"No, no, Filippe! Go on. It is all right!" were the words with which I kept on urging him.
The cracked bottle had got almost entirely filled with water, and we had such a bad list that the steering became most difficult. Two or three times again we were thrown by the current against other rocks, and another bottle had a similar fate.
"We are sinking, are we not?" shouted Filippe.
"No, no!" said I. "Go on!"
As I said those words it suddenly seemed to me that I heard voices in the distance. Was it Benedicto calling to us? Filippe and I listened. Surely there was somebody singing! We fancied we heard several voices. Had Benedicto met somebody in the forest?
"Benedicto! Benedicto!" we shouted out to him. "Have you found men?"
"No!" came the answer from Benedicto.
All of a sudden Filippe, whose eyes had been scanning the river in front of him, gave a violent jerk which nearly capsized the raft, exclaiming:
"Look! look! There is a canoe!"
"It is a rock," said I, as I screened my eye to look on the dazzling water, upon which the sun glittered so that it was almost impossible to perceive anything. But, sure enough, as I strained my eyes a second time, I saw something move, and a moment later I heard voices quite distinctly.