“It was hardly worth while wasting arrows, you see?” said Grôm, standing erect on the raft and watching the scene with brooding interest.
“Do you suppose those swimming beasts with the great jaws can get at us here?” demanded A-ya with a shudder.
“While this thing that carries us holds together, I think we can fight them off,” replied Grôm. And straightway he set himself to examine how securely the trees were interknit. The trunks had been piled by flood one upon another, and the structure seemed substantial; but to further strengthen it he set all to work interweaving the free branches and such creepers as the mass contained, with the skill that came of much practice in the weaving of tree-top nests.
When all was done that could be done, the voyagers 272 took time to look about them. They had by now been swept far out into the river, and the shores on either side seemed low and remote. A-ya felt oppressed, the face of the waters seeming to her so vast, inscrutable and menacing. She stole close up to Grôm and edged herself under his massive arm for reassurance. The little scout sat like a monkey between two branches, and scratched his hairy arms, and, with an expression of pleased interest, scanned the water for the approach of new foes. As for Grôm, he was entranced. This, at last, was what he had really come in search of, the stuff for arrows being merely his excuse to himself. This was the utterly new experience, the new achievement. He was traveling by water, not in it, but upon it––upborne, dry and without discomfort, upon its surface.
For a little while he did not ask whither he was being borne. To his surprise the crocodiles and other formidable water-dwellers, which were quite unknown to him, paid them no attention whatever; and he concluded that they looked upon the raft as nothing more than a mass of floating driftwood containing nothing for them to eat. He could see them everywhere about, swimming with brute snouts half above water or basking on sandy spits of shore. Then he observed that the current was bearing them gradually towards that further shore which he so longed to visit, and he thrilled with new anticipation. But when, after perhaps an hour, the capricious tide blew them again to mid-stream, a new idea took possession of him. 273 He must find some way of influencing the direction of their voyage. He could not long relinquish himself to the blind whim and chance of the current.
Just as he was beginning to grapple with this problem, A-ya anticipated his thought––as he had noticed that she often did. Looking up at him through her tossed hair, she enquired where they were going.
“I am just trying to think,” he answered, “how to make this thing take us where we want to go.”
“If the water is not too deep, couldn’t you push with your long spear?” suggested the girl.
Acting at once on the suggestion, Grôm leaned over the edge and thrust the spear straight downwards. But he could find no bottom.
“It is too deep,” said he, “but I’ll find a way.”