Chapter Eighty Three.
Following the Float.
Unfortunately for our adventurers, as well as for the cow-fish itself, other eyes than those of the tapuyo had been watching the gambols of the two cetaceans, and had paid particular attention to the one now taking its siesta on the surface. Neither Munday nor his companions had any suspicion of this; for, excepting the peixe-boi itself, no living creature was in sight. Having observed it for a considerable length of time, still reclining in its attitude of repose, they had almost ceased to think of it; when all at once it was seen to spring clear out of the water, and, after making two or three grotesque plunges, sink suddenly below the surface!
The action was too violent and unnatural to be voluntary. The peixe-boi had evidently been assailed in its sleep by some enemy, from which it was but too eager to retreat.
But what could this enemy be? The tapuyo knew of nothing under the water that was likely to have made the attack. There are no sharks nor swordfish in the Gapo, and an alligator would scarcely dare to meddle with a creature of such enormous dimensions. Much less could an enemy have come from the air. There is no bird in South America, not even the great condor itself, that would think of swooping down upon a peixe-boi.
Some of the party said that they had seen something glancing towards the cow-fish at the moment it made the leap,—something that looked like a flash of lightning! What could that be? There was no cloud in the sky, no thunder. It could not have been lightning.
“Pa terra!” exclaimed the tapuyo, in evident alarm. “I know what it was. Keep quiet or we are lost!”
“What was it?”
“A harpoon,—look yonder, patron! Don’t you see the water in motion where the juarouá went down?”
“Certainly I do. That’s very natural. The waves are caused by the plunging of the animal.”