"And I daresay it will all turn out nothing. What he likes may not suit us. But there, we shall see."
Then they sat in silence, listening to the rustlings and whistlings in the air as of birds and great moths flitting and gliding about; the shrieks, howls, and yells from across the river; and to the great plungings and splashings in the black water, whose star-gemmed bosom often showed waves with the bright reflections rising and falling, and whose surface looked as if the fire-flies had fallen in all up the river after their giddy evolutions earlier in the night, and were now floating down rapidly toward the sea.
Rob broke the silence at last.
"How is it this stream always runs so fast?" he said.
"Because the waters come from the mountains. There"s a great waterfall, too, higher up, where the whole river comes plunging down hundreds of feet with a roar that can be heard for miles."
"Who says so? who has seen it?"
"n.o.body ever has seen it. It is impossible to get to it. The water is so swift and full of rocks that no boat can row up, and the sh.o.r.es are all one dank, tangled ma.s.s that no one can cut through. n.o.body can get there."
"Why not? I tell you what: we"ll talk to Shaddy to-morrow."
"He wouldn"t go. He told me once that he tried it, and couldn"t get there. He nearly lost his life."
"I"ll make him try again and take us."
"I tell you he wouldn"t."
"Well, you"ll see."
"What will you do?"
"Tell him--fair play, mind: you will not speak?"
"Of course not."
"Then look here, Joe; I"ll say to him that I"ve heard of the place, and how difficult it is, and that I wish we had some guide who really knew the country and could take us there."
Joe shook his head.
"Beside, we could not attempt it without Mr Brazier wished to go."
"If you told him about that great fall, he would wish to go for the sake of being the discoverer. You"ll see. What"s that?"
A tremendous splash, so near to them that quite a wave rose and slightly rocked the boat as the boys sat there awe-stricken, listening and straining their eyes in the darkness which shut them in.
The noise occurred again--a great splash as of some mighty beast rearing itself out of the water and letting itself fall back, followed by a peculiar, wallowing noise.
This time it was lower and more as though it had pa.s.sed the boat, and directly after there was another splash, followed by a heavy beating like something thrashing the water with its tail. Then came a smothered, bellowing grunt as if the great animal had begun to roar and then lowered its head half beneath the water, so that the noise was full of curious gurglings. The flapping of the water was repeated, and this time forty or fifty yards away, as near as they could guess, and once more there was silence.
"I didn"t know there were such horrible beasts as that in the water,"
whispered Rob.
"Nor I. What can it be?"
"Must have been big enough to upset the boat if it had seen us, or to drag us out. Shall we wake Shaddy and ask him?"
"No," said Joe; "I don"t suppose he would be able to tell us. It sounds so horrible in the darkness."
"Why, I thought you were too much used to the river to be frightened at anything."
"I did not say I was frightened," replied Joe quietly.
"No, but weren"t you? I thought the thing was coming on right at the boat."
"So did I," said Joe, very softly. "Yes, I was frightened too. I don"t think any one could help being startled at a thing like that."
"Because we could not see what it was," he continued thoughtfully. "I fancied I knew all the animals and fish about the river, but I never heard or saw anything that could be like that."
Just then they heard a soft, rustling sound behind, such, as might have been made by a huge serpent creeping on to the boat; and as they listened intently the sound continued, and the boat swayed slightly, going down on one side.
"It"s coming on," whispered Rob, with his mouth feeling dry and a horrible dread a.s.sailing him, as in imagination he saw a huge scaly creature gliding along the side of the boat and pa.s.sing the covered-in canvas cabin.
It was only a matter of moments, but it was like hours to the two boys.
The feeling was upon Rob that he must run to the fore-part, leap overboard, and swim ash.o.r.e, but he could not move. Every nerve and muscle was paralysed, and when he tried to speak to his fellow-watcher no words came; for, as Joe told his companion afterwards, he too tried to speak but was as helpless.
At last, in that long-drawn agony of dread, as he fully expected to be seized, Rob"s presence of mind came back, and he recollected that his gun was lying shotted beneath the canvas of the sail at the side, and, seizing it with the energy of despair, he swung the piece round, c.o.c.king both barrels as he did so, and brought them into sharp contact with Joe"s arm.
"Steady there with that gun," said a low familiar voice. "Don"t shoot."
"Shaddy!" panted Rob.
"Me it is, lad. I crep" along so as not to disturb Mr Brazier. I say, did you hear that roar in the water?--but o" course you did. Know what it was?"
"No!" cried both boys in a breath. "Some great kind of amphibious thing," added Rob.
""Phibious thing!--no. I couldn"t see it, but there was no doubt about it: that threshing with the tail told me."
"Yes, we heard its tail beating," said Joe quickly. "What was it?"
"What was them, you mean! Well, I"ll tell you. One of them tapir things must have been wading about in a shallow of mud, and a great "gator got hold of him, and once he"d got hold he wouldn"t let go, but hung on to the poor brute and kept on trying to drag him under water.
Horrid things, "gators. I should like to shoot the lot."
Rob drew a long breath very like a sigh. An alligator trying to drag down one of the ugly, old-world creatures that looks like a pig which has made up its mind to grow into an elephant, and failed--like the frog in the fable, only without going quite so far--after getting its upper lip sufficiently elongated to do some of the work performed by an elephant"s trunk! One of these jungle swamp pachyderms and a reptile engaged in a struggle in the river, and not some terrible water-dragon with a serpentlike tail such as Rob"s imagination had built up with the help of pictures of fossil animals and impossible objects from heraldry!
It took all nervousness and mystery out of the affair, and made Rob feel annoyed that he had allowed his imagination to run riot and create such an alarming scene.
"Getting towards morning, isn"t it?" said Joe hastily, and in a tone which told of his annoyance, too, that he also should have partic.i.p.ated in the scare.
"Getting that way, lad, I s"pose. I ain"t quite doo to relieve the watch, but I woke up and got thinking a deal about our job to-morrow, and that made me wakeful. And then there was that splashing and bellowing in the water, and I thought Mr Rob here would be a bit puzzled to know what it was. Course I knew he wouldn"t be frightened."
"None of your sneering!" said Rob frankly. "I"m not ashamed to say that I was frightened, and very much frightened, too. It was enough to scare any one who did not know what it was."
"Right, my lad! enough to scare anybody!" said Shaddy, patting Rob on the shoulder. "It made me a bit squeery for a moment or two till I knew what it was. But, I say, when I came softly along to keep you company, you warn"t going to shoot?"
"I"m afraid I was," said Rob. "It sounded just like some horrible great snake creeping along toward us out of the darkness."