‘It’s a snake!’ Roger exclaimed, as six feet of writhing fury rose into the air at the end of the line.
‘An eel,’ Hal corrected.
But even Hal did not know that it was an eel of the electric variety until he took hold of it. He promptly let go again and slumped down in the grass, a violent pain coursing through every joint. The island faded out. When he came to, Roger was kneeling beside him.
‘You scared me half to death,’ Roger said. ‘What struck you?’
Hal could not speak at once. He saw the eel lying in the grass. Roger was too close to it for safety. Hal tried to warn him, but the words would not come.
Roger, squatting on his heels, presently got his rear in contact with the eel. He brushed it only lightly and his trousers protected him, but nevertheless he went up into the air with a yell of pain. He didn’t need to ask again what had struck Hal.
The paralysis disappeared gradually, but Hal’s joints ached all the rest of the day.
With the true zeal of the collector, he resolved to take home this living storage battery. In the ground he dug a pit which filled with water. Using dry sticks, he pushed the eel into the pit.
That will take care of it for the time being,’ he said.
He got Roger back into his hammock. The electric shock had not helped the convalescent.
Too bad it isn’t a cure for malaria,’ Hal said. The Indians use it as treatment for rheumatism. And two of the big hospitals in North America send planes down here to collect electric eels for use in medical experiments.’
‘How much of a shock do you think you got from that thing?’
1 don’t know. But they’ve measured the voltage and found that the average eel packs a wallop of three hundred volts.’
The bigger the eel, the bigger the wallop, I suppose.’
‘Not always. They tell of one eel only forty inches long that had an electromotive force of five hundred volts.’
‘Is that enough to kill you?’ ‘Well, perhaps not. But if you were in the water it would be enough to paralyse you so that you would drown. A good many cattle and horses have died that way. Humans too.’
If we ever get to the Ark, how are you going to carry this thing on board?’
‘I’ve been wondering about that myself,’ Hal said thoughtfully. ‘Of course an electric eel doesn’t have to shoot the works if he doesn’t want to. The discharge is entirely voluntary. It’s set off by a little trigger in his brain. It’s just possible that if he were handled very, very gently he wouldn’t turn on his dynamo.’
‘You’d be taking an awful chance.’
‘You’re right.’ Hal’s forehead kinked. ‘If I could just remember — I saw an electric eel taken apart one time in the Rockefeller laboratory. The thing that sets off the discharge is a nerve that runs all the way from the brain to the tip of the tail. If you cut that nerve anywhere, then only the part of the eel between that point and the head can shock you. You can take hold of the tail.’
‘And when you try this little experiment,’ said Roger, ‘be sure to give me a seat with a good view. That’s something I want to see.’
‘No time like the present,’ said Hal, and he promptly staged the act. Taking his knife, which fortunately had a nonconductive wooden handle, he made a quick, light slash on the eel’s back six inches forward of the tail. Then he touched the tail, and felt nothing. He took hold of it, lifted the eel into the air, and dropped it back into the pit.
‘Operation successful.’
Hal returned to his fishing and in due course pulled out a paiche. When he opened its mouth, several dozen tiny fish spilled out — for the paiche is the extraordinary fish that carries its young in its mouth. A very good precaution, thought Hal, in a river as full of voracious creatures as the Amazon. Particularly the dogfish loves to feed upon paiche small fry — and as soon as the dog-faced brute comes into the neighbourhood the little fellows make a dash for mother, who opens her capacious mouth to receive them. The big paiche made a very satisfactory evening meal.
The next day Hal saw a distant canoe and waved and shouted and even considered firing Croc’s cartridge as a signal. The men in the canoe did not see the figure on the floating island.
Far more distressing was the event of the day following, when the Ark itself was sighted, moored to the shore. The island serenely sailed by it at a distance of a mile. Hal might possibly have swum to it in spite of a river full of teeth, but Roger certainly could not. There was nothing to do but sail on.
Croc was not visible — possibly he was in the woods foraging for the menagerie. How would he know what to feed the animals? If Hal did not get back to them soon, half of them would be dead. Or suppose Croc did know how to take care of them? Suppose he got them safely to Manaos and on board a steamer and away? Suppose Hal had to go home empty-handed?
Once you started supposing it was hard to stop. Suppose he, too, came down with fever, by turns delirious and unconscious, and they both lay helpless in their hammocks until one of the terrific squalls for which the rainy season was famous broke up their island or rolled the tree over and fed them to the fishes.
The next morning Hal awoke to find that his island home was no longer travelling. At least, it was not travelling downstream. It had washed into a bay, and a back eddy was slowly carrying it around and around.
This was maddening. The Ark under full sail would speed by and be lost to him while he doddered around this bay. Every time the floating island came to the mouth of the bay he tried to pole or paddle it out into the main stream, but it was far too big a ship for one sailor to manage. The wind was upstream this morning and exerted just enough pressure on the high branches of the tree to push the mass back into the bay for another round.
Then Hal, looking up river, saw the Ark. It was not under sail. That surprised him — then the reason occurred to him. The same upriver wind that had pushed the island into the bay was making it impossible for Croc to use his sail. The Ark merely drifted with the current.
Hal had a sudden hope. If the wind had eased the drifting island out of the main current and into the bay, why shouldn’t it have the same effect upon the drifting boat? Perhaps Croc would be joining him in a few minutes.
He prepared to receive him. He examined his Savage with a grim smile. Then he climbed into the tree and coached Roger.
‘Lie still,’ he said, ‘and keep quiet.’
Roger promptly climbed out of his hammock. ‘I’m sick of that thing anyhow,’ he said, wobbling a little as he hung on to a branch. ‘If there’s a fight, I’m going to be in it.’
What can you do?’
Roger’s eyes flashed. ‘I don’t know, but I can do something. That fellow is as big as two of you. You’ll need me.’
‘All right, but keep out of sight among the branches. He might see these hammocks,’ and Hal took them down.
Current and wind were carrying the Ark straight into the mouth of the bay. Hal patted his Savage.
He scanned the deck in search of Croc. Finally he saw him, lying on the deck, sound asleep.
The animals called in vain for breakfast. Hal could hear the little tapir’s whinny, the deep grumble of the jaguars, the chittering of the tiny marmoset, and the voices of the several birds.
How good everything looked, including Charlie, the mummified head, swinging by his hair from the masthead. The big stork was as wise and one-legged as ever. The little deer was beautiful. Hal even had affection to spare for the evil anaconda.
The Ark entered the bay and followed the circling island. Hal feared that they would go around indefinitely, a few rods apart. But the island did not float as swiftly as the Ark. The heavy half acre scraped now and then on the bottom or against the shore. The Ark gained upon it and presently was wedged against it.
‘Here we go,’ whispered Hal. Roger carried the hammocks. Hal slipped to the pool and very gently lifted out the eel by the tail. The boys sneaked on board the Ark behind the toldo. Hal laid the eel on the deck. It lay
there quietly, never being very active out of the water.
With the deck of his boat once more under his feet, the world looked good to Hal. He looked with surprise at the gun in his hand. The lust to kill had gone out of him. His fists felt as if they could do all that was necessary. He laid the gun down.
He stepped around the corner of the toldo. He beamed upon Black Beauty, who returned his advances with a cold stare. He beamed upon the anaconda, which did not trouble to open an eye, being still occupied in digesting the manatee.
More cordial was the pet boa constrictor. She wriggled across the deck to Hal, who leaned to caress her upraised head.
Nosey, the tapir, nosed his leg, and Specs, the marmoset, scrambled up and inside his shirt. Hal took him out, petted him a moment, and put him aside. Inside his shirt might not be a safe place for a marmoset a few seconds from now.
Hal looked down at Croc. The giant lay on his back, his face twisted and ugly even in sleep. He wore one of Hal’s holsters and in it was Hal’s own revolver. Hal stooped, gently extracted the revolver, and laid it on the anaconda cage.
Then he gave Croc a smart kick in the ribs.
‘Uh-uh!’ Croc grunted like an annoyed jaguar. His face squirmed as if snakes moved under the skin. His eyes opened by just a crack — then snapped wide as he saw Hal.
He rolled over and came up on his feet all in one motion, slapping his hand to his holster. He found no gun.
He charged into Hal like a wild bull. Hal, although tall and heavy for his age, weighed a good six stone less than his opponent. He stepped aside and let the big fellow go crashing into the toldo. The yellow tiger snarled and the black one roared. The birds squawked.
Croc turned, but before he could throw his weight forward he got the full impact of Hal’s fist in his face. Every shred of muscle the boy could command was put into that blow. He expected to see Croc crumple up.
Croc hardly seemed to notice the blow and came on again. This time his big ham of a fist contacted Hal’s forehead and sent him spinning across the deck. His hurtling body knocked the single prop from under the giant stork which went screaming into the air to the full length of his fifty-foot line. Before the boy could rise, Croc seized one of the long, heavy oars of the batalao and brought it down with a crash — but not upon Hal, who had rolled out of the way and was now between Croc’s legs, trying to upset the monster. He might as well have tried to throw an elephant.
Croc kicked the wind out of him. But Hal rose unsteadily to his feet and came back into the fight. He threw himself upon Croc and backed him against the anaconda cage. Croc flailed out with his heavy right fist. Hal went flat on the deck.
A roar of savage laughter came from Croc. Then he saw the revolver on the cage roof. He seized it and stepped forward to end Hal’s troubles.
Then a scream escaped him as he saw a sight so horrible that he would remember it the rest of his life. A great greenish serpent was whirling in the air and coming straight towards him.
Roger, gripping the electric eel by the tail, swung it around his head like a lasso. David with his slingshot never approached Goliath more boldly. The terrified Croc fired, he did not know where or at what.
Now the green-black coils were going around his neck, around and around. An excruciating pain shot through him. His big hulk dropped unconscious to the deck.
Chapter 27
The Caged Man
Hal and Roger stood looking down at the fallen giant. Hal was badly shaken up and his convalescent brother was puffing after his bout of eel swinging.
‘What do we do with him now?’ panted Roger. ‘We’ve got to do something quick before he comes to.’
The electric eel, its good work nobly done, was ambling slowly across the deck towards the water. Hal seized it by the tail, opened the anaconda cage, and managed to get the eel inside,
‘It can’t hurt the big snake, nor vice versa. And that tub of water is just made to order for an eel.’
‘But what do we do with Croc? Tie him up?’
‘He deserves something worse than that,’ Hal said. ‘It would give me great pleasure to scare the liver out of him. He has it coming to him.’
Roger’s mischief mill began to work. He looked back and forth from Croc to the cage.
‘I wonder how he would like the world’s scariest snake for a travelling companion!’
Hal chortled. ‘Fever has made you brilliant, my boy.’
They heaved and hoisted until they got the one big giant into the cage of the other. They closed and locked the door. Croc lay not in the water but on the cage floor beside the tub where it narrowed at the end. A foot away from his face was the head of the sleeping anaconda, its body in the tub. Around it swam languidly the hero of the recent encounter, the electric eel.
The colour had drained out of Croc’s usually beef-red face. Hal could see no sign that the man still breathed. He began to wonder how he would explain Croc’s death to the police at Manaos. If he and Roger sailed into that port with a corpse on board they would most certainly be held for murder. He prayed silently that his worst enemy would come to.
A shiver ran through Croc’s big frame. He began to pant.
Then his big eyes opened and he saw within a foot of him a head bigger than his own and almost as ugly. In terror he jerked his own head back and brought it with a resounding crack against the wall of the cage.
He looked about him frantically, found that he was trapped, saw the two boys regarding him with interest. He clawed at the door. He bellowed to high heaven.
‘Let me out! Open the door!’
‘Better pipe down,’ Hal advised. ‘You’ll wake your friend and then he’ll swallow you.’
Croc compressed his voice into a harsh whisper, ‘If I ever get out of here 111 murder you.’
‘I know it. That’s why you’re going to stay in.’
Croc arched his body against the tub and tried to break out the wall. But the cage had been made strong enough to withstand all the lashings of the most powerful of serpents. Its three-inch-thick bamboo pillars creaked a little but held fast.
The anaconda’s head moved slightly. Croc flattened himself against the wall and his eyes bulged. Ignorant of snake ways, he could not know that an anaconda, no matter whether asleep or awake, is hardly dangerous when full of dinner. He burst into hysterical curses.
When he saw that he could not frighten his captors into releasing him, he changed his tune.
‘Listen, boys, this joke has gone far enough. I know you’re good boys. You wouldn’t really leave me here to die.’
‘You left us to die,’ Hal reminded him.
‘Now, buddy, you’ve got me all wrong. I just wanted to save your collection and your boat, see. Hasn’t it all worked out good? The jungle is no place for a coupla boys. I had to take care of you, see.’
‘Well take care of you now,’ was Hal’s unfeeling reply. ‘Come on, Roger. We have work to do.’
And leaving their prisoner to rage or blubber as he pleased, they went ashore to gather meat, blood, insects and leaves to suit the various tastes of their animals.
‘This ought to be the last feeding before we get to Manaos,’ Hal said. ‘Are we that close?’
‘We should get there tomorrow, if we have a good wind.’
Returning to the shore they found that the floating island had left the bay. That must mean that the contrary wind had died down. They fed the animals, then hauled in the anchor. The Ark also circled out of the bay and into the main stream of the Amazon. A slight breeze was drifting down river. Hal ran up the sail and took his place at the tiller. Roger, still weak from his bout with fever, stretched out on deck close to the cage containing the three devils.
Roger kept watch to see that none of them escaped. The noisiest of the three was Croc. He was mad with fear when the anaconda sleepily opened its eyes and regarded him, stretched its jaws apart in a great yawn, and went to sleep again.
Camp was made for the night on a grassy point, but Croc stay
ed in his cage. Dried meat was passed to him between the slats. The killer, now in dread of a greater killer than himself, spent an uneasy night. Which was quite unnecessary, for the serpent he so frantically feared slept profoundly.
In the middle of the next morning the water suddenly changed from brown to black. That meant that the Rio Negro, Black River, had joined the Amazon.
The course of the Ark was changed and they sailed ten miles up the black stream to the great jungle city of Manaos.
At Manaos the Rio Negro is four miles wide. At other points it is fifteen miles wide. And yet it is merely a tributary to the Amazon.
Manaos, where men made fortunes during the great rubber boom, is a thousand miles from the Atlantic Ocean. And yet it is an ocean port, and the boys found its docks full of cargo steamers that had sailed from North America, England or Europe down the Atlantic and a thousand miles up the Amazon to reach this, the greatest city of the Amazon basin.
The Ark, which had seemed so large, looked small in comparison with these ocean liners. The boys made it fast to a pier under the towering stern of a ship from Glasgow. The animals and the savage human in the anaconda cage immediately attracted a curious crowd. Roger undertook to keep guard while Hal went into town to police headquarters.
He asked for and got an interview with the chief of police. He quaked inwardly lest the chief should refuse to believe his story. He was greatly relieved when that dignitary said, ‘We owe you a great debt, senhor. We have word of all this from up river. We have a charge of robbery and incendiarism against this man by one under the name of Pero Sousa, and also complaints from the Cocamas who charge him with murder of twelve of their people. My officers will accompany you to your boat.’
Croc was removed from his cage and taken into custody.
Hal then visited the steamship offices. The result was a contract to transport his collection home on the good ship Sea Gull, Captain Brig Harris, master.
And then to the cable office to report to their father the successful outcome of their venture.
The following morning they received his reply:
01 Amazon Adventure Page 18