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At one glance Don Pablo saw that it would be a terrible calamity, should these creatures gain a lodgment on the balza. Not only were they the dreaded stinging ants, but in a short time nothing on board would be left. In a few hours they would have eaten all his stores, his bark, his vanilla, and his roots.
The balza had been brought to the bank, and they were just mooring it, when something out on the water attracted the attention of Leon and Leona. It was a small, darkish object, and would not have been observed but for the ripple that it made on the smooth surface of the river, and by this they could tell that it was in motion. "A water-snake!" said Leon.
Although the flood had, to a considerable extent, subsided, the river in most places was still beyond its banks; and this made it difficult for our travellers to find a place for their night-camps. Several nights they were obliged to sleep, as they best could, on the balza, the latter being secured to a tree.
At one glance Don Pablo saw that it would be a terrible calamity, should these creatures gain a lodgment on the balza. Not only were they the dreaded stinging ants, but in a short time nothing on board would be left. In a few hours they would have eaten all his stores, his bark, his vanilla, and his roots.
That was an important question; for although the current was not very rapid just there, it was sufficiently so to carry the balza under this branch before they could push it out into the stream. Once the cable was let go, they must inevitably pass under the limb of the zamang; and if that caught the toldo, it would sweep off the frail roof like so much spider's-web.
The araguato is full three feet without the tail, and that powerful member is much longer. When the band made its appearance on the igaripé, they were seen to come to a halt, all of them gathering into a great tree that stood by the water's edge. This tree rose higher than the rest, and the most of the monkeys having climbed among the top branches, were visible from the balza.
The balza was gliding directly under it! It could launch itself aboard at will. It could seize upon any one of the party without coming from the branch. It could coil its body around them, and crush them with the constricting power of its muscles. It could do all this; for it had crushed before now the tapir, the roebuck, perhaps even the jaguar himself.
A curious incident occurred one evening as they were bringing the balza to her moorings, which compelled them to drop a little farther down-stream, and, in fact, almost obliged them to float all night, which would have been a dangerous matter, as the current at the place happened to be sharp and rapid.
Had they not done so in other words, had they gone to sleep, leaving the balza where it was during the night they would have awakened in the morning to find their stores completely destroyed, their labour of a year brought to nothing in the space of a single night. This is no uncommon occurrence to the merchant or the colonist of tropical America.
The wide jaws closed upon it, its shrieks were stifled, and the next moment its silken body, along with the head of the anaconda, disappeared among the leaves of the mimosa. Another moment passed, and the balza swept clear of the branch, and floated triumphantly into the open water.
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