“Row away, my lads,” said the Spaniard, who seemed to have only one object in life, and that the re-lighting of cigarettes.
“Ay, ay, sir!” cried the men, and they dipped their oars again.
Then on turning a bend of the stream there was a waft of warm wind to fan their cheeks, when the sailors forward stepped the mast, and hoisted the yard of the lug-sail, which filled out at once, the rowers laid in their dripping oars, which seemed to shed diamonds and pearls back into the stream, and away they glided among the glories of the low flat land, through which streams seemed to run like veins, forming a perfect maze of waterways, each if possible more beautiful than the other, while proving wonderfully similar in width and depth, so much so that at last, after winding round bend after bend of the last stream they had entered, the doctor turned suddenly to their guide and said—
“Why, captain, how are we going to find the way back again?”
The captain opened his eyes slightly and smiled, as he took a little compass from his pocket.
“With this,” he said; “but—pah! I could find my way here with my eyes shut. Look; there’s a good place for a fire, and the boys here can get plenty of good fish, if you have a line, for the men to cook.”
At this suggestion Joe Cross handed the tiller to Rodd and made his way forward to the locker, from which he produced a couple of fishing-lines.
The boat was run ashore at a similar patch of sand to that where they had made their previous halt, and while some of the men were collecting dead wood from beneath the trees, there was a sudden rush, and something yellowish dropped with a thud from the nearest great fork, made four or five great bounds through the low bushes, and disappeared.
“Leopard,” said the Spanish captain quietly. “Get out your gun, sir. His mate will not be far away.”
He had hardly spoken before another of the great cats leaped from bough to bough of the huge forest tree they had approached, and disappeared in turn, escaping unscathed.