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The Patagonians brought the canoe right up to the looming side of the old bark, and as she dipped deep in the sea, I sprang up and "walked up" her side, clinging to the rope with both hands. So they got me inboard with merely a dash of saltwater to season my venture. The canoe wore off sharply and I turned to wave good-bye to Pedro and the paddlers.
It is a curious fact that many of the Africans keep fish as we do woodcocks, until they are extremely offensive, before they consider them fit to eat. Our paddlers informed us on our way down that iguanas lay their eggs in July and August, and crocodiles in September. The eggs remain a month or two under the sand where they are laid, and the young come out when the rains have fairly commenced.
Then some began to back and others to row, and the canoe turned slowly round and then sped away at a rate as fast as it had come up, although the number of paddlers was markedly decreased. Satisfied that they would not return, Stephen reloaded all the muskets and then went below for his first meal on board.
When he stopped pounding the paddlers ceased their efforts. The only way to make the Congo native work is to provide him with noise. All day we travelled down the river through schools of hippopotami, some of them near enough for me to throw a stone into the cavernous mouths. The boat capita told me that he would get to Kabambaie by sundown.
Then the stream would lead away into vast seas of marsh lands, waving in illimitable reaches of rushes, or fringed with the unspeakably beautiful green of the graceful wild rice plant. In these wide levels now and again the channel divided, or lost itself in little cul de sacs, from which the paddlers were obliged to retrace their way.
The five invaders were about theirs. As the paddlers dipped, however, Knowlton held back. "Say, Rod, we didn't tell these fellows about Schwandorf's Indian. Hold up a second, men." While all rested on their paddles he spoke of the mysterious messenger dispatched from Nazareth. Pedro and Lourenço contemplated the river, then frowned. "That may be of importance, senhores," said Lourenço.
As they were drifting into them broadside on, Kermit yelled to the steersman to turn her head, so as to take them in the only way that offered any chance whatever of safety. The water came aboard, wave after wave, as they raced down. They reached the bottom with the canoe upright, but so full as barely to float, and the paddlers urged her toward the shore.
These canoes, scooped out of the trunk of a tree, long, narrow, well adapted for speed, were balanced by means of a long bamboo pole, which floated on the water. They were managed by skilful, half-naked paddlers, and I watched their advance with some uneasiness. It was evident that these Papuans had already had dealings with the Europeans and knew their ships.
In the bow of the foremost boat, as Law could now clearly see, sat a slender young man, clad in the uniform, now soiled and faded, of a captain in the British army. His boat was propelled by four dusky paddlers, Indians of the East.
The natives were paddling their hardest, and the light craft danced over the surface of the water, which was now beginning to be ruffled by the breeze. Half an hour later they joined the pursuers astern, and their yells could be heard although they were half a mile away. Godfrey counted them as he passed ahead of the fleet, and there were thirty-three canoes, each with two paddlers.
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