The pilot was silent for a few moments; they felt that he was
reflecting before he spoke. “Mr. Benito,” he said at length, “I am
not in the habit of speaking lightly. I had the same idea as you; but
listen. During the ten hours we have been at work have you seen a
single cayman in the river?”
“Not one,” said Fragoso.
“If you have not seen one,” continued the pilot, “it was because
there were none to see, for these animals have nothing to keep them
in the white waters when, a quarter of a mile off, there are large
stretches of the black waters, which they so greatly prefer. When the
raft was attacked by some of these creatures it was in a part where
there was no place for them to flee to. Here it is quite different.
Go to the Rio Negro, and there you will see caymans by the score. Had
Torres’ body fallen into that tributary there might be no chance of
recovering it. But it was in the Amazon that it was lost, and in the
Amazon it will be found.”
Benito, relieved from his fears, took the pilot’s hand and chook it,
and contented himself with the reply, “To-morrow, my friends!”
Ten minutes later they were all on board the jangada. During the day
Yaquit had passed some hours with her husband. But before she
started, and when she saw neither the pilot, nor Manoel, nor Benito,
nor the boats, she had guessed the search on which they had gone, but
she said nothing to Joam Dacosta, as she hoped that in the morning
she would be able to inform him of their success.
But when Benito set foot on the raft she perceived that their search
had been fruitless. However, she advanced toward him. “Nothing?” she
asked.
“:Nothing,” replied Benito. “But the morrow is left to us.”
The members of the family retired to their rooms, and nothing more
was said as to what had passed.
Manoel tried to make Benito lie down, so as to take a few hours’
rest.
“What is the good of that?” asked Benito. “Do you think I could
sleep?”
CHAPTER IX
THE SECOND ATTEMPT
ON THE MORROW, the 27th of August, Benito took Manoel apart, before
the sun had risen, and said to him: “Our yesterday’s search was vain.
If we begin again under the same conditions we may be just as
unlucky.”
“We must do so, however,” replied Manoel.
“Yes,” continued Benito; “but suppose we do not find the body, can
you tell me how long it will be before it rises to the surface?”
“If Torres,” answered Manoel, “had fallen into the water living, and
not mortally wounded, it would take five or six days; but as he only
disappeared after being so wounded, perhaps two or three days would
be enough to bring him up again.”
This answer of Manoel, which was quite correct, requires some
explanation. Every human body which falls into the water will float
if equilibrium is established between its density and that of its
liquid bed. This is well known to be the fact, even when a person
does not know how to swim. Under such circumstances, if you are
entirely submerged, and only keep your mouth and nose away from the
water, you are sure to float. But this is not generally done. The
first movement of a drowning man is to try and hold as much as he can
of himself above the water; he holds up his head and lifts up his
arms, and these parts of his body, being no longer supported by the
liquid, do not lose that amount of weight which they would do if
completely immersed. Hence an excess of weight, and eventually entire
submersion, for the water makes its way to the lungs through the
mouth, takes the place of the air which fills them, and the body
sinks to the bottom.
On the other hand, when the man who falls into the water is already
dead the conditions are different, and more favorable for his
floating, for then the movements of which we have spoken are checked,
and the liquid does not make its way to the lungs so copiously, as