on the
river, that we were quite lost, and were only pushing the old _Cygnet_
along to keep up our spirits. We crawled close under the walls of the
forest. Our vessel looked about as large and important as a leaf adrift.
That place is so immense that I saw we were going to make no impression
on it. It wouldn't matter to anybody but ourselves if it swallowed us
up. On the first day I saw a round head and two yellow eyes in it,
watching us go by. The thought went through my mind: 'a jaguar.' The
watching face vanished on the instant, and I always felt afterwards that
the forest knew all about us, but wouldn't let us know anything. I got
the idea that it wasn't of the least use going on, unless we didn't
intend to treat the job seriously. If we were serious about it then it
was evident we ought to turn back."

"Didn't the skipper ever say what he thought of it?"

"What could Purdy think, or do? There was that river, and the forest on
both sides of it, and the sun over us. Nothing else but the quiet; and
we didn't know where our destination was. We anchored every evening,
close to the bank. One evening, as we anchored, a shower of arrows
clattered about us. There was just one shower, out of the trees, or out
of the clouds."

"What was Jessie doing all this time?" I ventured to ask him.

"Why, what was any one doing? She wasn't an anxiety of my department. I
suppose she was there for the only reason I had--because she asked for
it. It was the same next day, except that instead of more arrows we
found a python in the bunkers. Came aboard over the hawsers, I suppose.
We were a lively lunatic asylum below while killing it with fire-shovels
and crowbars. That was what the voyage was like. The whole lot of it
was the same, and you knew quite well that the farther you went the less
anything mattered. There were slight variations each day of snakes,
mosquitoes, and fevers, to keep you from feeling dead already."

"I've often wondered," I confessed, thinking to bring Hanson to something
I wanted to hear, "what happened to your company. Once we had a word of
Purdy, but never of Jessie or of you."

"Well, now I'm telling you. But you'd have been past wondering if you'd
been with us. Purdy wasn't companionable. He'd tell me it was hot. And
it was. You could feel that yourself. Jessie cooked our meals. Her
galley could have been only a shade better than the engine-room. She
began to look rather faded.