“No, no,” whispered Brace, as if afraid to speak aloud lest the glorious vision of colour should pass away; “I meant those tiny fellows all blue and emerald-green there, with the tufts of snowy-white down above their legs. Oh, what a pity!”
The last words were said as the blaze of blossom and flitting colour passed away, for as the boat glided on they passed in amongst the veil of drooping leaves and twigs which brushed over their heads and shoulders, and were at once in a soft twilight, looking up into a wilderness of trunks and boughs, where for some moments after the sudden change all looked strangely obscure and dense.
But there was plenty to see there as the men laid in their oars and one in the bows thrust out the hook to take hold of a branch here and there and drag the boat along towards a more open part, which soon took the form of a vegetable tunnel, proving to be an arched-in muddy creek, amongst whose overhanging cover something was in motion, but what it was did not become evident for a few minutes in the gloom.
“Is it a great serpent?” said Brace huskily.
“No,” said Briscoe quickly. “A party of monkeys playing at follow-my-leader. Look, there they go, close after one another. It looks just like some great reptile, but you can see now. They’re afraid of the boat.”
He had hardly spoken when the latter quivered from the effects of a sudden concussion.
“Take care,” said Sir Humphrey. “You’ve run upon a sunken trunk.”
“No, sir,” said the man in the bows, as he held on to a tree with the boat-hook; “that wasn’t our doing. It was one of they alligators gave us a slap with his tail. Look at the water. There he goes.”
The man was right enough, for the water was eddying violently from the passage of something beneath, and proof was given directly after, by the appearance of a dark gnarled something a few inches above the surface, this something curving over and being in the act of disappearing, when, carried away by the excitement of the moment, Brace raised his double gun, took a quick aim, and fired, with the result that there was a tremendous splash, the appearance of a flattened tail for a moment, and amidst a discordant screaming from overhead, the occupants of the boat had a glimpse of what seemed to be a writhing hank of enormously thick chocolate and tawny-yellow cable, which seemed to have been thrown from above, to fall with another splash into the water some twenty yards in front of where the boat lay. Then there was a momentary gleam of colour as the object writhed and twined, and then the muddy water rose and fell and washed among the trunks which rose straight from the surface, while for a few moments no one spoke, but every eye was directed at the spot where the water quivered as if something was in motion beneath.
“I fired at the alligator,” said Brace, turning to his brother with a half-startled look.