“Patron,” said the Indian, as soon as he had recovered his breath, “you wonder why the Mundurucú took all that trouble for a macana, while he might have killed the jacaré without it. True, the knife was weapon enough. Pa terra! Yes. But it would not cause instant death. The rascal could dive with both eyes scooped out of their sockets, and live for hours afterwards. Ay, it could have carried me twenty miles through the Gapo, half the distance under water. Where would old Munday have been then? Drowned and dead, long before the jacaré itself. Ah, patron, a good knock on the hollow of its head is the best way to settle scores with a jacaré.”
And as if all scores had been now settled with this fellow, the huge saurian, to all appearance dead, passed unheeded out of sight, the current of the Gapo drifting it slowly away. They did not wait for its total disappearance, and while its hideous body, turned belly upward, with its human-like hands stiffly thrust above the surface, was yet in sight, they resumed their preparations for vacating a tenement of which all were heartily tired, with that hopeful expectancy which springs from a knowledge that the future cannot be worse than the present. Richard had reported many curious trees, some bearing fruits that appeared to be eatable, strung with llianas, here and there forming a network that made it easy to find comfort among their branches. If there had been nothing else to cheer them, the prospect of escaping from their irksome attitudes was of itself sufficient; and influenced by this, they eagerly prepared for departure.
As almost everything had been already arranged for ferrying the party, very little remained to be done. From the hermetically closed monkey-cups the Mundurucú had manufactured five swimming-belts,—this number being all that was necessary, for he and the young Paraense could swim ten times the distance without any adventitious aid. The others had their share of empty shells meted out according to their weight and need of help. Rosa’s transport required particular attention. The others could make way themselves, but Rosa was to be carried across under the safe conduct of the Indian.
So when every contingency had been provided for, one after another slipped down from the fork, and quietly departed from a tree that, however uncomfortable as a residence, had yet provided them with a refuge in the hour of danger.
Chapter Thirty Three.
A Half-Choked Swimmer.
Munday led off, towing little Rosa after him by a sipo, one end fastened to his girdle, and the other around her waist. Trevannion followed close behind, Ralph a little farther off, with Richard keeping abreast of his cousin and helping him along. Mozey swam next; Tipperary Tom, who was last to leave the tree, brought up the rear. The ouistiti had found a berth on the shoulders of young Ralph, who, buoyed up by a good supply of air-vessels, swam with his back above water. As for the macaw and coaita, the desperate circumstances in which our adventurers were placed rendered it not only inconvenient, but out of the question, to trouble themselves with such pets; and it had been agreed that they must be abandoned. Both, therefore, were left upon the tree. With the macaw it was a matter of choice whether it should stay there. By simply spreading out its great hyacinthine wings it could keep pace with its ci-devant protectors; and they had hardly left the tree, when the bird, giving a loud scream, sprang from its perch, hovered a moment in the air, and then, flying down, alighted on Mozey’s wool-covered cranium, making him hide his astonished head quickly under water. The arara, affrighted at having wetted its feet, instantly essayed to soar up again; but its curving talons, that had clutched too eagerly in the descent, had become fixed, and all its attempts to detach them were in vain. The more it struggled, the tighter became the tangle; while its screams, united with the cries of the negro, pealed over the water, awaking far echoes in the forest. It was sometime before Mozey succeeded in untwisting the snarl that the arara had spun around its legs, and not until he had sacrificed several of his curls was the bird free to trust once more to its wings.
We have said, that by some mystic influence the big monkey had become attached to Tipperary Tom, and the attachment was mutual. Tom had not taken his departure from the tree without casting more than one look of regret back among the branches, and under any other circumstances he would not have left the coaita behind him. It was only in obedience to the inexorable law of self-preservation that he had consented to the sacrifice. The monkey had shown equal reluctance at parting, in looks, cries, and gestures. It had followed its friend down to the fork, and after he had slipped into the water it appeared as if it would follow him, regardless of both instinct and experience, for it could not swim. These, however, proved strong enough to restrain its imprudence, and after its protector had gone it stood trembling and chattering in accents that proclaimed the agony of that unexpected separation. Any one listening attentively to its cries might have detected in the piteous tones the slightest commingling of reproach. How could it be otherwise to be thus deserted? Left to perish, in fact; for although the coaita was perfectly at home upon the sapucaya, and could live there as long as the nuts lasted, there was not the slightest chance of its getting away from the tree. It must stay there till the vasante, till the flood fell, and that would not be for months. Long before that it must undoubtedly perish, either by drowning or starvation.