expected, he found them very lax after the first hour or two. Long before midnight he was snaking his way noiselessly through the underbrush that surrounded the camp. And in the meantime the rurales were riding furiously along the road that led to Mangrove Creek. [Pg 80] [Pg 80] CHAPTER IX STRANDED STRANDED The sun was high above the mangroves when Walthew joined Grahame and Macallister at breakfast the morning after they landed the rifles. No wind entered the gap in the forest, the smoke went straight up from the slanted funnel, and the air was still and sour. The steamer lay nearly dry among banks of mire, though a narrow strip of dazzling water sluggishly flowed inland past her. Fifty yards outshore, there was a broader channel and beyond it the dingy, pale-stemmed mangroves rose like a wall. Some were strangely spotted, and Walthew glanced at them with disgust as he drank his coffee. "I guess I've never seen such repulsive trees," he said. "This place takes away one's appetite. Even the coffee's bitter; you've been doctoring it." "It's weel to take precautions," Macallister replied. "Ye got a few nibbles last night from a dangerous bit beastie they ca' anopheles." "I suppose it doesn't manufacture the malaria germ, and from the looks of the place one wouldn't imagine there was anybody else about for it to bite." "That's what we're hoping. We're no' anxious for visitors, but when ye meet a smell like what we noo[Pg 81] enjoy, ye take quinine till it makes ye hear church bells ringing in your head." [Pg 81] Walthew turned to Grahame. "Can you get her off?" "We'll try. The sooner we get out the better; but the tides are falling."
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