The Inca Emerald

"I floated around in deep water until my assistant came and secured the snake with a forked stick. It is now in the New York Zoölogical Gardens at the Bronx," concluded the professor.

Jud drew a deep breath. "That reminds me," he said at last, "of a time I once had with a pizen snake when I was a young man. I was hoein' corn up on a side hill in Cornwall when I was about sixteen year old," he continued. "All on a sudden I heard a rattlin' an' down the hill in one of the furrows came rollin' a monstrous hoop-snake. You know," he explained, "a hoop-snake has an ivory stinger in its tail an' rolls along the ground like a hoop, an' when it strikes it straightens out an' shoots through the air just like a spear."

"I know nothing of the kind," broke in Professor Ditson.

"Well," said Jud, unmoved by the interruption, "when I saw this snake a-rollin' an' a-rattlin' down the hill towards me, I dived under the fence an' put for home, leavin' my hoe stickin' up straight in the furrow. As I slid under the fence," he went on, "I heard a thud, an' looked back just in time to see the old hoop-snake shoot through the air an' stick its stinger deep into the hoe-handle. It sure was a pizen snake, all right," he went on, wagging his head solemnly. "When I came back, an hour or so later, the snake was gone, but that hoe-handle had swelled up pretty nigh as big as my leg."

There was a roar of laughter from Will and Joe, while Jud gazed mournfully out over the water. Professor Ditson was vastly indignant.

"I feel compelled to state," he said emphatically, "that there is no such thing as a hoop-snake and that no snake-venom would have any effect on a hoe-handle."

"Have it your way," said Jud. "It ain't very polite of you to doubt my snake story after I swallowed yours without a word."

At Manaos they left the steamer, and Professor Ditson bought for the party a montaria, a big native boat without a rudder, made of plank and propelled by narrow, pointed paddles. Although Hen and Pinto and the Professor were used to this kind of craft, it did not appeal at all favorably to the Northerners, who were accustomed to the light bark-canoes and broad-bladed paddles of the Northern Indians. Joe was especially scornful.

"This boat worse than a dug out," he objected. "It heavy and clumsy and paddles no good either."

"You'll find it goes all right on these rivers," Professor Ditson reassured him. "We only have a few hundred miles more, anyway before we strike the Trail."

Under the skilful handling of Hen and Pinto, the montaria, although it seemed unwieldly, turned out to be a much better craft than it looked; and when the Northerners became used to the narrow paddles, the expedition made great headway, the boys finding the wide boat far more comfortable for a long trip than the smaller, swifter canoe.

After a day, a night, and another day of paddling, they circled a wide bend, and there, showing like ink in the moonlight, was the mouth of another river.

"White men call it Rio Negros, Black River," the Indian explained to the boys; "but my people call it the River of Death."

As the professor, who was steering with a paddle, swung the prow of the boat into the dark water, the Indian protested earnestly.

"It very bad luck, Master to enter Death River by night," he said.

"Murucututu, murucututu," muttered the witch-owl, from an overhanging branch.

Hen joined in Pinto's protest.

"That owl be layin' a spell on us, Boss," he said. "Better wait till mornin'."

The professor was inflexible.

"I have no patience with any such superstitions," he said. "We can cover fully twenty-five miles before morning."

The Mundurucu shook his head and said nothing more, but Hen continued his protests, even while paddling.

"Never knew any good luck to come when that ol' owl's around," he remarked mournfully. "It was him that sicked them vampires on to Will here, an' we're all in for a black time on this black ribber."

"Henry," remarked Professor Ditson, acridly, "kindly close your mouth tightly and breathe through your nose for the next two hours. Your conversation is inconsequential."

"Yassah, yassah," responded Hen, meekly, and the montaria sped along through inky shadows and the silver reaches of the new river in silence.

About midnight the forest became so dense that it was impossible to follow the channel safely, and the professor ordered the boat to be anchored for the night. Usually it was possible to make a landing and camp on shore, but to-night in the thick blackness of the shadowed bank, it was impossible to see anything. Accordingly, the party, swathed in mosquito-netting, slept as best they could in the montaria itself.

It was at the gray hour before dawn, when men sleep soundest, that Jud was awakened by hearing a heavy thud against the side of the boat close to his head. It was repeated, and in the half-light the old man sat up. Once again came the heavy thud, and then, seemingly suspended in the air above the side of the boat close to his head, hung a head of horror. Slowly it thrust itself higher and higher, until, towering over the side of the boat, showed the fixed gleaming eyes and the darting forked tongue of a monstrous serpent. Paralyzed for a moment by his horror for all snake-kind, the old man could not move, and held his breath until the blood drummed in his ears. Only when the hideous head curved downward toward Joe did Jud recover control of himself. His prisoned voice came out then with a yell like a steam-siren, and he fumbled under his left armpit for the automatic revolver which he wore in the wilderness, night and day, strapped there in a water-proof case.

"Sucuruju! Sucuruju! Sucuruju!" shouted Pinto, aroused by Jud's yell. "The Spirit of the River is upon us!" And he grasped his machete just as Jud loosened his revolver.

Quick as they were, the huge anaconda, whose family includes the largest water-snakes of the world, was even quicker. With a quick dart of its head, it fixed its long curved teeth in the shoulder of the sleeping boy, and in an instant, some twenty feet of glistening coils glided over the side of the boat. The scales of the monster shone like burnished steel, and it was of enormous girth in the middle, tapering off at either end. Jud dared not shoot at the creature's head for fear of wounding Joe, but sent bullets as fast as he could pull the trigger into the great girth, which tipped the heavy boat over until the water nearly touched the gunwale. Pinto slashed with all his might with his machete at the back of the great snake, but it was like attempting to cut through steel-studded leather. In spite of the attack, the coils of the great serpent moved toward the boy, who, without a sound, struggled to release his shoulder from the terrible grip of the curved teeth. The anaconda, the sucuruju of the natives, rarely ever attacks a man; but when it does, it is with difficulty driven away. This one, in spite of steel and bullets, persisted in its attempt to engulf the body of the struggling boy in its coils, solid masses of muscle powerful enough to break every bone in Joe's body.

It was Hen Pine who finally saved the boy's life. Awakened by the sound of the shots and the shouts of Jud and Pinto, he reached Joe just as one of the fatal coils was half around him. With his bare hands he caught hold of both of the fierce jaws and with one tremendous wrench of his vast arms literally tore them apart. Released from their death grip, Joe rolled to one side, out of danger. The great snake hissed fiercely, and its deadly, lidless eyes glared into those of the man. Slowly, with straining, knotted muscles, Hen wrenched the grim jaws farther and farther apart. Then bracing his vast forearms, he bowed his back in one tremendous effort that, in spite of the steel-wire muscles of the great serpent, bent its deadly jaws backward and tore them down the sides, ripping the tough, shimmering skin like so much paper. Slowly, with a wrench and a shudder, the great water-boa acknowledged defeat, and its vast body pierced, slashed, and torn, reluctantly slid over the side of the boat.

As Hen released his grip of the torn jaws, the form of the giant serpent showed mirrored for an instant against the moonlit water and then disappeared in the inky depths below. Joe's thick flannel shirt had saved his arm from any serious injury, but Professor Ditson washed out the gashes made by the sharp curved teeth with permanganate of potash, for the teeth of the boas and pythons, although not venomous, may bring on blood-poisoning, like the teeth of any wild animal. Jud was far more shaken by the adventure than Joe, who was as impassive as ever.

"Snakes, snakes, snakes!" he complained. "They live in the springs and pop up beside the paths and drop on you out of trees. Now they're beginnin' to creep out of the water to kill us off in our sleep. What a country!"

"It's the abundance of reptile life which makes South America so interesting and attractive," returned Professor Ditson, severely.

It was Pinto who prevented the inevitable and heated discussion between the elders of the party.

"Down where I come from," he said, "lives a big water-snake many times larger than this one, called the Guardian of the River. He at least seventy-five feet long. We feed him goats every week. My grandfather and his grandfather's grandfather knew him. Once," went on Pinto, "I found him coiled up beside the river in such a big heap that I couldn't see over the top of the coils."

"I don't know which is the worse," murmured Jud to Will, "seein' the snakes which are or hearin' about the snakes which ain't. Between the two, I'm gettin' all wore out."

Then Pinto went back again to his predictions about the river they were on.

"This river," he said, "is not called the River of Death for nothing. The old men of my tribe say that always dangers come here by threes. One is passed, but two more are yet to come. Never, Master, should we have entered this river by night."

"Yes," chimed in Hen, "when I heered that ol' witch-owl I says to myself, 'Hen Pine, there'll be somethin' bad a-doin' soon.'"

"You talk like a couple of superstitious old women," returned Professor Ditson, irritably.

"You wait," replied the Indian, stubbornly; "two more evils yet to come."

Pinto's prophecy was partly fulfilled with startling suddenness. The party had finished breakfast, and the montaria was anchored in a smooth, muddy lagoon which led from the river back some distance into the forest. While Will and Hen fished from the bow of the boat the rest of the party curled themselves up under the shade of the overhanging trees to make up their lost sleep. At first, the fish bit well and the two caught a number which looked much like the black bass of northern waters. A minute later, a school of fresh-water flying-fish broke water near them and flashed through the air for a full twenty yards, like a flight of gleaming birds.

As the sun burned up the morning mist, it changed from a sullen red to a dazzling gold and at last to a molten white, and the two fishermen nodded over their poles as little waves of heat ran across the still water and seemed to weigh down their eyelids like swathings of soft wool. The prow of the boat swung lazily back and forth in the slow current which set in from the main river. Suddenly the dark water around the boat was muddied and discolored, as if something had stirred up the bottom ten feet below. Then up through the clouded water drifted a vast, spectral, grayish-white shape. Nearer and nearer to the surface it came, while Hen and Will dozed over their poles. Will sat directly in the bow, and his body, sagging with sleep, leaned slightly over the gunwale.

Suddenly the surface of the water was broken by a tremendous splash, and out from its depth shot half the body of a fish nearly ten feet in length. Its color was the gray-white of the ooze at the bottom of the stream in which it had lain hidden until attracted to the surface by the shadow of the montaria drifting above him. Will awakened at the hoarse shout from Hen just in time to see yawning in front of him a mouth more enormous than he believed any created thing possessed outside of the whale family. It was a full five feet between the yawning jaws, which were circled by a set of small sharp teeth. Even as he sprang back, the monster lunged forward right across the edge of the boat and the jaws snapped shut.

Will rolled to one side in an effort to escape the menancing depths, and although he managed to save his head and body from the maw of the great fish, yet the jaws closed firmly on both his extended arms, engulfing them clear to the shoulder. The little teeth, tiny in comparison with the size of the jaws in which they were set, hardly more than penetrated the sleeves of his flannel shirt and pricked the skin below, but as the monster lurched backward toward the water its great weight drew the boy irresistibly toward the edge of the boat, although he dug his feet into the thwarts and twined them around the seat on which he had been sitting. Once in the river, the fatal jaws would open again, and he felt that he would be swallowed as easily as a pike would take in a minnow.

Even as he was dragged forward to what seemed certain death, Will did not fail to recognize a familiar outline in the vast fish-face against which he was held. The small, deep-set eyes, the skin like oiled leather, long filaments extending from the side of the jaw, and the enormous round head were nothing more than that of the catfish or bullhead which he used to catch at night behind the mill-dam in Cornwall, enlarged a thousand times.

Although the monster, in spite of its unwieldy size, had sprung forth, gripped its intended prey, and started back for the water in a flash, yet Hen Pine was even quicker. In spite of his size, there was no one in the party quicker in an emergency than the giant negro. Even as he sprang to his feet he disengaged the huge steel machete which always dangled from his belt. Hen's blade, which he used as a bush-hook and a weapon, was half again as heavy as the ordinary machete, and he always kept it ground to a razor edge. He reached the bow just as the great, gray, glistening body slipped back over the gunwale, dragging Will irresistibly with it. Swinging the broad heavy blade over his head, with every ounce of effort in his brawny body, Hen, brought the keen edge down slantwise across the gray back of the river-monster, which tapered absurdly small in comparison with the vast spread of the gaping jaws. It was such a blow as Richard the Lion-hearted might have struck; and just as his historic battle-sword would shear through triple steel plate and flesh and bone, so that day the machete of Hen Pine, unsung in song or story, cut through the smooth gray skin, the solid flesh beneath, and whizzed straight on through the cartilaginous joints of the great fish's spine, nor ever stopped until it had sunk deep into the wood of the high gunwale of the boat itself. With a gasping sigh, the monster's head rolled off the edge of the boat and slowly sank through the dark water, leaving the long, severed trunk floating on the surface. Reaching out, the negro caught the latter by one of the back fins and secured it with a quick twist of a near-by rope.

"That's the biggest piraiba I ever see," he announced. "They're fine to eat, an' turn about is fair play. Ol' piraiba try to eat you; now you eat him." And while Will sat back on the seat, sick and faint from his narrow escape, Hen proceeded to haul the black trunk aboard and carve steaks of the white, firm-set flesh from it.

"Every year along the Madeira River this fish tip over canoes and swallow Indians. They's more afraid of it," Hen said, "than they is of alligators or anacondas."

When Hen woke up the rest of the party and told them of the near-tragedy Pinto croaked like a raven.

"Sucuruju one, piraiba two; but three is yet to come," he finished despondingly. The next two days, however, seemed to indicate that the River had exhausted its malice against the travelers. The party paddled through a panorama of sights and sounds new to the Northerners, and at night camped safely on high, dry places on the banks. On the morning of the third day the whole party started down the river before daylight and watched the dawn of a tropical day, a miracle even more beautiful than the sunrises of the North. One moment there was perfect blackness; then a faint light showed in the east; and suddenly, without the slow changes of Northern skies, the whole east turned a lovely azure blue, against which showed a film and fretwork of white clouds, like wisps of snowy lace.

Just as the sun came up they passed a tall and towering conical rock which shot up three hundred feet among the trees and terminated in what looked like a hollowed summit. Pinto told them that this was Treasure Rock, and that nearly half a thousand years ago the Spaniards, in the days when they were the cruel conquerors of the New World, had explored this river. From the ancestors of Pinto's nation and from many another lesser Indian tribe they had carried off a great treasure of gold and emeralds and diamonds. Not satisfied with these, they had tried to enslave the Indians and make them hunt for more. Finally, in desperation the tribes united, stormed their persecutors' camp, killed some, and forced the rest to flee down the river in canoes. When the Spaniards reached the rock, they landed, and, driving iron spikes at intervals up its steep side, managed to clamber up to the very crest and haul their treasure and stores of water and provisions after them by ropes made of lianas. There, safe from the arrows of their pursuers in the hollow top, they stood siege until the winter rains began. Then, despairing of taking the fortress, the Indians returned to their villages; whereupon the Spaniards clambered down, the last man breaking off the iron spikes as he came, and escaped to the Spanish settlements. Behind them, in the inaccessible bowl on the tip-top of the rock, they left their treasure-chest, expecting to return with the reinforcements and rescue it. The years went by and the Spaniards came not again to Black River, but generation after generation of Indians handed down the legend of Treasure Rock, with the iron-bound chest on its top, awaiting him who can scale its height.

Jud, a treasure-hunter by nature, was much impressed by Pinto's story.

"What do you think of takin' a week off and lookin' into this treasure business?" he suggested. "I'll undertake to get a rope over the top of this rock by a kite, or somethin' of that sort, an' then I know a young chap by the name of Adams who would climb up there an' bring down a trunk full of gold an' gems. What do you say?"

"Pooh!" is what Professor Amandus Ditson said, and the expedition proceeded in spite of Jud's protests.

CHAPTER V

Shipwreck

About the middle of the morning there sounded through the still air a distant boom, which grew louder until finally it became a crashing roar. Beyond a bend in the river stretched before them a long gorge. There the stream had narrowed, and, rushing across a ledge shaped like a horseshoe, foamed and roared and beat its way among the great boulders. The paddlers brought their craft into smooth water under an overhanging bank while they held a council of war. Professor Ditson had never been on the Rio Negros before, nor had Pinto followed it farther than Treasure Rock. For a long time the whole party carefully studied the distant rapids.

"What do you think?" whispered Will to Joe.

The Indian boy, who had paddled long journeys on the rivers and seas of the far Northwest, shook his head doubtfully.

"Can do in a bark canoe," he said at last; "but in this thing – I don't know."

Pinto and Hen both feared the worst in regard to anything which had to do with Black River. It was Professor Ditson who finally made the decision.

"It would take us weeks," he said, "to cut a trail through the forests and portage this boat around. One must take some chances in life. There seems to be a channel through the very center of the horseshoe. Let's go!"

For the first time during the whole trip old Jud looked at his rival admiringly.

"The old bird has some pep left, after all," he whispered to Will. "I want to tell you, boy," he went on, "that I've never seen worse rapids, an' if we bring this canal-boat through, it'll be more good luck than good management."

Under Professor Ditson's instructions, Pinto took the bow paddle, while Hen paddled stern, with Will and Joe on one side and Jud and the professor on the other. Then all the belongings of the party were shifted so as to ballast the unwieldy craft as well as possible, and in another moment they shot out into the swift current. Faster and faster the trees and banks flashed by, like the screen of a motion picture. Not even a fleck of foam broke the glassy surface of the swirling current. With smooth, increasing speed, the river raced toward the rapids which roared and foamed ahead, while swaying wreaths of white mist, shot through with rainbow colors, floated above the welter of raging waters and the roar of the river rose to shout. Beyond, a black horseshoe of rock stretched from one bank to the other in a half-circle, and in front of it sharp ridges and snags showed like black fangs slavered with the foam of the river's madness.

In another second the boat shot into the very grip of these jaws of death. Standing with his lithe, copper-colored body etched against the foam of the rapids, the Mundurucu held the lives of every one of the party in his slim, powerful hands. Accustomed from boyhood to the handling of the river-boats of his tribe through the most dangerous of waters, he stood that day like the leader of an orchestra, directing every movement of those behind him, with his paddle for a baton. Only a crew of the most skilled paddlers had a chance in that wild water; and such a crew was obedient to the Indian. In the stern, the vast strength of the giant negro swung the montaria into the course which the bow paddler indicated by his motions, while the other four, watching his every movement, were quick to paddle or to back on their respective sides. At times, as an unexpected rock jutted up before him in the foam, the Indian would plunge his paddle slantwise against the current and would hold the boat there for a second, until the paddlers could swing it, as on a fulcrum, out of danger. Once the craft was swept with tremendous force directly at an immense boulder, against which the water surged and broke.

To Jud and the boys it seemed as if Pinto had suddenly lost his control of the montaria, for, instead of trying to swing out of the grip of the currents that rushed upon the rock, he steered directly at its face. The Mundurucu, however, knew his business. Even as Jud tensed his muscles for the crash, the rebound and undertow of the waters, hurled back from the face of the rock, caught the boat and whirled it safely to one side of the boulder. In and out among the reefs and fangs of rock the Mundurucu threaded the boat so deftly, and so well did his crew behind him respond, that in all that tumult of dashing waves the heavy craft shipped no water outside of the flying spray.

In another minute they were clear of the outlying reefs and ledges and speeding toward the single opening in the black jaw of rock that lay ahead of them. Here it was that, through no fault of their steersman, the great mishap of the day overtook them. Just beyond the gap in the rock was a little fall, not five feet high, hidden by the spray. As Pinto passed through the narrow opening he swung the bow of the boat diagonally so as to catch the smoother current toward the right-hand bank of the river, which at this point jutted far out into the rapids. As he swerved, the long montaria shot through the air over the fall. The Indian tried to straighten his course, but it was too late. In an instant the boat had struck at an angle the rushing water beyond, with a force that nearly drove it below the surface. Before it could right itself, the rush of the current from behind struck it broadside, and in another second the montaria, half-filled with the water which it had shipped, capsized, and its crew were struggling in the current.

It was Hen Pine who reached the river first. When he saw that the boat was certain to upset he realized that his only chance for life was to reach smooth water. Even while the montaria was still in mid-air he sprang far out toward the bank, where a stretch of unbroken current set in toward a tiny cape, beyond which it doubled back into a chaos of tossing, foaming water where not even the strongest swimmer would have a chance for life. Hen swam with every atom of his tremendous strength, in order to reach that point before he was swept into the rapids beyond. His bare black arms and vast shoulders, knotted and ridged with muscle, thrashed through the water with the thrust of a propeller-blade as he swam the river-crawl which he had learned from Indian swimmers. For an instant it seemed as if he would lose, for when nearly abreast of the little cape several feet of racing current still lay between him and safety. Sinking his head far under the water, he put every ounce of strength into three strokes, the last of which shot him just near enough to the bank to grip a tough liana which dangled like a rope from an overhanging tree-top. Pinto, who was next, although no mean swimmer, would never have made the full distance, yet managed to grasp one of Hen's brawny legs, which stretched far out into the current.