In Far Bolivia Part 7

No white men were allowed to work at the shaft. Only Indians, and these were housed on the spot. So that the secret was well kept.

And now the voyage down the river was to be undertaken, and a most romantic cruise it turned out to be.

St. Clair had ordered a steamer to be built for him in England and sent out in pieces. She was called _The Peggy_, after our heroine. Not very large--but little over the dimensions of a large steam-launch, in fact--but big enough for the purpose of towing along the immense raft with the aid of the current.

Jake was to go with his samples of golden sand and his nuggets; Burly Bill, also, who was captain of the _Peggy_; and Beeboo, to attend to the youngsters in their raft saloon. Brawn was not to be denied; and last, but not least, went wild d.i.c.k Temple.

The latter was to sleep on board the steamer, but he would spend most of his time by day on the raft.

All was ready at last. The great raft was floated and towed out far from the sh.o.r.e. All the plantation hands, both whites and Indians, were gathered on the banks, and gave many a l.u.s.ty cheer as the steamer and raft got under way.

The last thing that those on sh.o.r.e heard was the sonorous barking of the great wolf-hound, Brawn.

There was a ring of joy in it, however, that brought hope to the heart of both Tom St. Clair and his winsome wife.

Well, to our two heroes and to Peggy, not to mention Brawn and Burly Bill, the cruise promised to be all one joyous picnic, and they set themselves to make the most of it.

But to Jake Solomons it presented a more serious side. He was St.

Clair's representative and trusted man, and his business was of the highest importance, and would need both tact and skill.

However, there was a long time to think about all this, for the river does not run more than three miles an hour, and although the little steamer could hurry the raft along at probably thrice that speed, still long weeks must elapse before they could reach their destination.

As far as the raft was concerned, this would not be Para. She would be grounded near to a town far higher up stream, and the timber, nuts, spices, and rubber taken seaward by train.

In less than two days everyone had settled down to the voyage.

The river was very wide and getting wider, and soon scarcely could they see the opposite sh.o.r.e, except as a long low green cloud on the northern horizon.

Life on board the raft was for a whole week a most uneventful dreamy sort of existence. One day was remarkably like another. There was the blue of the sky above, the blue on the river's great breast, broken, however, by thousands of lines of rippling silver.

There were strangely beautiful birds flying tack and half-tack around the steamer and raft, waving trees flower-bedraped--the flowers trailing and creeping and climbing everywhere, and even dipping their sweet faces in the water,--flowers of every hue of the rainbow.

Dreamy though the atmosphere was, I would not have you believe that our young folks relapsed into a state of drowsy apathy. Far from it. They were very happy indeed. d.i.c.k told Peggy that their life, or his, felt just like some beautiful song-waltz, and that he was altogether so happy and jolly that he had sometimes to turn out in the middle watch to laugh.

Peggy had not to do that.

In her little state-room on one side of the cabin, and in a hammock, she slept as soundly as the traditional top, and on a gra.s.s mat on the deck, with a footstool for a pillow, slumbered Beeboo.

Roland slept on the other side, and Brawn guarded the doorway at the foot of the steps.

Long before Peggy was awake, and every morning of their aquatic lives, the dinghy boat took the boys a little way out into mid-stream, and they stripped and dived, enjoyed a two-minutes' splash, and got quickly on board again.

The men always stood by with rifles to shoot any alligator that might be seen hovering nigh, and more than once reckless d.i.c.k had a narrow escape.

"But," he said one day in his comical way, "one has only once to die, you know, and you might as well die doing a good turn as any other way."

"Doing a good turn?" said Roland enquiringly.

"Certainly. Do you not impart infinite joy to a cayman if you permit him to eat you?"

The boys were always delightfully hungry half an hour before breakfast was served.

And it was a breakfast too!

Beeboo would be dressed betimes, and have the cloth laid in the saloon.

The great raft rose and fell with a gentle motion, but there was nothing to hurt, so that the dishes stuck on the cloth without any guard.

Beeboo could bake the most delicious of scones and cakes, and these, served up hot in a clean white towel, were most tempting; the b.u.t.ter was of the best and sweetest. Ham there was, and eggs of the gull, with fresh fried fish every morning, and fragrant coffee.

Was it not quite idyllic?

The forenoon would be spent on deck under the awning; there was plenty to talk about, and books to read, and there was the ever-varying panorama to gaze upon, as the raft went smoothly gliding on, and on, and on.

Sometimes they were in very deep water close to the bank, for men were always in the chains taking soundings from the steamer's bows.

Close enough to admire the flowers that draped the forest trees; close enough to hear the wild lilt of birds or the chattering of monkeys and parrots; close enough to see tapirs moving among the trees, watched, often enough, by the fierce sly eyes of ghastly alligators, that flattened themselves against rocks or bits of clay soil, looking like a portion of the ground, but warily waiting until they should see a chance to attack.

There cannot be too many tapirs, and there cannot be too few alligators.

So our young heroes thought it no crime to shoot these squalid horrors wherever seen.

But one forenoon clouds banked rapidly up in the southern sky, and soon the sun was hidden in sulphurous rolling banks of c.u.mulus.

No one who has ever witnessed a thunderstorm in these regions can live long enough to forget it.

For some time before it came on the wind had gone down completely. In yonder great forest there could not have been breeze or breath enough to stir the pollen on the trailing flowers. The sun, too, seemed shorn of its beams, the sky was no longer blue, but of a pale saffron or sulphur colour.

It was then that giant clouds, like evil beasts bent on havoc and destruction, began to show head above the horizon. Rapidly they rose, battalion on battalion, phalanx on phalanx.

There were low mutterings even now, and flashes of fire in the far distance. But it was not until the sky was entirely overcast that the storm came on in dread and fearful earnest. At this time it was so dark, that down in the raft saloon an open book was barely visible.

Then peal after peal, and vivid flash after flash, of blue and crimson fire lit up forest and stream, striking our heroes and heroine blind, or causing their eyes for a time to overrun with purple light.

So terrific was the thunder that the raft seemed to rock and s.h.i.+ver in the sound.

This lasted for fully half an hour, the whole world seeming to be in flames.

Peggy stood by d.i.c.k on the little deck, and he held her arm in his; held her hand too, for it was cold and trembling.

"Are you afraid?" he whispered, during a momentary lull.

"No, d.i.c.k, not afraid, only cold, so cold; take me below."

He did so.

He made her lie down on the little sofa, and covered her with a rug.

All just in time, for now down came the awful rain. It was as if a water-spout had broken over the seemingly doomed raft, and was sinking it below the dark waters of the river.

Luckily the boys managed to batten down in time, or the little saloon would have been flooded.