Eva Ibbotson - Journey to the River Sea

Finn was sitting with the old chief and his brothers. It was strange, thought Maia — in Manaus, Finn had looked Indian and exotic; here, as he looked thoughtfully into the fire, he looked European.

Maia loved the beginning of the feasts before everyone got too drunk. The smell of roast pork mingled with the smell of the wild lilies that grew round the huts, the soft breeze fanning her hot cheeks, the firelight and above it, the brilliant stars.

Soon the men began to dance, and presently the women joined in.

But then came the words Maia dreaded.

‘SING, Maia,’ called the Xanti, and her ‘sisters’ came and pulled her to her feet.

So she sang, and because feasting was a serious business, she sang a song that her mother had loved particularly: The Ash Grove .

Her pure, clear voice, the English words, carried across the compound and down to the river…

And:

‘My God!’ said Captain Pereia, aboard a gun boat of the Brazilian River Police. ‘Listen! We’ve found them! The girl must be a prisoner to sing for the little swine. Shut down the engines; we’ll take them by surprise. But don’t shoot till I give the word.’

Maia had stopped singing. She was making her way back to Miss Minton when she saw them.

A dozen men or more with blackened faces, carrying rifles, creeping up from the river.

‘Don’t try anything,’ the captain shouted. ‘We’re armed.’

A single shot was fired over their heads.

‘Run!’ hissed Finn to his mother’s people.

With a cry that seemed to be one cry, the Xanti vanished into the forest, leaving the four Europeans staring in horror at the invaders.

But it was not the Xanti who were being rounded up.

‘Who are you?’ said Miss Minton furiously, to the leader with his blackened face.

‘What do you want?’ said Finn.

Captain Pereia stared. A tall lady, a boy who spoke perfect English, an elderly gentleman, and the girl who sang.

These must be the people he had been told to rescue… but a lady in feathers and human teeth… a boy with a painted face! He was shocked. Had they gone native?

‘You’re safe now,’ he said. ‘We’ve come to take you back. Don’t worry; you’re safe.’

Finn looked at the deserted village, the flickering firelight, the feathers dropped by his friends as they fled… And then at the men with their blackened faces and their guns.

‘We were safe,’ he said bitterly. ‘We were safe with the Xanti. But now…’

It was Miss Minton’s corset that had set off the alarm. For longer than expected, it floated down the Agarapi river. Then, when it was about to sink, it landed on a log of balsa wood and was carried into the Negro itself, where it became entangled in a fishing net.

The man who found it took it to the local policeman, who sent a report to the police station in the next town where the officer in charge confirmed that it was a British corset and sent it to Colonel da Silva in Manaus.

When a name-tape saying A. Minton was discovered inside the whalebone bodice, the fat was in the fire. Seeing Miss Minton’s waterlogged corset very much upset the colonel. He knew Miss Minton and did not think she would have removed her underclothes willingly. She must have been captured by a hostile tribe and if she had been caught so, probably, had the professor and the children they had been pursuing.

So Captain Pereia of the Brazilian River Police was called and told to pick his men and take the fastest and best-armed of the boats in the patrol fleet and look for them.

The captain wasted no time. He had led several missions: it was he who had put down a riot of the Talapi Indians when they turned against their employers in the Matto Silver Mine; he had broken up a battle between rival drug traffickers on the Venezuelan border, and rescued a kidnapped missionary from the Kalis shortly before they planned to kill him.

And less than six hours after he had been sent for, Captain Pereia and twelve of his best men were steaming out of Manaus at a speed which made the urchins on the waterside dig each other proudly in the ribs.

But now, though his mission had been so successful, Captain Pereia was disappointed. None of the people he had rescued had thanked him. They seemed stunned rather than pleased, and the boy’s wretched dog would not stop barking.

‘There’s no gratitude left in the world,’ he grumbled to his second in command. ‘Anyone would think I was taking prisoners instead of freeing them.’

But they came aboard with him. They even agreed to return on the fast patrol boat and let the spinach boat and the Arabella be brought back by Pereia’s men. It seemed that there were urgent messages waiting for them in Manaus. Maia had thought that Finn might refuse, but he came too.

The dream was over.

The messages, when they reached Manaus, pleased no one. Mr Murray had sent no less than three cables ordering Miss Minton to bring Maia back to England at once. He had heard about the fire from the consul, and read about Maia’s flight in the newspaper, and was both alarmed and annoyed. And in an envelope, addressed to the professor, was a frantic note for Finn from Clovis.

‘Westwood?’ asked Maia, watching him.

‘Yes. Clovis is in trouble.’

‘Does he say what kind of trouble?’

‘No. But he says he’s desperate and I must come at once.’

‘And will you?’

Finn nodded. ‘One can’t run for ever,’ he said. ‘If Clovis is in trouble, it’s my fault.’

But Maia had to turn away from the misery in his face.

The three of them travelled back on the same boat as Maia and Minty had come out on: the Cardinal , with her blue funnel and snow-white hull.

Maia had thought that having Finn with them would make it easier — at least they could all be miserable together — but it didn’t. Finn had disappeared into himself. He was very quiet and stood hunched up over the rail, looking out at the grey sea. The cold surprised him; he would shiver suddenly in the wind.

He had decided that Westwood was to be his fate.

‘It’s what you said in the museum,’ he told Miss Minton. ‘ ‘‘ Come out, Finn Taverner and be a man .’’ I thought I could run away for ever, but if Clovis is in trouble, I’ve got to help him.’

It was his time with the Xanti which had changed him. They thought that everyone’s life was like a river; you had to flow with the current and not struggle, which wasted breath and made you more likely to drown. And the river of life seemed to be carrying him back to Westwood.

He had left his dog behind with Furo because of the quarantine. Rob would never endure six months shut up in kennels. As soon as they knew Maia was safe, the Carter’s servants, with Old Lila, had returned, offering to work unpaid, and Miss Minton had set them to repaint the spinach boat which she had christened River Queen .

As for Maia, she was to go back to school.

‘She will be safe there for a few years till she is ready to go out into the world,’ Mr Murray had written to Miss Minton.

So now Maia was collecting her memories.

‘We mustn’t only remember the good bits,’ she said. ‘We must remember the bad bits too so that we know it was real.’

But there weren’t really any bad bits once she had escaped from the twins. The fried termites which the Xanti had cooked for them hadn’t tasted very nice, and there had been a tame bush turkey which woke them up at an unearthly hour with its screeching.

‘But it was all part of it,’ said Maia. ‘It belonged .’

Miss Minton knew she was going to be dismissed, and she thought this was perfectly fair. A governess who let her charges sail up the rivers of the Amazon and live with Indian tribes could hardly expect to keep her job.