Part 21 (1/2)

”It does not seem as if we need go any farther, Brace,” said Sir Humphrey.

”So I was thinking,” said the former. ”Look at those lovely humming-birds. Why, they're not so big by a long way as the b.u.t.terflies.”

”I was looking,” said Sir Humphrey, ”and longing for a tiny gun loaded with dry sand or water, to bring some of them down. Look at the bright blue steely gleams of their forked tails.”

”No, no,” whispered Brace, as if afraid to speak aloud lest the glorious vision of colour should pa.s.s away; ”I meant those tiny fellows all blue and emerald-green there, with the tufts of snowy-white down above their legs. Oh, what a pity!”

The last words were said as the blaze of blossom and flitting colour pa.s.sed away, for as the boat glided on they pa.s.sed in amongst the veil of drooping leaves and twigs which brushed over their heads and shoulders, and were at once in a soft twilight, looking up into a wilderness of trunks and boughs, where for some moments after the sudden change all looked strangely obscure and dense.

But there was plenty to see there as the men laid in their oars and one in the bows thrust out the hook to take hold of a branch here and there and drag the boat along towards a more open part, which soon took the form of a vegetable tunnel, proving to be an arched-in muddy creek, amongst whose overhanging cover something was in motion, but what it was did not become evident for a few minutes in the gloom.

”Is it a great serpent?” said Brace huskily.

”No,” said Briscoe quickly. ”A party of monkeys playing at follow-my-leader. Look, there they go, close after one another. It looks just like some great reptile, but you can see now. They're afraid of the boat.”

He had hardly spoken when the latter quivered from the effects of a sudden concussion.

”Take care,” said Sir Humphrey. ”You've run upon a sunken trunk.”

”No, sir,” said the man in the bows, as he held on to a tree with the boat-hook; ”that wasn't our doing. It was one of they alligators gave us a slap with his tail. Look at the water. There he goes.”

The man was right enough, for the water was eddying violently from the pa.s.sage of something beneath, and proof was given directly after, by the appearance of a dark gnarled something a few inches above the surface, this something curving over and being in the act of disappearing, when, carried away by the excitement of the moment, Brace raised his double gun, took a quick aim, and fired, with the result that there was a tremendous splash, the appearance of a flattened tail for a moment, and amidst a discordant screaming from overhead, the occupants of the boat had a glimpse of what seemed to be a writhing hank of enormously thick chocolate and tawny-yellow cable, which seemed to have been thrown from above, to fall with another splash into the water some twenty yards in front of where the boat lay. Then there was a momentary gleam of colour as the object writhed and twined, and then the muddy water rose and fell and washed among the trunks which rose straight from the surface, while for a few moments no one spoke, but every eye was directed at the spot where the water quivered as if something was in motion beneath.

”I fired at the alligator,” said Brace, turning to his brother with a half-startled look.

”Yes, and scared that big snake,” said Briscoe. ”He was having a nap tied up in a knot on some big branch. I've seen 'em sometimes hanging over the side in thick folds. You tumbled him over with the startling.

Warning to him to take a turn round the branch with his tail.”

”Be ready to fire,” said Brace hurriedly. ”It is sure to come up again to try and creep into a tree.”

”No,” said Briscoe quietly. ”He won't show himself again for hours.”

”Nonsense,” said Brace impatiently; ”it would be drowned.”

Briscoe smiled good-humouredly.

”Drowned?” he said. ”Just about as much as an eel would. Nice place this for a bathe, what with the alligators and the anacondas. Not much chance for a man if one of those brutes took hold of him. Pull him under in a moment.”

”Do you think one of those creatures would attack in the water?” said Sir Humphrey.

”I've seen one drag a pig down,” said Briscoe. ”They're as much at home in the water as out, and they can swim as easily as a water-snake.”

”Then there's nothing to prevent that thing from thrusting out its head and seizing one of us,” said Brace.

”Nothing at all,” replied Briscoe, and then he smiled as he saw the men exchanging glances and Dan taking out a keen bowie-knife. ”But he won't. He'll lie down below there among the roots for hours, I daresay.

If he did come up of course we should give him a shot.”

”Ugh!” said Brace, shuddering. ”But what are we going to do?”