But for one mile, for two, the stream flowed smoothly. A third.... And Paula pointed ahead in silence. A dug-out projected partly from the shoreline. Bell wielded his long pole cautiously now, and drew closer and ever closer to the stream bank. Paula pointed again. There was even a small dock--luxury unthinkable in these wilds.
The raft touched bottom. And suddenly from somewhere out of sight there came a horrible and a bestial sound. It was a scream of blood-lust, of madness, of overpowering and unspeakable rage. Following it came cackling laughter.
"The _fazenda_," said Bell softly, "of the sub-deputy who was listening in on Ribiera last night. And it sounds as if someone were very much amused. Some poor devil...."
"I'm going ashore," said Bell, smiling frostily. "There's nothing else to do."
Crouched at the edge of the jungle, where the clearing began, Paula heard four shots. Two in quick succession, and a wait of minutes. Then a third, and another long wait, and then the last. Then silence. Paula began to shiver. Bell had helped her ashore from the raft and insisted on her waiting at the edge of the jungle.
"Not that you'll be any safer," he had told her grimly, "but that I may be. One person can move more quickly than two. And if I'm chased I'll plunge for the place you're hidden, and you can open fire. Then the two of us might hold them off."
"Don't let me hear you talk like that!" he said sharply. "We're going to beat this thing! We've got to! And being desperate helps, but being in despair doesn't help a bit. Buck up!"
"I will not despair again without your permission," she told him. "Really. I will not."
He found her a hiding-place and went cautiously out into the clearing, still frowning.
He had been gone five minutes before the first shot sounded, and quite ten before the last rang out dully, and was echoed and re-echoed hollowly by the jungle trees. And Paula lay waiting by the edge of the clearing, Ribiera's pearl-handled automatic in her hand--Bell had carried the rifle from the plane. Small insects moved all about her, and she heard soft rustlings as the life of the jungle went on over her head and under her feet, and terror welled up in her throat.
She was trembling almost uncontrollably when Bell came back. He walked openly toward her hiding-place.