width, that more careful investigations had to be commenced.
The way the work was conducted was this. The boats taking the right
and left of the Amazon lay alongside the banks. The reeds and
vegetation were tried with the poles. Of the smallest ledges in the
banks in which a body could rest, not one escaped the scrutiny of
Araujo and his Indians.
But all this labor produced no result, and half the day had elapsed
without the body being brought to the surface of the stream.
An hour’s rest was given to the Indians. During this time they
partook of some refreshment, and then they returned to their task.
Four of the boats, in charge of the pilot, Benito, Fragoso, and
Manoel, divided the river between the Rio Negro and the Bar of Frias
into four portions. They set to work to explore its very bed. In
certain places the poles proved insufficient to thoroughly search
among the deeps, and hence a few dredges–or rather harrows, made of
stones and old iron, bound round with a solid bar–were taken on
board, and when the boats had pushed off these rakes were thrown in
and the river bottom stirred up in every direction.
It was in this difficult task that Benito and his companions were
employed till the evening. The ubas and pirogues, worked by the oars,
traversed the whole surface of the river up to the bar of Frias.
There had been moments of excitement during this spell of work, when
the harrows, catching in something at the bottom, offered some slight
resistance. They were then hauled up, but in place of the body so
eagerly searched for, there would appear only heavy stones or tufts
of herbage which they had dragged from their sandy bed. No one,
however, had an idea of giving up the enterprise. They none of them
thought of themselves in this work of salvation. Benito, Manoel,
Araujo had not even to stir up the Indians or to encourage them. The
gallant fellows knew that they were working for the fazender of
Iquitos–for the man whom they lvoed, for the chief of the excellent
family who treated their servants so well.
Yes; and so they would have passed the night in dragging the river.
Of every minute lost all knew the value.
A little before the sun disappeared, Araujo, finding it useless to
continue his operations in the gloom, gave the signal for the boats
to join company and return together to the confluence of the Rio
Negro and regain the jangada.
The work so carefully and intelligently conducted was not, however,
at an end.
Manoel and Fragoso, as they came back, dared not mention their ill
success before Benito. They feared that the disappointment would only
force him to some act of despair.
But neither courage nor coolness deserted the young fellow; he was
determined to follow to the end this supreme effort to save the honor
and the life of his father, and he it was who addressed his
companions, and said: “To-morrow we will try again, and under better
conditions if possible.”
“Yes,” answered Manoel; “you are right, Benito. We can do better. We
cannot pretend to have entirely explored the river along the whole of
the banks and over the whole of its bed.”
“No; we cannot have done that,” replied Araujo; “and I maintain what
I said–that the body of Torres is there, and that it is there
because it has not been carried away, because it could not be drawn
over the Bar of Frias, and because it will take many days before it
rises to the surface and floats down the stream. Yes, it is there,
and not a demijohn of tafia will pass my lips until I find it!”
This affirmation from the pilot was worth a good deal, and was of a
hope-inspiring nature.
However, Benito, who did not care so much for words as he did for
things, thought proper to reply, “Yes, Araujo; the body of Torres is
in the river, and we shall find it if—-”
“If?” said the pilot.
“If it has not become the prey of the alligators!”
Manoel and Fragoso waited anxiously for Araujo’s reply.