rope, and coiled them up so that they would run out easily, and they then prepared for the first attempt.

[Ill.u.s.tration: PITA TRIES STEPHEN'S PLAN IN ORDER TO ESCAPE FROM THE WHIRLPOOL.]

CHAPTER XVIII.

CAPTURED BY INDIANS.

Drawing the bow till the point of the arrow almost touched the wood, Pita stood like a statue until the boat was opposite to the trees, then he loosed it, and it flew far into the foliage. The instant the boat reached the opposite side of the whirlpool Stephen and Hurka drew in the rope hand over hand.

"Leave go, Hurka," Stephen said as the rope tightened. "I will try as we pa.s.s whether it has caught in the trees."

As the canoe pa.s.sed on he put a slight strain on the rope. It yielded for a moment, and then flew through his fingers rapidly.

"It has caught on something," he said. "Now, haul in rapidly this time, Hurka, as soon as we pa.s.s the opposite point, so as to get the strain on as quickly as we can. Pita, do you keep your eye on the logs, and shout if there is anything in the way."

As soon as they had pa.s.sed the half-way point on their way back to the sh.o.r.e, Stephen and Hurka began to pull. They could get but little tension on the rope, for the boat was travelling almost as fast as they could pull it in; still, once or twice they were able to put their strength on it for a moment, and the raft moved a foot or two through the water. Again and again this manuvre was repeated, and little by little they gained ground, until at last they edged the raft so near to the edge of the current that the two Indians, seizing their paddles, were able to get her into the still water beyond. They rowed to the trees, and there tied up.

"That was a good plan, senor," Pita said. "I should never have thought of it. I did think of shooting an arrow across to the trees, but I saw that the jerk would be so great that it would tear the raft to pieces."

It was some time before Stephen was inclined to talk; for the exertion necessary to pull the rope in at a rate exceeding that at which the boat was travelling towards the trees, coming as it did after the excitement of the pa.s.sage down the rapids, had completely exhausted him. He was drenched with perspiration, and was glad to lie still in the bottom of the canoe for a time.

"Well, what next. Pita?" he asked when his breath came quietly.

"We shall float down as before, senor. It is a flat country for the next fifty miles, and the great inundations will rob the river of its power. We shall have several more rapids to pa.s.s, but I do not think they will be worse than these. Then we shall get to the falls. There are several small ones, round which we shall have to carry our boats, and there is a great one where the whole river leaps down a hundred feet in a ma.s.s. On still nights you can hear it, I am told, nigh a hundred miles away. It is the greatest fall in South America, though a traveller I once met told me that in North America there was a fall that was higher, but that there was nothing like the same quant.i.ty poured over it as over this at flood-time.

Once beyond that there remain no more falls or rapids, and a ship can sail up there from the Amazon. Good-sized craft do come up sometimes, for there is a mission-station there, and the fathers carry on a trade with the Indians, who come from the lower districts to purchase goods."

"I shall be very glad when the water gets clear enough for us to take to fishing again," Stephen said. "We have caught no fish of late, and have got but a few birds, and I am getting very tired of these cakes."

Another three weeks and Stephen stood at the foot of the fall of the river Madeira. The flood of water that poured down in one unbroken sheet was enormous. The noise was like that of continual thunder, and Stephen, as he stood watching the swollen waters at his feet and feeling the very ground shake beneath them, felt spell-bound at the grandeur of the scene. The mission-house was inhabited by only two or three old monks, and from them they learned that there had been a bad outbreak of fever there, several had died, and the rest were so weakened that it had been determined that the monks, with the exception of these men, who had pa.s.sed through many fevers and were thoroughly acclimatized, should go down by boat to Barra, and remain there until the season of the floods terminated and the sun had dried the inundated country.

Stephen was glad of a rest, for since entering the rapids the work had been hard and continuous. The Indians would have undertaken all the portage round the various falls and bad rapids, but he insisted on doing his share of the work, and had day after day toiled with heavy weights over a rough country. It was all over now, and the prospect of a week spent at the mission before proceeding on their voyage was very pleasant.

"You must be careful," one of the monks said, "not to stray too far from the house. The natives of the neighbourhood have long since been Christianized, but we are visited by parties from long distances belonging to some of the other tribes who are still wholly wild and eat human flesh.

Here they behave peaceably, because they credit us with supernatural powers, seeing the respect and devotion with which we are regarded by the natives here, of whom indeed we generally keep a strong body on guard during the time that the strangers most frequently visit us; that is to say, at the time that the floods are out. At that time most of the people who live near the river are forced to retire to a great distance from their homes, and being deprived of their usual pursuits, they take that opportunity of coming here to purchase the articles they require. I do not say that they would harm you, but a.s.suredly they might do so, and it would therefore be best for you to keep near the mission-house. Here you are safe from any danger whatever, for even the wildest Indian would not venture to set foot inside these walls, fearing that if they did, some terrible calamity might befall them."