The Ocean Cat's Paw: The Story of a Strange Cruise

by George Manville Fenn

  CHAPTER THIRTY THREE.

  COAST LAND.

  "Our skipper's as right as can be, Morny," said Rodd the next evening,as the lad was once more on board the schooner, and they were sailinggently along about a mile from shore, the brig following pretty closebehind with the water streaming down from her scuppers as the work atone of the pumps was still kept up.

  For there was the coast, much as he had described, an undulating line ofthe singular dark green mangrove forest that looked low and dwarfed,and, now that the tide was low, showed to full advantage, the singularramification of its roots giving the bushy forest the appearance ofstanding up upon a wilderness of jagged and tangled scaffolding throughwhich the sea washed over the muddy shore.

  "Not pleasant-looking, gentlemen," said the skipper, coming up to them."Not the sort of place where you would like to settle down and build acountry house."

  "Why, it's horrible," cried Rodd. "But why should it be so muddy here,instead of being all nice clean sand?"

  "Because it's the edge of a low swampy country, my lad, where greatrivers come from inland and bring down the soil of thousands of miles."

  "But I always thought Africa was a sandy desert place where lions wereroving about, and where Mungo Park went travelling to Timbuctoo andplaces like that."

  "Yes, my lad," said the skipper; "but that's the Africa of the oldbooks, and there's plenty of it like that on the east side and up in thenorth and where old Mungo Park went to, no doubt; but all along thiscoast it isn't a dry and thirsty land, but as soon as you get throughthe mangroves, full of great forests and big rivers. Why, look at thesea here. Right away out it was all as clear as crystal; now herethere's mud enough for anything."

  "But we shan't want to stop long in a muddy river with banks like this,captain," said Morny.

  "Don't you be in too great a hurry to judge, sir," said the skipper. "Ihave sailed up one or two of these rivers in my time, and when you gethigher up you will find it very different: big forests with grand trees,rivers with fine water, and places beautiful enough for anything, suchas will satisfy travellers who don't want ports and towns. You and thedoctor, Mr Rodd, will be able to get some fine shooting up there, ifyou like, and fine fishing too. Do you want to get any birds of all thecolours of the rainbow?"

  "Why, of course!" cried Rodd eagerly.

  "Well, there you'll find them, sir--singing birds too, green and goldand scarlet and grey, and some with long tails, and some with short.Only," continued the skipper dryly, and with a grim smile at the twolads, "they don't sing like our birds at home, but in a foreign lingo,all squeak and scream and squawk, through their having crooked hookbeaks. They are what people at home call parrots and parakeets."

  "Oh, that's what you mean!" cried Rodd, laughing.

  "Of course, sir--them as you teaches to talk. Wicked 'uns, some ofthem, ready enough to learn anything the sailors teach them, but sulkyas slugs when you want them to learn anything good."

  "But there are plenty of them, captain?" said Rodd.

  "Thicker than crows at home, sir. Then what do you say to monkeys?"

  "That I should like to see them alive in the forest."

  "Well, there you have them, sir; and you could come across plenty, ifyou went far enough, big as boys."

  "Ah, now you are telling travellers' tales, captain," said Rodd.

  "Nay, my lad, not I. I have seen them as big as boys, only not so tall,because their legs have all gone into arms. Little, short, crookedlegs, they have got, as makes them squatty. But when they stand uptheir arms are so long that they nearly touch the ground. Big as boys?Why, they are bigger! I never saw boys with such big heads. And theyall look as if they had been born old; wrinkled faces and long shaggyblack hair."

  "Now, look here, captain, I don't mind you joking me, but don't playtricks with the Viscount here."

  "Not I, my lad. I am just telling you the honest truth, and you maybelieve me."

  "But where's the river where these things are?"

  "We shall come across one of them before long, sir," said the skipper."I expected to have found one that suited my book hours ago. I was verynearly going up that one just about dinner-time."

  "Oh, but that was only a little inlet," said Rodd.

  "Looked so to you, sir, but all along here the shore's full of inlets,as you call them; but they are deep water and go winding in and out, andperhaps open out into big sheets of water like lagoons, as they callthem. But I am of opinion that if we don't turn into one to-night weshall do so some time to-morrow, and perhaps find just the sort of spotwe want. It we don't we will go a bit farther south."

  "But take us up beyond all this horrible mangrove swamp," said Rodd.

  "You leave that to me, sir," said the skipper. "We have got a good bitof work to do with that brig, and I want to bring my lads out again, andthe Count's too, well and hearty, not half of them eaten up with feverand t'other half sucked into dry skins by the mosquitoes. No, we shallhave to sail right up to where it gets to be a forest and park-likecountry."

  "There'll be no towns?" said Rodd.

  "No, sir, but we might come across a blacks' village, and if we do wecan anchor somewhere on the other shore."

  Another afternoon had come before the mangrove forest seemed to turninland and run right up the country, just as if they had come to the endof that portion of the land; but miles away the skipper pointed out thatthe forest began again and also swept inland, while by using the glassthe lads were able to trace the configuration of the coast, and saw thatthe two lines of coast north and south came together away east.

  "There," said the skipper, "what do you say to this for the mouth of abig river?"

  "River?" said the doctor, coming up.

  "Yes, sir--or estuary, which you like. This is the sort of one thatwill suit us, though as far as I can make out it is not down in mychart. So all the more likely to suit our book."

  "But do you think it's a river, and not a bend of the coast?" asked thedoctor.

  "If it was a bend of the coast, sir, the tide wouldn't be flowing inlike that. It's a good-sized tidal river, sir, and we are going to sailin as far as we can get before dark, and if all turns out as I expect,we shall be carried in past the mangroves and be able to moor to-nightperhaps to forest trees."

  "And if we don't?" said Rodd.

  "Why, then we shall anchor, and find plenty of good holding ground."

  The tide carried them in rapidly, and a nice soft breeze filled thesails, bearing them onward till the mangrove swamp on either hand beganto close in rapidly, while towards evening they were gliding where thebanks were about a mile apart, and just at sunset muddy patches began tomake their appearance, upon which Rodd noticed three times over,portions of the rugged trunks of trees that had been denuded of everybranch as they floated down with the stream.

  All at once, just where the mud glistened ruddily in the rays of thesetting sun, Rodd started, for a thick stumpy tree trunk suddenly beganto move gently, then glided a few feet over the mud, and finally wentinto the river with a tremendous splash.

  "Why, what's that?" cried Rodd excitedly.

  "Croc," grunted the skipper gruffly. "Thousands of them along here."