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Updated: May 4, 2025
Then she bowed in a stately fashion an departed, walking with the proud, light step of a deer. From our little hut I took out my armour and with Kari's help, put it on, because he declared that thus it would be more easily carried, though I think he had other reasons in his mind. "Yes," I answered, "unless the balsa oversets, when I shall find mail hard to swim in."
We were ferried across on the usual balsa, a platform on three dugouts, running by the force of the current on a wire trolley. There was a clearing on each side with a few palms, and on the farther bank were the buildings of the telegraph station.
Needless to say she was also the object of great and ever-increasing curiosity to the inhabitants of the valley generally, not more than perhaps a dozen of whom had ever seen anything more handy and shipshape than the unwieldy balsa, or raft constructed of reeds, a not very manageable craft at the best of times, and of course quite incapable of being navigated under sail except before the wind.
The one already built was about ten feet long and about five feet broad, by about a foot in depth; but while strong enough for its purpose, it was, after all, very light, and quite capable of being capsized should an enterprising alligator take it into his head to attack it; during the short march to the big reed bed, therefore, Dick and Earle decided that the next balsa should be constructed of a capacity to accommodate the entire party, and therefore be heavy and bulky enough to resist anything short of a concerted attack by a herd of alligators.
Although it was so clumsy the balsa moved through the water at a good rate, covering quite two leagues the hour, I should say, before that strong and steady wind. Soon the village that we had left vanished; then the mountains behind it grew dim and in time vanished also, and there remained nothing but the great wilderness upon our left and the vast sea around.
Meanwhile, Quilla had put on her silver-broidered mantle and her head-dress of feathers, crowned with the crescent of the moon. As we touched the beach she came forward, and for the first time during that night spoke to me saying: "Remain here in the balsa, Lord, while I talk with these people, and when I summon you be pleased to come. Fear not none will harm you."
We only ran in a clear course for ten minutes all told, and spent eight hours in portaging the loads past rapids down which the canoes were run; the balsa was almost swamped. This day we caught twenty-eight big fish, mostly piranhas, and everybody had all he could eat for dinner, and for breakfast the following morning.
Once well out of the lagoon, and in the river-current, the boy and dog were swept along at a swift rate. A mile down the shore he saw a crowd of men, mounted and on foot, intently watching something inland. He was approaching the race-course. He made a landing on a sand-spit that struck off from an outward curve of the bank, and dragged the balsa out of the water.
Now I was at the bow of the balsa and Quilla was at its stern, and between us were the others, so that during all that long night's journey I had no speech with her and must content myself with gazing over my shoulder at her beauty as best I could, which was not well, because of Kari, who ever seemed to come between my eyes and hers.
But tell me what has chanced." "This, I think. A very great wave caught us and threw us right over those rocks on to the shore. Look there is the balsa," and he pointed to a broken heap of reeds and pierced skins. With his help I rose and went to it. Now none could know that it had been a boat.
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