“El Dorado or no El Dorado, I say don’t let’s give up yet,” said Brace. “Let’s keep on till we are obliged to go back to the brig for stores; and by that time we shall know whether it is worth while to come up here again.”
“That’s good advice, sir,” said the captain, smiling at Brace as he spoke. “I don’t want to give up: I like it as well as you do. There’s only one thing wherrits me.”
“What’s that?” said Brace.
“My brig. I lay awake for a good ten minutes last night thinking about what we should all feel if we got back to where we left her and found that the old ‘Jason’ had dragged her anchors and navigated herself out to sea.”
“Oh, but if she had dragged her anchors, captain,” said Brace, “they’d lay hold again somewhere lower down.”
“Yes, sir,” said the captain drily; “that’s what comforted me. All right, gentlemen. On we go then. I’m thinking now that after the lesson we gave those gentlemen to-day they mayn’t care to meddle with us again.”
“Do you think any of them were killed?” said Brace.
“Hardly, sir. Certainly not with the buckshot. If any of them lost the number of their mess it would be just now in the river.”
“Drowned?”
“Oh, no. They swim like seals. It would be through some of the natives below: old friends of theirs.”