CHAPTER V--A DAY IN THE FOREST WILDS

Burly Bill laid down his banjo. Then he pushed his great extinguisher of a thumb into the bowl of his big meerschaum, and arose.

"De good Lawd ha' mussy on our souls, chillun!" cried Beeboo, twisting her apron into a calico rope. "We soon be all at de bottom ob de deep, and de 'gators a-pickin' de bones ob us!"

"Keep quiet, Beeb, there's a dear soul! Never a 'gator'll get near you. W'y, look 'ow calm Miss Peggy is. It be'ant much as'll frighten she."

Burly Bill could speak good English when he took time, but invariably reverted to Berkshire when in the least degree excited.

He was soon on board the little steamer.

"What cheer, Jake?" he said.

"Not much o' that. A deuced unlucky business. May lose the whole voyage if it comes on to blow!"

"W'y, Jake, lad, let's 'ope for the best. No use givin' up; be there? I wouldn't let the men go to prayers yet awhile, Jake. Not to make a bizness on't like, I means."

Well, the night wore away, but the raft never budged, unless it was to get a firmer hold of the mud and sand.

A low wind had sprung up too, and if it increased to a gale she would soon begin to break up.

It was a dreary night and a long one, and few on board the steamer slept a wink.

But day broke at last, and the sun's crimson light changed the ripples on the river from leaden gray to dazzling ruby.

Then the wind fell.

"There are plenty of river-boats, Bill," said Jake. "What say you to intercept one and ask assistance?"

"Bust my buttons if I would cringe to ne'er a one on 'em! They'd charge salvage, and sponge enormous. I knows the beggars as sails these puffin' Jimmies well."

"Guess you're about right, Bill, and you know the river better'n I."

"Listen, Jake. The bloomin' river got low all at once, like, after the storm, and so you got kind o' befoozled, and struck. I'd a-kept further out. But Burly Bill ain't the man to bully his mate. On'y listen again. The river'll rise in a day or two, and if the wind keeps in its sack, w'y we'll float like a thousand o' bricks on an old Thames lumper! Bust my buttons, Jake, if we don't!"

"Well, Bill, I don't know anything about the bursting of your buttons, but you give me hope. So I'll go to breakfast. Tell the engineer to keep the fires banked."

Two days went past, and never a move made the raft.

It was a wearisome time for all. The "chillun", as Beeboo called them, tried to beguile it in the best way they could with reading, talking, and deck games.

Dick and Roland were "dons" at leap-frog, and it mattered not which of them was giving the back, but as soon as the other leapt over Brawn followed suit, greatly to the delight of Peggy. He jumped in such a business-like way that everybody was forced to laugh, especially when the noble dog took a leap that would have cleared a five-barred gate.

But things were getting slow on the third morning, when up sprang Burly Bill with his cartridge-belt on and his rifle under his arm.

"Cap'n Jake," he said, touching his cap in Royal Navy fashion, "presents his compliments to the crew of this durned old stack o' timber, and begs to say that Master Rolly and Master Dick can come on shore with me for a run among the 'gators, but that Miss Peggy had better stop on board with Beeboo. Her life is too precious to risk!"

"Precious or not precious," pouted the girl, "Miss Peggy's going, and Brawn too; so you may tell Captain Jake that."

"Bravo, Miss Peggy! you're a real St. Clair. Well, Beeboo, hurry up, and get the nicest bit of cold luncheon ready for us ever you made in your life."

"Beeboo do dat foh true. Plenty quick, too; but oh, Massa Bill, 'spose you let any ebil ting befall de poh chillun, I hopes de 'gators'll eat you up!"

"More likely, Beeb, that we'll eat them; and really, come to think of it, a slice off a young 'gator's tail aint 'arf bad tackle, Beeboo."

An hour after this the boat was dancing over the rippling river. It was not the dinghy, but a gig. Burly Bill himself was stroke, and three Indians handled the other bits of timber, while Roland took the tiller.

The redskins sang a curious but happy boat-lilt as they rowed, and Bill joined in with his 'cello voice:

"Ober de watter and ober de sea--ee--ee, De big black boat am rowing so free, Eee--Eee--O--ay--O! De big black boat, is it nuffin' to me--ee--ee, We're rowing so free?

"Oh yes, de black boat am some-dings to me As she rolls o'er de watter and swings o'er de sea, Foh de light ob my life, she sits in de stern, An' sweet am de glance o' Peggy's dark e'e, Ee--ee--O--ay--O--O!"

"Well steered!" said Burly Bill, as Roland ran the gig on the sandy beach of a sweet little backwater.

Very soon all were landed. Bill went first as guide, and the Indians brought up the rear, carrying the basket and a spare gun or two.

Great caution and care were required in venturing far into this wild, tropical forest, not so much on account of the beasts that infested it as the fear of getting lost.

It was very still and quiet here, however, and Bill had taken the precaution to leave a man in the boat, with orders to keep his weather ear "lifting", and if he heard four shots fired in rapid succession late in the afternoon to fire in reply at once.

It was now the heat of the day, however, and the hairy inhabitants of this sylvan wilderness were all sound asleep, jaguars and pumas among the trees, and the tapirs in small herds wherever the jungle was densest.

There was no chance, therefore, of getting a shot at anything. Nevertheless, the boys and Peggy were not idle. They had brought butterfly-nets with them, and the specimens they caught when about five miles inland, where the forest opened out into a shrub-clad moorland, were large and glorious in the extreme.

Indeed, some of them would fetch gold galore in the London markets.

But though these butterflies had an immense spread of quaintly-shaped and exquisitely-coloured wings, the smaller ones were even more brilliant.

Strange it is that Nature paints these creatures in colours which no sunshine can fade. All the tints that man ever invented grow pale in the sun; these never do, and the same may be said concerning the tropical birds that they saw so many of to-day.

But no one had the heart to shoot any of these. Why should they soil such beautiful plumage with blood, and so bring grief and woe into this love-lit wilderness?

This is not a book on natural history, else gladly would I describe the beauties in shape and colour of the birds, and their strange manners, the wary ways adopted in nest-building, and their songs and queer ways of love-making.

Suffice it to say here that the boys were delighted with all the tropical wonders and all the picturesque gorgeousness they saw everywhere around them.

But their journey was not without a spice of real danger and at times of discomfort. The discomfort we may dismiss at once. It was borne, as Beeboo would say, with Christian "forty-tood", and was due partly to the clouds of mosquitoes they encountered wherever the soil was damp and marshy, and partly to the attacks of tiny, almost invisible, insects of the jigger species that came from the grass and ferns and heaths to attack their legs.

Burly Bill was an old forester, and carried with him an infallible remedy for mosquito and jigger bites, which acted like a charm.

In the higher ground--where tropical heath and heather painted the surface with hues of crimson, pink, and purple--snakes wriggled and darted about everywhere.

One cannot help wondering why Nature has taken the pains to paint many of the most deadly of these in colours that rival the hues of the humming-birds that yonder flit from bush to bush, from flower to flower.

Perhaps it is that they may the more easily seek their prey, their gaudy coats matching well with the shrubs and blossoms that they wriggle amongst, while gliding on and up to seize helpless birds in their nests or to devour the eggs.

Parrots here, and birds of that ilk, have an easy way of repelling such invaders, for as soon as they see them they utter a scream that paralyses the intruders, and causes them to fall helplessly to the ground.

To all creatures Nature grants protection, and clothes them in a manner that shall enable them to gain a subsistence; but, moreover, every creature in the world has received from the same great power the means of defending or protecting itself against the attacks of enemies.

On both sides, then, is Nature just, for though she does her best to keep living species extant until evolved into higher forms of life, she permits each species to prey on the overgrowth or overplus of others that it may live.

Knocking over a heap of soft dry mould with the butt end of his rifle, Dick started back in terror to see crawl out from the heap a score or more of the most gigantic beetles anyone could imagine. These were mostly black, or of a beautiful bronze, with streaks of metallic blue and crimson.

They are called harlequins, and live on carrion. Nothing that dies comes wrong to these monsters, and a few of them will seize and carry away a dead snake five or six hundred times their own weight. My readers will see by this that it is not so much muscle that is needed for feats of strength as indomitable will and nerve force. But health must be at the bottom of all. Were a man, comparatively speaking, as strong as one of these beetles, he could lift on his back and walk off with a weight of thirty tons!

Our heroes had to stop every now and then to marvel at the huge working ants, and all the wondrous proofs of reason they evinced.

It was well to stand off, however, if, with snapping horizontal mandibles and on business intent, any of these fellows approached. For their bites are as poisonous as those of the green scorpions or centipedes themselves.

What with one thing or another, all hands were attacked by healthy hunger at last, and sought the shade of a great spreading tree to satisfy Nature's demands.

When the big basket was opened it was found that Beeboo had quite excelled herself. So glorious a luncheon made every eye sparkle to look at it. And the odour thereof caused Brawn's mouth to water and his eyes to sparkle with expectancy.

The Indians had disappeared for a time. They were only just round the shoulder of a hill, however, where they, too, were enjoying a good feed.

But just as Burly Bill was having a taste from a clear bottle, which, as far as the look of it went, would have passed for cold tea, two Indian boys appeared, bringing with them the most delicious of fruits as well as fresh ripe nuts.

The luncheon after that merged into a banquet.

Burly Bill took many sips of his cold tea. When I come to think over it, however, I conclude there was more rum than cold tea in that brown mixture, or Bill would hardly have smacked his lips and sighed with such satisfaction after every taste.

The fruit done, and even Brawn satisfied, the whole crew gave themselves up to rest and meditation. The boys talked low, because Peggy's meditations had led to gentle slumber. An Indian very thoughtfully brought a huge plantain leaf which quite covered her, and protected her from the chequered rays of sunshine that found their way through the tree. Brawn edged in below the leaf also, and enjoyed a good sleep beside his little mistress.

Not a gun had been fired all day long, yet a more enjoyable picnic in a tropical forest it would be difficult to imagine.

Perhaps the number of the Indians scared the jaguars away, for none appeared.

Yet the day was not to end without an adventure.

Darkness in this country follows the short twilight so speedily, that Burly Bill did well to get clear of the forest's gloom while the sun was still well above the horizon.

He trusted to the compass and his own good sense as a forester to come out close to the spot where he had left the boat. But he was deceived. He struck the river a good mile and a half above the place where the steamer lay at anchor and the raft aground on the shoals.

Lower and lower sank the sun. The ground was wet and marshy, and the 'gators very much in evidence indeed.

Now the tapirs--and droll pig-bodied creatures they look, though in South America nearly as big as donkeys--are of a very retiring disposition, but not really solitary animals as cheap books on natural history would have us believe. They frequent low woods, where their long snouts enable them to pull down the tender twigs and foliage on which, with roots, which they can speedily unearth, they manage to exist--yes, and to wax fat and happy.

But they are strict believers in the doctrine of cleanliness, and are never found very far from water. They bathe every night.

Just when the returning picnic was within about half a mile of the boat, Burly Bill carrying Peggy on his shoulder because the ground was damp, a terrible scrimmage suddenly took place a few yards round a backwater.

There was grunting, squeaking, the splashing of water, and cries of pain.

"Hurry on, boys; hurry on; two of you are enough! It's your show, lads."

The boys needed no second bidding, and no sooner had they opened out the curve than a strange sight met their gaze.