“No, sir; they none of them landed. There’s your footmarks, Mr Rob’s, and mine as plain as can be, and the water has shrunk a bit away since we made ’em yesterday. No, sir, there’s no hope that way.”
“Then what ever are we to do, man?” cried Brazier.
“Like me to tell you the worst, sir?”
“Yes, speak out; we may as well know.”
Shaddy was silent for a few moments, and then said,—
“Well, gen’lemen, those fellows have gone off with the boat and all in it. The guns and things was too much for ’em, and they’ve gone to feast for a bit and then die off like flies. They’ll never work enough by themselves to row that boat back to Paraguay river, for one won’t obey the other. They’ll be like a watch without a key.”
“Then they have gone down the river?” said Rob.
“Yes, sir, wherever it takes them, and they’ll shoot a bit and fish a bit till they’ve used all the powder and lost their lines. So much for them. Let’s talk about ourselves. Well, gentlemen, we might make a sort of raft thing of wood and bundles of rushes,—can’t make a boat for want of an axe,—and we might float down the stream, but I’m afraid it would only be to drown ourselves, or be pulled off by the critters in the water.”
“But the land, Shaddy!” cried Rob. “Can’t we really walk along the bank back to where we started?”
“You saw yesterday, sir,” said Shaddy grimly.