In Search of an Unknown Race — page 52: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

44 VAN. In vain Van writhed and struggled with his bonds, as he heard his name shouted repeatedly in Martin's power- ful voice. The older Indian, with a perfectly impassive face, drew a curious looking knife with a sharp two-edged blade from the coarse sash about his waist and gently placed its point against Van's throat. ‘< Van—Mr. Briscoe!” Again the cry rang through the glades of the flooded forest, and was repeated by Tom with the full strength of his lungs. But Van was helpless to reply. Nearer and nearer came the sound of the water gur- gling about the bows of the boat. At a mute sign from the elder, the young Indian took from a couple of pegs in one of the limbs overhead a lancewood bow nearly five feet in length, and, selecting an arrow almost as long from a sheaf in a wicker recep- tacle, silently approached the aperture in the floor through which Van had been so unceremoniously pulled. Parting the vines beneath, he knelt at the side of the opening, and, fitting the arrow to his bowstring, seemed to hold himself in readiness. ‘It was somewhere hereabouts I first looked round and saw he was gone,” Van heard Bob Martin say in a voice suggestive of great anxiety. ‘‘He mus’ a’ slipped ober accidental an’ drowndid hisself—no oder way possible he cou/d a got outer de boat so myster’ous,” sadly returned the negro. ‘‘But it would seem as though we should have heard the splash or something,” responded Bob in troubled tones, and again he shouted Van's name, but only echoes replied. Eomichdooksico