Afloat in the Forest. Captain Mayne Reid

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СКАЧАТЬ a full moon shining conspicuously above, which is not always the case in the skies of the Solimoës.

      There was to be no sail set, no use made of the paddles. The crew were fatigued, and wanted rest and repose. The current alone was to favour their progress; and as it appeared to be running nearly two miles an hour, it should advance them between twenty and thirty miles before the morning.

      The Mundurucú made an attempt to dissuade his “patron” from the course he designed pursuing; but his advice was disregarded, – perhaps because ill-understood, – and the galatea glided on.

      Who could mistake that broad expanse of water – upon which the moon shone so clearly – for aught else than the true channel of the Solimoës? Not Tipperary Tom, who, in the second watch of the night, – the owner himself having kept the first, – acted as steersman of the galatea.

      The others had gone to sleep. Trevannion and the three young people under the toldo; Mozey and the Mundurucú along the staging known as the “hold.” The birds and monkeys were at rest on their respective perches, and in their respective cages, – all was silent in the galatea, and around, – all save the rippling of the water, as it parted to the cleaving of her keel.

      Chapter Five. The Galatea Aground

      Little experienced as he was in the art of navigation, the steersman was not inattentive to his duty. Previously to his taking the rudder, he had been admonished about the importance of keeping the craft in the channel of the stream, and to this had he been giving his attention.

      It so chanced, however, that he had arrived at a place where there were two channels, – as if an island was interposed in the middle of the river, causing it to branch at an acute angle. Which of these was the right one? Which should be taken? These were the questions that occurred to Tipperary Tom.

      At first he thought of awakening his master, and consulting him, but on once more glancing at the two channels, he became half convinced that the broader one must be the proper route to be followed.

      “Bay Japers!” muttered he to himself. “Shure I can’t be mistaken. The biggest av the two ought to be the mane sthrame. Anyway, I won’t wake the masther. I’ll lave it to the ship to choose for hersilf.” Saying this he relaxed his hold upon the steering oar, and permitted the galatea to drift with the current.

      Sure enough, the little craft inclined towards the branch that appeared the broader one; and in ten minutes’ time had made such way that the other opening was no longer visible from her decks. The steersman, confident of being on the right course, gave himself no further uneasiness; but, once more renewing his hold upon the steering oar, guided the galatea in the middle of the channel.

      Notwithstanding all absence of suspicion as to having gone astray, he could not help noticing that the banks on each side appeared to be singularly irregular, as if here and there indented by deep bays, or reaches of water. Some of these opened out vistas of shining surface, apparently illimitable, while the dark patches that separated them looked more like clumps of trees half-submerged under water than stretches of solid earth.

      As the galatea continued her course, this puzzling phenomenon ceased to be a conjecture; Tipperary Tom saw that he was no longer steering down a river between two boundary banks, but on a broad expanse of water, stretching as far as eye could reach, with no other boundary than that afforded by a flooded forest.

      There was nothing in all this to excite alarm, – at least in the mind of Tipperary Tom. The Mundurucú, had he been awake, might have shown some uneasiness at the situation. But the Indian was asleep, – perhaps dreaming of some Mura enemy, – whose head he would have been happy to embalm.

      Tom simply supposed himself to be in some part of the Solimoës flooded beyond its banks, as he had seen it in more places than one. With this confidence, he stuck faithfully to his steering oar, and allowed the galatea to glide on. It was only when the reach of water – upon which the craft was drifting – began to narrow, or rather after it had narrowed to a surprising degree, that the steersman began to suspect himself of having taken the wrong course.

      His suspicions became stronger, at length terminating in a conviction that such was the truth, when the galatea arrived at a part where less than a cable’s length lay between her beam-ends and the bushes that stood out of the water on both sides of her. Too surely had he strayed from the “mane sthrame.” The craft that carried him could no longer be in the channel of the mighty Solimoës!

      The steersman was alarmed, and this very alarm hindered him from following the only prudent course he could have taken under the circumstances. He should have aroused his fellow-voyagers, and proclaimed the error into which he had fallen. He did not do so. A sense of shame at having neglected his duty, or rather at having performed it in an indifferent manner, – a species of regret not uncommon among his countrymen, – hindered him from disclosing the truth, and taking steps to avert any evil consequences that might spring from it.

      He knew nothing of the great river on which they were voyaging. There might be such a strait as that through which the galatea was gliding. The channel might widen below; and, after all, he might have steered in the proper direction. With such conjectures, strengthened by such hopes, he permitted the vessel to float on.

      The channel did widen again; and the galatea once more rode upon open water. The steersman was restored to confidence and contentment. Only for a short while did this state of mind continue. Again the clear water became contracted, this time to a very strip, while on either side extended reaches and estuaries, bordered by half-submerged bushes, – some of them opening apparently to the sky horizon, wider and freer from obstruction than that upon which the galatea was holding her course.

      The steersman no longer thought of continuing his course, which he was now convinced must be the wrong one. Bearing with all his strength upon the steering oar, he endeavoured to direct the galatea back into the channel through which he had come; but partly from the drifting of the current, and partly owing to the deceptive light of the moon, he could no longer recognise the latter, and, dropping the rudder in despair, he permitted the vessel to drift whichever way the current might carry her!

      Before Tipperary Tom could summon courage to make known to his companions the dilemma into which he had conducted them, the galatea had drifted among the tree-tops of the flooded forest, where she was instantly “brought to anchor.”

      The crashing of broken boughs roused her crew from their slumbers. The ex-miner, followed by his children, rushed forth from the toldo. He was not only alarmed, but perplexed, by the unaccountable occurrence. Mozey was equally in a muddle. The only one who appeared to comprehend the situation was the old Indian, who showed sufficient uneasiness as to its consequences by the terrified manner in which he called out: “The Gapo! The Gapo!”

      Chapter Six. The Monkey-Pots

      “The Gapo?” exclaimed the master of the craft. “What is it, Munday?”

      “The Gapo?” repeated Tipperary Tom, fancying by the troubled expression on the face of the Indian that he had conducted his companions toward some terrible disaster. “Phwat is it, Manday?”

      “Da Gapoo?” simultaneously interrogated the negro, the whites of his eyeballs shining in the moonlight. “What be dat?”

      The Mundurucú made reply only by a wave of his hand, and a glance around him, as if to say, “Yes, the Gapo; you see we’re in it.”

      The three interrogators were as much in the dark as ever. Whether the Gapo was fish, flesh, or fowl, air, fire, or water, they could not even guess. There was but one upon the galatea besides the Indian himself who knew the signification of СКАЧАТЬ