Finally, however, they caught, plenty of line was let out, and they swung head to stream, dividing the water that rushed by and sending it off in elongated waves.
“That’s better,” said the captain; “but we must be ready, for I doubt whether these little grapnels will hold long.”
“Why not let the boats go?” said Brace. “It’s all interesting to glide along a fresh river.”
“Because we may be swept no one knows where, my lad. Steering’s hard work in such a rapid as this. Besides, we may get into bad company—uprooted trees, floating islands of weeds, and all sorts of things that would make nothing of capsizing us. No; it will be best to wait here till the flood begins to fall. I daresay you gentlemen can manage to amuse yourselves somehow.”
“I daresay we can,” said Briscoe, lighting up one of his long cigars to have as an early breakfast; “but isn’t this all wrong?”
“What?” said the captain sharply, for he was fully upon his mettle in a position which called for all his care. “What’s all wrong?”
“Why, the way the water runs. It’s just the opposite way to which it was going yesterday.”
“That’s right,” replied the captain; “but it’s coming down one or other of the rivers we came to last night with a rush and piling up faster than the main stream will carry it off. It must go somewhere, and some of it rushes along here. Strikes me that the whole country will be under water soon. Look, it’s rising fast up the tree-trunks. We shall have to take great care, or we shall be drawn right in among the trees.”
“Ah, that would be awkward,” said Briscoe drily, “to find the water suddenly go down and leave the boats up in the tree-tops like a couple of big birds’ nests.”
“Ahoy! Look out, Dellow!” yelled the captain. “Stand by, my lads, to shove her off, or she’ll break us away. Hah! I thought so.”