One evening, soon after their departure from the residence of Senhor Antonio, the old trader was sitting steering in the stern of his canoe, which was running up before a pretty stiff breeze.  Martin was lying on his back, as was his wont in such easy circumstances, amusing himself with Marmoset; and Barney was reclining in the bow talking solemnly to Grampus; when suddenly the wind ceased, and it became a dead calm.  The current was so strong that they could scarcely paddle against it, so they resolved to go no further that night, and ran the canoe ashore on a low point of mud, intending to encamp under the trees, no human habitation being near them.  The mud bank was hard and dry, and cracked with the heat; for it was now the end of the dry season, and the river had long since retired from it.

“Not a very comfortable place, Barney,” said Martin, looking round, as he threw down one of the bales which he had just carried up from the canoe.  “Hallo! there’s a hut, I declare.  Come, that’s a comfort anyhow.”

As he spoke Martin pointed to one of the solitary and rudely constructed huts or sheds which the natives of the banks of the Amazon sometimes erect during the dry season, and forsake when the river overflows its banks.  The hut was a very old one, and had evidently been inundated, for the floor was a mass of dry, solid mud, and the palm-leaf roof was much damaged.  However, it was better than nothing, so they slung their hammocks under it, kindled a fire, and prepared supper.  While they were busy discussing this meal, a few dark and ominous clouds gathered in the sky, and the old trader, glancing uneasily about him, gave them to understand that he feared the rainy season was going to begin.

“Well then,” said Barney, lighting his pipe and stretching himself at full length in his hammock, with a leg swinging to and fro over one side and his head leaning over the other, as was his wont when he felt particularly comfortable in mind and body; “Well then, avic, let it begin.  If we’re sure to have it anyhow, the sooner it begins the better, to my thinkin’.”

“I don’t know that,” said Martin, who was seated on a large stone beside the fire sipping a can of coffee, which he shared equally with Marmoset.  The monkey sat on his shoulder gazing anxiously into his face, with an expression that seemed as if the creature were mentally exclaiming, “Now me, now you; now me, now you,” during the whole process.  “It would be better, I think, if we were in a more sheltered position before it begins.  Ha! there it comes though, in earnest.”

A smart shower began to fall as he spoke, and, percolating through the old roof, descended rather copiously on the mud floor.  In a few minutes there was a heaving of the ground under their feet!

“Ochone!” cried Barney, taking his pipe out of his mouth and looking down with a disturbed expression, “there’s an arthquake, I do belave.”

For a few seconds there was a dead silence.