“Stop a moment, my lad, and I’ll tell you.”
He left them to give some instructions to the men as to the use of their poles, but returned directly.
“Know what we’re doing now?” he said, with one of his dry quaint smiles on his weather-beaten face.
“Yes, going up this river.”
“Right, my lad! But we’re going upstairs like. You’ll see we shall keep on rowing along smooth stretches where the water seems easy; then we shall come to rapids and have to pole on against a swift rush of water, and every time we get to the top of the rapid into smooth water we shall have gone up one of my water steps, and so by degrees get right up into the mountains.”
“Why are we going up into the mountains? Is it to get back to the main river?” said Rob.
“Wait a bit, my lad, and you’ll see. Besides, Mr Brazier’ll get plants up here such as he never saw before. But you were talking about the Indians and their blowpipes. I don’t mind the blowpipes; it’s the arrows.”
“Poisonous?”
“Horrid, my lad. They’re only little bits of things with a tuff of cotton at one end and the wood at the other sharpened into a point, but they dip it into poison, and just before they shoot it out of the blowpipe they hold it nipped between the jaws of one of those little sharp-toothed piranis, then give it a bit of a twirl with their fingers, and the teeth saw it nearly through.”
“What’s the use of that?” asked Rob.