Читать книгу Afloat in the Forest - Captain Mayne Reid - Страница 11

Tossed by the tempest, the galatea preserved her course towards the tree-tops, thus keeping up the spirits and confidence of her crew. Despite some divergences caused by an occasional contrary gust of wind, she kept an onward course, in due time arriving within such distance of the forest, that it was no longer doubtful about her drifting among the trees. In this there was a prospect of temporary safety at the least, and our adventurers had begun to congratulate themselves on the proximity of the event. Just then, a gigantic tree – it must have been gigantic to stand so high over its fellows, though it could scarce be fifty feet above the surface of the water – presented itself to their eyes. It stood solitary and alone, about a quarter of a mile from the edge of the forest, and as much nearer to the craft, still struggling through the wind-lashed water. Like that in the top of which they had first gone aground, it was a sapucaya, – as testified by the huge pericarps conspicuously suspended from its branches. High as may have been the inundation, its stem rose still higher, by at least ten feet; but half-way between the water’s surface and the branches, the colossal trunk forked in twain, – each of the twin scions appearing a trunk of itself. Through the fork was the water washing at each heave of the agitated Gapo, – the waves with foaming crests mounting far up towards the top of the tree, as if aspiring to pluck the ripe fruit depending from its branches.

Towards this tree the galatea was now going as straight as if she had been steered by the finger of Destiny itself. There was no other power to control her, – at least none that was human. The wind, or destiny, – one of the two, – must determine her fate. The waves perhaps had something to do with it; since the next that followed lifted the galatea upon its curling crest, and lodged her in the sapucaya in such a fashion that her keel, just amidships, rested within the forking of the twin stems.

“Thank God!” exclaimed her owner, “we are safe now. Moored between two stanchions like these, neither the winds of heaven nor the waves of the great ocean itself could prevail against us. Make fast there! Make fast to the limbs of the tree! Tie her on both sides. These are no twigs to be snapped asunder. Hurrah! we are anchored at last!”

The gigantic stems of the sapucaya, rising on both sides above the beam-ends of the galatea, looked like the supporters of a graving-dock. It is true the craft still floated upon the bosom of a troubled water; but what of that? Once made fast to the tree, she could not be carried farther; therefore was she secure against wind and wave. The tornado might continue, but no longer to be a terror to the crew. These, partly relieved from their fears, hastened to obey the master’s commands. Ropes were grasped, and, with hands still trembling, were looped around the stems of the sapucaya. All at once action was suspended by a loud crash, which was followed by a cry that issued simultaneously from the lips of all the crew; who, before its echoes could die away among the branches of the sapucaya, had become separated into two distinct groups!

The crash had been caused by the parting of the galatea’s keel, which, resting in the fork of the tree, had broken amidships, on the subsidence of the wave that had heaved her into this peculiar position. For a few seconds the two sections of the partly dissevered craft hung balanced between the air and the water, the fore-deck with its stores balancing the quarter with its toldo. But long before the beam was kicked, the occupants of both had forsaken them, and were to be seen, some of them clinging to the branches of the sapucaya, some struggling beneath against the storm and the current of the Gapo. By noble devotion on the part of those who could swim, the whole crew were placed beyond the reach of the waves upon the branches of the sapucaya, where, from their elevated position, they beheld the craft that had so long safely carried them parting in two and sinking out of sight.