Jules Verne (20 page)

A dose of buckshot to the head, close to the eye, from Benito, stopped
one of the monsters, who, mortally wounded, writhed in frightful
convulsions and fell on his side.

But the second still lived, and came on, and there was no way of
avoiding him.

The huge alligator tore up to Joam Garral, and after knocking him over
with a sweep of his tail, ran at him with open jaws.

At this moment Torres rushed from the cabin, hatchet in hand, and struck
such a terrific blow that its edge sunk into the jaw of the cayman and
left him defenseless.

Blinded by the blood, the animal flew to the side, and, designedly or
not, fell over and was lost in the stream.

"Minha! Minha!" shouted Manoel in distraction, when he got to the bow of
the jangada.

Suddenly she came into view. She had taken refuge in the cabin of
Araujo, and the cabin had just been upset by a powerful blow from the
third alligator. Minha was flying aft, pursued by the monster, who was
not six feet away from her.

Minha fell.

A second shot from Benito failed to stop the cayman. He only struck the
animal's carapace, and the scales flew to splinters but the ball did not
penetrate.

Manoel threw himself at the girl to raise her, or to snatch her from
death! A side blow from the animal's tail knocked him down too.

Minha fainted, and the mouth of the alligator opened to crush her!

And then Fragoso jumped in to the animal, and thrust in a knife to the
very bottom of his throat, at the risk of having his arm snapped off by
the two jaws, had they quickly closed.

Fragoso pulled out his arm in time, but he could not avoid the chock of
the cayman, and was hurled back into the river, whose waters reddened
all around.

"Fragoso! Fragoso!" shrieked Lina, kneeling on the edge of the raft.

A second afterward Fragoso reappeared on the surface of the Amazon—safe
and sound.

But, at the peril of his life he had saved the young girl, who soon came
to. And as all hands were held out to him—Manoel's, Yaquita's, Minha's,
and Lina's, and he did not know what to say, he ended by squeezing the
hands of the young mulatto.

However, though Fragoso had saved Minha, it was assuredly to the
intervention of Torres that Joam Garral owed his safety.

It was not, therefore, the fazender's life that the adventurer wanted.
In the face of this fact, so much had to be admitted.

Manoel said this to Benito in an undertone.

"That is true!" replied Benito, embarrassed. "You are right, and in a
sense it is one cruel care the less! Nevertheless, Manoel, my suspicions
still exist! It is not always a man's worst enemy who wishes him dead!"

Joam Garral walked up to Torres.

"Thank you, Torres!" he said, holding out his hand. The adventurer took
a step or two backward without replying.

"Torres," continued Joam, "I am sorry that we are arriving at the end of
our voyage, and that in a few days we must part! I owe you—"

"Joam Garral!" answered Torres, "you owe me nothing! Your life is
precious to me above all things! But if you will allow me—I have been
thinking—in place of stopping at Manaos, I will go on to Belem. Will
you take me there?"

Joam Garral replied by an affirmative nod.

In hearing this demand Benito in an unguarded moment was about to
intervene, but Manoel stopped him, and the young man checked himself,
though not without a violent effort.

IN THE MORNING, after a night which was scarcely sufficient to calm
so much excitement, they unmoored from the cayman beach and departed.
Before five days, if nothing interfered with their voyage, the raft
would reach the port of Manaos.

Minha had quite recovered from her fright, and her eyes and smiles
thanked all those who had risked their lives for her.

As for Lina, it seemed as though she was more grateful to the brave
Fragoso than if it was herself that he had saved.

"I will pay you back, sooner or later, Mr. Fragoso," said she, smiling.

"And how, Miss Lina?"

"Oh! You know very well!"

"Then if I know it, let it be soon and not late!" replied the
good-natured fellow.

And from this day it began to be whispered about that the charming Lina
was engaged to Fragoso, that their marriage would take place at the same
time as that of Minha and Manoel, and that the young couple would remain
at Belem with the others.

"Capital! capital!" repeated Fragoso unceasingly; "but I never thought
Para was such a long way off!"

As for Manoel and Benito, they had had a long conversation about what
had passed. There could be no question about obtaining from Joam Garral
the dismissal of his rescuer.

"Your life is precious to me above all things!" Torres had said.

This reply, hyperbolical and enigmatical at the time, Benito had heard
and remembered.

In the meantime the young men could do nothing. More than ever they were
reduced to waiting—to waiting not for four or five days, but for seven
or eight weeks—that is to say, for whatever time it would take for the
raft to get to Belem.

"There is in all this some mystery that I cannot understand," said
Benito.

"Yes, but we are assured on one point," answered Manoel. "It is certain
that Torres does not want your father's life. For the rest, we must
still watch!"

It seemed that from this day Torres desired to keep himself more
reserved. He did not seek to intrude on the family, and was even less
assiduous toward Minha. There seemed a relief in the situation of which
all, save perhaps Joam Garral, felt the gravity.

On the evening of the same day they left on the right the island of
Baroso, formed by a furo of that name, and Lake Manaori, which is fed by
a confused series of petty tributaries.

The night passed without incident, though Joam Garral had advised them
to watch with great care.

On the morrow, the 20th of August, the pilot, who kept near the right
bank on account of the uncertain eddies on the left, entered between the
bank and the islands.

Beyond this bank the country was dotted with large and small lakes, much
as those of Calderon, Huarandeina, and other black-watered lagoons. This
water system marks the approach of the Rio Negro, the most remarkable of
all the tributaries of the Amazon. In reality the main river still bore
the name of the Solimoens, and it is only after the junction of the
Rio Negro that it takes the name which has made it celebrated among the
rivers of the globe.

During this day the raft had to be worked under curious conditions.

The arm followed by the pilot, between Calderon Island and the shore,
was very narrow, although it appeared sufficiently large. This was owing
to a great portion of the island being slightly above the mean level,
but still covered by the high flood waters. On each side were massed
forests of giant trees, whose summits towered some fifty feet above the
ground, and joining one bank to the other formed an immense cradle.

On the left nothing could be more picturesque than this flooded forest,
which seemed to have been planted in the middle of a lake. The stems
of the trees arose from the clear, still water, in which every
interlacement of their boughs was reflected with unequaled purity. They
were arranged on an immense sheet of glass, like the trees in miniature
on some table
epergne,
and their reflection could not be more perfect.
The difference between the image and the reality could scarcely be
described. Duplicates of grandeur, terminated above and below by a vast
parasol of green, they seemed to form two hemispheres, inside which the
jangada appeared to follow one of the great circles.

It had been necessary to bring the raft under these boughs, against
which flowed the gentle current of the stream. It was impossible to go
back. Hence the task of navigating with extreme care, so as to avoid the
collisions on either side.

In this all Araujo's ability was shown, and he was admirably seconded by
his crew. The trees of the forest furnished the resting-places for the
long poles which kept the jangada in its course. The least blow to the
jangada would have endangered the complete demolition of the woodwork,
and caused the loss, if not of the crew, of the greater part of the
cargo.

"It is truly very beautiful," said Minha, "and it would be very pleasant
for us always to travel in this way, on this quiet water, shaded from
the rays of the sun."

"At the same time pleasant and dangerous, dear Minha," said Manoel. "In
a pirogue there is doubtless nothing to fear in sailing here, but on a
huge raft of wood better have a free course and a clear stream."

"We shall be quite through the forest in a couple of hours," said the
pilot.

"Look well at it, then!" said Lina. "All these beautiful things pass so
quickly! Ah! dear mistress! do you see the troops of monkeys disporting
in the higher branches, and the birds admiring themselves in the
pellucid water!"

"And the flowers half-opened on the surface," replied Minha, "and which
the current dandles like the breeze!"

"And the long lianas, which so oddly stretch from one tree to another!"
added the young mulatto.

"And no Fragoso at the end of them!" said Lina's betrothed. "That was
rather a nice flower you gathered in the forest of Iquitos!"

"Just behold the flower—the only one in the world," said Lina
quizzingly; "and, mistress! just look at the splendid plants!"

And Lina pointed to the nymphæas with their colossal leaves, whose
flowers bear buds as large as cocoanuts. Then, just where the banks
plunged beneath the waters, there were clumps of
"mucumus,"
reeds with
large leaves, whose elastic stems bend to give passage to the pirogues
and close again behind them. There was there what would tempt any
sportsman, for a whole world of aquatic birds fluttered between the
higher clusters, which shook with the stream.

Ibises half-lollingly posed on some old trunk, and gray herons
motionless on one leg, solemn flamingoes who from a distance looked like
red umbrellas scattered in the foliage, and phenicopters of every color,
enlivened the temporary morass.

And along the top of the water glided long and swiftly-swimming
snakes, among them the formidable gymnotus, whose electric discharges
successively repeated paralyze the most robust of men or animals,
and end by dealing death. Precautions had to be taken against the
"sucurijus"
serpents, which, coiled round the trunk of some tree,
unroll themselves, hang down, seize their prey, and draw it into their
rings, which are powerful enough to crush a bullock. Have there not been
met with in these Amazonian forests reptiles from thirty to thirty-five
feet long? and even, according to M. Carrey, do not some exist whose
length reaches forty-seven feet, and whose girth is that of a hogshead?

Had one of these sucurijus, indeed, got on to the raft he would have
proved as formidable as an alligator.

Very fortunately the travelers had to contend with neither gymnotus
nor sucuriju, and the passage across the submerged forest, which lasted
about two hours, was effected without accident.

Three days passed. They neared Manaos. Twenty-four hours more and the
raft would be off the mouth of the Rio Negro, before the capital of the
province of Amazones.

In fact, on the 23d of August, at five o'clock in the evening, they
stopped at the southern point of Muras Island, on the right bank of the
stream. They only had to cross obliquely for a few miles to arrive at
the port, but the pilot Araujo very properly would not risk it on that
day, as night was coming on. The three miles which remained would take
three hours to travel, and to keep to the course of the river it was
necessary, above all things, to have a clear outlook.

This evening the dinner, which promised to be the last of this first
part of the voyage, was not served without a certain amount of ceremony.
Half the journey on the Amazon had been accomplished, and the task was
worthy of a jovial repast. It was fitting to drink to the health of
Amazones a few glasses of that generous liquor which comes from the
coasts of Oporto and Setubal. Besides, this was, in a way, the betrothal
dinner of Fragoso and the charming Lina—that of Manoel and Minha had
taken place at the fazenda of Iquitos several weeks before. After the
young master and mistress, it was the turn of the faithful couple who
were attached to them by so many bonds of gratitude.

So Lina, who was to remain in the service of Minha, and Fragoso, who was
about to enter into that of Manoel Valdez, sat at the common table, and
even had the places of honor reserved for them.

Torres, naturally, was present at the dinner, which was worthy of the
larder and kitchen of the jangada.

The adventurer, seated opposite to Joam Garral, who was always taciturn,
listened to all that was said, but took no part in the conversation.
Benito quietly and attentively watched him. The eyes of Torres, with a
peculiar expression, constantly sought his father. One would have called
them the eyes of some wild beast trying to fascinate his prey before he
sprang on it.

Manoel talked mostly with Minha. Between whiles his eyes wandered
to Torres, but he acted his part more successfully than Benito in a
situation which, if it did not finish at Manaos, would certainly end at
Belem.

The dinner was jolly enough. Lina kept it going with her good humor,
Fragoso with his witty repartees.

The Padre Passanha looked gayly round on the little world he cherished,
and on the two young couples which his hands would shortly bless in the
waters of Para.

"Eat, padre," said Benito, who joined in the general conversation; "do
honor to this betrothal dinner. You will want some strength to celebrate
both marriages at once!"