re
getting now into a more uninhabited part of the country, perhaps where
travellers have never been before."

"Then I say let's go on," said Briscoe, "and we may find El Dorado,
after all."

"El Dorado or no El Dorado, I say don't let's give up yet," said Brace.
"Let's keep on till we are obliged to go back to the brig for stores;
and by that time we shall know whether it is worth while to come up here
again."

"That's good advice, sir," said the captain, smiling at Brace as he
spoke. "I don't want to give up: I like it as well as you do. There's
only one thing wherrits me."

"What's that?" said Brace.

"My brig. I lay awake for a good ten minutes last night thinking about
what we should all feel if we got back to where we left her and found
that the old `Jason' had dragged her anchors and navigated herself out
to sea."

"Oh, but if she had dragged her anchors, captain," said Brace, "they'd
lay hold again somewhere lower down."

"Yes, sir," said the captain drily; "that's what comforted me. All
right, gentlemen. On we go then. I'm thinking now that after the
lesson we gave those gentlemen to-day they mayn't care to meddle with us
again."

"Do you think any of them were killed?" said Brace.

"Hardly, sir. Certainly not with the buckshot. If any of them lost the
number of their mess it would be just now in the river."

"Drowned?"

"Oh, no. They swim like seals. It would be through some of the natives
below: old friends of theirs."

Brace felt a shudder run through him as he glanced down over the side,
where the water glided deep and dark now from where they were sailing to
the tree-clothed shore.

But the conversation took another turn then, the captain proposing that
a good midday meal should be eaten now, and no halt made till a suitable
well-screened resting-place was reached about an hour before dusk.

"Why not keep right on till it is quite dusk?" said Sir Humphrey.

"He means so that we can land and light our fire in the forest, do our
cooking, and put it out again before it's dark, when it would show our
position to any prowling natives," said Briscoe.

"That's right," said the captain.

These tactics were carried out, a strong wind wafting the boats along
mile after mile to a far greater distance than any amount of paddling
would bring canoes in pursuit; and fortune favoured them far more, for,
just about the time decided upon, the fine river up which they had come
suddenly opene