ACROSS UNKNOWN SOUTH AMERICA 
the bottle. With positive concern, as the garaffon was 
gradually filling, I saw the raft getting a bad list to 
port. 
The broken garaffon was behind Filippe’s back, and 
he could not see it. He was constantly asking me whether 
something had gone wrong, as he seemed to feel the water 
getting higher and higher up his body. 
“Is the ship not sinking? ” he asked every two minutes. 
“ I now have water up to my waist.” 
“No, no, Filippe! Go on. It is all right!” were 
the words with which I kept on urging him. 
The cracked bottle had got almost entirely filled with 
water, and we had such a bad list that the steering b^" 
came most difficult. Two or three times again we wex 
thrown by the current against other rocks, and anothe* 
bottle had a similar fate. 
“We are sinking, are we not? ” shouted Filippe. 
“No, no!” said I. “Goon!” 
As I said those words it suddenly seemed to me that 
I heard voices in the distance. Was it Benedicto calling 
to us? Filippe and I listened. Surely there was some¬ 
body singing! We fancied we heard several voices. Had 
Benedicto met somebody in the forest? 
“Benedicto! Benedicto!” we shouted out to him. 
“ Have you found men? ” 
“ No! ” came the answer from Benedicto. 
All of a sudden Filippe, whose eyes had been scan¬ 
ning the river in front of him, gave a violent jerk which 
nearly capsized the raft, exclaiming: 
“Look! look! There is a canoe!” 
“ It is a rock,” said I, as I screened my eye to look 
on the dazzling water, upon which the sun glittered so 
that it was almost impossible to perceive anything. But, 
sure enough, as I strained my eyes a second time, I saw 
something move, and a moment later I heard voices quite 
distinctly. 
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