Chapter 18. A Catastrophe

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_ CHAPTER EIGHTEEN. A CATASTROPHE

The next morning the sun was drinking up the mists at a wonderful rate when Rob opened his eyes, saw Joe close by him fast asleep, and raised his hand to give him a friendly slap, but he checked himself.

"We're not friends yet," he said to himself, with a curious, regretful feeling troubling him; and as he went forward to get one of the men to fill him a bucket of water for his morning bath, for the first time since leaving England he felt dismal and low-spirited.

"Morning, sir!" said Shaddy. "Mr Joe not wakened yet?"

"No."

"Did you two make friends 'fore you went to sleep?"

"No, Shaddy."

"Then I lay tuppence it wasn't your fault. What a pity it was you let your tongue say that about the monkey!"

"Yes, Shaddy," said Rob as he plunged his head into the pail and had a good cool sluice. "I wish I hadn't now. It was a great pity."

"True, sir, it was. You see, there ain't no room in a boat for quarrelling, and if it came to a fight you'd both go overboard together and be eaten by the fish afore you knew where you were. And that would not be pleasant, would it?"

"Don't talk nonsense, Shaddy," said Rob shortly as he plunged his head into the bucket again.

"Certinly not, sir," replied the man seriously. "You see, I know how it would be as well as can be. 'Talian lads don't fight like English lads. They can't hit out straight and honest, but clings and cuddles and wrastles. Soon as ever you began he'd fly at you, and tie his arms and legs about you in knots, and hamper you so that you couldn't keep your balance, and as there's no room in the boat, you'd be ketching your toe somewhere, and over you'd go. If I were you, Mr Rob, sir, I wouldn't fight him."

"Will you leave off talking all that stupid nonsense, Shaddy?" cried Rob angrily as he began now polishing his head and face with the towel. "Who is going to fight? I suppose you think it's very clever to keep on with this banter, but I can see through you plainly enough."

Shaddy chuckled.

"All right, sir; I won't say no more. Give him time, and don't notice him, and then I daresay he'll soon come round."

"I shall go on just as if nothing had happened," said Rob quietly. "I apologised and said I was sorry, and when his annoyance has passed off he'll be friends again. What a glorious morning after the storm!"

"Glorious ain't nothing to it, sir. Everything's washed clean, and the air shines with it. Even looks as if the sun had got his face washed, too. See how he flashes."

"I can feel, Shaddy," said Rob, with a laugh.

"That's nothing to what's coming, my lad. Strikes me, too, that we shall find a little more water in the stream, if Mr Brazier says we're to go down the river to-day. Hear the birds?"

"Hear them?" cried Rob. "Why, they are ten times as lively to-day."

"That they are, sir. They're having a regular feast on the things washed out of their holes by the rain. As for the flowers, Mr Brazier will have no end of beauties to pick. They'll come out like magic after this rain. He won't want to go on to-day."

"Yes, I shall, Naylor," said Brazier, stepping out from under the awning. "We may as well go on, beautiful as all this is. Ah," he continued as he gazed round and took a long, deep breath, "what gloriously elastic air! What a paradise! Rob, my lad, there can be nothing fairer on earth."

"Don't you be in a hurry, sir!" growled Shaddy. "I'm going to show you places as beat this hollow."

"Impossible, my man!" said Brazier.

"Well, sir, you wait and see. Bit o' breakfast before we start?"

"Yes," said Brazier, and the men just then stirred the fire together, and called from the shore that the water was boiling and the cakes in the embers baked.

The sensation of delicious comparative coolness after the storm as they sat under the trees, and the fragrance borne from myriads of flowering plants was so delightful to the senses that Rob looked with dismay at the idea of leaving the place for the present. The thirsty ground had drunk up the rain, and only a little moisture remained where the sun could not penetrate, while the sky was of a vivid blue, without a speck of cloud to be seen.

But, though Brazier did not notice it, there was a jarring element in the concord of that glorious morning, for the young Italian was heavy and gloomy, and hardly spoke during the _alfresco_ meal.

"What's that?" said Rob suddenly as there was a slight rustling among the boughs and undergrowth a short distance away.

"Might be anything, sir," said Shaddy. "Some little animal--monkey praps. It won't hurt us. Maybe it's a snake."

In spite of an effort to seem unconcerned, Rob could not resist the desire to glance at his comrade at the mention of the monkey, and, as he fully expected, even though he could not check it, there was Joe glaring at him fiercely.

Rob dropped his eyes, feeling that Joe fully believed he was doing it to annoy him, and that Shaddy had the same intention.

Meanwhile the sound had ceased, and was forgotten by the time they were all on board once more, the rope which had moored them to a tree being cast off.

"Now, my lads, away with you!" growled Shaddy, and the oars dropped among the lily leaves with a splash, startling quite a shoal of fish on one side and a large reptile on the other, which raised quite a wave as it dashed off with a few powerful strokes of its tail for deeper water.

They were about fifty yards from the shore, when Shaddy suddenly laid his hand upon Rob's shoulder and pointed back to the place they had just left.

"See that, my lad?"

"No. What?" cried Rob hastily. "Bird? lizard?"

"Nay; look again."

Rob swept the shore eagerly, and the next moment his eyes lit upon something tawny standing in a shady spot, half hidden by the leaves.

"The puma!" he cried excitedly, and as the words left his lips the animal made one bound into the undergrowth near the trees, and was gone.

"Or another, one, Rob," said Brazier. "It is hardly likely to be the same. There are plenty about, I suppose, Naylor?"

"Oh yes, sir. Can't say as they swarm, but they're pootty plentiful, and as much like each other as peas in a pod."

"But I feel sure that is the same one," cried Rob excitedly. "It is following us down the lake."

"Maybe," grumbled Shaddy, "but you couldn't tell at this distance."

Rob was going to speak again, but he caught sight of Joe's face, with a peculiar smile thereon, and he held his peace.

An hour later they were drawing close to the mouth of the river, where it quitted the lake, and Shaddy pointed to the shores on either side.

"Look at that," he said in a low tone. "I 'spected as much."

"Look at what?" said Rob.

"The trees. Water's two foot up the trunks, and the river over its banks, lad. We shall go down pootty fast it I don't look out."

But he did "look out," to use his own words, and getting the boat round, he set the four men to back stern foremost into the stream, keeping a long oar over the side to steer by and giving orders to the men to pull gently or hard as he gave instructions, for the river ran like a mill-race. It was swift enough before, but now, thanks to the tremendous amount of water poured into it through the previous night's storm, its speed seemed to be doubled.

Rob stood close by the steersman, while Joe was beside Mr Brazier, who, after the first minute or two of startled interest in their rapid descent, became absorbed in the beauty of the overhanging plants, and had no eyes for anything else.

"We're going along at a tidy rate, Master Rob," said Shaddy.

"Yes; the trees glide by very quickly."

"Ay, they do, sir," said the man, who did not take his eyes from the surface of the river before them. "I did mean to make the boys pull so that we could go down gently, but it wouldn't be much good, and only toil 'em for nothing."

"There's no danger, I suppose, Shaddy?"

"No, sir, no, not much, unless we run on a sharp snag or trunk of a tree, or get swept into a corner and capsized."

"What?" cried Rob.

"Capsized, sir. That would make an end of our expedition. Now, lads," he shouted to the men, "pull your best."

He gave his own oar a peculiar twist as the men obeyed, and Rob caught sight of the danger ahead for the first time. It was a huge tree which had been undermined by the water during the past few hours and fallen right out into the stream, its top being over a hundred feet from the shore and showing quite a dense tangle of branches level with the water, to have entered which must have meant wreck.

But Shaddy was too much on the _qui vive_, and his timely order and careful steering enabled him to float the craft gently by the outermost boughs.

They were going onward again at increased speed, when Brazier shouted,--

"Stop! I must have some of those plants."

Shaddy did not stir.

"Do you hear, man? Stop! I want to collect some of those epiphytic plants."

By this time they were nearly a hundred yards past, and Shaddy looked at the enthusiastic collector with a comical expression on his face.

"Always glad to obey orders, sir," he said drily; "but how can I stop the boat now? Look at the water."

"But you should have caught hold of one of the boughs, man."

"When we were fifty yards away, sir?"

"Then pull back to the tree."

Shaddy smiled again.

"It ain't to be done, sir, no, not if I'd eight oars going instead of four. There's no making head against the river now it's running like this."

"Then we've made a mistake in coming to-day," cried Brazier anxiously.

"Well, no, sir, because before night we shall have made a big run right into the country you want to see, without tiring my lads, and I want to save them up. But there's no stopping to-day for collecting."

"But shall we be able to land somewhere?"

"Hope so, sir. If we can't we shall have to go on. But you leave it to me, sir, and I'll do my best. Don't talk to me now, because I've got to steer and look out against an upset, and, as you know, bathing ain't pleasant in these waters."

Brazier looked uneasy, and went and sat down in the stern, to become absorbed soon after in the beauty of the scene as they raced down the silvery flashing river, while Joe, who was near him, appeared to be looking at the birds and wondrous butterflies which flapped across from shore to shore, but really seeing nothing but one of a company of monkeys, which, after the fashion of their kind, were trying to keep pace with the boat by bounding and swinging themselves from tree to tree along the shore.

That seemed to the young Italian's disordered imagination, blurred, as it were, by rankling anger, like the monkey to which his companion had compared him, and his annoyance grew hotter, not only against Rob, but against himself for refusing to shake hands and once more be friends.

Meanwhile Rob stayed in the fore-part of the boat talking to Shaddy, who stood on one of the thwarts, so as to get a better view of the river ahead over the cabin roof, and kept on making an observation to the boy from time to time.

"Easy travelling this, my lad, only a bit too fast."

"Oh, I don't know; it's very delightful," said Rob.

"Glad you like it, my lad; but I wish Mr Jovanni wouldn't sit on the starn like that. He ought to know better. Least touch, and over he'd go."

"Look: what's that, Shaddy?" cried Rob, pointing to a black-looking animal standing knee-deep in water staring at them as they passed.

Shaddy screwed his eye round for a moment, but did not turn his head.

"Don't you get taking my 'tention off my work!" he growled. "That's a-- that's a--well, I shall forget my own name directly!--a what-you-may-call-it--name like a candle."

"Tapir," cried Rob.

"That's him, my lad. Any one would think you had been born on 'Merican rivers. Rum pig-like crittur, with a snout like a little elephant's trunk, to ketch hold of grass and branches and nick 'em into his mouth. I say--"

"Well, what, Shaddy?" said Rob. The man had stopped to bear hard upon his oar.

"Pull, my lads," he growled to his men. "Hold tight, every one. I didn't see it soon enough. Tree trunk!"

Rob seized one of the supports of the cabin roofing and gazed over it at what seemed like a piece of bark just before them, and the next moment there was a smart shock, a tremendous swirl in the water, and a shower of spray poured over them like drops of silver in the bright sunshine, as something black, which Rob took for a denuded branch, waved in the air, and Joe plumped down into the bottom of the boat.

Shaddy chuckled and wiped the water out of his eye.

"I'm thinking so much about trees washed from the bank that I can't see anything else."

"But it was only a small tree, Shaddy, and did us no harm."

"Warn't a tree at all, lad, only a 'gator fast asleep on the top of the water going west and warming his back in the sun same time."

"An alligator?"

"Yes, my lad. Didn't you see what a flap he gave with his tail! But now just look there at Mr Jovanni. I call it rank obstinit. Just as if there was no other place where he could sit but right on the starn! There, you're friends, and he'll take it better from you. Go through the cabin and ask him to get off. I don't want him to go overboard."

"Neither do I, Shaddy, but we are not friends, and if I ask him he will stop there all the more."

"Then I must," said Shaddy. "Hi, Mr Jovanni, sir! Don't sit there; it ain't safe."

"Oh yes, I'm quite safe," cried the boy sharply. "Never mind me."

"Hark at him! Don't mind him! What'll his father say to me if I go back without him? Pull, lads, pull!"

Shaddy's order was necessary, for a huge tree--unmistakably a tree this time--lay right across their way just where the river made a sudden bend round to their left.

The better way would have been to have gone to the right, where there was more room, but, the curve of the river being of course on that side greater, there would not have been time to get round before the boat was swept in amongst the branches, so perforce their steersman made for the left.

This took them close in to where the bank should have been, but which was now submerged, and the boat floated close in to the great wall of trees marking the edge of the stream, and so little room was there that, to avoid the floating tree-top, the boat was forced close in shore, where the stream at the bend ran furiously.

"Look out!" roared Shaddy. "Heads down!" and Rob, who had been watching the obstacle in their way, only just had time to duck down as, with a tremendous rushing and crackling sound, they passed right through a mass of pendent boughs which threatened to sweep the boat clear of cabin and crew as well, as the stream urged it on.

The trouble only lasted a few seconds, though, and then they were through and floating swiftly round the inner curve toward an open patch of the shore which rose all clear of water and tree.

"Anybody hurt?" cried Brazier from inside the cabin; "I thought the place was going to be swept away after I had dived in here."

"No, sir; we're all right," cried Rob. "I nearly lost my cap, though, and--Oh! where's Joe?"

"Eh?" cried Shaddy, looking forward. "Why, he was--gone!"

All faced round to look back just in time to catch an indistinct glimpse of their companion apparently clinging to a bough overhanging the stream; but the next moment the intervening branches hid him from their sight, and a look of horror filled every face.

"Did--did you see him, Shaddy?" panted Rob.

"Thought I did, sir, but couldn't be sure," growled Shaddy, and then furiously to his men, "Row--row with all your might!"

The men obeyed, making their oars bend as they tugged away with such effect that they advanced a few yards. But that was all. The current was too sharp, and they lost ground again. Then, in spite of all their efforts, the most they could do was to hold their own for a minute before having to give way, pull in shore, and seize the overhanging boughs to which Shaddy and Brazier now clung to keep the boat from drifting.

"Better land, sir," cried Shaddy. "We can't reach him this way."

"Reach him?" cried Rob piteously, and then to himself, "Oh! Joe, Joe, why didn't you shake hands?" _

Read next: Chapter 19. A Fresh Peril

Read previous: Chapter 17. An International Quarrel

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