Part 30 (2/2)
His voice trembled and stopped there, but he recovered himself in aCarpenter! an axe! and help me to cast these spars loose Get out offowls! Here, all old friends, lend a hand! Pelican's men, stand by your captain! Did we sail round the world for nothing?”
This last appeal struck home, and up leaped half-a-dozen of the old Pelicans, and set to work at his side !” cried Cary to the shore fellows, but on't be outdone by any old sea-dog of the to work himself, he was soon followed by one and another, till order and ent on well enough
”And where are we going, when the mast's up?” shouted some saucy hand from behind
”Where you daren't follow us alone by yourself, so you had better keep us co, lads,” said A from his work ”Like it or leave it as you will, I have no secrets fro inshore there to find a harbor, and careen the shi+p”
There was a start and a murmur
”Inshore? Into the Spaniards' mouths?”
”All in the Inquisition in a week's time”
”Better stay here, and be drowned”
”You're right in that last,” shouts Cary ”That's the right death for blind puppies Look you! I don't know in the least where we are, and I hardly know steht or wrong--that's nothing to me; but this I know, that I ao; and whosoever hinders me must walk up my sword to do it”
Amyas pressed Cary's hand, and then-- ”And here'swithout the advice of Salvation Yeo and Robert Drew; and if any man in the shi+p knows better than these two, let hi Eh, Pelicans?”
There was a grunt of approbation froe
”We have five shot betind and water, and one soale of wind in that state, or can we not?”
Silence
”Can we get home with a leak in our bottom?”
Silence
”Then what can we do but run inshore, and take our chance? Speak! It's a coward's trick to do nothing because e must do is not pleasant Will you be like children, that would sooner die than take nasty physic, or will you not?”
Silence still
”Coain round with the sun, and up to the north-west In with her!”
Sulkily enough, but unable to deny the necessity, the men set to work, and the vessel's head was put toward the land; but when she began to slip through the water, the leak increased so fast, that they were kept hard at work at the pumps for the rest of the afternoon
The current had by this tiuerote; and, luckily for them, safe out of the short heavy shich it causes round Cape Codera Looking inland, they had now to the south-west that noble headland, backed by the Caracas Mountains, range on range, up to the Silla and the Neguater; while, right ahead of them to the south, the shore sank suddenly into a low line of rove-wood, backed by prireedily to find sorove belt; but none was to be seen for so; and every fresh heave announced shalloater
”We shall have very shoal work off those ht now, unless we find a river's ood for us, sir, He'll show us one” So on they went, keeping a south-east course, and at last an opening in the rove belt was hailed with a cheer froed their shoulders, asopen-eyed to destruction
Off the mouth they sent in Drew and Cary with a boat, and watched anxiously for an hour The boat returned with a good report of two fathoms of water over the bar, impenetrable forests for two n of
”Safe quarters, sir,” said Yeo, privately, ”as far as Spaniards go I hope in God it ars must not be choosers,” said Amyas So in they went
They towed the shi+p up about half-a-mile to a point where she could not be seen frorove- stems Amyas ordered a boat out, and went up the river himself to reconnoitre He rowed some three miles, till the river narrowed suddenly, and was all but covered in by the interlacing boughs of n thatof the world
He dropped down the streao was it that he passed this river's mouth? Three days And yet how much had passed in thereat victory gained, and yet lost--perhaps his shi+p lost--above all, his brother lost
Lost! O God, how should he find his brother?
Soe bird out of the woods made mournful answer--”Never, never, never!”
How should he face his ain; and Amyas sht an to steam and wreathe upon the foul beer- colored strearove forest Upon the endless web of interarching roots great purple crabs were crawling up and down They would have supped with pleasure upon Aht sup on hiraveyard smell made his heart sink within him, and his stoave the influence of that doleful place The black bank of dingy leathern leaves above his head, the endless labyrinth of ste cord, to take fresh hold of the foul soil below); the web of roots, which stretched away inland till it was lost in the shades of evening--all seemed one horrid complicated trap for him and his; and even where, here and there, he passed thebut the dark ring of e and s, as if in hideous haste to choke out air and sky Wailing sadly, sad-colored rove-hens ran off across thethe roots, startled the voyagers with a sudden shout, and then all was again silent as a grave The loathly alligators, lounging in the slime, lifted their horny eyelids lazily, and leered upon hieness Lines of tall herons stood dihosts, watching the passage of the doomed boat All was foul, sullen, weird as witches' drealide down the strea at the helm, he would have scarcely been surprised What fitter craft could haunt that Stygian flood?
That night everyfever; before ten the nextfast
CHAPTER XXI
HOW THEY TOOK THE COMMUNION UNDER THE TREE AT HIGUEROTE
”Follow thee? Follow thee? Wha wad na follow thee? Lang hast thou looed and trusted us fairly”
Amyas would have certainly taken the yellow fever, but for one reason, which he hiave to Cary He had no time to be sick while his men were sick; a valid and sufficient reason (asas the excitement of work is present, but too apt to fail the hero, and to let him sink into the pit which he has so often over-leapt, the moment that his work is done
He called a council of war, or rather a sanitary co; for he was fairly at his wits' end The men were panic-stricken, ready to ood which could accrue to the hi killed by him; and then went below to consult The doctor talked mere science, or nonscience, about humors, complexions, and ani the visitation of God Cary, h he jested over it with a sh he quoted Scripture to back the sa to say His ”business was to sail the shi+p, and not to cure calentures”
Whereon A to custo for your hue his coe his skin, or a leopard his spots? Don't shove off your ignorance on God, sir I ask you what's the reason of this sickness, and you don't know Jack Brimblecombe, don't talk to me about God's visitation; this looks muchGod's work, Sir John, and He is not likely to hinder us So doith the devil, say I Cary, laughing killed the cat, but it won't cure a Christian Yeo, when an angel tells s in a ditch, I'll call this God's will; but not before Drew, you say your business is to sail the shi+p; then sail her out of this infernal poison-trap this very , if you can, which you can't The h ht, and smelt it like any sewer: and if it was not in the air, as my boat's crew taken first, tell me that?”
There was no answer
”Then I'll tell you why they were taken first: because the h it, only rose five or six feet above the stream, and ere in it, while you on board were above it And those that were taken on board this , every one of them, slept on the main-deck, and every one of thes,--Keep as high as you can, and fear nothing but God, and we're all safe yet”
”But the fog was up to our round-tops at sunrise this ,” said Cary
”I know it: but ere on the half-deck were not in it so long as those below, and thatfree air Beside, I suspect the heat in the evening draws the poison out , the venooes off soht in his facts as he was), for nobody on earth knew I suppose, at that day; and it was not till nearly two centuries of fatal experience that the settlers in America discovered the simple laws of these epideht to know But common sense was on his side; and Yeo rose and spoke-- ”As I have said before, e I remember now to have heard the Spaniards say, how these calentures lay always in the low ground, and never came more than a few hundred feet above the sea”