Read Ebook: Within the Maze: A Novel Vol. 2 (of 2) by Wood Henry Mrs

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Ebook has 2021 lines and 90713 words, and 41 pages

Some time in the middle of the night Joe Sharpe woke up from a dream that he had fallen into the river, and could not get out. He thought that he had caught hold of the supports of a bridge, and had drawn himself partly out of the water, but that he had not strength enough to drag his legs out, and that, on the contrary, he was slowly sinking back. When he awoke he found that he was very cold, and that his blanket felt particularly heavy. He put his hand down to move the blanket, when, to his great surprise, he found that he was lying with his legs in a pool of water.

Joe instantly shouted to the other boys, and told them to wake up, for it was raining, and the tent was leaking. As each boy woke up he found himself as wet as Joe, and at first all supposed that it was raining heavily. They soon found, however, that no rain-drops were pattering on the outside of the tent, and that the stars were shining through the open nap.

"There's water in this tent," said Tom, with the air of having made a grand discovery.

"If any of you fellows have been throwing water on me, it was a mean trick," said Jim.

All at once an idea struck Harry. "Boys," he exclaimed, "it's the tide! We've got to get out of this place mighty quick, or the tide will wash the tent away."

The boys sprung up, and rushed out of the tent. They had gone to bed at low tide, and as the tide rose it had gradually invaded the tent. The boat was still safe, but the water had surrounded it, and in a very short time would be deep enough to float it. The tide was still rising, and it was evident that no time should be lost if the tent was to be saved.

Two of the boys hurriedly seized the blankets and other articles which were in the tent, and carried them on to the higher ground, while the other two pulled up the pins, and dragged the tent out of reach of the water. Then they pulled the boat farther up the beach, and having thus made everything safe, had leisure to discover that they were miserably cold, and that their clothes, from the waist down, were wet through.

Luckily, their spare clothing, which they had used for pillows, was untouched by the water, so that they were able to put on dry shirts and trousers. Their blankets, however, had been thoroughly soaked, and it was too cold to think of sleeping without them. There was nothing to be done but to build a fire, and sit around it until daylight. It was by no means easy to collect fire-wood in the dark; and as soon as a boy succeeded in getting an armful of driftwood, he usually stumbled and fell down with it. There was not very much fun in this; but when the fire finally blazed up, and its pleasant warmth conquered the cold night air, the boys began to regain their spirits.

"I wonder what time it is?" said one.

Tom had a watch, but he had forgotten to wind it up for two or three nights, and it had stopped at eight o'clock. The boys were quite sure, however, that they could not have been asleep more than half an hour.

"It's about one o'clock," said Harry, presently.

"I don't believe it's more than nine," said Joe.

"We must have gone into the tent about an hour after sunset," continued Harry, "and the sun sets between six and seven. It was low tide then, and it's pretty near high tide now; and since the tide runs up for about six hours, it must be somewhere between twelve and one."

"You're right," exclaimed Jim. "Look at the stars. That bright star over there in the west was just rising when we went to bed."

"You ought to say 'turned in,'" said Joe. "Sailors never go to bed; they always 'turn in.'"

"Well, we can't turn in any more to-night," replied Tom. "What do you say, boys? suppose we have breakfast--it'll pass away the time, and we can have another breakfast by-and-by."

Now that the boys thought of it, they began to feel hungry, for they had had a very light supper. Everybody felt that hot coffee would be very nice; so they all went to work, made coffee, fried a piece of ham, and, with a few slices of bread, made a capital breakfast. They wrung out the wet blankets and clothes, and hung them up by the fire to dry. Then they had to collect more fire-wood; and gradually the faint light of the dawn became visible before they really had time to find the task of waiting for daylight tiresome.

"We'll have to take all the things out of her," said Harry.

"It reminds me," remarked Joe, "of Robinson Crusoe that time he built his big canoe, and then couldn't launch it."

"Robinson wasn't very sharp," said Jim. "Why didn't he make a set of rollers, and put them on the boat?"

"Much good rollers would have been," replied Joe. "Wasn't there a hill between the boat and the water? He couldn't roll a heavy boat up hill, could he?"

"He could have made a couple of pulleys, and rigged a rope through them, and then made a windlass, and put the rope round it," argued Jim.

"Yes, and he could have built a steam-engine and a railroad, and dragged the boat down to the shore that way, just about as easy."

"He couldn't dig a canal, for he thought about that, and found it would take too much work," said Jim.

"But we can," cried Harry. "If we just scoop out a little sand, we can launch the boat with everything in her."

The boys liked the idea of a canal; and they each found a large shingle on the beach, and began to dig. They dug for nearly an hour, but the boat was no nearer being launched than when they began. Tom stopped digging, and made a calculation. "It will take about two days of hard work to dig a canal deep enough to float that boat. If you want to dig, dig; I don't intend to do any more digging."

When the other boys considered the matter, they saw that Tom was right, and they gave up the idea of making a canal. It was now about ten o'clock, and they were rather tired and very hungry. A second breakfast was agreed to be necessary, and once more the fire was built up and a meal prepared. Then the boat was unloaded and launched, and the boys, taking off their shoes and rolling up their trousers, waded in the water and reloaded her. It was noon by the sun before they finally had everything in order, and resumed their cruise.

There was no wind, and it was necessary to take to the oars. The disadvantage of starting at so late an hour soon became painfully evident. The sun was so nearly overhead that the heat was almost unbearable, and there was not a particle of shade. The boys had not had a full night's sleep, and had tired themselves before starting by trying to dig a canal. Of course the labor of rowing in such circumstances was very severe; and it was not long before first one and then another proposed to go ashore and rest in the shade.

"Hadn't we better keep on till we get into the Highlands? We can do it in a quarter of an hour," said Tom.

As Tom was pulling the stroke oar, and doing rather more work than any one else, the others agreed to row on as long as he would row. They soon reached the entrance to the Highlands, and landed at the foot of the great hill called St. Anthony's Nose. They were very glad to make the boat fast to a tree that grew close to the water, and to clamber a little way up the hill into the shade.

"What will we do to pass away the time till it gets cooler?" said Harry, after they had rested awhile.

"I can tell you what I'm going to do," said Tom; "I'm going to get some of the sleep that I didn't get last night, and you'd better follow my example."

All the boys at once found that they were sleepy; and having brought the tent up from the boat, they spread it on the ground for a bed, and presently were sleeping soundly. The mosquitoes came and feasted on them, and the innumerable insects of the summer woods crawled over them, and explored their necks, shirt sleeves, and trousers legs, as is the pleasant custom of insects of an inquiring turn of mind.

"What's that?" cried Harry, suddenly sitting up, as the sound of a heavy explosion died away in long, rolling echoes.

"I heard it," said Joe; "it's a cannon. The cadets up at West Point are firing at a mark with a tremendous big cannon."

"Let's go up and see them," exclaimed Jim. "It's a great deal cooler than it was."

With the natural eagerness of boys to be in the neighborhood of a cannon, they made haste to gather up the tent and carry it to the boat. As they came out from under the thick trees, they saw that the sky in the north was as black as midnight, and that a thunder-storm was close at hand.

"Your cannon, Joe, was a clap of thunder," said Harry. "We're going to get wet again."

"We needn't get wet," said Tom. "If we hurry up, we can get the tent pitched and put the things in it, so as to keep them dry."

They worked rapidly, for the rain was approaching fast, but it was not easy to pitch the tent on a side-hill. It was done, however, after a fashion, and the blankets and other things that were liable to be injured by the wet were safely under shelter before the storm reached them.

NEW YORK PRISON-SHIPS.

On the Long Island shore, where the Navy-yard now extends its shops and vessels around Wallabout Bay, there was in the time of the Revolution a large and fertile farm. A number of flour mills, moved by water, then stood there. The flat fields glowed with rich crops of grain, roots, and clover. Their Dutch owners still kept up the customs and language of Holland; at Christmas the kettles hissed and bubbled over the huge fires, laden with olycooks, doughnuts, crullers; at Paas, or Easter, the colored eggs were cracked by whites and blacks, and all was merriment. The war no doubt brought its difficulties to the Dutch farmers; they were sometimes plundered by both parties, and they had little love for King George. They lived on in decorous silence, waiting for the coming of peace, remembering how their ancestors in Holland had once fought successfully for freedom against the Spaniards and the French. But in front of the quiet farm at Wallabout, and anchored in the bay, were seen several vessels, decayed, unseaworthy, and repulsive. They were the prison-ships of New York. Here from the year 1776 a large number of American prisoners were confined until the close of the war, and the tragic tales of their sufferings and fate lend a melancholy interest to the Wallabout shore.

THE TIGER.

The royal tiger of Asia is an animal celebrated for its beauty and its agility, cunning, and prodigious strength. Its skin is a bright tawny yellow, with glossy black stripes running downward from its back. Its tail, which is long and supple, is ringed with black, and its large head is marked in a very handsome manner. It is like a great cat. Its puffy cheeks are ornamented with white whiskers, and its big paws are like those of a pussy magnified fifty times. Its motions are very graceful, and whether lying down, its nose on its paw, sleeping, or walking through the paths of its native jungle with soft cat-like tread, it appears formed of muscle and sinew, without a bone in its body, so gracefully does it curve and twist itself as it moves.

The tiger is not considered a courageous beast by hunters, who say that if it is faced boldly, it will turn and slink away among the bushes, if it can. But if it can attack a hunter from behind, it will spring upon him, filling the air with its savage growls, and probably kill him with the first blow of its mighty paw.

The strength of this creature is almost incredible. It will break the skull of an ox, or even that of a buffalo, with the greatest ease. A story is told of a buffalo belonging to a peasant in India, which, while passing through a swamp, became helplessly entangled in the mire and underbrush. The peasant left the buffalo, and went to beg his neighbors to assist him in extricating the poor beast. When the rescuing party returned, they found a tiger had arrived before them, and having killed the buffalo, had just shouldered it, and started to march home to its lair with the prey. The tiger was soon dispatched by the peasant and his friends, and his beautiful skin was made to atone in a measure for the murder of the buffalo, which, when weighed, tipped the scales at more than a thousand pounds--a tremendous load for so small an animal as a tiger to shoulder and carry off with ease.

The tiger is very troublesome to the inhabitants of certain localities in India, as it attacks the herds, and makes off with many a fat bullock; and when unable to find other provender it will even attack the huts of the natives, sometimes tearing away the thatch, and springing in with a loud roar on a startled family. Instances are rare, however, of tigers attacking human beings, except when surprised and driven to self-defense. In some portions of the country they are very abundant, and may be heard every night roaring through the jungles in search of deer and other beasts upon which they prey. Even the savage wild boar of India does not terrify this queen of cats, and often bloody battles occur between these two powerful beasts.

As a mother the tiger is very devoted, and will fight for its pretty kittens to the last extremity. A story is told of an English officer who, while hunting in India, came upon the lair of a tiger, in which a tiny kitten, about a fortnight old, was lying all alone. Thinking that the mother was probably among the beasts killed by his party, the officer took the kitten to the camp, where it was chained to a pole, and amused the whole company with its graceful gambols. A few hours later, however, the whole camp was shaken by terrible roars and shrieks of rage, which came ever nearer and nearer. The kitten heard them, and became a miniature tiger at once, showing its teeth, and answering with a loud wail. Suddenly there leaped into the camp inclosure a furious tigress with glaring eyes. Without deigning to notice the robbers of her baby, she seized the little thing in her teeth, snapped the small chain which held it with one jerk, and briskly trotted off with it into the jungle. Not a man in the camp dared move, and no one was malicious enough to fire at the retreating mother that had risked her life to regain possession of her baby.

Any one who has watched the feeding of caged tigers in a menagerie can easily imagine how terrible a hungry tiger would be, were he running free in his native jungle. As supper-time approaches, the tigers begin to roar and growl, and march restlessly up and down the cage. When the keeper approaches with the great pieces of raw beef, their roaring makes everything tremble. With ferocity glaring in their eyes, the tigers spring for the food, and begin to devour it eagerly. They often lie down to eat, holding the meat in their fore-paws like a cat, rolling it over and over while they tear it in pieces, growling savagely all the while.

The royal tiger is found only in Asia; for the beast called a tiger in South America and on the Isthmus of Panama is properly the jaguar, and its skin is not ornamented by stripes, but by black spots. It is not so powerful as its royal relative, but very much like it in its habits. Like the tiger, it is an expert swimmer, and as it is very fond of fish, it haunts the heavily wooded banks of the great South American rivers, and is a constant terror to the wood-cutters, who anchor their little vessels along the shore.

The crocodiles and the jaguars are at constant war with each other. If a jaguar catches a crocodile asleep on a sand-bank, it has the advantage, and usually kills its antagonist; but if the crocodile can catch its enemy in the water, the jaguar rarely escapes death by drowning.

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