Accordingly, Next Morning After Breakfast We Set Out, Without
Imparting Our Plans To Any One, And With Great Labour Dragged The
Trough To The Water.
It was a box-shaped thing, about twenty feet long
and two feet wide at the bottom and three at the top.
We were also
provided with three javelins, one for each of us, from my brother's
extensive armoury.
He had about that time been reading ancient history, and fired with
the story of old wars when men fought hand to hand, he had dropped
guns and pistols for the moment and set himself with furious zeal to
manufacture the ancient weapons - bows and arrows, pikes, shield,
battle-axes and javelins. These last were sticks about six feet long,
nicely made of pine-wood - he had no doubt bribed the carpenter to make
them for him - and pointed with old knife-blades six or seven inches
long, ground to a fearful sharpness. Such formidable weapons were not
required for our purpose: they would have served well enough if we had
been going out against Don Anastacio's fierce and powerful swine; but
it was his order, and to his wild and warlike imagination the toad-
like creatures were the warriors of some hostile tribe opposing us, I
forget if in Asia or Africa, which had to be conquered and extirpated.
No sooner had we got into our long, awkwardly-shaped boat than it
capsized and threw us all into the water; that was but the first of
some dozens of upsets and fresh drenchings we experienced during the
day.
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