wn one or other
of the rivers we came to last night with a rush and piling up faster
than the main stream will carry it off. It must go somewhere, and some
of it rushes along here. Strikes me that the whole country will be
under water soon. Look, it's rising fast up the tree-trunks. We shall
have to take great care, or we shall be drawn right in among the trees."

"Ah, that would be awkward," said Briscoe drily, "to find the water
suddenly go down and leave the boats up in the tree-tops like a couple
of big birds' nests."

"Ahoy! Look out, Dellow!" yelled the captain. "Stand by, my lads, to
shove her off, or she'll break us away. Hah! I thought so."

For the second boat had suddenly been swept from her anchorage and come
rapidly down upon the first. The men tried their hardest to ease her
off, but she came into collision with so sharp a shock that the bigger
boat was jerked free from her moorings and began to glide with the swift
current, dragging her grapnel after her, till the captain gave orders
for it to be hauled in.

"Row!" he shouted, and the men dipped their oars into the water with a
steady stroke, keeping the boat's prow head to stream as she dropped
down stern foremost between two mighty walls of verdure, while on either
side it was plain to see that the trunks of the huge forest monarchs
were being flooded many feet up.

"There's nothing else for it, sir," said the captain to Sir Humphrey.
"You'll be seeing what the country's like, and by-and-by as the water
drains off I daresay we can ride easily back with the current quite the
other way."

"And what about capsizing?" said Briscoe.

"That's my look-out, sir," said the captain gruffly. "Capsizing means
feeding the fish, and I've a great objection to being used for that
purpose, without taking into consideration my duty to my passengers and
men."

He met Brace's eyes as he spoke, his own twinkling with a drily humorous
look, and nothing more was said.

The adventure was exciting enough, for the boats rode on rapidly through
the forest, the river, which was comparatively narrow, winding and
doubling in the way peculiar to water making its way through a flat
country. For now all appeared to be one dead level, with the trees on
either side much of a height. Every now and then it was as if they had
been swept by the heavy stream into a lake whose end was right in front,
but invariably as they were gliding straight for a huge bank of trees