s soon as they appeared on deck, and if they
nodded to him he was quick to respond, but he never forced his company
upon them; and it was so too in the cabin, for he was quiet and
unobtrusive, speaking readily when spoken to, but only to subside at
once when the conversation flagged.

"What has become of his inquisitive organ, Brace?"

"That's what I was thinking: he seems quite a different man."

The storm was over at last, and one morning, as the brig was running due
west under a full press of sail, it suddenly struck Brace that the water
over the side was not so clear as it had been an hour before when he was
leaning over the bulwark gazing down into the crystalline depths, trying
to make out fish, and wondering how it was that, though there must be
millions upon millions in the ocean through which they were sailing, he
could not see one.

"We must be getting into water that has been churned up by the storm,"
thought Brace; but just then the second mate came up and he referred to
him.

"Water not so clear?" he said. "No wonder; we're right off the mouths
of the Amazon now."

"So far south?"

"Yes, and running right in. Before long the water, instead of being
like this--a bit thick--will be quite muddy, and this time to-morrow we
shall be bidding good-bye to the sea, I suppose, for some time to come."

Lynton's words were quite right, for the next day, after a most
satisfactory run, Brace stood gazing over the bows of the brig at the
thick muddy water that was churned up, and finding it hard to believe
that he was sailing up the mouth of a river; for, look which way he
would, nothing was to be seen but water, while when he tried his glass
it was with no better success.

But at last the land was to be made out on the starboard bow, or rather
what was said to be land, a long, low, hazy something on the distant
horizon.

A couple of days later there was land plain enough on both sides of the
brig, and they commenced a long, dismal progress up stream, of a
monotonous kind that was wearisome in the extreme.

As time went on, though, there was a change, and that was followed by
plenty of variety in the shape of huge trees, with all their branches
and leaves tolerably fresh, floating seaward, just as they had fallen
from the bank after the mighty stream had undermined them. In one case
there were land birds flitting about the few boughs that appeared above
the water, but generally they were gulls snatching a