On the Banks of the Amazon

by William Henry Giles Kingston

“Well, let me help you down first,” I replied. “We have brought some food, and when you have eaten it we will talk more about what has happened to us. I hope we shall manage somehow or other to reach the shore before this island is carried out to sea.”

“Oh yes, I hope so indeed,” he said. “I have never thought that likely.”

I now set to work to help Arthur down. Duppo stood under the branch and assisted me in placing him at length in a more secure position.

“Oh, I am so thankful you have come!” he kept repeating; “my only anxiety was about you. Still I hoped, as I had so wonderfully escaped, that you might also be safe. All I know is, that I was in the water, and then that I found myself clinging to a bough, and that I gradually pulled myself up out of the water. I believe I fainted, for I found myself lying among a mass of boughs; and when I managed at last to sit up, I discovered that I was floating down the river. Not for some time did I feel any sense of hunger. At length, when I did so, I found, greatly to my satisfaction, that I had my wallet over my shoulders, well stored with provisions. They were, to be sure, wet through; but I ate enough to satisfy the cravings of hunger. In the morning I looked about me, hoping to see you on one of the masses of trees which were floating down the stream round me. You may fancy how sad I felt when I could nowhere distinguish you. I knew, however, that it was wrong to give way to despair, so when the sun came forth I dried the remainder of the food, which has supported me hitherto.”

“But did you feel any pain from your wound?” I asked. “That has been one great anxiety to me. I thought you were truck by a poisoned arrow.”

“No,” he answered. “I pulled it out at once, and had forgotten it, till I felt a pain in my shoulder. Then the dreadful thought that it was poisoned came across me, and I expected, for some time, to feel it working within my system. It was perhaps that which made me faint; but as I did not feel any other ill effects, I began to hope that, either in passing through my jacket the poison had been scraped off, or that it has, as I have heard, but slight noxious effects on salt-eating Europeans.”

I agreed with him that this must be the case; indeed, he complained of only a slight pain in the shoulder where the arrow had struck him. In the darkness which surrounded us, I could do no more than give him some of the food we had brought with us. The remainder of the night we sat on the trunk of the tree, Duppo and I supporting Arthur in our arms, while True crouched down by my side. We could hear the water washing round us, and the wind howling among the branches over our heads. The rain at length ceased, but I felt chilled and cold; and Arthur and Duppo were, I feared, suffering still more. Thus we sat on, doing our best to cheer each other. So long a time had passed since Arthur had been struck by the arrow, that I no longer apprehended any dangerous effects from it. Still, he was very weak from the long exposure and the want of food, and I became more anxious to get him safe on shore, where, at all events, he might obtain shelter and sufficient nourishment. Wherever we might be cast, we should, in all probability, be able to build a hut; and I hoped that with my gun, and Duppo’s bow, we should obtain an ample supply of game.

“Now we have found each other, I am afraid of nothing,” said Arthur.

“Neither am I,” I answered. “Still I fear that Ellen and John will be very unhappy when they do not see us.”

We had been talking for some time, when we felt a violent shock. The water hissed and bubbled up below us, and the mass of trees on which we floated seemed as if they were being torn asunder. Such, indeed, was the case. Duppo uttered a cry of alarm.