Chapter XVII: Up the River

The Wanderer lay in a small, land locked harbor, densely surrounded by a strange and wonderful growth of forest, that completely concealed the shore behind.

Near by, though hidden beyond a neck of land, one could hear the roar of breakers. At the opposite extremity, the harbor was elongated, as if some stream were entering beneath a giant growth of overhanging foliage.

The little bay was no more than a quarter of a mile across, nor was there any sign of human presence other than that presented by the schooner and her crew. She was anchored mid-stream, and Ralph could perceive a sluggish, muddy current making towards an inlet that was partially concealed by several small islets, densely covered by mangroves.

"Granger, I want you," said the second mate from the quarter deck. "Take three hands and make ready the ship's yawl alongside."

In obedience to this, Ralph, with the requisite aid, soon had the large boat that rested amid-ships, swinging by a painter to the schooner's side. Mr. Duff then directed two pair of oars, a keg of water and some cooked provisions and bedding to be placed aboard.

"I want you, Ralph, and you, Ben, to go along."

The Ben to whom the mate alluded was a broadfaced Englishman, who had been the spokesman on the occasion when Gary had made known to the crew the object and destination of his voyage. He had expressed himself once or twice since then unfavorably, to his mates, and had been rebuked by Long Tom in consequence.

Duff disappeared below, but soon returned with three Winchester rifles and the same number of cutlasses. He handed one of each to the other two, saying to Ralph:

"I guess you can shoot, can't you? I hear you mountaineers are hard to beat with a long rifle."

"I can shoot a squirrel's head off with grandfather's old gun four times out of five. But this here short, double barreled thing don't look good for much."

Duff laughed, then briefly explained the purpose of the magazine and showed him how to work the mechanism. Ralph, though still dubious, said nothing, and resolved to test for himself the wonderful qualities of the modern breech loader, which the average mountaineer distrusts in proportion to his ignorance.

The boy noticed that the most of the crew, together with the captain and first mate, were absent. Only Bludson, with three or four sailors, were left on board, after Duff and his boatmen were pulling towards the mouth of the river above.

"Now, lads," said Long Tom, "look alive. We've got to get the hold ready against cap'n gets back with the first batch. We're rid of the squeamish ones, I reckon. 'Fore they come in with their meat we'll be loaded; that is, s'posin' they show up in time."

The boatswain grinned in a knowing, mirthless way, that his assistants seemed to understand, for they responded in kind. The main hatch was then opened and an iron grating substituted.

Between the main hold and the cabin was a strong bulkhead with a double door, strongly barred and padlocked. This was thrown open and a four pound howitzer mounted in the gangway in such a manner that when the upper half of the door was thrown open, the gun could rake the hold from end to end.

Water butts were set up where water could be handed inside by the bucket. From store rooms on either side of the gangway, long chains with short fetters attached at intervals were brought out and stretched across the hold about seven feet apart and about a foot from the floor. Ankle cuffs that closed with spring locks were attached to these fetters.

In these storerooms were placed the barrels of provisions that had deceived the lieutenant. Then Bludson and his assistants passed the next few hours in throwing overboard the ballast that had been stowed at Tybee Island in far away America.

Meanwhile Duff and his companions entered the river, which seemed to be a small stream flowing deviously through a low, half swampy region, where insects swarmed and many kinds of strange animals and bird life were to be seen.

Ralph, to try his Winchester, shot at a blue heron on the wing and made the feathers fly.

"Try it again," urged Duff sharply. "Quick now."

A second shot brought down the bird, and Ralph's opinion of breech loaders was raised at once.

For several hours they pulled up stream, the mate taking his turn at the oars with the others. The trees rose to a gigantic height, while the interlacing undergrowth was at some places impenetrable.

About eleven they halted, mooring the boat to a fallen tree half imbedded in the water. Deep shadows from the overhanging foliage screened them from the now scorching sunlight. After a lunch on dried beef and biscuit, the mate suggested a siesta for an hour or two until it should be cool enough to proceed. Ralph volunteered to keep watch, though there did not seem to be much necessity for vigilance. The whole vast forest and all life within its folds appeared to be steeped in tropical midday repose.

"Well," said the mate, as he and Ben bestowed themselves in the bottom of the boat on some blankets, "if you get too sleepy call Ben. We'll have to cover our heads on account of these wretched gnats and mosquitos."

While the two slumbered, Ralph amused himself at first by examining the mechanism of his Winchester. Tiring of this he fell into a reverie so deep that he hardly realized that he was dozing until roused to wakefulness by a slight pressure upon his hat, which was pulled forward over his eyes.

His first impulse was to start up, but a long, skeleton leg with tiny claws at the end--horribly hairy in a miniature way--slowly protruded over the front brim of his headgear, sending a curdling chill through his veins as he wondered what kind of a creature its owner might be.

Thoughts of the strange, poisonous insects of abnormal size, which he had read of as being common in certain warm countries, coursed through his mind. If he stirred, the thing might claw or bite, and the merest scratch was said, in some kinds of these venomous species, to be fatal.

He dared not move, but lay there in a sort of physical coma, though with every nerve strung to the point of agonized apprehension.

After feeling first with one claw, then another, the creature began to descend. The first touch upon his face was indescribably loathsome to Ralph, and as its round, egg-like body came in view, he closed his eyes and held his breath.

Down to his breast the thing crawled, while the skin of his face prickled sharply under an imaginary pain. Then he opened his eyes and beheld a gigantic spider slowly making its way down his clothing.

With a body quite as large as the egg of a hen, and legs in proportion, it moved slowly, in a groping manner, as if uncertain of its whereabouts. Ralph fancied he could see its dull, cruel eyes. He lay as if dead, until the thing had left his person, then recovered his breath and courage by a vigorous inhalation.

But upon his first move the creature ran along the bottom of the boat with extraordinary rapidity, and thence along Ben's blanket and body, pausing only as it reached the sailor's now uncovered head.

There it seemed to look back at Ralph, who did not dare attempt to kill it, lest it should attack Ben. To his horror the sailor stirred and opened his eyes drowsily.

"Ben," whispered Ralph, "for goodness sake don't move, as you value your life. Do as I tell you. It--it may bite you, if you stir."

Ben felt the creature as the boy had done. He lay shivering.

Slowly the great insect turned and made its way from the sailor's neck to the flooring, then up the side of the boat. Ralph, seizing a rope's end, struck a furious blow, but missed. With lightning-like speed the spider ran up the side of the boat, sprang upon the water where it floated like a feather, and pushed towards shore.

But Ben had seized an oar and now came down with a splash that sent a shower of spray about and momentarily blinded them both.

"There! Look yonder, Ben!" cried Ralph. "Confound the luck!"

The spider was swiftly crawling up the bank, where it quickly disappeared beneath a tussock.

"That beats all the creatures I ever seen," said Ben. "He must be the great grandfather of all the spiders hereabout."

Mr. Duff, also awakened by the noise, now suggested that it was time they were going on. While proceeding up stream Ralph related his own and Ben's experience with the spider, whereat the mate laughed heartily.

"I am familiar with the species," said he. "True, they do look scary enough, but, strange to say, they are perfectly harmless. Instead of teeth, their mouth is supplied with a kind of suction apparatus by which they suck the blood from smaller insects. But they cannot bite, nor is their touch poisonous. There are other, smaller kinds of spiders about here, however, whose bite is fatal."

"We were jist as bad scared as if it had been a rattlesnake," returned Ben. "I could feel me bloomin' hair turnin' gray when the thing was cocked upon me shoulder."

Towards night they came to a dozen or more small huts made of palm leaves and elephant grass, from which issued a number of nearly naked blacks, who made the air hideous with shouts of welcome.

Here was where they were to trade for fresh meat and vegetables--the object of their river trip.

One tall savage, with a pair of bullock's horns as a head dress, and with his hair reeking with grease, coiled round the same, appeared to be the head man of the village.

He wore a long red flannel shirt as an additional badge of dignity. The rest, men as well as women, wore little else but cloths about the loins.

They were a jolly, sociable set though, and gave our party a hut to themselves, after supplying them with a bountiful supper of "mealies," bull beef, and a kind of bread made from ground maize and the grated buds of the cabbage palm.

After that Mr. Duff and the chief began a laborious trade for meat and vegetables that lasted for an hour or more, and was carried on principally by signs and gestures. Some red blankets, beads, and cheap hand mirrors constituted the offers on the part of the mate.

In this way several bushels of potatoes and a lot of green corn were secured and placed by the natives in the yawl. Meanwhile another party, taking torches, proceeded to a corral near by, and slaughtered a fat ox, with great dexterity. This, in its turn, was placed in the boat, after which all hands prepared to turn in.

"One of us must sleep in the yawl," remarked Duff, "and I guess it ought to be the lightest sleeper."

Ben volunteered, saying that he would waken, as he expressed it, "at the bat of a cat's eye."

Leaving Ben in the boat with a blanket and Winchester, the other two retired to the hut prepared for their reception, and lay down, as they thought, for the night. Duff was soon asleep, but Ralph remained wakeful.

To add to his restlessness he soon found his blankets alive with fleas, from which these native huts are hardly ever free. After fighting and scratching for an hour or more, he got up and returned to the open air for relief.

The scene was both weird and dismal. The small clearing, densely walled in by the forest where the trees sprang nearly two hundred feet in the air, seemed to be stifling under the compression, though the feeling was but the resulting languor of a tropic night without a breeze. Sundry strange and melancholy calls issued in varying cadences from the wilderness, and an occasional splash from the river denoted the passage of some huge marine animal. Crocodiles were bellowing sullenly up stream, and from the closed huts issued the sounds of heavy slumber.

He was thinking it strange that no one should remain on guard amid a life so savage and isolated as that of these simple people, when he was aroused by a touch on his arm, as he sat musing on a log before the embers of their fire.