So, parting the branches with great care, he moved on cautiously until with a grateful heart he put a hand out to touch a huge rough boulder.
Mounted upon this heap of rough rocks, of which there were five, each as large as a sleeping elephant, he breathed more freely.
“Now for a little fire,” he thought. “All wild things fear fire.”
It was not long until the stream, which appeared to be some twenty feet wide at this point, was lighted by the blazing flames of quick burning palm leaves.
Sudden as was the blaze, even more sudden was its fading. Looking away from the red glow of coals, Johnny tried to peer into the dense darkness that followed. He could distinguish only the red gleam of eyes. They were all about him; upon the water, on the bank, in the tree tops.
Monkeys, fierce black little creatures, chattered from the tallest trees. From the ground sounded many odd grunts, which the boy could not interpret. Coming down the river, like a dimly lighted floating burial procession, were the silent alligators.
“It’s all very strange and—and somewhat spooky,” he told himself.
With a shudder he seized a dully glowing brand and, having fanned it into flame, went boldly forth in search of wood. This time he would gather more substantial material. His fire must last longer, much longer, for somehow he must snatch a little sleep.
Waving his firebrand before him in one hand, he gathered fuel with the other. Some dead ferns and palm branches, the fallen branch of a black tamarind, the half rotted stem of a yamra, some large branches of a tree quite unknown to him, all these would send the light of his fire gleaming out into the night for hours to come.
Soon, with his fire glowing cheerily, he settled down on a chair-like rock crevice and with head bent forward, hands hanging down before him, every muscle relaxed, he tried to induce sleep to come.
It did not come at once. His mind worked on. Across its silver screen there passed a long procession of pictures. The trip up the river, the wild forest, the dark Caribs all about him, the silent black river, Daego seated before the table, money, twenty thousand dollars fluttering before him, the surprised look of the Spaniards as the table tore through the wall, then the jungle, the terrible uncertain jungle with its wild perils and its noisesome nights.