The jungle had become a place of death and terror. He had a sinking feeling that there was more trouble ahead.
To make matters worse, Roger had come down with fever. He had been too careless about taking his daily dose of malaria-preventing atebrin and keeping his mosquito net closely drawn around his hammock at night.
He lay in the toldo of the montaria with the boa constrictor and a few other animals to keep him company.
Hal had begun to hope that they were rid of Croc; but one day he heard war drums beating and, as his fleet rounded a point, he saw an Indian village on fire. That looked like Croc’s work. He felt sure of it when he saw Croc’s boat drawn up on the beach.
Hal did not feel able to interfere. With Roger sick and Aqua gone he could not fight Croc’s gang. He hoped only that he could get by without being seen.
Some five miles farther downstream he pulled in for the night to a sheltered landing place behind a point.
As the men made camp, they stopped every few moments to listen. The drums of the burned village could still be heard. The rhythm was taken up by other drums behind the camp and downstream, and then in unseen villages on the other side of the river. The whole forest seemed to throb with the threat of the drums.
Hal’s men were very nervous. They huddled together and whispered. Banco seemed to be stirring them up. Hal walked over to the group.
‘What’s the matter, Banco?’
‘The drums, senhor. The men are afraid of the drums.’
‘Why, are they afraid? Indians would not hurt Indians.’
They are not of the same tribe. The Indians in this forest are very savage. They hate the white man. Perhaps white men have attacked them today. They seek revenge. If they find you they will kill you, and all who serve you.’
Hal laughed. ‘I don’t think it’s as bad as you
make out, Banco.’ Many times on the trip he had noticed that Banco’s liver was pretty white.
The men had gone out on the cape and were jabbering excitedly and pointing upstream. Hal joined them.
Against a red sunset the smoke of the destroyed village rose into the sky. But it was not this that attracted the attention of the men. A boat was coming downstream. Hal could count nine men in it, but not one of them was paddling.
In fact, they did not move at all. They might as well have been sacks of meal. No sound of conversation came across the water.
A chill began to creep through Hal’s veins. He noticed that a strange terror had gripped his own men.
Again he studied the men in the boat. They were much closer now. Still they did not move. Hal strained his eyes in the failing light. He could see no heads on the men. Of course he would see them in a moment. Every man had to have a head.
The current carried the boat within fifty feet of the point. Banco screamed like a woman. Hal had to believe it now. Nine headless men sat in the boat. Their size and their bloodstained shirts made it plain that they were not Indians.
They must be Croc’s cut-throats, their own throats were now cut by the vengeful Indians whose goods they had tried to steal and whose village they had fired. Then the Indians had arranged this gruesome exhibit and sent it downstream as a warning to all and sundry.
Along with his horror, Hal felt a vague sense of relief. This must mean that he no longer needed to fear Croc. As for the Indians, he had never yet found any reason to fear them if they were treated fairly.
He went back to the camp site and strung up his hammock and Roger’s. There was no camp fire that night.
The men usually slept on shore but tonight they preferred to lie in the montaria. To make more room for themselves they transferred what few animals it contained to the Ark.
Roger was always dead to the world when asleep and Hal, thoroughly tired, slept soundly in spite of the drums. Once, half awake, he thought there was a slight commotion on the montaria — then he slept again.
Chapter 25
Deserted
Hal was awakened by the sun in his face. He stretched lazily, put his arm over his eyes, and rested.
He always enjoyed these few moments in the morning — lying at ease, listening to other men work. The Indians would be gathering fuel for the fire. It would be a little difficult, for there had been rain during the night. The water still dripped from the strip of canvas stretched above Hal’s hammock.
There would be the chatter of Indian voices, the clatter of pans, the smell of woodsmoke, and then the smell of coffee.
But all this ought to be already going on. The men usually turned out just before sunrise. He could hear nothing — nothing but the ordinary forest sounds and the continued angry mutter of Indian drums.
He uncovered his eyes and looked out into the camp site where a breakfast of turtle’s eggs, baked curassow, and coffee ought to be on the fire. There was no one in the camp site. This would not do. The men were getting lazy. He would soon fix that. Hal climbed from his hammock and pushed out into the clearing. He started for the montaria which had been moored close to the beach.
Then he stopped, puzzled. The montaria was gone.
The fear of the future that had come to him when Aqua was killed flooded back upon him. But perhaps the men had just gone fishing.
He knew he was fooling himself. They would not all have gone — some would have stayed to attend to the morning fire.
He went out on the point. He could see far downstream and up. There was no boat.
There was no use kidding himself. His crew, fearing the wrath of the local tribes, had set out for home. He could thank Banco for this. Only Banco could have persuaded them to abandon two boys in the jungle.
They had taken his boat. He had to admit that this was fair enough, for he owed them money. But probably they had also stolen everything else they could lay their hands on.
He went back to the bay and boarded the Ark. At least they had not made off with that. The animals had not been touched and they joined in demanding breakfast. Hal examined the supplies, nets, fishing gear, canned foods, valuable papers, medicines, guns, and ammunition. Not a thing had been touched.
That was to the credit of his crew. But it did not change the fact that he and Roger were now alone against the jungle — and Roger lay helpless in his hammock. The Indians were on the warpath. Hal thought of the gruesome sight of the evening before. It was not hard to imagine that soon two more headless bodies might be floating down the Amazon.
He heard a faint call from Roger. He took the boy a drink of water and his morning dose of quinine. Roger’s forehead was very hot. Hal told him what had happened.
Roger was too sick to care. His mind wandered a little and he did not quite grasp what Hal told him.
‘Why can’t you let me sleep?’ he said peevishly.
Hal let him sleep while he went to get something together for breakfast. He found himself making all his movements to the rhythm of the drums. Would those drums never stop?
He gave Roger a spoon-fed meal of eggs and coffee. Then he took his rifle and went out to find food for some of his animals — especially the anaconda which was too restless for the good of its cage. It had whipped all the water out of its tank. There was no use putting in more until the snake was satisfied. Then it might lie still.
Hal followed the shore downstream, hoping to find an animal coming to the river to drink.
Suddenly he saw, to his great astonishment, what he took to be an Indian standing waist deep in the water and, beside him, an Indian woman with a child in her arms. Another look, and he realized that these were not Indians. As he came closer he could make out their tiny slits of eyes, blunt noses, and thick lips.
Sailors in tropical seas had often been fooled just as Hal had been. Many a sea-going man had sworn that he had seen a creature with the body of a woman and the tail of a fish sitting on a rock combing her hair or suckling her child. Possibly it was in this way that the legend of the mermaid had begun.
But at close range Hal saw that this madonna of the Amazon
had none of the beauty we like to think of as belonging to the mermaid. Her face and that of her gentleman friend were as homely as the face of a cow. And Hal knew that he was looking at the sea cow, the manatee, or, as the Brazilians call it, the fish ox.
There they sat on their tails among the weeds, the female feeding her baby, the male nibbling at water lilies, their erect bodies swaying slightly in the swell that came in from the Amazon.
What mammoths they were! If the parts concealed by the water were in proportion to the parts he could see, each of the animals must be at least ten feet long and weigh a ton. He could not undertake to deliver one of these to the anaconda.
Then a splashing of flippers drew his attention to another member of the family. It was a youngster perhaps five feet long and probably weighing not more than fifteen stone — just a fair snack for the big reptile. It was floundering about in a few inches of water, feeding on the grasses that grew along the bank.
Hal fired. At the sound, the two large heads immediately sank out of sight. But the young manatee began to beat clumsily with flippers and tail in the shallow water. Hal came closer and fired again. He was thankful that he had a .300 in his hands, for he knew that the hide of a manatee is so tough that the Indians make shields of it.
The sea cow slowly bumbled itself around, but before it could get started towards deep water Hal had it by the tail. He did not attempt to carry it overland. Letting the water support its weight, he pulled it through the shallows until he got it alongside the Ark. Then he heaved the head up until it rested upon the gunwale and teetered it there, inching the body higher until it flopped over into the boat.
The hide was slippery enough so that he could drag the big animal to the door of the snake’s cage. Now came the ticklish part of the performance.
How was he going to get the heavy ‘fish ox’ into the cage without letting the anaconda out?
The snake was very active this morning. It kept striking its big head against the door of the cage. It lay with its thirty feet of length doubled so that the end of the tail was also near the door. Both the head and the tail were dangerous.
Hal had no fear of snakes, ordinarily. He had handled many kinds, from water moccasins to big Rocky Mountain rattlers. But he could never look at this giant of the snake world without a quivering of his nerves.
It was not just that the serpent was so huge. It was mean. No one had ever been able to make friends with an anaconda. In this respect it was quite different from the sweet-tempered boa constrictor which might be made a household pet and become as affectionate as a dog or cat. The anaconda was the gangster of snakedom. He was on bad terms with everything and everybody.
And Hal knew that the moment he opened that door, jaws like a steep trap would close on his leg and that anxious tail would whip around his body. The baby tapir came up to nuzzle its long nose against him. The big snake glared at it hungrily, then drew back its head and shot it forward with terrific strength against the door of the cage.
Hal picked up the tapir and carried it down the side of the cage to the other end. The anaconda’s head followed. Hal tethered the little animal within a few feet of the bars. The evil eyes that seemed so hypnotic were fixed upon it. But the tapir, thanks to being very nearsighted, was not disturbed.
Hal went back to the cage door. He still did not dare to take the time to ease the manatee through the door, for the snake might wheel about before he was half done. He studied the manatee. Its flat, paddlelike tail gave him an idea.
He tied a stout rope around the door and the door jamb so that the door would open only two inches. Then he pushed the flat tail of the manatee through this crack.
He went and got the tapir and brought it back
near the door. The snake followed and discovered the appetizing tail of the sea cow. The serpents jaws immediately locked themselves upon it and began to draw it in.
Once a snake has begun a meal it thinks of nothing but to finish it. Hal eased the rope so that the door opened wider and wider to admit more and more of the great walrus-like mammal as the snake sucked it down. When the whole manatee was within the cage, and half of it within the reptile as well, Hal could close and lock the door.
‘There,’ he said with satisfaction. ‘Digesting that will keep you out of mischief for a few weeks at least.’
He was sorry in a way to see so strange a mammal that would have attracted so much attention in a zoo disappear down a snake’s throat. But he knew that no aquarium outside of the tropics had been able to keep a manatee alive for more than a few months. Probably it would not even have lived until he could get it home.
He went foraging again for his other animals. Just keeping this menagerie fed was a full-time job. He missed Roger’s able help. And a burden seemed to settle upon him as he thought of undertaking singlehanded to sail his floating zoo down river.
There was just one silver lining — he no longer had to worry about Croc and his gang. Or did he? Were they all dead? He had never known exactly how many men there were in Croc’s party. On the night of the attack he had estimated the number at eight or ten. There had been nine headless men in the boat — surely that was the entire band. And yet he was haunted by the uneasy feeling that Croc might still be alive. It was a daytime nightmare that kept nagging him. He tried to laugh it off, but it was not easy to laugh, alone and deserted, in a dark and sinister jungle. Men had been known to go mad in the terrible loneliness of this black forest. And so he was quite willing to believe that he was touched in the head when he saw Croc stumbling towards him through the gloom. There was no mistaking him — the only other face like that was a vampire bat’s. And even that was an insult to the vampire. The man’s shirt and trousers were bloody and torn. His hair was unkempt, his face scratched by underbrush and haggard with sleeplessness and terror.
He stopped and stared at Hal. Then he came on with a rush. Hal raised his gun. He lowered it again when he saw that Croc was not armed. Croc collapsed at his feet.
‘Buddy, am I glad to see you!’ he whined. ‘Don’t let them, buddy. Don’t let them get me.’ He threw his arms around Hal’s leg and sobbed, ‘They’ll kill me, buddy. That’s what they’ll do. They’ll kill me.’
‘And a good job too,’ said Hal, kicking the man off. ‘Don’t you think it’s a little strange to come to me for help?’
‘Listen, buddy, listen,’ wailed Croc. ‘We’re white men, ain’t we? We white men have got to stick together. You won’t let those dagoes get me?’
‘Did you fire that village?’
‘Oh that — that was a mistake.’
‘Did you kill any Indians?’
‘Not many. What’s a few Indians?’ He slowly got
up and looked behind him, still trembling. They’re after me. Where’s your camp, buddy?’
Hal looked him over for a long minute. How he would enjoy filling this skunk with lead! He ought to give the cringing cur a kick and send him out into the jungle to die or be captured by Indians,
He turned and led the way to the camp. Croc, as big and shambling as a giant anteater, shuffled along beside him. ‘God’ll bless you for this, buddy,’ he croaked. ‘I knew you couldn’t leave a man alone in this beastly jungle. You and me is going to be friends, eh buddy? Best of friends. Everything forgotten and forgiven, ain’t that right? That’s the spirit.’
He pulled up short as they came out into the camp site.
‘Where’s your men?’
‘Gone up river.’
‘Cripes! That’s the way with them Indians. Never can trust them. Did you lose your animals too?’
‘No. They’re in the batalao, just around the bend.’
‘Fine!’ Croc said with enthusiasm. ‘Buddy, you’re in luck. Just when you lose your men I come along. You can depend upon me. I’ll help you get that boat down river. Least I can do. Got anything to eat, buddy? I ain’t eaten for twenty-four hours.’
Hal fed the man.
‘Where’s your brother?’ asked Croc. �
��Out gunning for game?’
‘No. Back there in his hammock. Fever.’
‘Ain’t that just too bad. You really are alone, aren’t you?’
Hal glanced at him sharply. Tm alone, but that doesn’t mean that you can try any tricks. You’re alone too. We saw your friends go by last night. How did you escape? I’ll bet you were hiding in the bushes while they were fighting.’
‘What’s die use of having men if you don’t make ‘em fight for you? Now, let’s not get to arguing. Let’s be done with feudin’. Sort of thing I been through sobers a man up. I made up my mind back there in the jungle that if the good Lord would just bring me out safe I’d never touch a hair of any man’s head again. I’d be as gentle as a lamb. That’s the way I says it to myself — gentle as a lamb. I wouldn’t hurt nobody, no matter what I was paid to do it. I tell you, when you get to where any minute may be your last, you change your mind about a lot of things. And when I saw you — I couldn’t ‘a’ been gladder to see my own brother.’ He helped himself to another large piece of dried meat. ‘Yes, sir, that’s what we’ll be, brothers.’
‘Like Abel and Cain,’ said Hal, but Croc did not catch his meaning.
‘Just like brothers,’ he repeated. He looked out across the Amazon. Hal followed his gaze. The. water was higher than the day before and the current past the point was more swift. An uprooted tree drifted by. Floating islands, always to be seen in the Amazon, were more frequent now. They were signs of the coming of the great annual flood.
‘Must be heavy rains up river,’ Croc said. ‘A week from now right here where we’re sitting will be under water. Chunks of dirt big enough to build a house on will be floating down. And them drifting trees can stave in a boat without trying. But don’t you worry — we’ll put your craft safe into Manaos before things get too bad. Lucky I came along. Leave it to me, buddy.’ He stood up, grinned his ugly grin and thumped himself bravely on the chest.
An arrow whizzed past him and struck a tree. Croc was in the bushes in a trice. Hal could hear him running heavily through the underbrush.
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