Rob Harlow's Adventures Part 7

"Say ever so much more, boy, if you like. But he does know a lot about it. Me and he's been more than one trip together, eh, lad?"

"Yes. But beg him to take me, Rob," cried the boy. "I do so want to go."

"You will take him, will you not, Mr Brazier?"

"I shrink from the responsibility," said Brazier.

"I'll take the responsibility, then," cried Rob eagerly.

"Suppose I say 'no'?"

Giovanni's countenance changed at every speech, being one moment clouded, the next bright. And now as that word "No" rang out he clasped his hands together and raised them with a gesture full of despair. Then his eyes lit up again, for Rob said quickly,--

"Don't say it, then. He would be so horribly disappointed now."

"_Si_! Take Giovanni," said the skipper, and the boy gave him a grateful glance.

"But suppose anything happens to him?"

The Italian captain could not grasp the meaning of this last speech, and turned to his son, who rendered it into their own tongue.

"Oh," replied the captain in the same language, "it is fate. He must take care of himself. Suppose I fall overboard, and am drowned, or the fish eat me? Yes, he must take care."

"You would like him with us, then, Rob?" said Brazier.

"Yes, very much."

"That's enough, then. You shall come, my lad. Wait a moment; hear what I have to say. You must be obedient and follow out my instructions."

"Yes; I'll do everything you tell me," cried the boy.

"And you will have to do as we do--live hard and work hard."

"I'm not afraid of work," said the boy, smiling.

"And now interpret this to your father. I will do everything I can to protect you, and you shall be like one of us, but he must not expect me to be answerable for any mishaps that may come to us out in the wilds."

Giovanni turned eagerly to his father, but the skipper waved his hand.

"Understand," he said, nodding his head. "I you trust. Take _il mio_ boy."

He held out his hand to Brazier, and shook his solemnly as if in sign manual of the compact, and then repeated the performance with Rob, whose hand he retained, and, taking his son's, placed them together.

"_Fratelli_! broders!" he said, smiling.

"Yes, I will be like a brother to you," cried Giovanni.

"All right," said Rob unpoetically; and then the skipper turned to Shadrach, and grumbled out something in Italian.

"Toe be sure," growled the man in English. "'Course I will. You know me, cap'en."

"_Si_!" replied the skipper laconically; and then, asking Rob to accompany him, the Italian lad made for his little cabin to begin the few preparations he had to make.

The result was that a canvas bag like a short bolster was handed down into the boat, and then the boy followed with a light, useful-looking rifle, belt and long keen sheath-knife, which he hung up under the canvas to be clear of the night dew or rain.

It was still grey the next morning when the boatmen sat ready with their oars, and Captain Ossolo stood in the dinghy beside Brazier's boat, which swung astern of the _Tessa_, down into whose hold scores of light-footed women were pa.s.sing basketfuls of oranges.

They paused in their work for a few minutes as the captain shook hands with all in turn.

"_A revederla_!" he cried, taking off his Panama hat. "I see you when you come back, ole boy; goo'-bye; take yourself care of you."

The next minute he was waving his soft hat from the dinghy, while Brazier's boat was gliding up stream, and the two boys stood up and gave him a hearty cheer.

"Now, youngsters," said Shaddy, as he cleared the little mast lying under the thwarts, "we shall catch the wind as soon as we're round the next bend; so we may as well let Natur' do the work when she will."

"What's that, Shadrach?" said Brazier; "going to hoist the sail?"

"Ay, sir. No _Tessa_ to tow us now."

"True. What do you mean to do first?"

"Ask you to resist all temptations to stop at what you calls likely bits, sir, and wait till we get up a hundred mile or so, when I'll take you into waters which will be exactly what you want."

"Very good; I leave myself then in your hands."

"Just to start you, sir. After that it's you as takes the helm."

As their guide said, the wind was fair as soon as they had rowed round a bend of the great, smooth river; the sail was hoisted, the oars laid in, and the Indian rowers too, for as soon as they had ceased pulling they lay down forward to sleep, and that night the boat was moored to a tree on the eastern side of the stream, far-away from the haunts of civilised man, while Rob lay sleepless, listening to the strange and weird sounds which rose from the apparently impenetrable forest on the far-away western sh.o.r.e.

CHAPTER FOUR.

NOISES OF THE NIGHT.

"Not asleep, my lad?" said a voice at his elbow as Rob crept out from under the awning to the extreme stern.

"You, Shaddy? No, I can't sleep. It all seems so strange."

"Ay, it do to you," said the man in a husky whisper. "You've got it just on you now strong. You couldn't go to sleep because you thought that them four Indian chaps forward might come with their knives and finish you and drop you overboard--all of us."

"How do you know I thought that?"

"Ah, I know!" said Shaddy, with a chuckle. "Everybody does. I did first time. Well, they won't, so you needn't be afeared o' that. Nex'

thing as kept you awake was that you thought a great boa-constructor might be up in the tree and come crawling down into the boat."

"Shaddy, are you a witch?" cried Rob.

"Not as I knows on, my lad."