Motor Matt in Brazil; or, Under The Amazon

by Stanley R. Matthews

Bingham got hold of the string, but with the first stabbing of the tropic night by the shrieking whistle there came a sudden shiver through the ship, a violent scraping, and a bumping on the plates below water. The siren stopped short, and the telegraph handle was suddenly dragged over to full speed astern while Captain Bingham said things. The propeller swirled up whirlpools of mud, and cast up enough crushed marigold smell to choke them; but the ship did not move, and Captain Bingham let his soul go out in bitterness.

"We've got to wait till daylight, anyhow," he said finally. "We're fast, and we can't do anything till we can see what's holding us."

Meanwhile things were happening ashore. For three days Jim Dean had sweated, a prisoner in his own office. He had seen little of Da Silva, one big negro, who smoked black cigars all day long, and wore a nautical cap, being his guard. The black seemed to possess the faculty of infinite wakefulness. If he ever slept he did not seem to. His eyes were always open, dreamily watching the smoke from his tobacco. Dean thought and thought, and produced nothing. The negro was twice his size, armed and wakeful. He, while not trussed up, had the area of his activity circumscribed by a thong fastened round his waist and made fast to the floor. The odds were too great for any effective dealing with the situation, until by accident he alighted on a small possibility of at least freeing himself. And with freedom of movement much was possible. He wriggled on the floor.

A prick in the calf of his leg betrayed the point of a nail sticking up in the floor. He altered his position so that he could get a bend of the thong against the nail point, and then he tried gently rubbing it, or rather letting the nail peck at the hide. There was not much strength in the nail, so that the operation had to be done with care; but it was done ultimately, and when there fell on Dean's surprised ears the fragmentary shriek of the steamer's siren he was both ready and able to go!

He fell on the negro as though a steel spring propelled him, and he bowled him over, and hammered the black head on the floor before the brain inside the woolly skull had awakened to what was happening. It was a thick skull, but the blow was in proportion, and the big body rolled over on the floor.

Possessing himself of the black's revolver, sheath knife, and belt, and the nautical cap to save his head from thorns, Dean slipped out from the veranda and down into the garden.

But this had not been done without some noise, and as Dean ran away toward the gate of the inclosure, he heard voices in the darkness, and cries of warning and alarm. The door of the inclosure was fast. Precious moments were wasted unbolting it. By the time he was fleeing across the strip of beach he knew he was pursued. He ran along the water's edge as far as he could till the thick brake of mangroves, which succeeded the beach, prevented him, for they grew right to the edge of the water, and the giant twisted roots snaked far out into the very slime of the river itself.

He struck into the thick mass of vegetation, away from the river, but keeping as near parallel to the bank as he could. Ropes of prickly creeper held him again and again. Boughs of sickly sweet blossoms dashed against his face, and to force his way through the tangled mass of greenery he had to slash out with his knife at almost every step. Then he made for the river bank again.

He could hear the pounding of the ship's propeller, and he rightly guessed she was struggling to get free from the trap that she had got into. He came out upon the river bank and picked his way through the sprawling roots of the mangroves. He sank knee-deep into the slime, then he made a plunge and bore out into the river. He could see the steamer scarce a hundred yards away, and he put his best work into his swimming, not the less because he knew there were crocodiles in the water.

He had not covered more than half the distance when he heard the sound of paddles no great way off. He looked over half a shoulder, and he saw a dug-out canoe shoot from the shore with half a dozen paddles at work. He swam till every muscle and sinew ached with the strain. He tore through the water, and grasped a rope that hung over the cathead of the Athena, thirty yards ahead of the pursuing canoe. He was over the edge of the forecastle just as the canoe came below. A moment later, with the water dripping from him, he had turned, and was firing at the black heads that sprang up above the cathead. A short spear plunged at his head, and stuck quivering into the forecastle planks; but two big splashes followed his shots, and there came a discordant chorus of yells from below, that a moment later was broken into by a deep-throated cry of inquiry from the bridge.