Stocking the Larder
As they watched from the canoe a graceful deer darted out of the thicket closely pursued by a full-grown jaguar. No sooner had he slain his prey than the two Indians coolly approached and planted one arrow in his neck and another in his ribs, and while one of them dragged away the carcase of the deer, the other put an end to the jaguar with his spear.
“Why should not the tigre save us the trouble of hunting?” said one, disdaining all pretence at silence.
Just then the roar was repeated, this time more ear-splitting than before; the yell of a beast in great pain. Mansfield peered through the bushes and saw the Guaranis walking in very leisurely manner towards the place where the deer had fallen. Almost as its assailant—a full-grown male jaguar—put an end to its struggles by taking the head between its immense paws and breaking the neck, two arrows had pierced him simultaneously; one through the ribs and the other through the neck, and the howl which the watchers in the boat had heard was his last.
The taller of the Indians dragged the deer’s carcase free, while his companion contemptuously drove his spear-blade into the expiring jaguar, and the venison was quickly butchered and brought in triumph to the canoe. The two hunters chuckled as they got into the boat; they had now enough food for to-day’s needs and meant to take it easy: another difference between the Indian who lives within the tropics and him who lives outside; only hunger or strict business will prompt the one to exert himself to go a-hunting; the other is a sportsman born.
No event worth chronicling befell the little crew till, a day or two later, they were within ten miles of Asuncion. The canoemen were dipping their paddles lazily, and Mansfield himself was inclined to doze, for it was getting towards the middle of the day, when a 236 horrified whisper, which he could not catch, passed from mouth to mouth. In an instant the Guaranis threw off their lethargy, and the explorer saw that a look of terror had come into every eye; the paddles flew through the water, the men straining till the sweat streamed down their faces, and till their veins swelled as though they must burst.
He spoke encouragingly to them, but obtained no answer; the Indians only paddled the faster, till their panic began to communicate itself to him; for it is always the unknown that is most terrifying. Two minutes passed, and they did not abate their speed or answer the questions put to them. Surely it could not be anything so very awful, for, only ten minutes before, a schooner-rigged vessel had overtaken them on its way up the river; whatever the peril was, she seemed to have escaped it. Mansfield had known what danger was, for he had worked like a hero among the poor of South London during the cholera outbreak of five years before; but, when the third minute had passed, he found that the suspense was becoming unbearable. A minute is a short time, but those who have passed through great danger or uncertainty know that it can sometimes seem like a week.
“Well; now what was it?” he asked, breaking into a laugh as the men, uttering exclamations of relief, rested on their paddles and wiped their brows.
“Hornets!”