BENITO THEN HAD disappeared beneath the vast sheet which still covered the corpse1 of the adventurer. Ah! If he had had the power to divert the waters of the river, to turn them into vapor2, or to drain them off — if he could have made the Frias basin dry down stream, from the bar up to the influx3 of the Rio Negro, the case hidden in Torres’ clothes would already have been in his hand! His father’s innocence4 would have been recognized! Joam Dacosta, restored to liberty, would have again started on the descent of the river, and what terrible trials would have been avoided!
Benito had reached the bottom. His heavy shoes made the gravel5 on the bed crunch6 beneath him. He was in some ten or fifteen feet of water, at the base of the cliff, which was here very steep, and at the very spot where Torres had disappeared.
Near him was a tangled7 mass of reeds and twigs8 and aquatic9 plants, all laced together, which assuredly during the researches of the previous day no pole could have penetrated10. It was consequently possible that the body was entangled12 among the submarine shrubs13, and still in the place where it had originally fallen.
Hereabouts, thanks to the eddy14 produced by the prolongation of one of the spurs running out into the stream, the current was absolutely nil15. Benito guided his movements by those of the raft, which the long poles of the Indians kept just over his head.
The light penetrated deep through the clear waters, and the magnificent sun, shining in a cloudless sky, shot its rays down into them unchecked. Under ordinary conditions, at a depth of some twenty feet in water, the view becomes exceedingly blurred16, but here the waters seemed to be impregnated with a luminous17 fluid, and Benito was able to descend18 still lower without the darkness concealing19 the river bed.
The young man slowly made his way along the bank. With his iron-shod spear he probed the plants and rubbish accumulated along its foot. Flocks of fish, if we can use such an expression, escaped on all sides from the dense20 thickets21 like flocks of birds. It seemed as though the thousand pieces of a broken mirror glimmered22 through the waters. At the same time scores of crustaceans23 scampered24 over the sand, like huge ants hurrying from their hills.
Notwithstanding that Benito did not leave a single point of the river unexplored, he never caught sight of the object of his search. He noticed, however, that the slope of the river bed was very abrupt25, and he concluded that Torres had rolled beyond the eddy toward the center of the stream. If so, he would probably still recover the body, for the current could hardly touch it at the depth, which was already great, and seemed sensibly to increase. Benito then resolved to pursue his investigations26 on the side where he had begun to probe the vegetation. This was why he continued to advance in that direction, and the raft had to follow him during a quarter of an hour, as had been previously27 arranged.
The quarter of an hour had elapsed, and Benito had found nothing. He felt the need of ascending28 to the surface, so as to once more experience those physiological29 conditions in which he could recoup his strength. In certain spots, where the depth of the river necessitated30 it, he had had to descend about thirty feet. He had thus to support a pressure almost equal to an atmosphere, with the result of the physical fatigue31 and mental agitation32 which attack those who are not used to this kind of work. Benito then pulled the communication cord, and the men on the raft commenced to haul him in, but they worked slowly, taking a minute to draw him up two or three feet so as not to produce in his internal organs the dreadful effects of decompression.
As soon as the young man had set foot on the raft the metallic33 sphere of the diving-dress was raised, and he took a long breath and sat down to rest.
The pirogues immediately rowed alongside. Manoel, Fragoso, and Araujo came close to him, waiting for him to speak.
“Well?” asked Manoel.
“Still nothing! Nothing!”
“Have you not seen a trace?”
“Not one!”
“Shall I go down now?”
“No, Manoel,” answered Benito; “I have begun; I know where to go. Let me do it!”
Benito then explained to the pilot that his intention was to visit the lower part of the bank up to the Bar of Frias, for there the slope had perhaps stopped the corpse, if, floating between the two streams, it had in the least degree been affected34 by the current. But first he wanted to skirt the bank and carefully explore a sort of hole formed in the slope of the bed, to the bottom of which the poles had evidently not been able to penetrate11. Araujo approved of this plan, and made the necessary preparations.
Manoel gave Benito a little advice. “As you want to pursue your search on that side,” he said, “the raft will have to go over there obliquely36; but mind what you are doing, Benito. That is much deeper than where you have been yet; it may be fifty or sixty feet, and you will have to support a pressure of quite two atmospheres. Only venture with extreme caution, or you may lose your presence of mind, or no longer know where you are or what to do. If your head feels as if in a vice35, and your ears tingle38, do not hesitate to give us the signal, and we will at once haul you up. You can then begin again if you like, as you will have got accustomed to move about in the deeper parts of the river.”
Benito promised to attend to these hints, of which he recognized the importance. He was particularly struck with the fact that his presence of mind might abandon him at the very moment he wanted it most.
Benito shook hands with Manoel; the sphere of the diving-dress was again screwed to his neck, the pump began to work, and the diver once more disappeared beneath the stream.
The raft was then taken about forty feet along the left bank, but as it moved toward the center of the river the current increased in strength, the ubas were moored39, and the rowers kept it from drifting, so as only to allow it to advance with extreme slowness.
Benito descended40 very gently, and again found himself on the firm sand. When his heels touched the ground it could be seen, by the length of the haulage cord, that he was at a depth of some sixty-five or seventy feet. He was therefore in a considerable hole, excavated41 far below the ordinary level.
The liquid medium was more obscure, but the limpidity42 of these transparent43 waters still allowed the light to penetrate sufficiently44 for Benito to distinguish the objects scattered45 on the bed of the river, and to approach them with some safety. Besides, the sand, sprinkled with mica46 flakes47, seemed to form a sort of reflector, and the very grains could be counted glittering like luminous dust.
Benito moved on, examining and sounding the smallest cavities with his spear. He continued to advance very slowly; the communication cord was paid out, and as the pipes which served for the inlet and outlet48 of the air were never tightened49, the pump was worked under the proper conditions.
Benito turned off so as to reach the middle of the bed of the Amazon, where there was the greatest depression. Sometimes profound obscurity thickened around him, and then he could see nothing, so feeble was the light; but this was a purely50 passing phenomenon, and due to the raft, which, floating above his head, intercepted51 the solar rays and made the night replace the day. An instant afterward52 the huge shadow would be dissipated, and the reflection of the sands appear again in full force.
All the time Benito was going deeper. He felt the increase of the pressure with which his body was wrapped by the liquid mass. His respiration53 became less easy; the retractibility of his organs no longer worked with as much ease as in the midst of an atmosphere more conveniently adapted for them. And so he found himself under the action of physiological effects to which he was unaccustomed. The rumbling54 grew louder in his ears, but as his thought was always lucid55, as he felt that the action of his brain was quite clear — even a little more so than usual — he delayed giving the signal for return, and continued to go down deeper still.
Suddenly, in the subdued56 light which surrounded him, his attention was attracted by a confused mass. It seemed to take the form of a corpse, entangled beneath a clump57 of aquatic plants. Intense excitement seized him. He stepped toward the mass; with his spear he felt it. It was the carcass of a huge cayman, already reduced to a skeleton, and which the current of the Rio Negro had swept into the bed of the Amazon. Benito recoiled58, and, in spite of the assertions of the pilot, the thought recurred59 to him that some living cayman might even then be met with in the deeps near the Bar of Frias!
But he repelled60 the idea, and continued his progress, so as to reach the bottom of the depression.
And now he had arrived at a depth of from eighty to a hundred feet, and consequently was experiencing a pressure of three atmospheres. If, then, this cavity was also drawn61 blank, he would have to suspend his researches.
Experience has shown that the extreme limit for such submarine explorations lies between a hundred and twenty and a hundred and thirty feet, and that below this there is great danger, the human organism not only being hindered from performing his functions under such a pressure, but the apparatus62 failing to keep up a sufficient supply of air with the desirable regularity63.
But Benito was resolved to go as far as his mental powers and physical energies would let him. By some strange presentiment64 he was drawn toward this abyss; it seemed to him as though the corpse was very likely to have rolled to the bottom of the hole, and that Torres, if he had any heavy things about him, such as a belt containing either money or arms, would have sunk to the very lowest point. Of a sudden, in a deep hollow, he saw a body through the gloom! Yes! A corpse, still clothed, stretched out like a man asleep, with his arms folded under his head!
Was that Torres? In the obscurity, then very dense, he found it difficult to see; but it was a human body that lay there, less than ten paces off, and perfectly65 motionless!
A sharp pang66 shot through Benito. His heart, for an instant, ceased to beat. He thought he was going to lose consciousness. By a supreme67 effort he recovered himself. He stepped toward the corpse.
Suddenly a shock as violent as unexpected made his whole frame vibrate! A logn whip seemed to twine68 round his body, and in spite of the thick diving-dress he felt himself lashed69 again and again.
“A gymnotus!” he said.
It was the only word that passed his lips.
In fact, it was a “puraque,” the name given by the Brazilians to the gymnotus, or electric snake, which had just attacked him.
It is well known that the gymnotus is a kind of eel37, with a blackish, slimy skin, furnished along the back and tail with an apparatus composed of plates joined by vertical71 lamell?, and acted on by nerves of considerable power. This apparatus is endowed with singular electrical properties, and is apt to produce very formidable results. Some of these gymnotuses are about the length of a common snake, others are about ten feet long, while others, which, however, are rare, even reach fifteen or twenty feet, and are from eight to ten inches in diameter.
Gymnotuses are plentiful72 enough both in the Amazon and its tributaries73; and it was one of these living coils, about ten feet long, which, after uncurving itself like a bow, again attacked the diver.
Benito knew what he had to fear from this formidable animal. His clothes were powerless to protect him. The discharges of the gymnotus, at first somewhat weak, become more and more violent, and there would come a time when, exhausted74 by the shocks, he would be rendered powerless.
Benito, unable to resist the blows, half-dropped upon the sand. His limbs were becoming paralyzed little by little under the electric influences of the gymnotus, which lightly touched his body as it wrapped him in its folds. His arms even he could not lift, and soon his spear escaped him, and his hand had not strength enough left to pull the cord and give the signal.
Benito felt that he was lost. Neither Manoel nor his companions could suspect the horrible combat which was going on beneath them between the formidable puraque and the unhappy diver, who only fought to suffer, without any power of defending himself.
And that at the moment when a body — the body of Torres without a doubt!— had just met his view.
By a supreme instinct of self-preservation Benito uttered a cry. His voice was lost in the metallic sphere from which not a sound could escape!
And now the puraque redoubled its attacks; it gave forth75 shock after shock, which made Benito writhe76 on the sand like the sections of a divided worm, and his muscles were wrenched77 again and again beneath the living lash70.
Benito thought that all was over; his eyes grew dim, his limbs began to stiffen78.
But before he quite lost his power of sight and reason he became the witness of a phenomenon, unexpected, inexplicable79, and marvelous in the extreme.
A deadened roar resounded80 through the liquid depths. It was like a thunder-clap, the reverberations of which rolled along the river bed, then violently agitated81 by the electrical discharges of the gymnotus. Benito felt himself bathed as it were in the dreadful booming which found an echo in the very deepest of the river depths.
And then a last cry escaped him, for fearful was the vision which appeared before his eyes!
The corpse of the drowned man which had been stretched on the sand arose! The undulations of the water lifted up the arms, and they swayed about as if with some peculiar82 animation83. Convulsive throbs84 made the movement of the corpse still more alarming.
It was indeed the body of Torres. One of the suns rays shot down to it through the liquid mass, and Benito recognized the bloated, ashy features of the scoundrel who fell by his own hand, and hose last breath had left him beneath the waters.
And while Benito could not make a single movement with his paralyzed limbs, while his heavy shoes kept him down as if he had been nailed to the sand, the corpse straightened itself up, the head swayed to and fro, and disentangling itself from the hole in which it had been kept by a mass of aquatic weeds, it slowly ascended85 to the surface of the Amazon.
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1
corpse
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| n.尸体，死尸 | |
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vapor
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| n.蒸汽，雾气 | |
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influx
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| n.流入，注入 | |
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innocence
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| n.无罪；天真；无害 | |
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gravel
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| n.砂跞；砂砾层；结石 | |
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crunch
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| n.关键时刻；艰难局面；v.发出碎裂声 | |
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tangled
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| adj. 纠缠的，紊乱的 动词tangle的过去式和过去分词 | |
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twigs
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| 细枝，嫩枝( twig的名词复数 ) | |
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aquatic
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| adj.水生的，水栖的 | |
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penetrated
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| adj. 击穿的，鞭辟入里的 动词penetrate的过去式和过去分词形式 | |
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penetrate
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| v.透(渗)入；刺入，刺穿；洞察，了解 | |
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entangled
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| adj.卷入的；陷入的；被缠住的；缠在一起的v.使某人（某物/自己）缠绕，纠缠于（某物中），使某人（自己）陷入（困难或复杂的环境中）( entangle的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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shrubs
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| 灌木( shrub的名词复数 ) | |
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eddy
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| n.漩涡，涡流 | |
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nil
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| n.无，全无，零 | |
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blurred
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| v.（使）变模糊( blur的过去式和过去分词 )；（使）难以区分；模模糊糊；迷离 | |
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luminous
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| adj.发光的，发亮的；光明的；明白易懂的；有启发的 | |
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descend
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| vt./vi.传下来，下来，下降 | |
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concealing
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| v.隐藏，隐瞒，遮住( conceal的现在分词 ) | |
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dense
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| a.密集的，稠密的，浓密的；密度大的 | |
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thickets
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| n.灌木丛( thicket的名词复数 )；丛状物 | |
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glimmered
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| v.发闪光，发微光( glimmer的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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crustaceans
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| n.甲壳纲动物（如蟹、龙虾）( crustacean的名词复数 ) | |
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scampered
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| v.蹦蹦跳跳地跑，惊惶奔跑( scamper的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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abrupt
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| adj.突然的，意外的；唐突的，鲁莽的 | |
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investigations
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| （正式的）调查( investigation的名词复数 )； 侦查； 科学研究； 学术研究 | |
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previously
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| adv.以前，先前（地） | |
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ascending
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| adj.上升的，向上的 | |
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physiological
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| adj.生理学的，生理学上的 | |
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necessitated
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| 使…成为必要，需要( necessitate的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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fatigue
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| n.疲劳，劳累 | |
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agitation
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| n.搅动；搅拌；鼓动，煽动 | |
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metallic
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| adj.金属的；金属制的；含金属的；产金属的；像金属的 | |
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affected
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| adj.不自然的，假装的 | |
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vice
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| n.坏事；恶习；[pl.]台钳，老虎钳；adj.副的 | |
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obliquely
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| adv.斜； 倾斜； 间接； 不光明正大 | |
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eel
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| n.鳗鲡 | |
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tingle
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| vi.感到刺痛，感到激动；n.刺痛，激动 | |
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moored
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| adj. 系泊的 动词moor的过去式和过去分词形式 | |
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descended
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| a.为...后裔的，出身于...的 | |
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excavated
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| v.挖掘( excavate的过去式和过去分词 )；开凿；挖出；发掘 | |
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limpidity
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| n.清澈，透明 | |
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transparent
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| adj.明显的，无疑的；透明的 | |
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sufficiently
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| adv.足够地，充分地 | |
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scattered
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| adj.分散的，稀疏的；散步的；疏疏落落的 | |
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mica
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| n.云母 | |
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flakes
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| 小薄片( flake的名词复数 )； （尤指）碎片； 雪花； 古怪的人 | |
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outlet
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| n.出口/路；销路；批发商店；通风口；发泄 | |
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tightened
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| 收紧( tighten的过去式和过去分词 )； （使）变紧； （使）绷紧； 加紧 | |
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purely
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| adv.纯粹地，完全地 | |
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intercepted
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| 拦截( intercept的过去式和过去分词 )； 截住； 截击； 拦阻 | |
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afterward
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| adv.后来；以后 | |
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respiration
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| n.呼吸作用；一次呼吸；植物光合作用 | |
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rumbling
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| n. 隆隆声, 辘辘声 adj. 隆隆响的 动词rumble的现在分词 | |
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lucid
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| adj.明白易懂的，清晰的，头脑清楚的 | |
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subdued
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| adj. 屈服的，柔和的，减弱的 动词subdue的过去式和过去分词 | |
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clump
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| n.树丛，草丛；vi.用沉重的脚步行走 | |
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recoiled
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| v.畏缩( recoil的过去式和过去分词 )；退缩；报应；返回 | |
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recurred
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| 再发生，复发( recur的过去式和过去分词 )； 治愈 | |
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repelled
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| v.击退( repel的过去式和过去分词 )；使厌恶；排斥；推开 | |
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drawn
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| v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的 | |
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apparatus
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| n.装置，器械；器具，设备 | |
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regularity
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| n.规律性，规则性；匀称，整齐 | |
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presentiment
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| n.预感，预觉 | |
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perfectly
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| adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地 | |
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pang
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| n.剧痛，悲痛，苦闷 | |
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supreme
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| adj.极度的，最重要的；至高的，最高的 | |
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twine
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| v.搓，织，编饰；（使）缠绕 | |
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lashed
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| adj.具睫毛的v.鞭打( lash的过去式和过去分词 )；煽动；紧系；怒斥 | |
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lash
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| v.系牢；鞭打；猛烈抨击；n.鞭打；眼睫毛 | |
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vertical
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| adj.垂直的，顶点的，纵向的；n.垂直物，垂直的位置 | |
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plentiful
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| adj.富裕的，丰富的 | |
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tributaries
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| n. 支流 | |
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exhausted
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| adj.极其疲惫的，精疲力尽的 | |
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forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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writhe
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| vt.挣扎，痛苦地扭曲；vi.扭曲，翻腾，受苦；n.翻腾，苦恼 | |
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wrenched
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| v.（猛力地）扭( wrench的过去式和过去分词 )；扭伤；使感到痛苦；使悲痛 | |
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78
stiffen
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| v.(使)硬，(使)变挺，(使)变僵硬 | |
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79
inexplicable
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| adj.无法解释的，难理解的 | |
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80
resounded
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| v.（指声音等）回荡于某处( resound的过去式和过去分词 )；产生回响；（指某处）回荡着声音 | |
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81
agitated
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| adj.被鼓动的，不安的 | |
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82
peculiar
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| adj.古怪的，异常的；特殊的，特有的 | |
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83
animation
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| n.活泼，兴奋，卡通片／动画片的制作 | |
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84
throbs
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| 体内的跳动( throb的名词复数 ) | |
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85
ascended
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| v.上升，攀登( ascend的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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