Jup shrugged his shoulders. “Me only tell massa what oders say,” he answered.
At last, beginning to grow hungry, we agreed to stop paddling and take some food, while Jup steered. The meat we had cooked was already rather high. We had only some small flour-cakes, and some baked roots to eat with it. Hunger, however, prevented us from being fastidious, and we had plenty of water alongside to wash it down.
As I was dipping my tin mug into the lake, a huge snout suddenly rose, and very nearly caught my hand, as well as the mug. Tim gave the monster a whack with his paddle, which made it quickly sink again. It was a lesson to us to be careful how we put our hands into the water. The wind now dropped, and the sun beat down with intense force on our heads; but we had to endure it and paddle on, for it was important to get on dry ground before darkness should overtake us.
“Hurrah!” I exclaimed, as I put my pole into the water; “I can touch the bottom. We shall soon be making better progress than hitherto.”
I was right. The water shoaled rapidly. By shoving along with our poles, we made the raft move twice as fast as before. At length a line of tall reeds rose before us. The sight was not encouraging, for we could neither force the raft onwards, nor make our own way through them on foot. We therefore turned southward, hoping to find some dry ground at no great distance from the water. On and on we went, but still we could see only reeds and swamp. At last we caught sight of some pines; most welcome they were, as they betokened a dry and sandy soil. We now came to a bay. Although lined with a narrow belt of reeds, we hoped to force our way through them. We accordingly ran our raft onwards as far as it would move, then wishing it farewell, with many thanks for the service it had rendered us, we plunged into the reeds—Tim, as the strongest of the party, leading the way, and holding his gun over his head in case he should unexpectedly fall into an unseen hole. Sometimes we were up to our waists in water. Still we worked our way forward. At last Tim gave a shout of satisfaction as he landed on dry ground. We all quickly followed, poor Caesar panting and blowing with his exertions as he made his way after us. Clouds of mosquitoes and other stinging insects had been attacking us in our progress, but we were by this time too well inured to them to think much about the matter. We agreed, at all hazards, to push on to the pine-ridge which we saw before us, that we might encamp there for the night.
As soon as we gained a spot of sufficient height to overlook the lake, we turned anxiously round to ascertain whether the Indians were following us, but we could see them nowhere on the water. We were still, however, uncertain whether or not they would pursue us by land, and Jup and I again climbed to the top of a high tree, to try and obtain a look-out over the country to the northward. To our relief nothing moving was seen; so descending, we made our way with our companions to the ridge.
It was hopeless to seek for any place of concealment in the hollows; besides the dangers from animals, we were certain to be attacked by innumerable stinging insects, and to run the risk of being bitten by poisonous snakes. We therefore lighted our fire on the top of the ridge.
Lejoillie, Carlos, and I went off with our guns in search of game, as we had exhausted our stock of provisions. We had gone on farther than we intended, when on looking round we could nowhere see the smoke of our fire; while a bank of clouds which had risen in the west, and gradually spread over the sky prevented us, as we had expected to be able to do, from making the sun our guide.
Lejoillie had shot a turkey; but as this was insufficient for our party, we were anxious to kill some larger game. We were still pursuing our search, and not far apart, when Carlos exclaimed, “See here! I have found a creature which will show us our way. Come here quickly and try it.”
