“We must try and wade to shore, and chance the creatures in the water,” said Brazier hoarsely, for, on account of his weakness, he seemed to suffer more than the others. “Where’s shore, sir?” said Shaddy gruffly. “Well, the nearest point, then.”
“There ain’t no nearest point, sir,” said the man. “Even if we could escape the things swarming in the muddy water, we could not wade through the forest. It’s bad enough when it’s hard; now it’s all water no man could get through the trees. Besides, the land may be a hundred miles away.”
“What can we do, then?” cried Rob in desperation. “Only one thing, sir: wait till the water goes down.”
“But we may be dead before then—dead of this terrible torture of hunger.”
“Please God not, sir,” said the old sailor piously: and they sat or lay now in their terrible and yet beautiful prison.
From time to time Shaddy reached out from a convenient branch, and dipped one of Rob’s vessels full of the thick water, and when it had been allowed to settle they quenched their burning thirst; but the pangs of hunger only increased and a deadly weakness began to attack their limbs, making the least movement painful.
For the most part those hours of their imprisonment grew dreamy and strange to Rob, who slept a good deal; but he was roused up by one incident. The puma had grown more and more uneasy, walking about the tree wherever it could get the boughs to bear it, till all at once, after lying as if asleep, it suddenly rose up, leaped from bough to bough, till it was by the forest, where they saw it gather itself up and spring away, evidently trying to reach the extreme boughs of the next tree; but it fell with a tremendous splash into the water, and the growth between prevented them from seeing what followed.
Rob uttered a sigh, for it was as if they had been forsaken by a friend; and Shaddy muttered something about “ought not to have let it go.”
They seemed to be very near the end. Then there was a strange, misty, dreamy time, from which Rob was awakened by Shaddy shaking his shoulder. “Rouse up, my lad,” he said huskily. “No, no: let me sleep,” sighed Rob. “Don’t—don’t!”
“Rouse up, boy, I tell ye,” cried the old sailor fiercely. “Here’s help coming, or I’m dreaming and off my head. Now; sit up and listen. What’s that?”