“Won’t do,” he muttered; “but what a pity it does seem!”
He sat watching the surface, and, as he saw how calm and still it was, the longing for a bathe increased. It would, he felt, be so refreshing—so delicious after the hot night and the sensations of prickly heat. Surely he could get a quick plunge and back before anything could attack him; and as he thought this the longing increased tenfold, and plenty of arguments arose in favour of the attempt. There were numbers of great fish and alligators, he knew, but they were not obliged to be there now. Fish swam in shoals, and might be half a mile away one hour though swarming at another.
“I’ve a good mind to,” he thought, and as that thought came he softly unfastened the collar of his flannel shirt.
But he went no farther, for common sense came to the front and pointed out the folly of such a proceeding, after the warnings he had had of the dangers of the river teeming as it did with fierce occupants.
“It will not do, I suppose,” he muttered. “I should like to try it, though.”
He glanced around, but no one was stirring. The men forward were silent beneath their blankets, and the occupants of the canvas cabin were all sleeping heavily, as their breathing told plainly enough, so there was no fear of interruption.
“I’ll try it,” said the lad, in an eager whisper.
“No. There is no one to help me if I wanted any. And yet is there likely to be any danger? Most likely the alligators would swim away if they saw me, and would be more frightened of me than I should be of them. While as to the fish— Bah! I’m a coward, and nothing else. Dare say the water’s as cool as can be, while I’m as hot as any one could get without being in a fever.”
He rolled up the sleeve of his shirt above the elbow, and, leaning over the side, thrust it down between the curves of two lily leaves which overlapped.
“It is delightfully cool,” he said to himself, and he thrust his arm down farther, when his fingers came in contact with something rough, which started away, making the water swirl in a tremendous eddy, and caused the sudden abstraction of the lad’s arm, but not so quickly that he did not feel a sharp pang, and a tiny fish dropped from the skin on to the bottom of the boat.