A fair breeze sprang up with the sun, and the boat glided up stream for many miles before a halt was called, in a bend where the wind railed them. Here, as on previous occasions, a fire was lit, and the breakfast prepared and eaten almost in silence, for Brazier’s thoughts were far up the river and away among the secret recesses of nature, where he hoped to be soon gazing upon vegetation never yet seen by civilised man, while Rob and Joe were just as thoughtful, though their ideas ran more upon the wild beasts and lovely birds of this tropic land, into which as they penetrated mile after mile it was to see something ever fresh and attractive.
Shaddy, too, was very silent, and sat scanning the western shore more and more attentively as the hours passed, and they were once more gliding up stream, the wind serving again and again as they swept round some bend.
The sun grew higher, and the heat more intense, the slightest movement as they approached noon making a dew break out over Rob’s brow; but the warmth was forgotten in the beauty of the shore and the abundance of life visible around.
But at last the heat produced such a sense of drowsiness that Rob turned to Joe.
“I say, wouldn’t an hour or two be nice under the shade of a tree?”
“Yes,” said Brazier, who had overheard him. “We must have a rest now; the sides of the boat are too hot to touch. Hullo! where are we going?” he continued. “Why, he’s steering straight for the western shore.”
Brazier involuntarily stooped and took his gun from where it hung in loops under the canvas awning, and then stood watching the dense wall of verdure they were approaching till, as they drew nearer, their way was through acres upon acres of lilies, whose wide-spreading leaves literally covered the calm river with their dark green discs, dotted here and there with great buds or dazzlingly white blossoms.
The boat cut its way through these, leaving a narrow canal of clear water at first, in which fish began to leap as if they had been disturbed; but before the boat had gone very far the leaves gradually closed in, and no sign of its passage was left.
“I don’t see where we are to land,” said Brazier, as he stood in front of the canvas cabin scanning the shore.
“No; there is no place,” said Rob, as they glided out of the lily field into clear water, the great wall of trees tangled together with creepers being now about two hundred yards away.