Afloat in the Forest. Captain Mayne Reid

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СКАЧАТЬ to which the craft had been tied was one whose wood was of a soft and succulent nature, – a species of melastoma. Its branches were too brittle to bear the strain thus unexpectedly put upon them; and almost at the first onset of the tornado they began to give way, snapping off one after the other in quick succession. So rapid was the process of detachment, that, before fresh moorings could be made, the last cord had come away; and the galatea, like a greyhound loosed from the leash, shot out from among the tree-tops, and went off in wild career over the waves of the Gapo. Before any control could be gained over her by her terrified crew, she had made several cables’ length into the open water, and was still sweeping onward over its seething surface. To turn her head towards the trees was clearly out of the question. The attempt would have been idle. Both wind and waves carried her in the opposite direction, to say nothing of the current, against which she had been already contending. The crew no longer thought of returning to the tree-tops, out of which they had been so unceremoniously swept: Their only chance of safety appeared to be to keep the craft, as well balanced as circumstances would permit, and run before the wind. Even this for a time seemed but a doubtful chance. The wind blew, not in regular, uniform direction, but in short, fitful gusts, as if coming from every point of the compass; and the waves rolled around them as high as houses. In the midst of a chopping, purging sea, the galatea tumbled and pitched, now head, now stern foremost, at times going onward in mad career, and with headlong speed. The parrots and macaws upon the yard had as much as their strong claws could do to keep their perch; and the monkeys, cowering under the shelter of the toldo, clung close to its timbers. Both birds and beasts mingled their terrified cries with the creaking of the galatea’s timbers and the shouts of her crew. The Gapo threatened to ingulf them. Every moment might be their last! And with this dread belief, scarce for a moment out of their minds, did our adventurers pass the remainder of that remarkable night, the galatea galloping onward, they could not tell whither. All they knew or could remember of that nocturnal voyage was, that the vessel kept upon her course, piloted only by the winds and waves, – at times tossing within deep troughs of turbulent water, at times poised upon the summits of ridge-like swells, but ever going onward at high speed, seemingly ten knots an hour!

      For a long while they saw around them only open water, as of some great lake or inland sea. At a later hour, the lightning revealed the tops of submerged trees, such as those they had left behind; but standing out of the water in clumps or coppices, that appeared like so many islands. Amidst these they were carried, sometimes so close to the trees as to give them hopes of being able to grasp their boughs. Once or twice the rigging of the galatea brushed among the branches; and they used every effort to stay their runaway craft, and bring her to an anchorage. But in vain. The storm was stronger than the united strength of the crew. The twigs clutched with eager hands parted in twain, and the storm-driven vessel swept on amid the surging waters.

      Daylight arrived at length, breaking through a red aurora, soon followed by a brilliant sunrise. This somewhat cheered our despairing adventurers. But the tempest was still raging with undiminished fury, the wind as loud and the waves as high as at any period throughout the night. Once more they were in the middle of a waste of waters, neither trees nor land in sight. Another great lake or inland sea? It could not be that over which they had been already carried? No. The wind was now blowing more steadily; and could it not have shifted? Even if it had, they had not returned through the archipelago of tree-top islands. They were in another opening of the Gapo. Munday was of this opinion, and that was proof sufficient to satisfy his companions. As we have said, the returning day did little to restore the confidence of the galatea’s crew. The tornado still continued. Despite the sunlit sky, the storm showed no signs of abating; and the crazy craft gave tongue in every timber of her frail frame. The sounds were ominous to the ears of those who listened to them. It was too evident, that, unless there should soon come a lull, the galatea would go to the bottom. She had not been constructed to stand a strain like that to which she had been thus unexpectedly exposed, and an anchorage either to terra firma or the tree-tops would soon become necessary to her salvation. Her crew, convinced of this, were one and all upon the lookout, scanning the horizon as closely as the crested billows would admit. The Mundurucú had mounted to the top of the mast, where, with one of the monkeys that had perched itself on his shoulders, he clung with the tenacity of despair. All at once he was heard to cry out, the monkey mocking him in mimic tone.

      “What is it, Munday? What do you see?” were the inquiries that reached him from below.

      “Land,” was the laconic reply.

      “Land!” went up the echo from half a score of joyous voices.

      “Maybe not land, – I mean the terra firma,” pursued the observer, in a less confident tone. “It may be only the top of a thick forest like what we tried to penetrate yesterday. Whatever it is, patron, it seems along the whole edge of the sky. We are drifting towards it, straight as the wind can carry us.”

      “Thank God!” exclaimed Trevannion, “anything is better than this. If we can get once more among the tree-tops, we shall at least be saved from drowning. Thank God, children. We shall be preserved!”

      The Indian descended from the mast, close followed by the monkey, whose serio-comic countenance seemed to say that he too was satisfied by the observation just made. Still careering madly onward before the tempest, the boat soon brought the tree-tops within view, and, after a brief debate, the conclusion was reached that it was only a submerged forest. But even this was better than buffeting about on the open billows, – every moment in danger of being swamped; and with a universal feeling of joy our adventurers perceived that their craft was drifting toward that dark line. They were powerless to control her course. Her rudder had been unshipped during the night, and they could trust only to the tempest still raging to carry them to the confines of the forest. In full hope that this would be the result, they took no measures either to promote or frustrate the steering of the storm.

      Chapter Eleven. The Galatea Treed

      Tossed by the tempest, the galatea preserved her course towards the tree-tops, thus keeping up the spirits and confidence of her crew. Despite some divergences caused by an occasional contrary gust of wind, she kept an onward course, in due time arriving within such distance of the forest, that it was no longer doubtful about her drifting among the trees. In this there was a prospect of temporary safety at the least, and our adventurers had begun to congratulate themselves on the proximity of the event. Just then, a gigantic tree – it must have been gigantic to stand so high over its fellows, though it could scarce be fifty feet above the surface of the water – presented itself to their eyes. It stood solitary and alone, about a quarter of a mile from the edge of the forest, and as much nearer to the craft, still struggling through the wind-lashed water. Like that in the top of which they had first gone aground, it was a sapucaya, – as testified by the huge pericarps conspicuously suspended from its branches. High as may have been the inundation, its stem rose still higher, by at least ten feet; but half-way between the water’s surface and the branches, the colossal trunk forked in twain, – each of the twin scions appearing a trunk of itself. Through the fork was the water washing at each heave of the agitated Gapo, – the waves with foaming crests mounting far up towards the top of the tree, as if aspiring to pluck the ripe fruit depending from its branches.

      Towards this tree the galatea was now going as straight as if she had been steered by the finger of Destiny itself. There was no other power to control her, – at least none that was human. The wind, or destiny, – one of the two, – must determine her fate. The waves perhaps had something to do with it; since the next that followed lifted the galatea upon its curling crest, and lodged her in the sapucaya in such a fashion that her keel, just amidships, rested within the forking of the twin stems.

      “Thank God!” exclaimed her owner, “we are safe now. Moored between two stanchions like these, neither the winds of heaven nor the waves of the great ocean itself could prevail against us. Make fast there! Make fast to the limbs of the tree! Tie her on both sides. These are no twigs to be snapped asunder. Hurrah! we are anchored at last!”

      The СКАЧАТЬ