CHAPTER XX--THE PAGAN PAYNEES WERE THIRSTING FOR BLOOD

A glance at any good map will show the reader the bearings and flow of this romantic and beautiful river, the Madeira. It will show him something else--the suggestive names of some of the cataracts or rapids that have to be negotiated by the enterprising sportsman or traveller in this wild land.

The Misericordia Rapids and the Calderano de Inferno speak for themselves. The latter signifies Hell's Cauldron, and the former speaks to us of many a terrible accident that has occurred here--boats upset, bodies washed away in the torrent, or men seized and dragged below by voracious alligators before the very eyes of despairing friends.

The Cauldron of Hell is a terrible place, and consists of a whole series of rapids each more fierce than the other. To attempt to stem currents like these would of course be madness. There is nothing for it but portage for a whole mile and more, and it can easily be guessed that this is slow and toilsome work indeed. Nor was the weather always propitious. Sometimes storms raged through the woods, with thunder, lightning, and drenching rain; or even on the brightest of days, down might sweep a whirlwind, utterly wrecking acres and acres of forest, tearing gigantic trees up by the roots, twisting them as if they were ropes, or tossing them high in air, and after cutting immense gaps through the jungle, retire, as if satisfied with the chaos and devastation worked, to the far-off mountain lands.

Once when, with their rifles in hand, Roland and Dick were watching a small flock of tapirs at a pond of water, which formed the centre of a green oasis in the dark forest, they noticed a balloon-shaped cloud in the south. It got larger and larger as it advanced towards them, its great twisted tail seeming to trail along the earth.

Lightning played incessantly around it, and as it got nearer loud peals of thunder were heard.

This startled the tapirs. They held their heads aloft and snorted with terror, running a little this way and that, but huddling together at last in a timid crowd.

Down came the awful whirlwind and dashed upon them.

Roland and Dick threw themselves on the ground, face downwards, expecting death every moment.

The din, the dust, the crashing and roaring, were terrific!

When the storm had passed not a bush or leaf of the wood in which our heroes lay had been stirred. But the glade was now a strange sight.

The waters of the pool had been taken up. The pond was dry. Only half-dead alligators lay there, writhing in agony, but every tapir had been not only killed but broken up, and mingled with twisted trees, pieces of rock, and hillocks of sand.

Truly, although Nature in these regions may very often be seen in her most beautiful aspects, fearful indeed is she when in wrath and rage she comes riding in storms and whirlwinds from off the great table-lands, bent on ravaging the country beneath.

"What a merciful escape!" said Roland, as he sat by Dick gazing on the destruction but a few yards farther off.

"I could not have believed it," returned Dick. "Fancy a whirlwind like that sweeping over our camp, Roland?"

"Yes, Dick, or over our boats on the river; but we must trust in Providence."

Roland now blew his whistle, and a party of his own Indians soon appeared, headed by a few white men.

"Boys," said Roland smiling, "my friend and I came out to shoot young tapir for you. Behold! Dame Nature has saved us the trouble, and flesh is scattered about in all directions."

The Indians soon selected the choicest, and departed, singing their strange, monotonous chant.

Presently Burly Bill himself appeared.

He stood there amazed and astonished for fully half a minute before he could speak, and when he did it was to revert to his good old-fashioned Berkshire dialect.

"My eye and Elizabeth Martin!" he exclaimed. "What be all that? Well, I never! 'Ad an 'urricane, then?"

"It looks a trifle like it, Bill; but sit you down. Got your meerschaum?"

"I've got him right enough."

And it was not long before he began to blow a kind of hurricane cloud. For when Bill smoked furnaces weren't in it.

"Do you think we have many more rapids to get past, Bill?"

"A main lot on 'em, Master Roland. But we've got to do 'em. We haven't got to funk, has we?"

"Oh no, Bill! but don't you think that we might have done better to have kept to the land altogether?"

"No," said Bill bluntly, "I do not. We never could have got along, lad. Rivers to cross by fords that we might have had to travel leagues and leagues to find, lakes to bend round, marshes and swamps, where lurks a worse foe than your respectable and gentlemanly 'gators."

"What, snakes?"

"Oh, plenty of them! But I was a-loodin' to fever, what the doctors calls malarial fever, boys.

"No, no," he added, "we'll go on now until we meet poor Benee, if he is still alive. If anything has happened to him--"

"Or if he is false," interrupted Dick; "false as Peter would have us believe--"

"Never mind wot Mr. Bloomin' Peter says! I swears by Benee, and nothing less than death can prevent his meeting us somewhere about the mouth of the Maya-tata River. You can bet your bottom dollar on that, lads."

"Well, that is the rendezvous anyhow."

"Oh," cried Dick, "sha'n't we be all rejoiced to see Benee once more!"

"God grant," said Roland, "he may bring us good news."

"He is a good man and will bring good tidings," ventured Burly Bill.

Then he went on blowing his cloud, and the boys relapsed into silence.

Each was thinking his own thoughts. But they started up at last.

"I've managed to secure a grand healthy appetite!" cried Roland.

"And so has this pale-faced boy," said Bill, shoving his great thumb as usual into the bowl of his meerschaum.

So back to camp they started.

Brawn had been on duty not far from Mr. Peter's tent, but he bounded up now with a joyful bark, and rushed forward to meet them.

He displayed as much love and joy as if he had not seen them for a whole month.

For ten days longer the expedition struggled onwards.

The work was hard enough, but it really strengthened their hearts and increased the size of their muscles, till both their calves and biceps were as hard and tough as the stays of a battle-ship.

Some people might think it strange, but it is a fact nevertheless, that the stronger they grew the happier and more hopeful were they. We may try to account for this physiologically or psychologically as we choose, but the great truth remains.

----

One or two of the men were struck down with ague-fever, but Roland made them rest while on shore and lie down while on board.

Meanwhile he doctored them with soup made from the choicest morsels of young tapir, with green fresh vegetable mixed therein, and for medicine they had rum and quinine, or rather, quinine in rum.

The men liked their soup, but they liked their physic better.

Between the rapids of Arara and the falls of Madeira was a beautiful sheet of water, and, being afraid of snags or submerged rocks, the canoes were kept well out into the stream.

They made great progress here. The day was unusually fine. Hot the sun was certainly, but the men wore broad straw sombreros, and, seated in the shadow of their bamboo cabin, our heroes were cool and happy enough.

The luscious acid fruits and fruit-drinks they partook of contributed largely to their comfort.

Dick started a song, a river song he had learned on his uncle's plantation, and as Burly Bill's great canoe was not far off, he got a splendid bass.

The scenery on each bank was very beautiful; rocks, and hills covered with great trees, the branches of which near to the stream with their wealth of foliage and climbing flowers, bent low to kiss the placid waters that went gliding, lapping, and purling onwards.

Who could have believed that aught of danger to our heroes and their people could lurk anywhere beneath these sun-gilt trees?

But even as they sang, fierce eyes were jealously watching them from the western bank.

Presently first one arrow, and anon a whole shower of these deadly missiles, whizzed over them.

One struck the cabin roof right above Dick's head, and another tore through the hat of the captain himself.

But rifles were carried loaded, and Roland was ready.

"Lay in your oars, men! Up, guns! Let them have a volley! Straight at yonder bush! Fire low, lads! See, yonder is a savage!"

Dick took aim at a dark-skinned native who stood well out from the wood, and fired. He was close to the stream and had been about to shoot, but Dick's rifle took away his breath, and with an agonized scream he threw up his arms and fell headlong into the water.

Volley after volley rang out now on the still air, and soon it was evident that the woods were cleared.

"Those are the Paynee Indians without a doubt," said Dick; "the same sable devils that the skipper of that steamer warned us about."

They saw no more of the enemy then, however, and the afternoon passed in peace.

An hour and a half before sunset they landed at the mouth of a small but clear river, about ten miles to the north of the Falls of Woe.

Close to the Madeira itself this lovely stream was thickly banked by forest, but the boats were taken higher up, and here excellent camping-ground was found in a country sparsely wooded.

Far away to the west rose the everlasting hills, and our heroes thought they could perceive snow in the chasms between the rocks.

Roland had not forgotten the adventure with the Indians, so scouts were sent out at once to scour the woods. They returned shortly before sunset, having seen no one.

Both Roland and Dick were somewhat uneasy in their minds, nevertheless, and after dinner, in the wan and uncertain light of a half-moon, a double row of sentries was posted, and orders were given that they should be relieved every two hours, for the night was close and sultry, just such a night as causes restless somnolence. At such times a sentry may drop to sleep leaning on his gun or against a tree. He may slumber for an hour and not be aware he has even closed an eye.

The boys themselves felt a strange drowsiness stealing away their senses. They would have rolled themselves up in their rugs and sought repose at once, but this would have made the night irksomely long.

So they chatted, and even sang, till their usual hour.

When they turned in, instead of dressing in a pyjama suit, they retained the clothes they had worn all day.

Dick noticed that Roland was doing so, and followed his example. No reason was given by his friend, but Dick could guess it. Guess also what he meant by placing a rifle close beside him and looking to his revolvers before he lay down.

Everyone in camp, except those on duty, was by this time sound asleep. Lights and fires were out, and the stillness was almost painful.

Roland would have preferred hearing the wind sighing among the forest trees, the murmur of the river, or even the mournful wailing of the great blue owl.

But never a leaf stirred, and as the moon sank lower and lower towards those strangely rugged and serrated mountains of the west, the boys themselves joined the sleepers, and all their care and anxiety was for the time being forgotten.

The night waned and waned. The sentries had been changed, and it was now nearly one o'clock.

There was a lake about a mile above the camp, that is, a mile farther westwards. It was surrounded by tall waving reeds, at least an acre wide all round.

The home _par excellence_ of the dreaded 'gator was this dark and sombre sheet of water, for to it almost nightly came the tapirs to quench their thirst and to bathe.

Silently a troop of these wonderful creatures came up out of the forest to-night, all in a string, with the largest and oldest a little way in front.

Every now and then these pioneers would pause to listen. They knew the wiliness of the enemy that might be lying in wait for them. So acute in hearing are they said to be that they can distinguish the sound of a snake gliding over withered leaves at a distance of a hundred yards. But their sight also is a great protection to them. No 'gator can move among the reeds without bending them, move he never so warily. Above all this, the tapir's sense of smell is truly marvellous.

To-night the old tapirs that led the van seemed particularly suspicious and cautious. Their signal for silence was a kind of snort or cough, and this was now ofttimes repeated.

Suddenly the foremost tapir stamped his foot, and at once the whole drove turned or wheeled and glided back as silently as they had come, until the shadows of the great forest swallowed them up.

What had they seen or heard? They had seen tall, dark human figures--one, two, three--a score and over, suddenly raise their heads and shoulders above the reeds, and after standing for a moment so still that they seemed part and parcel of the solemn scene, move out from the jungle and take their way towards the slumbering camp.

Savages all, and on a mission of death.

Nobody's dreams could have been a bit more happy than those of Dick Temple just at this moment.

He was sitting once more on the deck of the great raft, which was slowly gliding down the sunlit sea-like Amazon. The near bank was tree-clad, and every branch was garlanded with flowers of rainbow hues.

But Dick looked not on the trees nor the flowers, nor the waving undulating forest itself--looked not on the sun-kissed river. His eyes were fixed on a brightly-beautiful and happy face. It was Peggy who sat beside him, Peggy to whom he was breathing words of affection and love, Peggy with shy, half-flushed face and slightly averted head.

But suddenly this scene was changed, and he awoke with a start to grasp his rifle. A shrill quavering yell rang through the camp, and awakened every echo in the forest.

The Indians--the dreaded Paynee tribe of cannibals--were on them. That yell was a war-cry. These pagan Paynees were thirsting for blood.