Presently the boat shot into the belt of smooth water that Dick’s keen eye had detected, and Phil seized a paddle and plunged it over the side, to withdraw it a moment later and inspect it by the light of the moon.
“Four foot of water, with any quantity of soft black mud under it,” he announced. “If thicky galley keeps as she is going for another five minutes, Dick, she’ll be stuck so hard and fast in that same mud that she’ll have something else to think about than chasing us. Ah!” as the boat luffed round a small mangrove-covered island, and the galley was shut out from view, “there goes their last chance of hitting us with their footy ordnance—with a murrain on them!”
The fugitives now suddenly found themselves sailing through a labyrinth of small, mangrove-covered islets intersected by water lanes so narrow and winding that they were only able to sail the boat along them by exercising the utmost care and vigilance. This intricate and difficult navigation continued for nearly three hours, at the end of which time they suddenly emerged from the maze of islets and found themselves in a stream of thick, muddy water, averaging about a quarter of a mile in width, with low banks fringed by mangrove trees, beyond which it was occasionally possible to catch glimpses of more lofty vegetation. The water here was so deep that, except when close to the bank on either side, it was impossible to reach bottom with a six-foot paddle; but when they had traversed the river far enough to enable them to get a vista of a clear mile astern of them there was still no sign of the galley, which they therefore concluded had been unable to pass the mud bar at the entrance of the river.
The course of the stream which they were now following was, approximately, north-north-east, for a distance of about twenty-two miles, which was traversed in a trifle over four hours. Here the river suddenly bent sharply round in a south-easterly direction; the mangroves disappeared, being replaced by a thick fringe of reeds, the banks of the river gradually increased in height, and were covered to the water’s edge with a thick tangle of bushes, amid which towered the outposts of a forest of magnificent trees that could be seen stretching away for miles ahead. The fugitives considered that they were now well beyond all likelihood of pursuit, and the thick beds of reeds which fringed the river at frequent intervals afforded them excellent opportunities for concealment; but the wind continued favourable, and the moon afforded them ample light; they therefore determined to press forward so long as the conditions continued favourable, one of them remaining on watch and steering the boat while the other slept.
In this fashion they sped up the stream hour after hour, all through the night, the width of the waterway remaining about the same, but the character of the country ever-changing, the banks in places rising to a height of quite a hundred feet, here in the form of a gentle, tree-clad slope, and there towering precipitously, a rocky face, with overhanging bushes and great clumps of fern springing from every fissure. At length the moon sank beneath the tree-tops on the western bank, and the light became so uncertain that the voyagers were seriously debating the advisability of seeking a suitable spot in which to tie up the boat, when a sudden chilliness in the wind warned them that the dawn was at hand, and a few minutes later the sky to the eastward paled, so that the tops of the trees stood out against the pallor black as though drawn in Indian ink, the stars dimmed and blinked out, one after another, the eastern pallor became suffused with delicate primrose that rapidly warmed into clear amber, a beam of golden light flashed through the branches of the trees on the eastern bank of the river, and in a moment the whole scene changed as if by magic, a thousand lovely tints of green, blue, orange, crimson, and white, leapt into view as daylight flooded the landscape, revealing great masses of flowering shrubs and enormous festoons of queer-shaped and gorgeously coloured orchids; colibris that flashed like living gems darted hither and thither; flocks of gaily plumaged parrots winged their way, screaming discordantly, across the stream; brilliantly painted kingfishers darted like streams of living fire from bough to bough, or perched staring intently down into the water from some overhanging branch; enormous butterflies of exquisite colours, and dragon-flies with transparent rose-tinted wings flitted inconsequently over the surface of the water and were leaped at by fish as brilliantly tinted as themselves—and it was day in the South American forest. Half an hour later, as the boat rounded a low bluff, a break in the forest appeared ahead, beyond which a wide expanse of water was seen sparkling in the rays of the early morning sun; and presently the boat shot out of the stream which she had been traversing all night, and the wanderers found themselves floating upon the bosom of a magnificent river about a mile wide, flowing as nearly as might be due north.
For a few seconds the young Englishmen were silent, lost in admiration at the spaciousness, the grandeur, and the tropical luxuriance and beauty of the scene upon which their gaze rested entranced; then Dick broke the silence by murmuring:
“Now, what river is this, I wonder? Surely it cannot be the Magdalena, of which we have heard so many wonderful stories? And yet, if it is not, I know not what river it can be. The Magdalena lies somewhere in this direction, I believe, and—but what matters the name? It is a superb waterway, however it may be called, the current is not so strong but that we can easily stem it with the help of our sail, and it comes from the direction in which we want to go. What say you, Phil? Which is it to be, north or south?”
“South, of course,” answered Stukely; “why ask such a totally unnecessary question?” He spoke with so much irritation of manner that Dick looked at him anxiously, fearing that he might be suffering from a slight touch of fever. But no, there was nothing in Stukely’s appearance to suggest that he was suffering either from fever or any other malady; but he was glancing about him keenly, eagerly, yet with a puzzled expression, as though he recognised what he was looking at, but could not understand why he recognised it. And his next words conveyed precisely the same impression, for he murmured, as though speaking to himself:
“Now, this is most extraordinary! This scene is absolutely familiar to me; I seem to have gazed upon it—or upon something precisely similar to it in every respect, thousands of times before. Look at those gigantic ceibas yonder; those long, trailing ropes of purple orchids; see those flamingoes with their scarlet, black-barred wings, their long thin legs, and their curiously twisted beaks; observe those graceful white birds with their handsome crested heads; ay, and even the very monkeys swinging down by the creepers to dip up the water and drink it out of the palms of their hands; it is all much more familiar and homelike to me than ever was the scenery of Devon. Yet I have never been here before, unless indeed it has been in my dreams. But could a dream, or even a series of dreams, impart to me the perfect knowledge that I seem to possess of everything upon which my eye rests? Now, yonder, for instance, is a tree out of which I used to make—I mean that in some strange way I seem to know that splendid bows can be made out of the wood of that particular tree; and there, growing close beneath its shade, in the water, is a clump of rushes which, when dried in the sun, make perfect shafts for arrows. And that reminds me, Dick, that, since we must save our powder and shot for very special occasions, we ought to provide ourselves with bows and a good stock of arrows, if only to enable us to procure game. Now, I know perfectly well, in some mysterious manner, how to make bows and arrows; and since the materials for making both are at this moment before our eyes, we ought to avail ourselves of the opportunity. Don’t you think so?”
“Certainly,” answered Dick. “Though what you mean by saying that you know what particular kinds of trees make the best bows, and all the rest of it, I confess I don’t understand.”