Next morning the travellers started early, being anxious to pass, as quietly as possible, a small Portuguese town, near to which it was said a party of runaway slaves and rebels against the Government were engaged in making depredations.
When grey dawn was beginning to rise above the tree-tops, they left their encampment in profound silence, and rowed up stream as swiftly as possible. They had not advanced far, when, on turning a point covered with tall reeds, Zombo, who was bowman in the leading canoe, suddenly made a sign to the men to cease rowing.
“What’s the matter?” whispered Harold.
The negro pointed through the reeds, and whispered the single word “Canoe.”
By this time the other canoe had ranged up alongside, and after a brief consultation between Harold and Disco, it was decided that they should push gently into the reeds, and wait till the strange canoe should pass; but a few seconds sufficed to show that the two men who paddled it did not intend to pass down the river, for they pushed straight out towards the deepest part of the stream. They were, however, carried down so swiftly by the current that they were brought quite near to the point of rushes where our travellers lay concealed—so near that their voices could be distinctly heard. They talked in Portuguese.
Antonio muttered a few words, and Harold observed that there was a good deal of excitement in the looks of his men.
“What’s the matter?” he asked anxiously.
Antonio shook his head. “Dat nigger goin’ to be drownded,” he said; “bad nigger—obstropolous nigger, suppose.”
“Wot!” exclaimed Disco in a whisper, “goin’ to be drownded! wot d’ee mean?”
Antonio proceeded to explain that it was a custom amongst the Portuguese slave-owners there, when they found any of their slaves intractable or refractory, to hire some individuals who, for a small sum, would bind and carry off the incorrigible for the purpose of making away with him. One method of effecting this was to tie him in a sack and throw him into the river, the crocodiles making quite sure that the unfortunate being should never again be seen, either alive or dead. But before Antonio had finished his brief explanation he was interrupted by an exclamation from the horrified Englishmen, as they beheld the two men in the canoe raise something between them which for a moment appeared to struggle violently.