By next morning the flood had gone down considerably, but days must elapse before they could once more resume their journey.
What struck Tom now as remarkable was the deep impressive silence by night. Except in the river there was no life about—no beasts or birds of the forest, not even insect life itself. Never a whisper, never a hum, except the little sad lilt the river sang as it went rippling past the island shore.
CHAPTER XII.
“A SHOWER OF POISONED DARTS FELL PATTERING ON THE STOCKADE.”
ONE day about three weeks after the adventure in the floods, as the party were filing over the ridge of a hill, Samaro pointed away towards the horizon with his outstretched arm.
There was a joyful smile on his face.
“At last, señor,” he said, “we come to human beings.”
True; there was a village down there, for blue smoke was curling up over the green of the palm-trees.
Tom was rejoiced. What if Bernard himself were in that village! Perhaps he would be one of the first to come to meet them. And what a strange story it would be his to tell!
Tom could not think of his captain’s son as a slave. No white man ever remained long in a position of actual slavery among Indians; and Bernard, if indeed he were alive, would doubtless be some great chief or warrior.
They were nearing the land of the Jivaro Indians.