CHAPTER XVIII

WHEN THE WATER RAN HIGH

The two men had watched the burning of their hut until the last flickering blaze had died; Miguel as in a trance, and David spellbound by the sight. The loss of their abode, while causing them some inconvenience, was not a calamity, for they easily could build another. The visits of the great snake, however, was another matter.

“The _sucurujú_ never lives alone,” Miguel said finally when he had recovered from the shock of his experience. They were watching the huge coils writhe in the glowing embers.

“What do you mean?” David asked.

“There are always a pair together. When one goes out and remains away any length of time the other one goes to look for it. And if you kill one of them, the other will follow you until it has avenged its mate.”

“Then you think there is another snake around here?”

“Yes,” Miguel said. “We had better not stay at this end of the island tonight.”

“The thing that puzzles me, is where did this monster come from?” David said. “I can understand now why the creature that visited our hut did not leave tracks, but I don’t see how we could have overlooked it in walking about the island. It is so big we couldn’t have missed it unless it lived in a cave, and--there are no caves.”

“Anacondas live in holes in the riverbank,” Miguel explained. “That’s why we didn’t see this one. It came up from the water while we were watching in the forest. And the other is liable to be along any minute, so we had better go.”

Early the next morning they went back to the ruins of their hut to inspect the snake. They found it, a mound of shimmering color, near the pile of ashes and it was, of course, dead. David’s shot had struck it fairly in the head. It was of a greenish brown color with small black spots and mottlings on its back. When, after a good deal of tugging they succeeded in straightening it on the ground and paced the distance from head to tail, they found that it was in the neighborhood of thirty-two feet long. The weight, they estimated, was not less than three hundred pounds, for it had a girth of over two feet in the thickest part of its body and was very heavy.

“I wish we could save the skin,” David said, regretfully, “but we can’t cure it and it’s too cumbersome to carry.”

Miguel tried to lessen his disappointment. “It’s all scorched and burned anyway. I’m glad it didn’t get us; it could have crushed us into jelly in a moment.”

“What about the other one?” David asked.

The Brazilian looked around uneasily.

“Let’s get busy on the raft,” he said. “One snake is enough for me. We might not be so lucky another time.”

It required two more days to complete the raft. They rolled and pushed the bamboo poles to the very edge of the water and then began the work of constructing their craft. First they spread a layer of the bamboos on the ground; then they bound them together securely with the fiber rope, weaving the cables back and forth, until they had what resembled a huge mat. Upon this they placed a second layer across the first and fastened it into place. A third was carefully tied on top of this and after that a fourth.

The raft was two feet thick when it was finished. It had a length of twenty feet and a width of eight; they felt sure that it was ample to carry their weight without submerging to the level of the water. When it was finished they cut stout poles and using them as levers, pried it into the stream, and tied it with one of the ropes.

“The water is rising,” Miguel announced joyfully. “If it keeps up until morning we can start.”

David looked down the angry stretch in front of them. Many of the rocks that had protruded above the surface were now submerged. Patches of rolling, oily-looking water marked the spots where they were concealed. On a whole, the river was still a swirling, roaring flood that only the direst necessity could induce anyone to navigate. But there must be no hesitation, no delay. A single day lost might mean the falling of the water and the restoration of the cataracts to their former fury.

These thoughts came to both men as they surveyed the craft upon the behavior of which their lives depended, and then gazed at the stream to whose whims they would be exposed before the passing of many hours. And the same thoughts recurred to them more forcibly the next morning, when they hastened to the water’s edge with a feeling of eagerness tempered with many misgivings. The raft was gone.

The men looked at one another in dismay; and also at the raging, hissing river that seemed to mock them in their misfortune.

“It’s awful,” David said at last. “The rope snapped and the raft is lost.”

Miguel sat down on the sand and covered his face with his hands.

“It was our last chance.” He was almost sobbing. “And now that’s gone.”

David, too, was far from cheerful. Their hopes had been dashed to pieces; their enthusiasm had been killed; their work had been for nothing. Once again fate, in the guise of the merciless river, had conspired against them. The strain under which they had labored began to make itself felt. They could endure but so much and the limit was in sight.

“Say, this will never do.” The speaker was David. He had regained mastery over himself. “Our chance is as good as it ever was. We can make another raft. Maybe it’s a good thing this one broke away. We must make the ropes stronger. It is a warning to us.”

Miguel looked up, and, encouraged, David continued in a cheerful manner.

“It won’t take so long this time either, because we know how to go about it. And listen, the water may continue to rise and then the going will be better than ever.”

“It may fall, too,” Miguel ventured half-heartedly.

“Of course. If it does, we’ll just have to wait. It will _have_ to rise again sometime. There’s enough to eat here, so why should we worry?”

It was three days later that the second raft was ready. This time they did not launch it until the morning of the start. The water had fallen somewhat but after a thorough discussion of the matter, they decided to chance the passage through the rapids. They loaded their small stock of meat and palm buds, tied the packages down securely, stepped aboard the floating platform and pushed away from the bank.

The raft drifted slowly and steadily toward the center of the stream. Then the currents, coming from each side, caught it, carrying it along at a rapidly increasing rate of speed until they were flying along at a terrific pace.

So far the water had been fairly smooth though swift. But ahead of them was a ruffled stretch, the surface dotted with rocks that showed a few inches of their height while the angry waves and back-washes told of other, invisible obstructions of a still more formidable nature.

The raft began to lurch so violently that its two occupants lost their footing and fell flat on the ribbed surface. There they clung while the floating platform spun and tossed madly at the mercy of the flood, for the two men were now powerless to steady it with the long poles they had carried for that purpose. Grating noises told them when they scraped over partly submerged obstacles and there was an occasional shock and sudden halt when they collided with rocks. But the current always swung the raft to one side and swept it away in its thundering embrace.

The two men, hanging on for their lives, could not speak to one another because the roar of the water drowned the sound of their voices. Showers of spray dashed over them as they plunged down the terraces of cascades, but the raft always bobbed up again after the leaps and its laminated construction made it staunch enough to withstand the frightful strain to which it was subjected.

After a half hour’s race down the agitated stream the water became calmer and the current slackened. The raft now drifted lazily on the broad expanse and the men regained their feet, glad of the relief afforded them from their strained position. The poles they had used were gone.

“We had better land and cut new ones,” Miguel said, calling attention to their loss. “Without them we’ll simply drift along and not get anywhere.”

David agreed that this was the proper thing to do. There was now but one way to propel their craft; that was to lie flat and paddle with their hands.

They soon found, however, that their efforts had little effect on the large, cumbersome raft. It responded so feebly that the result was barely noticeable. Then they both lay on the same side; this weighted down the edge they were on while it raised the other side out of the water. Their combined efforts, coupled with the position of the raft in the water, caused it to swing slightly toward the bank.

It was mid-afternoon when they finally touched land; the men were nearly exhausted. They pulled one end up on the shelving bank and tied it securely. Then they sat down to eat and to rest.

“We are this far, anyway,” David commented. “It isn’t very far, I know, but it’s a start and we’re away from the island. The raft behaved fine in the rapids. It will stand anything.”

“Yes,” Miguel agreed, “but we don’t know if we are going in the right direction. This river may never take us near camp.”

“All the rivers must find their way into the Amazon,” David insisted, “so we can’t go wrong.”

“Then we can just drift along. Everything will be all right in the end.” Miguel seemed filled with confidence.

His words carried a double meaning to David. He had done nothing but drift--from one thing to another--into one difficulty after the other, since reaching Brazil.

“Are you sure, Miguel,” he asked, “that everything will be all right in the end?”

“Yes, it always is. But it often takes a long time.”

At this point the subject of the conversation was changed abruptly, for appearing out of the forest on the other side of the river were a number of Indians--the very ones, no doubt, from whom they had so narrowly escaped.

The brown men were looking at them and waving their arms and the sound of their voices could be heard plainly across the wide expanse of the stream.

“They’re like wolves on the trail,” Miguel said. “They never give up. But they can’t get to us now. They have no canoes and the river is too broad to swim.”

“Then let’s wave back to them,” David said, standing up. He swung his arms and shouted at the top of his voice. The Indians began to show signs of excitement; they raced up and down the bank, jumped into the air and called more loudly than before.

“I don’t like their actions. I can’t think of a thing they can do now, but so soon as its dark we had better leave,” David suggested.

“You’re right,” Miguel agreed. “We can cut the poles now and get a few extra ones to tie on the raft so we can have them handy if we lose the ones we’re using.”

This task completed, they remained in hiding near the raft until after the sun had set. And all the while the savages on the opposite bank, in increasing numbers, continued their antics.

“Seems to me they could make a raft and come across,” said David, as they watched. He could observe them through the screen of vegetation behind which they were concealed.

“Some tribes never navigate the rivers. Others have canoes and seldom travel by land. Then there are still others who travel overland and when they reach a stream they want to cross, build a raft or make a wood-skin canoe which they abandon or sink after it has been used.”

“I hope those over there belong to the kind that don’t venture on the water,” David said.

“I think they do,” Miguel reassured him, “or they would have been over here before now.”

They boarded their raft in the concealing darkness and pushed downstream, remaining as near the bank as possible. As they drifted along, slowly at first, they felt the impatient tug of the current trying to hurry them toward the center of the stream.

“We could make better time if we went farther out,” Miguel said. “We are barely moving here and I don’t like to be scraping against the branches above.”

“Nor I,” David agreed.

They allowed the craft to follow the urge of the water and soon they were moving at a fast rate. This pleased them, because it meant rapidly increasing the distance between themselves and the savages they were leaving behind.

When the moon rose they saw that the raft had been swept to the center of the river. Use of the poles had been abandoned when the depth had become too great for them to reach the bottom.

“We’ll be in camp before many days at this rate,” David said hopefully. “See how fast we’re going?”

“Yes,” from Miguel, “but this is as fast as we ought to go. If the current gets much swifter we’ll have to land.”

“Why?” David asked in surprise. “We can’t get back too soon to suit me.”

“Nor me. But there may be rapids ahead. We don’t know the river, so can’t take too many chances at night. If it gets worse we’ll have to wait until daylight so we can see first what we are to go through.”

David made no reply, at first.

“We could hear them,” he said finally.

It was not long after that that they heard the faint, warning noise that meant trouble ahead. A muffled roar came to their ears; it rose and fell in swells of sound like the vibrations of a bell. It was so far away, however, they could scarcely hear it.

“You win, Miguel,” David said dejectedly.

“It’s always that way,” Miguel replied. “I win when I want to lose and I lose when I want to win. Let’s make for the bank and stay close to it until we reach the rapids.”

They dug the poles deep into the water and pushed with all their might. The raft responded gently to their efforts, but they knew it would drift downstream a great distance before reaching the bank.

Before they had gone very far they realized that the rapids must be nearer than they had supposed for the roar was growing louder each minute and seemed to come out of the night no great distance ahead.

Miguel was alarmed. “Faster,” he cried. “It’s just in front of us. We have to make the bank or we’re lost.”

David shouted assent. He looked at the dark wall of trees still a good hundred yards off. Then he bent to his task with more force than before.

In a few minutes it became obvious that their race was a doubtful one. The water surged and boiled as it rushed along at frightful speed and the raft began to lurch so that they could scarcely retain their footing, while the roar that now came to their ears was of thunderous volume.

“We can’t make it,” David shouted finally. He had just estimated the span of angry water that still separated them from the land.

“What will we do?” Miguel called in return.

“It sounds too dangerous to attempt--at night. What do you say?” he added as David made no reply.

“Wait!” David spoke quickly. “We can see a little way ahead and we can both swim.”

Rocks of large size now loomed up in the riverbed. Around them the water raged and hissed in fretful torrents. But still the men kept their places, and inch by inch the raft drew toward the forested bank as it raced in the grip of the flood.

David glanced up from time to time to appraise the water in front of them; its character would, of course, determine their course of action.

“Quick,” he shouted suddenly, “that rock. Make for it for all you’re worth,” pointing to a black mass that rose out of the seething water in front of them, but ten yards to one side.

Miguel did not know why his companion had come to the sudden conclusion that they should make for the rock; before, they had taken care to avoid obstructions of this kind. But there was no time to ask questions. He pulled with all the strength in his powerful frame in an effort to carry out the instructions that had been given him.

The thing David had seen was a thin veil of mist rising into the moonlit sky. That one glimpse had been enough, for it meant that there was a waterfall below the haze. There was just time for the shout of warning to Miguel; their only hope lay in gaining the rock.

They worked frantically, but soon it was apparent that the heavy raft could not be swung sufficiently to make the goal in the distance that separated them. Their position was desperate. They must gain the rock or be swept over the fall that now boomed with the rumble of thunder.

Caught in the swirling eddies, the raft began to pitch and roll so wildly they could no longer stay on their feet.

David grasped Miguel’s arm. The din made speech impossible. He pointed down to the water, then to the rock. The Brazilian understood and accepted the frightful challenge.

They sprang from the lurching platform and struck out boldly for the rock. The swift current bore them along like chips on a millrace; curling swells dashed over them and the roaring made their ears throb. But there was no turning back, no other course to pursue, and side by side they fought the treacherous torrent with powerful strokes.

The black mass loomed nearer and nearer; it was now but a few yards ahead. And almost before they realized it they had been washed upon a ledge and were crawling out of reach of the eager swell that rushed up after them.

As they gained their feet, trembling from the chill of the water and the effects of their terrifying experience, a dark object sped past the rock, still a number of yards away. They followed it with their eyes. It tossed and spun as it dashed down the river. They continued to watch it in silence, facinated by the awful sight.

It was their raft. Suddenly it seemed to pitch forward, and then stand on end; for a moment it hung suspended in space, the ragged ends of the bamboos of which it was made clearly outlined like a black fringe against the white curtain of mist. The bright moonlight lighted up the scene so clearly that they missed no detail of it.

Then the raft, still on end, slid downward and was gone. It had plunged over the brink of the fall.

“Oh!” It was Miguel. “Everything is lost. All our things were on it--my bow and arrows and your gun, too.”

“Yes,” David returned mournfully. “Everything we had is gone. But we’re all right, and that’s something to be thankful for.”

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