Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 16, 2025
The pirogues immediately rowed alongside. Manoel, Fragoso, and Araujo came close to him, waiting for him to speak. "Well?" asked Manoel. "Still nothing! Nothing!" "Have you not seen a trace?" "Not one!" "Shall I go down now?" "No, Manoel," answered Benito; "I have begun; I know where to go. Let me do it!"
They could not have applied to a man who was more skillful or more conversant with the locality than Araujo, and when he affirmed that the body could not have been borne out of the narrow channel for more than a mile or so, they were sure to recover it if they thoroughly sounded that portion of the river. Not an island, not an islet, checked the course of the Amazon in these parts.
But first he wanted to skirt the bank and carefully explore a sort of hole formed in the slope of the bed, to the bottom of which the poles had evidently not been able to penetrate. Araujo approved of this plan, and made the necessary preparations. Manoel gave Benito a little advice.
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.
Araujo approved of everything; he undertook during the approaching night to take the pirogue up the canal without attracting any notice, and he knew its course thoroughly as far as the spot where he was to await the arrival of Joam Dacosta.
Whenever they learned what the work of safety was in which they were engaged when Joam Dacosta, once more free, was confided to their charge Araujo knew well that they would dare anything, even to the risk of their own lives, to save the life of their master. By the afternoon all was ready, and they had only the night to wait for.
Araujo, cleverly profiting by the bendings of the current, which were due to the projections of the banks, and assisted by the long poles of his crew, succeeded in working the immense raft in the desired direction.
At six o'clock in the morning the jangada received all its passengers, or rather inhabitants, and each of them took possession of his cabin, or perhaps we had better say his house. The moment of departure had come. Araujo, the pilot, got into his place at the bow, and the crew, armed with their long poles, went to their proper quarters.
They were then hauled up, but in place of the body so eagerly searched for, there would appear only heavy stones or tufts of herbage which they had dragged from their sandy bed. No one, however, had an idea of giving up the enterprise. They none of them thought of themselves in this work of salvation. Benito, Manoel, Araujo had not even to stir up the Indians or to encourage them.
At this moment the pilot Araujo, who had been observing the state of the river, came up to them. "Have you decided," he asked, "if the raft is to remain at her moorings at the Isle of Muras, or to go on to the port of Manaos?" The question had to be decided before nightfall, and the sooner it was settled the better.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking