Chapter Forty Three.
Two Slumberers Ducked.
It was somewhere among the mid-hours of the night, and all appeared to be as sound asleep as if reclining upon couches of eider-down. Not a voice was heard among the branches of the Brazil-nut,—not a sound of any kind, if we except the snore that proceeded from the spread nostrils of the negro, and that of a somewhat sharper tone from the nasal organ of the Irishman. Sometimes they snored together, and for several successive trumpetings this simultaneity would be kept up. Gradually, however, one would get a little ahead, and then the two snorers would be heard separately, as if the two sleepers were responding to each other in a kind of dialogue carried on by their noses. All at once this nasal duet was interrupted by a rustling among the boughs upon which rested Tipperary Tom. The rustling was succeeded by a cry, quickly followed by a plunge.
The cry and the plunge woke everybody upon the tree; and while several inquired the cause of the disturbance, a second shout, and a second plunge, instead of affording a clue to the cause of alarm, only rendered the matter more mysterious. There was a second volley of interrogatories, but among the inquiring voices two were missing,—those of Mozey and the Irishman. Both, however, could now be heard below; not very articulate, but as if their owners were choking. At the same time there was a plashing and a plunging under the tree, as if the two were engaged in a struggle for life.
“What is it? Is it you, Tom? Is it you, Mozey?” were the questions that came thick and fast from those still upon the tree.
“Och! ach!—I’m chokin’!—I’m—ach—drown—ach—drownin’!—Help! help!” cried a voice, distinguishable as the Irishman’s, while Mozey’s was exerted in a similar declaration.
All knew that Tom could not swim a stroke. With the Mozambique it was different. He might sustain himself above water long enough to render his rescue certain. With Tom no time was to be lost, if he was to be saved from a watery grave; and, almost with his cry for help, Richard Trevannion and the Mundurucú plunged in after him.
For a time, Trevannion himself and his two children could hear, underneath them, only a confused medley of sounds,—the splashing of water mingled with human voices, some speaking, or rather shouting, in accents of terror, others in encouragement. The night was dark; but had it been ever so clear, even had the full moon been shining above, her beams could not have penetrated through the spreading branches of the Brazil-nut, melted and lined as they were with thorns and leafy llianas.
It would seem an easy task for two such swimmers as the Indian and Paraense to rescue Tipperary Tom from his peril. But it was not quite so easy. They had got hold of him, one on each side, as soon as the darkness allowed them to discern him. But this was not till they had groped for some time; and then he was found in such a state of exhaustion that it required all the strength of both to keep his chin above the surface.
Mozey was fast becoming as helpless as Tom, being more than half paralysed by the fright he had got from being precipitated into the water while still sound asleep. Such a singular awaking was sufficient to have confused a cranium of higher intellectual development than that of the Mozambique.