Chapter Eighty Six.
The Cry of the Jaguar.
The night came on without any untoward incident; but no sooner was the sun fairly below the horizon than they became aware of a circumstance that caused them serious annoyance, if not absolute alarm. They saw the full round moon rising, and every indication of the most brilliant moonlight. The Mundurucú, more than any of them, was chagrined at this, because of the importance of having a dark night for carrying out his scheme, whatever it was. In fact, he had declared that a dark night was indispensable, or, at all events, one very different from that which the twilight promised them.
The original intention had been, as soon as night set in, to get the dead-wood once more into the open water, and then, if the wind should be in their favour, to bend the sail and glide off in any direction that would take them away from the malocca. If there should be no wind, they could use the paddles and creep round the edge of the lagoa, going as far as might be before another sun should expose them to view. It was doubtful whether they could row the dead-wood, before daybreak, beyond eyeshot of the savages; but if not, they could again seek concealment among the tree-tops, and wait for night to continue their retreat.
This intention was likely to be defeated by the clear shining of a tropical moon. As she rose higher in the heavens, the lagoa became all white effulgence; and as there was not the slightest ripple upon the water, any dark object passing along its surface would have been seen almost as distinctly as by day. Even the little canoe could not have been carried outside the edge of the trees without the danger of being seen from afar.
That the entrance to the arcade and the tree-line outside could be seen from the malocca was a thing already determined, for the tapuyo had tested it during the day. Through the foliage in front of the village he could see here and there some portions of the scaffoldings, with the toldos erected upon them, while its position was also determined by the smoke rising from the different fires.
As soon as night had come on, he and the young Paraense had made a reconnoissance, and from the same place saw the reflection of the fires upon the water below, and the gleaming fires themselves. Of course they who sat or stood around them could see them, should they attempt to go out with the monguba. This scheme, then, could only be resorted to should the moon be obscured, or “put out,” as Munday said, by clouds or fog.
Munday admitted that his plan might be put in practice, without the interposition of either; but in this case it would be ten times more perilous, and liable to failure. In any case he did not intend to act until midnight. After that, any time would do before the hour of earliest daybreak. Confiding in the craft of the old tapuyo, Trevannion questioned him no further, but along with the rest waited as patiently as possible for the event.
The water-forest was once more ringing with its nocturnal chorus. Tree-toads and frogs were sending forth their metallic monotones; cicadae and lizards were uttering their sharp skirling notes, while birds of many kinds, night-hawks in the air, strigidae among the trees, and water-fowl out upon the bosom of the lagoon, were all responding to one another. From afar came lugubrious vociferations from the throats of a troop of howling monkeys that had made their roost among the branches of some tall, overtopping tree; and once—what was something strange—was heard a cry different from all the rest, and on hearing which all the rest suddenly sank into silence.
That was the cry of the jaguar tiger, the tyrant of the South American forest. Munday recognised it on the instant, and so did the others; for they had heard it often before, while descending the Solimoës. It would have been nothing strange to have heard it on the banks of the mighty river, or any of its tributaries. But in the Gapo, it was not only strange, but significant, that scream of the jaguar. “Surely,” said Trevannion on hearing it, “surely we must be in the neighbourhood of land.”
“How, patron?” replied the Mundurucú, to whom the remark was particularly addressed. “Because we hear the voice of the jauarité? Sometimes the great tiger gets overtaken by the inundation, and then, like ourselves, has to take to the tree-tops. But, unlike us, he can swim whenever he pleases, and his instinct soon guides him to the land. Besides, there are places in the Gapo where the land is above water, tracts of high ground that during the vasanté become islands. In these the jauarité delights to dwell. No fear of his starving there, since he has his victims enclosed, as it were, in a prison, and he can all the more conveniently lay his claws upon them. The cry of that jauarité is no sure sign of dry land. The beast may be twenty miles from terra firma.”
While they were thus conversing, the cry of the jaguar once more resounded among the tree-tops, and again was succeeded by silence on the part of the other inhabitants of the forest.
There was one exception, however; one kind of creatures not terrified into stillness by the voice of the great cat, whose own voices now heard in the interval of silence, attracted the attention of the listeners. They were the Muras. Sent forth from the malocca, their shouts came pealing across the water, and entered the shadowy aisle where our adventurers sat in concealment, with tones well calculated to cause fear; for nothing in the Gapo gave forth a harsher or more lugubrious chant.
Munday, however, who had a thorough knowledge of the habits of his national enemies, interpreted their tones in a different sense, and drew good augury from them. He said that, instead of grief, they betokened joy. Some bit of good luck had befallen them, such as the capture of a cow-fish, or a half-score of monkeys. The sounds signified feasting and frolic. There was nothing to denote that the sullen savage by their side was missed from among them. Certainly he was not mourned in the malocca.
The interpretation of the tapuyo fell pleasantly upon the ears of his auditors, and for a while they felt hopeful. But the gloom soon came back, at sight of that brilliant moon,—a sight that otherwise should have cheered them,—as she flooded the forest with her silvery light, till her rich rays, scintillating through the leafy llianas, fell like sparks upon the sombre surface of the water arcade.