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Hunting the Skipper: The Cruise of the "Seafowl" Sloop, a fiction by George Manville Fenn |
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Chapter 24. "Seafowls Ahoy!" |
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_ CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR. "SEAFOWLS AHOY!" Murray lost no time in making for the spot where the two men were in charge of the boat; but simple as the task appeared on the surface, it proved to be far otherwise. He had told himself that he had only to follow in reverse the faintly-marked track taken by the black who had been their guide; and that he set himself to do, until he felt that he must be close to the stream that they had ascended; but if close by, it was by no means visible, and after making a cast or two in different directions without result, he pulled up short, the men following his example and looking at him wonderingly. "It was just here that we left the boat-keepers, wasn't it, Tom?" he said. "Don't seem like it, sir," replied the man, "'cause if it was just here, where is it?" "But it must have been here," cried Murray, growing irritable and confused. "That's what I thought, sir," said the man, "but it don't seem to be nowhere near. What do you say, messmate?" "I warn't a-looking out, lad," replied Titely. "You see, I didn't take no bearings 'cause I says to mysen, 'Mr Murray 'll see to that,' and what I does was to foller with my eyes screwed back'ards over my shoulders like a she hare at the dogs." "Same here, messmate," says Tom May. "'Mr Murray took the bearings to begin with,' I says to myself, 'and I'll keep a sharp lookout for the enemy, who maybe 'll try to run us down.'" "Then you neither of you feel that you can remember the black fellow's trail?" said Murray, speaking excitedly, and looking hard at the big sailor the while. "Well, I can't answer for Titely, sir," said the man.--"Why don't you speak up like a man, messmate, and say what you know?" "'Cause I can't, lad," replied the man addressed. "It warn't my watch, and I telled you I was too busy looking out for squalls. I dunno which way we ought to go, messmate. Don't you, Mr Murray, sir?" "No, my lad; I've lost our bearings for a bit, but you two try off to right and left while I go straight on, and the first that comes upon the river holloa gently. Not loud, because it may bring the enemy down upon us. Now then, off with you, and when you shout, stand fast so that we may come and join you." "Stand fast it is, sir," said Tom May, and without further hesitation the three separated and began to thread the dense cane brake, each fully expecting to come upon the windings of the overshadowed river at once. But somehow every step seemed to lead the seekers into greater difficulties. It was plain enough that the river must be near, for their steps were in and out among the dense patches of cane and over soft spongy soil into which their feet sank slightly, the earth being springy and elastic; but though Murray expected to see the dense foliage open out and the brake look lighter from the presence of the river, he was disappointed again and again, and to all intents and purposes the stream had ceased to exist. For some minutes, as Murray strode on, the steps of his companions were audible in two directions, and making up his mind to proceed in that being taken by May, he struck off so as to cross the man's track. This seemed practicable enough for a while, and he went on till the brake began to grow more dense and he had to force his way through the thicket. Then to his disgust he found himself entangled in a little wilderness of thorny palms, out of which he had a hard struggle to free himself, and he stood at last, panting and exhausted, rubbing the bleeding spots beneath the rents in his garments which asserted themselves plainly. Murray rubbed himself and listened, and then listened and rubbed, but he could not hear a sound. "Let me see," he thought. "Oh, how vexatious, just when we ought to be close to the boat and sending her down stream! Must be this way where I heard Tom May--if it was Tom May. Well, it doesn't matter if it was Titely. Let's get to either of them, and then we'll hail the other." The lad hesitated for a few minutes longer, listening hard the while, and then more in passion than in despair he started off in a bee line through the thick canes, hopefully now, for the earth felt softer than before. "Must be right here; and as soon as I reach the river I have only to see which way the stream runs and follow it down to where the boat lies. Oh, look sharp, old fellow," he muttered, "for this is horrible." He increased his pace, with the earth certainly growing softer, and then he pulled up short, turned and darted back, for as he stepped forward the soft spongy earth seemed suddenly to have grown horny and hard and to heave up beneath his feet, convincing him that he had stepped upon one of the horrible alligators of the Western swamps. There was a violent splashing, the reptile struck to right and left, mowing down the canes, and the midshipman, suffering from a sensation of horror and creepiness, stopped at last, panting. "Why, that must be the direction of the little river," he thought; "and instead of following the horrible brute here have I run away; and now how am I to find the way that it pointed out? That's soon done," he said, as he thought of the broken and crushed-down canes which must mark the alligator's track; and he began at once to search for what proved to be absent. There were bruised and trampled growths which he sprang at directly, but his reason soon pointed to the fact that they had not been made by the huge lizard he had started from its lurking place where it had crawled ashore to watch for the approach of prey, but by himself in his flight, and though he tried over the swampy ground again and again, it was only to grow more confused, and at last he stopped short, baffled and enraged against himself. "Oh!" he ejaculated, as he raised one foot to stamp it down heavily upon the earth, with the result that he drove it through a soft crust of tangled growth and sent up a gush of muddy, evil-smelling water, and then had to drag his shoe out with a loud sucking sound, while the foot he had not stamped was beginning to sink. "It's enough to drive any one mad," he muttered. "Just as I am entrusted with something important I go and muddle it all, and the more I try the worse the hobble grows." He took a few steps to his right, to where the earth beneath him felt firmer, and listened, but the floundering and scuffling of the alligator had ceased, and he looked in vain for the traces of its passage. "Think of it," he said, half aloud; "I trod on the brute, and it dashed off, frightened to death, to make for the river; and then what did I do?--Turned round and ran away as if the brute was coming after me with its jaws opened wide ready to take me down at a mouthful! Alligators are not crocodiles. Here, I'm a brave fellow, upon my word! I'm getting proud of myself, and no mistake!" He stood and listened as he looked around and tried to pierce the dense growth, but in vain, for all was thick vegetation, and eye and ear were exercised in vain. There was a soft, dull, half croaking sound here and there at a distance which suggested the existence of frogs, and from the trees whose clustering leaves overhead turned the brake into a soft twilight, he now and then heard the twittering of some bird. But he could see nothing, and for a few minutes he began to give way to a feeling of despair. "I daren't shout," he thought, "for it would be like calling the attention of the enemy. The Yankee and his people are sure to be on the lookout to pounce upon one, and though if they took me prisoner--they wouldn't dare to do anything else--my being taken would not so much matter if May or Titely got down to the boat and reached the _Seafowl_. How do I know that they would get there? Oh, was ever poor wretch in such a hole before!" "Here, I must do something," he cried, at last, rousing himself to take some action. "The river must wind about, and if I keep on I shall be sure to come across it at last." He started off in what he hoped was the right direction, and forced his way through the tangled growth, to find that after a short time the earth began to grow firmer beneath his feet; and then he stopped short. "Must be wrong," he thought, "for the river banks were swampy." Striking out in a fresh direction, he was not long before he found that the ground began to yield again, and his spirits rose as he found that he was plunging into a swampy part once more, while his heart literally leaped as all at once right in front there was a rush as of one of the great alligators being startled from its lair. The lad stopped short, but only for a few moments, before mastering the sensation of dread, and plunging on as nearly as he could make out in the direction the great lizard had taken. "It's afraid of me," he muttered, as he drew his dirk, "and if it turns at bay on finding itself followed, I ought to be able to do something with this, though it is such a stupid ornament of a thing. I'm not afraid, and I won't be afraid, but I wish my heart didn't beat so fast, and that choking sensation wouldn't keep on rising in my throat." But though the lad behaved as bravely as was possible to any man, by pressing on and determinedly following in the track of the alligator, his heart kept on with its heavy pulsation and the perspiration streamed down his face in the stiflingly hot swamp. He had the satisfaction, though, of making out that the reptile was scuffling on before him, and now he grew more accustomed to the fact he was able to make out the creature's trail and just dimly see the movement ahead of the thick cane growth as it rapidly writhed itself along. "It's getting softer," thought Murray, "so I must be getting towards the river. Won't turn upon me and attack, will it, when it gets in its own element?" That was a startling thought, but it was only another difficulty in the way of one who had mastered his natural dread and determined in his peril to make a brave fight. "It's no more an alligator's element than the land is," thought the lad. "The brute's amphibious, and I don't believe it will turn upon me unless I stick my dirk into it; and I don't care, I'll risk it, if I die for it. I don't believe they're so tough as people say." Then a more staggering thought assailed him, and this time, instead of forcing his way through the tangle and dragging his feet out of the swampy soil, he stopped short. For the hope that had sustained him suddenly sank away. He had been feeling sure that the guide he feared to a great extent was after all leading him towards the little river, and that once he reached the bank he would know by the current, however sluggish, the way down to the boat; but now the terrible thought attacked him that the reptile might after all have its dwelling-place in some swampy lagoon such as he had read was common in the islands and the Southern States. "It's of no _use_," he said to himself, as he stopped short, panting and exhausted; "this can't be the right way. There's no clear river down which a fellow could wade or swim; this is one of those dreadful swamps--dismal swamps, don't they call them?--and the farther I go the worse off I shall be. Oh, where's my pluck? Where it ought to be," he said, answering himself; and he struggled on again, for he had awakened to the fact that the rustling and splash made by the reptile was dying out. Rustling and splash, for now he awoke plainly enough to the fact that he was sinking ankle deep at every step, and he roused himself fully once more. "Giving up," he panted, "just when I had won the day! Hurrah! There's the river!" And making a tremendous effort he struggled on, for there was the alligator floundering through mud and water now where the growth was getting more open, and at the end of some dozen yards there was light--golden-looking light--coming down from above. Then there was a loud flopping, followed by a heavy splash, and the lad snatched at and seized the boughs that closed him in, and just saved himself from following the reptile he pursued by clinging with hands and legs to a stout cypress, to which he held on as he indistinctly made out the sobbing sound of the wave that the reptile had raised as it plunged into what seemed to be the edge of a swampy lake. "He won't come back, will he?" thought Murray, and he obeyed the natural instinct which prompted him to drag himself up amongst the evergreen boughs of the tree, which slowly rocked to and fro with his weight. But the water beneath him gradually settled down, the cypress in which he clung ceased to bend, as he got his feet settled better to support his weight, where he could look along a dark green verdant tunnel to a spot of golden light where the subdued sunshine fell upon a glistening level of amber-hued water so beautiful that for a time the lad could not withdraw his eyes. "It's no river," he said, "but the edge of a lagoon, and it would be madness to go any farther. Let's have a rest. Might have been worse off after all, and it's no use to get despairing and tiring oneself out. I should have liked this adventure if my two lads had been with me, and--and--Yes, that's it," he groaned--"if I hadn't been sent on such a tremendous task! There, it's of no use to despair. I've done my duty, and no matter what happens now I can say that. Who knows what may come next? I mustn't think I can hang here till it grows dark. I could climb up higher, but this is a swamp, and though I might save myself from alligators and snakes--Ugh!" he shuddered. "This is the sort of place where they live!--I couldn't escape from fever. There, I must hail now till some one hears me and answers, even if it's the enemy. But it may be one of my fellows, or if not it's sure to be one of the slaves, for there must be plenty about here." But Frank Murray did not shout for help. Perhaps it was due to exhaustion, that the place seemed to have a strange restful fascination, as he hung there in the thick growth of the cypress, gazing along the soft green tunnel at the little glistening lake, which he now saw was full of living things, for every now and then the surface was stirred by creatures which he made out to be tiny terrapins--water tortoise-like creatures which just thrust out their heads and drew them beneath again. Then water beetles skimmed about, forming glistening geometric figures for a time before they disappeared. Then the lad shuddered, for from the side of the bright verdure-framed lagoon a snake writhed itself in horizontal waves across the surface and began to climb up the foliage, to glisten as it reached where the light fell strongest and the burnished scales flashed with bronze, silver grey and gold. "I wonder whether it's a poisonous snake," thought Murray; and then he made an effort to awaken himself from the pleasant feeling of restfulness, for he knew that he must exert himself if he intended to find a way back to where he had been separated from his companions-- those whom he must urge on to the fulfilment of his task. "And I have not done what I felt that I must do at all risks," he said, as he once more made an effort to rouse himself from the drowsy inertia which was holding him in something resembling a trance. Drawing a deep breath, he took more tightly hold of the cypress boughs, and was about to hail at any risk and with all his might, when he uttered a loud sob of relief, for suddenly from somewhere far away, came, strangely softened and subdued, though prolonged, the words-- "Ahoy-y-y! _Seafowls_ ahoy-y-y!" _ |
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