Chapter Ninety.
The Log Left Behind.
The escape of their captive had caused the keenest apprehensions to the people upon the raft, which were scarce intensified at the sight of the canoe entering the arcade.
By the simplest reasoning they had leaped to the quick conclusion that the latter was but the sequence of the former. The Mura had swum back to his malocca. They knew he could easily do it. He had learned his kindred, and it was they who now manned the igarité that was making approach. It was only the first of a whole fleet. No doubt there was a score of others coming on behind, each containing its complement of cannibals. The manatee-hunter had got back to his village in time to tell of the two who had gone there in his own canoe. These, unaware of his escape, had, in all probability, been surprised and taken prisoners. Shouts had been heard from the village just before the man was missed. It was this, in fact, that had caused them to think of their prisoner. On finding that he had given them the slip, they interpreted the shouts in two ways. They were either salutations of welcome to the returned captive, or cries of triumph over the death or capture of the tapuyo and his companion.
More like the latter. So thought they upon the log; and the thought was strengthened by the appearance of the big canoe at the entrance of the arcade. Its crew were Mura savages, guided to their place of concealment by him who had stolen away.
These conjectures, varied though they were, passed through their minds with the rapidity of thought itself; for scarce ten seconds had elapsed from the time of their sighting the canoe until it was close up to the ceiba.
Then to their great joy, they saw they had been reasoning wrongly. The two forms had been magnified into ten, partly through the deception of the dim light, and partly because they had been springing from side to side while paddling the canoe and steering it into the creek.
As they drew near, the others could see that they were in a state of the wildest excitement, working with all their strength, and gazing anxiously behind them.
“Quick, uncle,” cried Richard, as the igarité struck against the dead-wood. “Quick! all of you get aboard here.”
“Pa terra!” added the tapuyo. “Do as he tells you. By letting your prisoner get off you’ve spoiled my plans. There’s no time to talk now. Into the igarité! If the others are still afloat—then—then—Haste, patron! Everybody into the igarité!”
As the Indian gave these directions, he himself sprang on to the log; and tearing down the skin sail, he flung it into the canoe. After it he pitched several pieces of the charqui, and then descended himself.
By this time all the others had taken their seats in the canoe, Richard having caught little Rosa in his arms as she sprang down.
There was not a moment of delay. The two paddles belonging to the igarité were grasped, one by Munday himself, the other by the negro, who was next best rower, while the two bladed with the bones of the cow-fish were in the hands of Trevannion and his nephew.
There were thus four available oars to the craft, that promised a fair degree of speed.
With a last look at the log that had carried them safely, though slowly,—a look that, under other circumstances, might have been given with regret,—they parted from it, and in a score of seconds they had cleared the craft from the branches of the trees, and were out upon the bosom of the lagoa.
“In what direction?” inquired Trevannion, as for a moment their strokes were suspended.
“Stay a minute, patron,” replied the tapuyo, as he stood up in the igarité and gazed over the water in the direction of the Mura village. “Before starting, it’s as well to know whether they are able to follow us. If not, it’s no use killing ourselves by hard work.”
“You think there’s a chance they may not come after us?”
“A chance,—yes. It would have been a certainty if you had not let that ape loose. We should now be as safe from pursuit as if a hundred leagues lay between us and them. As it is, I have my fears; there was not time for them to go down,—not all of them. The small ones may, but the big igarité,—it would be still afloat; they could bale out and caulk up again. After all, it won’t carry the whole tribe, and there’s something in that,—there’s something in that.”
While the tapuyo thus talked he was standing with his head craned out beyond the edge of the igarité, scanning the water in the direction of the village. His final words were but the involuntary utterance of what was passing in his mind, and not addressed to his companions. Richard alone knew the meaning, for as yet the others had received no explanation of what had passed under the scaffolds. There was no time to give a detailed account of that. It would be soon enough when the igarité was fairly on its way, and they became assured of their safety.
No one pressed for an explanation. All, even Trevannion himself, felt humiliated by the thought that they had neglected their duty, and the knowledge that but for that very neglect the danger that threatened them would have been now at an end.
The dawn was already beginning to appear along the eastern horizon, and although it was far from daylight, there was no longer the deep darkness that but a short while before shrouded the water. Out on the lagoa, at any point within the circumference of a mile, a large object, such as a canoe, could have been seen. There was none in sight.
This looked well. Perfect stillness reigned around the Mura village. There was no human voice to be heard, where but the moment before there had been shouting and loud talking, both men and women taking part in what appeared a confused conversation. The fires, too, were out, or at all events no longer visible from the lagoa.
Munday remarked that the silence augured ill. “I fear they are too busy to be making a noise,” said he. “Their keeping quiet argues that they have the means, as well as the intention, to come after us. If they had not, you would hear their howls of disappointment. Yes: we may be sure of it. They’re emptying such of their canoes as may still be above water.”
“Emptying their canoes! what mean you by that?”
Munday then explained the nature of his late expedition, now that its failure could no longer be charged upon himself. A few words sufficed to make the whole thing understood, the others admiring the bold ingenuity of the plan as strongly as they regretted having given cause for its being frustrated.
Though no pursuers had as yet appeared, that was no reason why they should stay an instant longer by the entrance to the arcade; so, once more handling the paddles, they put the great igarité to its best speed.