CHAPTER I--ON THE BANKS OF THE GREAT AMAZON

Miles upon miles from the banks of the mighty river, had you wandered far away in the shade of the dark forest that clothed the valleys and struggled high over the mountain-tops themselves, you would have heard the roar and the boom of that great buzz-saw.

As early as six of a morning it would start, or soon after the sun, like a huge red-hot shot, had leapt up from his bed in the glowing east behind the greenery of the hills and woods primeval.

To a stranger coming from the south towards the Amazon--great queen of all the rivers on earth--and not knowing he was on the borders of civilization, the sound that the huge saw made would have been decidedly alarming.

He would have stopped and listened, and listening, wondered. No menagerie of wild beasts could have sent forth a noise so loud, so strange, so persistent! Harsh and low at times, as its great teeth tore through the planks of timber, it would change presently into a dull but dreadful _basso profundo_, such as might have been emitted by antediluvian monsters in the agonies of death or torture, rising anon into a shrill howl or shriek, then subsiding once again into a steady grating roar, that seemed to shake the very earth.

Wild beasts in this black forest heard the sounds, and crept stealthily away to hide themselves in their caves and dens; caymans or alligators heard them too, as they basked in the morning sunshine by lakelet or stream--heard them and crawled away into caves, or took to the water with a sullen plunge that caused the finny inhabitants to dart away in terror to every point of the compass.

"Up with the tree, lads. Feed him home," cried Jake Solomons loudly but cheerily. "Our pet is hungry this morning. I say, Bill, doesn't she look a beauty. Ever see such teeth, and how they shine, too, in the red sunlight. Guess you never did, Bill. I say, what chance would the biggest 'gator that ever crawled have with Betsy here. Why, if Betsy got one tooth in his hide she'd have fifty before you could say 'Jerusalem', and that 'gator'd be cut in two. Tear away, Betsy! Grind and groan and growl, my lass! Have your breakfast, my little pet; why, your voice is sweetest music to my ear. I say, Bill, don't the saw-dust fly a few? I should smile!

"But see," he continued, "yonder come the darkies with our matutinal. Girls and boys with baskets, and I can see the steam curling up under Chloe's arm from the great flagon she is carrying! Look how her white eyes roll, and her white teeth shine as she smiles her six-inch smile! Good girl is Chloe. She knows we're hungry, and that we'll welcome her. Wo, now, Betsy! Let the water off, Bill. Betsy has had her snack, and so we'll have ours."

There was quietness now o'er hill and dell and forest-land.

And this tall Yankee, Jake Solomons, who was fully arrayed in cotton shirt and trousers, his brown arms bare to the shoulder, stretched his splendidly knit but spare form with a sort of a yawn.

"Heigho, Bill!" he said. "I'm pining for breakfast. Aren't you?"

"That I am," replied Burly Bill with his broadest grin.

Jake ran to the open side of the great saw-mill. Three or four strides took him there.

"Ah! Good-morning, Chloe, darling! Morning, Keemo! Morning, Kimo!"

"Mawning, sah!" This was a chorus.

"All along dey blessed good-foh-nuffin boys I no come so queeck," said Chloe.

"Stay, stay, Chloe," cried Jake, "never let your angry passions rise. 'Sides, Chloe, I calculate such language ain't half-proper. But how glittering your cheeks are, Chloe, how white your teeth! There! you smile again. And that vermilion blouse sets off your dark complexion to a nicety, and seems just made for it. Chloe, I would kiss you, but the fear of making Bill jealous holds me back."

Burly Bill shook with laughter. Bill was well named the Burly. Though not so tall as Jake, his frame was immense, though perhaps there was a little more adipose tissue about it than was necessary in a climate like this. But Bill's strength was wonderful. See him, axe in hand, at the foot of a tree! How the chips fly! How set and determined the man's face, while the great beads of sweat stand like pearls on his brow!

Burly Bill was a white man turned black. You couldn't easily have guessed his age. Perhaps he was forty, but at twenty, when still in England, Bill was supple and lithe, and had a skin as white as a schoolboy's. But he had got stouter as the years rolled on, and his face tanned and tanned till it tired of tanning, and first grew purple, and latterly almost black. The same with those hirsute bare arms of his.

There was none of the wild "Ha! ha!" about Bill's laughter. It was a sort of suppressed chuckle, that agitated all his anatomy, the while his merry good-natured eyes sought shelter behind his cheeks' rotundity.

Under a great spreading tree the two men laid themselves down, and Chloe spread their breakfast on a white cloth between them, Jake keeping up his fire of chaff and sweet nothings while she did so. Keemo and Kimo, and the other "good-foh-nuffin boys" had brought their morning meal to the men who fed the great buzz-saw.

"Ah, Chloe!" said Jake, "the odour of that coffee would bring the dead to life, and the fish and the beef and the butter, Chloe! Did you do all this yourself?"

"All, sah, I do all. De boys jes' kick about de kitchen and do nuffin."

"Dear tender-eyed Chloe! How clever you are! Guess you won't be so kind to me when you and I get spliced, eh?"

"Ah sah! you no care to marry a poor black gal like Chloe! Dere is a sweet little white missie waiting somew'eres foh Massa Jake. I be your maid, and shine yo' boots till all de samee's Massa Bill's cheek foh true."

As soon as Chloe with her "good-foh-nuffin boys" had cleared away the breakfast things, and retired with a smile and saucy toss of her curly poll, the men lay back and lit their pipes.

"She's a bright intelligent girl that," said Jake. "I don't want a wife or--but I say, Bill, why don't you marry her? I guess she'd make ye a tip-topper."

"Me! Is it marry?"

Burly Bill held back his head and chuckled till he well-nigh choked.

Honest Bill's ordinary English showed that he came from the old country, and more particularly from the Midlands. But Bill could talk properly enough when he pleased, as will soon be seen.

He smoked quietly enough for a time, but every now and then he felt constrained to take his meerschaum from his mouth and give another chuckle or two.

"Tchoo-hoo-hoo!" he laughed. "Me marry! And marry Chloe! Tchoo-hoo-hoo!"

"To change the subject, William," said Jake, "seein' as how you've pretty nearly chuckled yourself silly, or darned near it, how long have you left England?"

"W'y, I coom over with Mr. St. Clair hisse'f, and Roland w'y he weren't more'n seven. Look at 'e now, and dear little Peggy, 'is sister by adoption as ever was, weren't a month over four. Now Rolly 'e bees nigh onto fifteen, and Peggy--the jewel o' the plantation--she's goin' on for twelve, and main tall for that. W'y time do fly! Don't she, Jake?"

"Well, I guess I've been here five years, and durn me if I want to leave. Could we have a better home? I'd like to see it. I'd smile a few odd ones. But listen, why here comes the young 'uns!"

There was the clatter of ponies' feet, and next minute as handsome a boy as ever sat in saddle, and as pretty and bright a lassie as you could wish to meet, galloped into the clearing, and reined up their spirited little steeds close to the spot where the men were lounging.

Burly Bill stuck his thumb into the bowl of his meerschaum to put it out, and Jake threw his pipe on the bank.

Roland was tall for his age, like Peggy. But while a mass of fair and irrepressible hair curled around the boy's sun-burned brow, Peggy's hair was straight and black. When she rode fast it streamed out behind her like pennons in the breeze. What a bright and sunny face was hers too! There was ever a happy smile about her red lips and dark eyes.

"You've got to begin to smoke again immediately," said the boy.

"No, no, Master Roland, not in the presence of your sister."

"But," cried Peggy, with a pretty show of pomposity, "I command you!"

"Ah, then, indeed!" said Jake; and soon both men were blowing clouds that made the very mosquitoes change their quarters.

"Father'll be up soon, riding on Glancer. This nag threw Father, coming home last night. Mind, Glancer is seventeen hands and over."

"He threw him?"

"That he did, in the moonlight. Scared at a 'gator. Father says he heard the 'gator's great teeth snapping and thought he was booked. But lo! Jake, at that very moment Glancer struck out with both hind-legs--you know how he is shod. He smashed the 'gator's skull, and the beast turned up his yellow belly to the moon."

"Bravo!"

"Then Father mounted mighty Glancer and rode quietly home.

"Peggy and I," he continued, "have ridden along the bank to the battlefield to hold a coroner's inquest on the 'gator, but he's been hauled away by his relations. I suppose they'll make potato soup of him."

Burly Bill chuckled.

"Well, Peggy and I are off. See you in the evening, Jake. By-by!"

And away they rode, like a couple of wild Indians, followed by a huge Irish wolf-hound, as faithful a dog to his mistress--for he was Peggy's own pet--as ever dog could be.

They were going to have a day in the forest, and each carried a short six-chambered rifle at the saddle.

A country like the wild one in which they dwelt soon makes anyone brave and fearless. They meant to ride quite a long way to-day and not return till the sun began to decline in the far and wooded west. So, being already quite an old campaigner, Roland had not forgotten to bring luncheon with him, and some for bold Brawn also.

Into the forest they dashed, leaving the mighty river, which was there about fifteen miles broad probably, in their rear.

They knew every pathway of that primeval woodland, and it mattered but little to them that most of these had been worn by the feet of wild beasts. Such tracks wind out and in, and in and out, and meet others in the most puzzling and labyrinthine manner.

Roland carried a compass, and knew how to use it, but the day was unusually fine and sunny, so there was little chance of their getting lost.

The country in which they lived might well have been called the land of perpetual summer.

But at some spots the forest was so pitchy dark, owing to the overhanging trees and wild flowering creepers, that they had to rein up and allow Coz and Boz, as their ponies were named, to cautiously feel the way for themselves.

How far away they might have ridden they could not themselves tell, had they not suddenly entered a kind of fairy glade. At one side it was bounded by a crescentic formation of rock, from the very centre of which spouted a tiny clear crystal waterfall. Beneath was a deep pool, the bottom of which was sand and yellow shingle, with here and there a patch of snow-white quartz. And away from this a little stream went meandering slowly through the glade, keeping it green.

On the other side were the lordly forest trees, bedraped with flowering orchids and ferns.

Flowers and ferns grew here and there in the rockface itself. No wonder the young folks gazed around them in delighted wonder.

Brawn was more practical. He cared nothing for the flowers, but enjoyed to the fullest extent the clear cool water of the crystal pool.

"Oh, isn't it lovely?" said Roland.

"And oh, I am so hungry, Rolly!"

Rolly took the hint.

The ponies were let loose to graze, Brawn being told to head them off if they attempted to take to the woods.

"I understand," said Brawn, with an intelligent glance of his brown eyes and wag of his tail.

Then down the boy and girl squatted with the noble wolf-hound beside them, and Roland speedily spread the banquet on the moss.

I dare say that hunger and romance seldom tread the same platform--at the same time, that is. It is usually one down, the other up; and notwithstanding the extraordinary beauty of their surroundings, for some time both boy and girl applied themselves assiduously to the discussion of the good things before them; that meat-pie disappearing as if by magic. Then the hard-boiled eggs, the well-buttered and flouriest of floury scones, received their attention, and the whole was washed down with _vinum bovis_, as Roland called it, cow's wine, or good milk.

Needless to say, Brawn, whose eyes sparkled like diamonds, and whose ears were conveniently erect, came in for a good share.

Well, but the ponies, Boz and Coz, had not the remotest idea of running away. In fact they soon drew near to the banqueting-table. Coz laid his nose affectionately on his little mistress's shoulder and heaved an equine sigh, and Boz began to nibble at Roland's ears in a very winning way.

And the nibbling and the sigh brought them cakes galore.

Roland offered Boz a bit of pie.

The pony drew back, as if to say, "Vegetarians, weren't you aware?"

But Brawn cocked his bonnie head to one side, knowingly.

"Pitch it this way, master," he said. "I've got a crop for any kind of corn, and a bag for peas."

A strange little rodent creature, much bigger than any rat, however, with beautiful sad-looking eyes, came from the bush, and stood on its hind-legs begging, not a yard away. Its breast was as white as snow.

Probably it had no experience of the genus _homo_, and all the cruelties he is guilty of, under the title of sport.

Roland pitched several pieces of pie towards the innocent. It just tasted a morsel, then back it ran towards the wood with wondrous speed.

If they thought they had seen the last of it, they were much mistaken, for the innocent returned in two minutes time, accompanied not only by another of his own size, but by half a dozen of the funniest little fairies ever seen inside a forest.

"My wife and children," said innocent No. 1.

"My services to you," bobbed innocent No. 2.

But the young ones squawked and squealed, and tumbled and leapt over each other as they fed in a manner so droll that boy and girl had to laugh till the woods rang.

Innocent No. 1 looked on most lovingly, but took not a morsel to himself.

Then all disappeared as suddenly as they had come.

Truly the student of Nature who betakes himself to lonely woods sees many wonders!

It was time now to lie back in the moss and enjoy the _dolce far niente_.

The sky was as blue as blue could be, all between the rifts of slowly-moving clouds. The whisper of the wind among the forest trees, and the murmur of the falling water, came like softest music to Roland's ears. Small wonder, therefore, that his eyes closed, and he was soon in the land of sweet forgetfulness.

But Peggy had a tiny book, from which she read passages to Brawn, who seemed all attention, but kept one eye on the ponies at the same time.

It was a copy of the "Song of Hiawatha", a poem which Peggy thought ineffably lovely. Hark to her sweet girl voice as she reads:

"These songs so wild and wayward, These legends and traditions".

They appealed to her simple soul, for dearly did she love the haunts of Nature.

"Loved the sunshine of the meadow, Loved the shadow of the forest, Loved the wind among the branches, The rushing of great rivers Through their palisades of pine-trees."

She believed, too:

"That even in savage bosoms There are longings, yearnings, strivings For the good they comprehend not; That feeble hands and helpless, Groping blindly in the darkness, Touch God's right hand... And are lifted up and strengthened".

----

Roland slumbered quietly, and the day went on apace.

He slept so peacefully that she hardly liked to arouse him.

The little red book dropped from her hand and fell on the moss, and her thoughts now went far, far away adown the mighty river that flows so sadly, so solemnly onwards to the great Atlantic Ocean, fed on its way by a hundred rapid streams that melt in its dark bosom and are seen nevermore.

But it was not the river itself the little maiden's thoughts were dwelling on; not the strange wild birds that sailed along its surface on snow-white wings; not the birds of prey--the eagle and the hawk--that hovered high in air, or with eldritch screams darted on their prey like bolts from the blue, and bore their bleeding quarries away to the silent forest; not even the wealth of wild flowers that nodded over the banks of the mighty stream.

Her thoughts were on board a tall and darksome raft that was slowly making its way seaward to distant Para, or in the boats that towed it. For there was someone on the raft or in those boats who even then might be fondly thinking of the dark-haired maiden he had left behind.

But Peggy's awakening from her dream of romance, and Roland's from his slumber, was indeed a terrible one.