CHAPTER IV
DEATH RIVER
At last their first week in this new world of beauty and mystery cameto an end. At Belem they boarded a well-appointed steamer and embarkedfor the thousand-mile voyage to Manaos, which is only six degrees fromthe equator and one of the hottest cities of the world. There followedanother week of a life that was strange and new to the travelers fromCornwall. There were silent, steaming days when the earth seemed toswoon beneath the glare of the lurid sun, and only at night would abreath of air cross the water, which gleamed like a silverburning-glass. For their very lives' sake, white men and Indians alikehad learned to keep as quiet and cool as possible during those fieryhours. Only Hen, coming from a race that since the birth of time hadlived close to the equator, moved about with a cheerfulness which noamount of heat or humidity could lessen. At night, when the fatal sunhad reluctantly disappeared in a mass of pink and violet clouds, thelife-bringing breeze would blow in fresh and salt from the far-away sea,and all living creatures would revive. The boys soon learned that, inthe mid-heat of a tropical summer, the night was the appointed time forplay and work, and they slept during the day as much as possible inshaded, airy hammocks.
One evening, after an unusually trying day, the night wind sprang upeven before the sun had set. Here and there, across the surface of theriver, flashed snow-white swallows with dark wings. As the fire-gold ofthe sun touched the horizon, the silver circle of the full moon showedin the east, and for a moment the two great lights faced each other.Then the sun slipped behind the rim of the world, and the moon rosehigher and higher, while the Indian crew struck up a wailing chant fullof endless verses, with a strange minor cadence like the folk-songs ofthe Southern negro. Hen Pine translated the words of some of them, andcrooned the wailing melody:
"The moon is rising, Mother, Mother, The seven stars are weeping, Mother, Mother, To find themselves forsaken, Mother, Mother."
Down the echoing channels, through the endless gloomy forests, thecadence of the song rose and fell.
Suddenly, in the still moonlight from the river-bank came a single lownote of ethereal beauty and unutterable sorrow. Slowly it rose andswelled, keeping its heartbreaking quality and exquisite beauty. At thesound the men stopped singing, and it seemed as if an angel were sobbingin the stillness. On and on the song went, running through eight lonely,lovely notes which rose and swelled until there seemed to be nothing inthe world except that beautiful voice, finally ending in a sob whichbrought the tears to Will's eyes. Then out into the moonlight flittedthe singer, a quiet-colored little brown-and-gray bird, the celebratedsolitaire, the sweetest, saddest singer of the Brazilian forest.
After all this music, supper was served. It began with a thick,violet-colored drink in long glasses filled with cracked ice. The boyslearned from Professor Ditson that this was made from the fruit of theassai-palm. It was strangely compounded of sweet and sour and hadbesides a fragrance and a tingle which made it indescribably refreshing.This was followed by an iced preparation made from the root of themanioc, whose juice is poisonous, but whose pulp is wholesome anddelicious. Before being served it had been boiled with the fruit of themiriti-palm, which added a tart sweetness to its taste which theNortherners found most delightful. The next course was a golden-yellowcompound of a rich, nutty flavor, the fruit of the mucuju-palm, whichhas a yellow, fibrous pulp so full of fat that vultures, dogs, and catseat it greedily. For dessert, there was a great basket of sweet lemons,mangos, oranges, custard-apples, and other fruits.
After supper they all grouped themselves in the bow and there, incomfortable steamer-chairs, watched the steamer plow its way through ariver of ink and silver. That day, Jud, while in his hammock, had seen,to his horror, what seemed to be a slender vine, dangling from one ofthe trees, change into a pale-green snake some eight feet long, whosestrange head was prolonged into a slender, pointed beak. Even as the oldman stared, it flashed across the deck not two feet away from him anddisappeared in another tree. So perfectly did its color blend with theleaves that the instant it reached them it seemed to vanish from sight.
"It was the palm-snake," said Professor Ditson, after Jud told them ofhis experience. "It lives on lizards, and, although venomous, has neverbeen known to bite a human being. If you had only been brave enough," hewent on severely, "to catch it with your naked hand, we might even nowhave an invaluable record of the effects of its venom."
"What is the most venomous snake in the world?" broke in Will, as Judtried to think of words strong enough to express what he thought of thescientist's suggestion.
"The hamadryad or king cobra," returned the professor. "I once securedone over fourteen feet long."
"How did you catch it?" queried Will.
"Well," said the professor, "I came across it by a fortunate accident. Iwas collecting butterflies in India at a time of the year when it isespecially pugnacious, and this particular snake dashed out of a thicketat me. It came so unexpectedly that I had to run for my life. It seemsridiculous that I should have done so," he went on apologetically, "butthe bite of the hamadryad is absolutely fatal. This one gained on me sorapidly that I was at last compelled to plunge into a near-by pond,since this variety of snake never willingly enters water."
"What happened then?" inquired Will, as the scientist came to a fullstop.
"When I reached the opposite shore, a quarter of a mile away, and wasabout to land," returned the professor, "out of the rushes this samesnake reared up some six feet. With the rare intelligence which makesthe hamadryad such a favorite among collectors, it had circled the lakeand was waiting for me."
"Snappy work!" said Jud, shivering. "I can't think of any pleasanterfinish to a good swim than to find a nice fourteen-foot snake waitin'for me. What did you do then?"
"I floated around in deep water until my assistant came and secured thesnake with a forked stick. It is now in the New York Zoological Gardensat the Bronx," concluded the professor.
Jud drew a deep breath. "That reminds me," he said at last, "of a timeI once had with a pizen snake when I was a young man. I was hoein' cornup on a side hill in Cornwall when I was about sixteen year old," hecontinued. "All on a sudden I heard a rattlin' an' down the hill in oneof the furrows came rollin' a monstrous hoop-snake. You know," heexplained, "a hoop-snake has an ivory stinger in its tail an' rollsalong the ground like a hoop, an' when it strikes it straightens out an'shoots through the air just like a spear."
"I know nothing of the kind," broke in Professor Ditson.
"Well," said Jud, unmoved by the interruption, "when I saw this snakea-rollin' an' a-rattlin' down the hill towards me, I dived under thefence an' put for home, leavin' my hoe stickin' up straight in thefurrow. As I slid under the fence," he went on, "I heard a thud, an'looked back just in time to see the old hoop-snake shoot through the airan' stick its stinger deep into the hoe-handle. It sure was a pizensnake, all right," he went on, wagging his head solemnly. "When I cameback, an hour or so later, the snake was gone, but that hoe-handle hadswelled up pretty nigh as big as my leg."
There was a roar of laughter from Will and Joe, while Jud gazedmournfully out over the water. Professor Ditson was vastly indignant.
"I feel compelled to state," he said emphatically, "that there is nosuch thing as a hoop-snake and that no snake-venom would have any effecton a hoe-handle."
"Have it your way," said Jud. "It ain't very polite of you to doubt mysnake story after I swallowed yours without a word."
At Manaos they left the steamer, and Professor Ditson bought for theparty a _montaria_, a big native boat without a rudder, made of plankand propelled by narrow, pointed paddles. Although Hen and Pinto and theProfessor were used to this kind of craft, it did not appeal at allfavorably to the Northerners, who were accustomed to the lightbark-canoes and broad-bladed paddles of the Northern Indians. Joe wasespecially scornful.
"This boat worse than a dug out," he objected. "It heavy and clumsy andpaddles no good either."
"You'll
find it goes all right on these rivers," Professor Ditsonreassured him. "We only have a few hundred miles more, anyway before westrike the Trail."
Under the skilful handling of Hen and Pinto, the montaria, although itseemed unwieldly, turned out to be a much better craft than it looked;and when the Northerners became used to the narrow paddles, theexpedition made great headway, the boys finding the wide boat far morecomfortable for a long trip than the smaller, swifter canoe.
After a day, a night, and another day of paddling, they circled a widebend, and there, showing like ink in the moonlight, was the mouth ofanother river.
"White men call it Rio Negros, Black River," the Indian explained to theboys; "but my people call it the River of Death."
As the professor, who was steering with a paddle, swung the prow of theboat into the dark water, the Indian protested earnestly.
"It very bad luck, Master to enter Death River by night," he said.
"Murucututu, murucututu," muttered the witch-owl, from an overhangingbranch.
Hen joined in Pinto's protest.
"That owl be layin' a spell on us, Boss," he said. "Better wait tillmornin'."
The professor was inflexible.
"I have no patience with any such superstitions," he said. "We can coverfully twenty-five miles before morning."
The Mundurucu shook his head and said nothing more, but Hen continuedhis protests, even while paddling.
"Never knew any good luck to come when that ol' owl's around," heremarked mournfully. "It was him that sicked them vampires on to Willhere, an' we're all in for a black time on this black ribber."
"Henry," remarked Professor Ditson, acridly, "kindly close your mouthtightly and breathe through your nose for the next two hours. Yourconversation is inconsequential."
"Yassah, yassah," responded Hen, meekly, and the montaria sped alongthrough inky shadows and the silver reaches of the new river in silence.
About midnight the forest became so dense that it was impossible tofollow the channel safely, and the professor ordered the boat to beanchored for the night. Usually it was possible to make a landing andcamp on shore, but to-night in the thick blackness of the shadowed bank,it was impossible to see anything. Accordingly, the party, swathed inmosquito-netting, slept as best they could in the montaria itself.
It was at the gray hour before dawn, when men sleep soundest, that Judwas awakened by hearing a heavy thud against the side of the boat closeto his head. It was repeated, and in the half-light the old man sat up.Once again came the heavy thud, and then, seemingly suspended in the airabove the side of the boat close to his head, hung a head of horror.Slowly it thrust itself higher and higher, until, towering over the sideof the boat, showed the fixed gleaming eyes and the darting forkedtongue of a monstrous serpent. Paralyzed for a moment by his horror forall snake-kind, the old man could not move, and held his breath untilthe blood drummed in his ears. Only when the hideous head curveddownward toward Joe did Jud recover control of himself. His prisonedvoice came out then with a yell like a steam-siren, and he fumbled underhis left armpit for the automatic revolver which he wore in thewilderness, night and day, strapped there in a water-proof case.
"Sucuruju! Sucuruju! Sucuruju!" shouted Pinto, aroused by Jud's yell."The Spirit of the River is upon us!" And he grasped his machete just asJud loosened his revolver.
Quick as they were, the huge anaconda, whose family includes thelargest water-snakes of the world, was even quicker. With a quick dartof its head, it fixed its long curved teeth in the shoulder of thesleeping boy, and in an instant, some twenty feet of glistening coilsglided over the side of the boat. The scales of the monster shone likeburnished steel, and it was of enormous girth in the middle, taperingoff at either end. Jud dared not shoot at the creature's head for fearof wounding Joe, but sent bullets as fast as he could pull the triggerinto the great girth, which tipped the heavy boat over until the waternearly touched the gunwale. Pinto slashed with all his might with hismachete at the back of the great snake, but it was like attempting tocut through steel-studded leather. In spite of the attack, the coils ofthe great serpent moved toward the boy, who, without a sound, struggledto release his shoulder from the terrible grip of the curved teeth. Theanaconda, the sucuruju of the natives, rarely ever attacks a man; butwhen it does, it is with difficulty driven away. This one, in spite ofsteel and bullets, persisted in its attempt to engulf the body of thestruggling boy in its coils, solid masses of muscle powerful enough tobreak every bone in Joe's body.
It was Hen Pine who finally saved the boy's life. Awakened by the soundof the shots and the shouts of Jud and Pinto, he reached Joe just as oneof the fatal coils was half around him. With his bare hands he caughthold of both of the fierce jaws and with one tremendous wrench of hisvast arms literally tore them apart. Released from their death grip, Joerolled to one side, out of danger. The great snake hissed fiercely, andits deadly, lidless eyes glared into those of the man. Slowly, withstraining, knotted muscles, Hen wrenched the grim jaws farther andfarther apart. Then bracing his vast forearms, he bowed his back in onetremendous effort that, in spite of the steel-wire muscles of the greatserpent, bent its deadly jaws backward and tore them down the sides,ripping the tough, shimmering skin like so much paper. Slowly, with awrench and a shudder, the great water-boa acknowledged defeat, and itsvast body pierced, slashed, and torn, reluctantly slid over the side ofthe boat.
As Hen released his grip of the torn jaws, the form of the giant serpentshowed mirrored for an instant against the moonlit water and thendisappeared in the inky depths below. Joe's thick flannel shirt hadsaved his arm from any serious injury, but Professor Ditson washed outthe gashes made by the sharp curved teeth with permanganate of potash,for the teeth of the boas and pythons, although not venomous, may bringon blood-poisoning, like the teeth of any wild animal. Jud was far moreshaken by the adventure than Joe, who was as impassive as ever.
"Snakes, snakes, snakes!" he complained. "They live in the springs andpop up beside the paths and drop on you out of trees. Now they'rebeginnin' to creep out of the water to kill us off in our sleep. What acountry!"
"It's the abundance of reptile life which makes South America sointeresting and attractive," returned Professor Ditson, severely.
It was Pinto who prevented the inevitable and heated discussion betweenthe elders of the party.
"Down where I come from," he said, "lives a big water-snake many timeslarger than this one, called the Guardian of the River. He at leastseventy-five feet long. We feed him goats every week. My grandfather andhis grandfather's grandfather knew him. Once," went on Pinto, "I foundhim coiled up beside the river in such a big heap that I couldn't seeover the top of the coils."
"I don't know which is the worse," murmured Jud to Will, "seein' thesnakes which _are_ or hearin' about the snakes which _ain't_. Betweenthe two, I'm gettin' all wore out."
Then Pinto went back again to his predictions about the river they wereon.
"This river," he said, "is not called the River of Death for nothing.The old men of my tribe say that always dangers come here by threes. Oneis passed, but two more are yet to come. Never, Master, should we haveentered this river by night."
"Yes," chimed in Hen, "when I heered that ol' witch-owl I says tomyself, 'Hen Pine, there'll be somethin' bad a-doin' soon.'"
"You talk like a couple of superstitious old women," returned ProfessorDitson, irritably.
"You wait," replied the Indian, stubbornly; "two more evils yet tocome."
Pinto's prophecy was partly fulfilled with startling suddenness. Theparty had finished breakfast, and the montaria was anchored in a smooth,muddy lagoon which led from the river back some distance into theforest. While Will and Hen fished from the bow of the boat the rest ofthe party curled themselves up under the shade of the overhanging treesto make up their lost sleep. At first, the fish bit well and the twocaught a number which looked much like the black bass of northernwaters. A minute later, a school of fresh-water flying-fish broke waternear them and f
lashed through the air for a full twenty yards, like aflight of gleaming birds.
As the sun burned up the morning mist, it changed from a sullen red to adazzling gold and at last to a molten white, and the two fishermennodded over their poles as little waves of heat ran across the stillwater and seemed to weigh down their eyelids like swathings of softwool. The prow of the boat swung lazily back and forth in the slowcurrent which set in from the main river. Suddenly the dark water aroundthe boat was muddied and discolored, as if something had stirred up thebottom ten feet below. Then up through the clouded water drifted a vast,spectral, grayish-white shape. Nearer and nearer to the surface it came,while Hen and Will dozed over their poles. Will sat directly in the bow,and his body, sagging with sleep, leaned slightly over the gunwale.
Suddenly the surface of the water was broken by a tremendous splash,and out from its depth shot half the body of a fish nearly ten feet inlength. Its color was the gray-white of the ooze at the bottom of thestream in which it had lain hidden until attracted to the surface by theshadow of the montaria drifting above him. Will awakened at the hoarseshout from Hen just in time to see yawning in front of him a mouth moreenormous than he believed any created thing possessed outside of thewhale family. It was a full five feet between the yawning jaws, whichwere circled by a set of small sharp teeth. Even as he sprang back, themonster lunged forward right across the edge of the boat and the jawssnapped shut.
Will rolled to one side in an effort to escape the menancing depths,and although he managed to save his head and body from the maw of thegreat fish, yet the jaws closed firmly on both his extended arms,engulfing them clear to the shoulder. The little teeth, tiny incomparison with the size of the jaws in which they were set, hardly morethan penetrated the sleeves of his flannel shirt and pricked the skinbelow, but as the monster lurched backward toward the water its greatweight drew the boy irresistibly toward the edge of the boat, althoughhe dug his feet into the thwarts and twined them around the seat onwhich he had been sitting. Once in the river, the fatal jaws would openagain, and he felt that he would be swallowed as easily as a pike wouldtake in a minnow.
Even as he was dragged forward to what seemed certain death, Will didnot fail to recognize a familiar outline in the vast fish-face againstwhich he was held. The small, deep-set eyes, the skin like oiledleather, long filaments extending from the side of the jaw, and theenormous round head were nothing more than that of the catfish orbullhead which he used to catch at night behind the mill-dam inCornwall, enlarged a thousand times.
Although the monster, in spite of its unwieldy size, had sprung forth,gripped its intended prey, and started back for the water in a flash,yet Hen Pine was even quicker. In spite of his size, there was no one inthe party quicker in an emergency than the giant negro. Even as hesprang to his feet he disengaged the huge steel machete which alwaysdangled from his belt. Hen's blade, which he used as a bush-hook and aweapon, was half again as heavy as the ordinary machete, and he alwayskept it ground to a razor edge. He reached the bow just as the great,gray, glistening body slipped back over the gunwale, dragging Willirresistibly with it. Swinging the broad heavy blade over his head, withevery ounce of effort in his brawny body, Hen, brought the keen edgedown slantwise across the gray back of the river-monster, which taperedabsurdly small in comparison with the vast spread of the gaping jaws. Itwas such a blow as Richard the Lion-hearted might have struck; and justas his historic battle-sword would shear through triple steel plate andflesh and bone, so that day the machete of Hen Pine, unsung in song orstory, cut through the smooth gray skin, the solid flesh beneath, andwhizzed straight on through the cartilaginous joints of the great fish'sspine, nor ever stopped until it had sunk deep into the wood of the highgunwale of the boat itself. With a gasping sigh, the monster's headrolled off the edge of the boat and slowly sank through the dark water,leaving the long, severed trunk floating on the surface. Reaching out,the negro caught the latter by one of the back fins and secured it witha quick twist of a near-by rope.
"That's the biggest piraiba I ever see," he announced. "They're fine toeat, an' turn about is fair play. Ol' piraiba try to eat you; now youeat him." And while Will sat back on the seat, sick and faint from hisnarrow escape, Hen proceeded to haul the black trunk aboard and carvesteaks of the white, firm-set flesh from it.
"Every year along the Madeira River this fish tip over canoes andswallow Indians. They's more afraid of it," Hen said, "than they is ofalligators or anacondas."
When Hen woke up the rest of the party and told them of the near-tragedyPinto croaked like a raven.
"Sucuruju one, piraiba two; but three is yet to come," he finisheddespondingly. The next two days, however, seemed to indicate that theRiver had exhausted its malice against the travelers. The party paddledthrough a panorama of sights and sounds new to the Northerners, and atnight camped safely on high, dry places on the banks. On the morning ofthe third day the whole party started down the river before daylight andwatched the dawn of a tropical day, a miracle even more beautiful thanthe sunrises of the North. One moment there was perfect blackness; thena faint light showed in the east; and suddenly, without the slow changesof Northern skies, the whole east turned a lovely azure blue, againstwhich showed a film and fretwork of white clouds, like wisps of snowylace.
Just as the sun came up they passed a tall and towering conical rockwhich shot up three hundred feet among the trees and terminated in whatlooked like a hollowed summit. Pinto told them that this was TreasureRock, and that nearly half a thousand years ago the Spaniards, in thedays when they were the cruel conquerors of the New World, had exploredthis river. From the ancestors of Pinto's nation and from many anotherlesser Indian tribe they had carried off a great treasure of gold andemeralds and diamonds. Not satisfied with these, they had tried toenslave the Indians and make them hunt for more. Finally, in desperationthe tribes united, stormed their persecutors' camp, killed some, andforced the rest to flee down the river in canoes. When the Spaniardsreached the rock, they landed, and, driving iron spikes at intervals upits steep side, managed to clamber up to the very crest and haul theirtreasure and stores of water and provisions after them by ropes made oflianas. There, safe from the arrows of their pursuers in the hollow top,they stood siege until the winter rains began. Then, despairing oftaking the fortress, the Indians returned to their villages; whereuponthe Spaniards clambered down, the last man breaking off the iron spikesas he came, and escaped to the Spanish settlements. Behind them, in theinaccessible bowl on the tip-top of the rock, they left theirtreasure-chest, expecting to return with the reinforcements and rescueit. The years went by and the Spaniards came not again to Black River,but generation after generation of Indians handed down the legend ofTreasure Rock, with the iron-bound chest on its top, awaiting him whocan scale its height.
Jud, a treasure-hunter by nature, was much impressed by Pinto's story.
"What do you think of takin' a week off and lookin' into this treasurebusiness?" he suggested. "I'll undertake to get a rope over the top ofthis rock by a kite, or somethin' of that sort, an' then I know a youngchap by the name of Adams who would climb up there an' bring down atrunk full of gold an' gems. What do you say?"
"Pooh!" is what Professor Amandus Ditson said, and the expeditionproceeded in spite of Jud's protests.