gainst some rocks, the central bottles of
our raft receiving a hard knock. One of them cracked badly. I was quite
perplexed when my eye caught sight of the radiations in the glass caused
by the impact. Then my ear began to notice the sound of the trickling of
water getting inside the bottle. With positive concern, as the _garaffon_
was gradually filling, I saw the raft getting a bad list to port.

The broken _garaffon_ was behind Filippe's back, and he could not see it.
He was constantly asking me whether something had gone wrong, as he
seemed to feel the water getting higher and higher up his body.

"Is the ship not sinking?" he asked every two minutes. "I now have water
up to my waist."

"No, no, Filippe! Go on. It is all right!" were the words with which I
kept on urging him.

The cracked bottle had got almost entirely filled with water, and we had
such a bad list that the steering became most difficult. Two or three
times again we were thrown by the current against other rocks, and
another bottle had a similar fate.

"We are sinking, are we not?" shouted Filippe.

"No, no!" said I. "Go on!"

As I said those words it suddenly seemed to me that I heard voices in the
distance. Was it Benedicto calling to us? Filippe and I listened. Surely
there was somebody singing! We fancied we heard several voices. Had
Benedicto met somebody in the forest?

"Benedicto! Benedicto!" we shouted out to him. "Have you found men?"

"No!" came the answer from Benedicto.

All of a sudden Filippe, whose eyes had been scanning the river in front
of him, gave a violent jerk which nearly capsized the raft, exclaiming:

"Look! look! There is a canoe!"

"It is a rock," said I, as I screened my eye to look on the dazzling
water, upon which the sun glittered so that it was almost impossible to
perceive anything. But, sure enough, as I strained my eyes a second time,
I saw something move, and a moment later I heard voices quite distinctly.

Filippe's joy and mine was intense when we perceived that not only one
boat, but two--three canoes were approaching.

We had already travelled some eight kilometres on our raft when we came
close to the boats we had observed. Their crews stood up in them, rifles
in hand, as we floated down. I shouted that we were friends. Eventually
they came to our help, their amazement being curious to watch as they got
near us--they being unable to understand how we could float down the
river merely by sitting