Care was ever had of us, as we drew farther from the seaside, not to lose touch of the river, though we saw little of it for the dense undergrowth.
At length the wood became pathless, which forced us to return. A little after, through a rift in the undergrowth towards the river, I spied a marvellous strange thing—or so I thought it. For, as it should seem, a great tree-log that floated in the river, did turn about and raise itself as if it were a living creature. And a living creature it really was, being nothing else but a prodigious great cayman, or crocodile, that, thus in semblance of a floating log, lay lurking for its prey, waiting until some wild boar or other came to drink thereby. This horrible beast could have had no less than threescore foot in length, and ten in breadth.
Another horrid creature I beheld before we returned to the sea-shore. This was a sort of huge hairy spider, very hideous. Its body was as big as an egg; its legs were like a crab’s; four black teeth it had, with which it snapped at me as it ran scuttling away along a bough of a tree. I must confess it gave me a scare, and the more so because I thought it might be the dreadful tarantula whose bite doth make men mad. But Burke told me it was not venomous, and, moreover, that I needed not be afraid of being envenomed by anything in that place; for no creature in the whole Island of Hispaniola was venomous—no, not even snakes.
When we got to the boat, we found my brother was not yet returned, and the seamen much out of humour for the waiting. They sat on the shore, smoking their pipes, cursing the Captain and the mosquitoes, and viciously casting stones at the land crabs.
“I ain’t going for to bide on this hell-shore much longer,” said one, “Cap’n or no Cap’n! Oh, to hell with them mosquiters!”
But Burke essayed to turn their minds, and “Why, what’s amiss with ’em?” says he merrily, “They need their victuals, like the rest of us. I’ve been feeding a score of ’em since I came ashore.”
“Well, you may say so, too!” returned the seaman. “You have enough and to spare on your bones, old sawbones!”
Burke laughed, and slapped him on the shoulder. With such jolly talk did he physic their minds, and had soon restored them to good health. But, on a sudden, came a sound of another sort of jollity: drunken shout and revelry in the buccaneer’s hut; and, as he hearkened, I saw the merriment quite go out of Burke: while one of the seamen said harshly:
“Hark to ’em, boys, roystering yonder! lying snug an’ easy on their liquor, like fine gentlemen, whilst we be sweltering here!”
So the ill-temper of the seamen returned, nor was Surgeon Burke able to mollify them.