Chapter Thirteen.How Jack Penny put his Foot in a Trap.We had made our plans, but they were very elastic, for it was impossible for us to keep to any hard-and-fast line.“No, Joe,” the doctor said, “we cannot say that we will do this or that; we must be governed by circumstances. We have one object in view—to find your father, and so far we have determined to follow the course of the first big river; when we shall be diverted from it time must prove.”We slept that night under the shade of another tree, and as the mist rolled off the next morning we started once again.It was so glorious a morning that, in spite of the serious nature of our position, it was impossible not to feel in the highest of spirits. The way lay through dense forest, but we had fallen into a track which I at first thought was a regular pathway, and so it proved to be, but not of the kind I imagined as I eagerly called the doctor’s attention to it, and the ease with which we were now getting along.“No, Joe,” he said; “this is not a path used by human beings. Look down at the footprints.”I looked down to see the hoof-marks of innumerable wild creatures, and said so.“Yes,” replied the doctor, “it is a track down to the river, followed by the animals that go to drink, and we shall not be long before we get to the water side.”Our way did not seem wearisome, for there was so much to see, the birds in particular taking my attention greatly. One moment a flock of black cockatoos would fly screaming by, then a cloud of brilliantly-coloured parroquets, and in one opening we came upon what looked at first like a gigantic beech-tree completely alive with tiny blue-and-green parrots about the size of sparrows, climbing, fluttering, chattering, and chirping, now with their heads up, now heads down, and forming one of the prettiest sights I had ever seen.I could have shot twenty or thirty together as they sat in rows upon the bare branches, so little did they heed our presence; but it was unnecessary to destroy their little lives, and we passed on.I was less merciful an hour later, for food was a necessity, and I was fortunate enough to bring down at the first shot a beautiful little deer that started up in our very path.My shot seemed to alarm the whole forest and set it in an uproar: birds shrieked, monkeys chattered, and to right and left there was a rushing crackling noise, as of big creatures seeking flight. There was a deep-mouthed howl, too, away on our right that made me look anxiously at the doctor.“I don’t know, Joe,” he replied, as if in answer to a spoken question. “There may be tigers here, and leopards, and old men of the woods, big as ourselves. It is new land, my lad, so don’t look to me for information.”“Dat big bunyip,” said Jimmy in a scared whisper. “Take black fellow—kill um, eatum.”Just then we heard the same beating noise that had fallen upon our ears the previous day.“Dat big bunyip beat um gin,” whispered Jimmy, with a curious awe-stricken look in his countenance.“’Taint,” said Jack Penny slowly. “I don’t believe in bunyips. If it was a bunyip beating his gin, she’d holloa out like hooray, and squeak the leaves off the trees.”“’Fraid squeak,” said Jimmy eagerly, as he caught Jack’s meaning.“Well, perhaps Jimmy’s right,” said the doctor slowly; “and as I’ve never seen a bunyip the present is a favourable opportunity, and we can interfere to stop him from too severely castigating his wife. Come, Jimmy, lead on.”Jimmy’s jaw dropped, but his hand stole to his waistband, from which he drew his waddy, talking slowly the while, till, seeing the doctor make a movement towards him, he turned round and darted into the bush.“He won’t stop till he gets back to the village,” drawled Jack.“He won’t go farther than the first big tree,” I said, laughing. “He’s watching us now, I’ll be bound.”“Then you and I will have to meet the bunyip, Joe,” said the doctor. “Are you coming, Penny?”“Yes, I’ll come,” said Jack quietly. “I should like to see a bunyip. Come along.”Jack went on—not first, for Gyp started before him and, guided by the noise, we pushed on amongst the dense growth, finding the earth grow moister beneath our feet; and then all at once it seemed as if the big trees had come to an end and we were in a lighter place.“There’s the water,” I cried, as I caught sight of a flash.“You’ll be in it here directly, same as I was,” drawled Jack. “I say, doctor, ain’t this the sort of place big snakes like?”“Hush!” whispered the doctor; and pressing back the thick growth we advanced cautiously, and following his example I, too, stepped from tuft to tuft, listening to the beating noise and to the other sounds that arose.First there was the loud rustle of wings as some water birds flew up, long-legged creatures with far-stretching necks. Then on my left there was an ominous noise, as of something crawling amongst the reeds, and I shuddered as I saw that Jack Penny was holding his gun ready, and that Gyp’s hair was bristling all about his neck, while his teeth were bared.The doctor was some distance before us now, and I could see him peering between some bushes and waving his hand to me to come forward; so, forgetting the danger, if danger there was, I went cautiously to my companion’s side, to gaze with astonishment at the scene before me.There was no bunyip or native Australian demon there, but a great shallow, muddy pond or lake, which seemed as if it must be swarming with fish and crocodiles, for every here and there, as the great rugged backs of the horrible lizards were seen pushing towards the shore, shoals of silvery fish leaped out, flashing in the sunshine before they splashed back into the water.Here, then, was the secret of the mysterious noise which was being produced before my eyes. For the crocodiles were driving the shoals of fish into the little bays and creeks, and then stunning them by beating the water heavily with their tails, the result being that the paralysed fish were easily devoured.I felt as if I could never tire of gazing at the monsters so busy before us. There must have been at least five-and-twenty, and all of large size; and it was not a pleasant thought to consider what would have been the consequences if we had attempted to wade across the lagoon.Before leaving, however, the doctor took out his glass and swept the shore of the great pond, to nod with satisfaction.“This is only a sort of bay belonging to the river we are seeking, Joe,” he said. “Look there to the left, and you can see the entrance choked up with reeds.”We crept back cautiously, to find Jimmy awaiting our return; and then making a détour towards the lake, we soon reached the river, along whose bank was a well-trodden path, in whose softer parts, besides those of deer, it was plain to see the ugly toes of crocodiles, and the long trail they made as they dragged themselves along.We did not halt until we had left the crocodile pond a long way behind; but a fine dry, open spot, close to the flashing water of the swift river, was so tempting that we did not go so far as we had intended.Here a fire was soon lit, and Jimmy sat watching the roasting of the buck with an indescribable look of satisfaction in his countenance; while, eager to try whether it would be possible to add to our provision store at any time from the river, I went on down to the water’s edge. For if there were fish in such abundance in the lagoon, I felt sure that if they would bite there must be plenty in the stream.My first idea had been to have a bathe in the cool-looking water, but, seeing my intention, the black who had been my companion in the watch, took my hand, led me cautiously along for a short distance, and then pointed to where there was lying, dimly outlined in the thickened water, one of the hideous creatures such as I had seen in the lagoon.The black then put his wrists together, spread wide his hands, and closed them sharply upon my arm like a pair of jaws, and snatched me sidewise with a good tug.I was quite satisfied, and nodding and shuddering I joined the doctor, who was ready enough to help me fish.We soon had our lines ready, and baiting the hooks with pieces of raw meat, we threw out and waited, after the manner of fishermen at home, for a bite.After a time I examined my bait and threw in again. Then the doctor examined his and threw in again, but neither of us had the slightest touch, and growing weary we went back to the fire to find the buck sufficiently roasted and Jimmy’s eyes standing out of his head with hunger; so we made a hasty meal, left the blacks to finish it, and Jack Penny to rest his long body, while we had another try at the fishing.But Jack Penny did not care to rest when anything was going on, and after we had been fishing without result for about half an hour he joined us.“Caught anything?” he said; and on our replying in the negative, “Here, let me try,” he said.I handed him my line, and he twisted it well round his hand.“Fish run big, sometimes,” he said, nodding his head sagaciously. “Don’t leave your line like that, doctor,” he added; “make it fast to that bough.”The doctor obeyed, and leaving Jack looking very drowsy and dreamy we two took our guns and started along the river bank, thinking that perhaps we might find something useful for the larder, the heat of the climate rendering it necessary for a supply to be obtained from day to day.It was a glorious walk past quiet bends of the riverthat were as still as ponds, and full of red and white lotus plants which shot up their lovely blossoms from amidst their floating liliaceous leaves. Trees in places overhung the water, and great wreaths of blossom or leaves of dazzling green were reflected on the surface. Insect life was abundant: burnished beetles and lovely coloured butterflies flitting from flower to flower. Birds, too, especially waders and great creatures that I took to be pelicans, were busy in the shallows, where now and then a great crocodile wallowed through the mud, evidently roused by our approach, for though we saw several of these creatures, not one gave the slightest sign of a disposition to attack.“There, we are not likely to see deer before evening when they come down to drink,” said the doctor. “Let’s get back, Joe, my lad, the sun is not so powerful as it was, and we may as well make a fresh start.”We were about three parts of the way back, finding some fresh object of interest at every turn, when I suddenly caught hold of my companion’s arm, for a peculiar cry fell upon my ear.“Something wrong!” exclaimed the doctor, and we set off at a sharp run where the undergrowth would allow.A curious sensation of dread came over me, and a cold damp feeling was on my brow and in the palms of my hands as the cry rose once more—a singularly doleful cry, as of some one in great peril.“Are you loaded?” said the doctor, as we ran on, and his voice sounded hoarse with emotion.I nodded, for I could not speak, and, full of the idea that our little camp had been attacked by savages and that some of our followers were being killed, I ran on.It was hard work and like running in a nightmare to get back to our starting-place, for there was always some thorn or tangle that we had not noticed in our careful advance seeming to stop us on our way; but at last we came within sight of the spot where we had left Jack Penny, but he was not there.“There’s something wrong at the camp,” I panted.“Be cool,” replied the doctor, “we may have to fire. Try and keep your nerve. Ah!”This ejaculation was consequent upon our simultaneously catching sight of Jack Penny, up to the armpits in the river, holding on by the branch of a tree.As he saw us he shouted lustily for help. It was no drawl now, but a sharp quick shout.I ran down the bank and the doctor following, we joined hands, when, catching at Jack’s wrist, I held on tightly.“Now, then,” I said, as I gazed wonderingly in his ghastly face and staring eyes, “let go, and we’ll draw you ashore.”“No, no,” he cried hoarsely. “Got hold of me—drag me in.”“Got hold? Of course,” I said, “we’ll drag you in.”“One of those brutes has got him, Joe,” cried the doctor excitedly, and his words sent such a thrill through me that I nearly loosed my hold. “Here, pull both together,” he said, as he got down by my side and seized Jack Penny by the other arm.We gave a fierce drag, to find that it was answered from below, Jack being nearly drawn out of our hands, his head going down nearly to the eyes, and for the moment it seemed as if we were to be drawn in as well.But fortunately Jack still had tight hold of the branch, to which he clung in the agony of desperation, and he uttered such a piercing cry that it served to arouse the sleeping blacks, the result being that, as we were holding on, and just maintaining our ground, Jimmy and Ti-hi, the black who had attached himself to me, came running down.They saw what was wrong, and Jimmy seized me, the black doing the same by Jimmy, with the effect of dragging poor Jack Penny farther and farther from the water in spite of the struggles of the reptile that was trying to haul him back. First we had him out to the chest, then to the hips, then nearly to the knees, and I never till then thoroughly realised what a lot there was of him, for it seemed as if he would never end.“Hold on!” cried the doctor suddenly. “I’m going to loose him.”“No, no!” panted Jack, with a horrified look; but the doctor did loose his hold and caught up his gun.“Now, then,” he cried. “All together. Haul with all your might.”We obeyed, and though we were for the moment mastered we gave a good swing again, and it seemed as if Jack Penny must be dragged in two.It was like playing a game of French and English, and we were in danger of getting the worst of it. We saw what the doctor wanted, and that was to get the reptile so near the surface that he could fire; but as soon as we got poor Jack nearly ashore the creature gave a tremendous tug, making the water swirl and the mud and sand from the bottom rise in clouds.This went on for five minutes, during which we were striving with all our might, when I nearly loosed my hold, for Jack said in a low despairing tone of voice:“Joe Carstairs, don’t let him have me till you’ve shot me first.”I held fast though, and the fight went on, till, just as we were beginning to despair, the reptile came nearer to the surface, the ugly protuberances over its eyes were level with the water, and, bending down, the doctor reached out with his gun in one hand, held the muzzle close to the creature’s eye, and fired.There was a tremendous sputter and we were nearly forced to leave go, but the next moment there was no resistance but weight, and we drew Jack and his aggressor, a crocodile about ten feet long, right up to the bank, the monster’s jaws, which had closed over one of Jack’s stoutly booted feet, remaining fast, though the upper part of its head was all blown away.“Dat a big bunyip,” cried Jimmy, forcing the end of his spear through the reptile’s jaws and trying to push them open, which he did with his companion’s help, and Jack Penny was free to limp feebly for a few yards, and sink down amongst the reeds.Jimmy did not seem in the least afraid of the bunyip now, for hacking off a long lithe cane he put it over the reptile’s jaw, and, twisting it tightly rope-fashion, he and Ti-hi dragged it right away from the water, and, avoiding the frantic lashings of its tail, they turned it over with their spears, used like levers, and kept on stabbing it in its tender underparts until it ceased to struggle, when Jimmy turned it over again and began to perform a triumphant war-dance on its back.Meanwhile poor Jack Penny, who had been nearly speechless, began to revive.“That’s better,” said the doctor. “Now let me look at your foot.”“Has he bit it right off?” said Jack faintly. “I can’t feel it. Just when I needed it so badly, too!”“Bit it off! No!” I cried. “Is it much hurt, doctor?”“I can’t tell till I have unlaced his boot,” he replied. “Tell me if I hurt you much, my lad.”“It don’t hurt,” said Jack faintly. “I can’t feel at all.”It was rather hard work to get the boot off; but at last it was free, and the doctor inspected a double row of red spots, two of which bled a little, but not much.“I’m beginning to feel now,” said Jack dolefully. “Why, he ain’t bit it off!” he said, raising himself so that he could look down at the injured member. “I thought it was gone.”“No; your foot has only had an ugly pinch; the stout boot saved it. Let it bleed a little, my lad; it will save you pain.”“What! had he only got hold of my boot?” said Jack excitedly.“And the foot in it,” said the doctor. “See, here are the marks of the teeth.”“I thought he’d bit it right off, Joe Carstairs,” said Jack dolefully. “An’ I say, what a coward I am!”“Coward!” I exclaimed. “Why?”“To be so frightened as I was,” replied Jack, with a dismal sigh.“Well, I don’t know about being a coward, Master Jack Penny,” said the doctor quietly; “but I do know that if I had had my foot in that reptile’s mouth I should have been in a most horrible state of fear. There, my lad,” he continued kindly, “don’t think any more about it, only to be thankful for your escape.”“But he ought to tell us first how he was caught like that,” I said.“Oh, there ain’t much to tell,” said Jack, sitting up and raising his leg, and softly rubbing his injured foot. “I was fishing, and the fish wouldn’t bite, and I got a little nearer to the river side and threw in again and fished; and the sun seemed to get hotter, and I suppose I fell asleep, for I remember dreaming that the dingoes had got among father’s sheep again, and that he flicked his whip-lash round my wrist. Then I tried to start up, but a big fish had hold of the line, and it tugged away so hard that I was overbalanced, and took a header off the bank right into the river; and when I came up, pretty tidy astonished like, and began to swim for the bank, the fish on the line, which I had twisted round my wrist, began tugging me out into the stream. It took me out ever so far before I could get the line off my wrist; and then I swam easily back, feeling awful popped like at having lost the fish and the line; and I was just wondering what you would say, when all at once there was a regular rush in the water, and something shut on my foot, giving me such an awful nip that I yelled out as I caught hold of that branch, and held on, shivering all the while with fear, for I forgot about the crocodiles, and thought it must be a shark.”“Well!” I said, excitedly; for he stopped.“Well, what?” said Jack.“What next? What did you do?” I said.“Hollered!” replied Jack laconically. “So would you if you had been me.”“Yes,” I said, “of course; but what took place next?”“Oh, nothing; only that I held tight and he held tight, and as often as he tugged at me it jumped the bough up and down like a see-saw, and it was very horrid.”“Most horrible!” said the doctor.“Then I hollered again,” said Jack.“Yes; go on!” I cried impatiently.“I did go on,” he replied. “I went on hollering, but them chaps at the camp were asleep, and I began to feel that I should have to let go soon; only I wouldn’t, because I wanted to find out first what had become of the professor. Then at last you came, and that’s all; only I don’t feel much like walking very far to-day, so I shall sit still and fish.”“Fish! what, with things like that in the water?” I exclaimed.“Oh! they won’t hurt me,” said Jack; “because I shall be on the look-out now, and won’t go in after the next fish that takes my line. I say, where’s Gyp?”“I don’t know,” I said. “I have not seen him.”“Crocodiles are very fond of dogs,” said Jack quietly. “I hope one of ’em hasn’t got Gyp.”“Oh, no! he’d be too sharp for one of the reptiles,” said the doctor reassuringly.“I don’t know,” said Jack in his quiet drawl. “I thought I was much too clever for crocodiles; but they’re sharp—precious sharp about the teeth. Perhaps he’s gone hunting something. He often used at home.”“Oh, yes; he’ll come back,” I said.“Well, we shall see,” said Jack. “I’m better now. Lend me another line, Joe Carstairs. I want to see if I can’t catch a fish.”I looked about first to see if I could trace my line, but it was hopelessly gone. To my surprise and pleasure, though, I found the doctor’s where he had left it, tied to a root and drawn out tight, evidently with a fish at the end.I imagined that I could easily draw this out, and I did get it close up to the bank, but as soon as it was in the shallow water it sprang right out and darted away again, making the line rush through my hands so rapidly that it burned my skin.As it leaped out I had a good opportunity of seeing that a great silvery fellow, fully a yard long, had hooked itself, and meant to have some playing before it turned over upon its side in token of submission.I kept on playing the fish, which seemed to grow stronger instead of weaker as I went on at give and take with it, till I was almost tired. At least six times did I draw it in and try to bring it within reach of Ti-hi’s fingers, but in vain, for it always darted off as if refreshed.At last, though, I drew it well in, and once more it was about to repeat its tactics; but this time it was too late, for the black pounced down upon it, thrust his hooked finger into its gills, and pulled it up on to the bank.Just then Jimmy came trotting up, hauling away at a line, and to my great delight I found that he had hunted out the one we had left with Jack Penny.“Fastum round big wood!” he cried; and then he tried to explain how the fish had entangled the line round what an American would call a snag; and the result was that we had two fine fish to carry back to the camp, Jimmy’s being tired out and readily yielding as he hauled on the line.“I don’t think I’ll fish to-day,” said Jack Penny then. “I say, I feel as if that buck warn’t good enough to eat.”Hardly had he spoken before he softly sank down sidewise, and lay looking very white, and with his eyes shut.“Is it the venison?” I said in a whisper to the doctor.“No. He is a little faint, now the reaction has set in,” replied the doctor; and we had to carry poor wet Jack Penny as well as the fish into camp, and of course we got no farther on our journey that day.
We had made our plans, but they were very elastic, for it was impossible for us to keep to any hard-and-fast line.
“No, Joe,” the doctor said, “we cannot say that we will do this or that; we must be governed by circumstances. We have one object in view—to find your father, and so far we have determined to follow the course of the first big river; when we shall be diverted from it time must prove.”
We slept that night under the shade of another tree, and as the mist rolled off the next morning we started once again.
It was so glorious a morning that, in spite of the serious nature of our position, it was impossible not to feel in the highest of spirits. The way lay through dense forest, but we had fallen into a track which I at first thought was a regular pathway, and so it proved to be, but not of the kind I imagined as I eagerly called the doctor’s attention to it, and the ease with which we were now getting along.
“No, Joe,” he said; “this is not a path used by human beings. Look down at the footprints.”
I looked down to see the hoof-marks of innumerable wild creatures, and said so.
“Yes,” replied the doctor, “it is a track down to the river, followed by the animals that go to drink, and we shall not be long before we get to the water side.”
Our way did not seem wearisome, for there was so much to see, the birds in particular taking my attention greatly. One moment a flock of black cockatoos would fly screaming by, then a cloud of brilliantly-coloured parroquets, and in one opening we came upon what looked at first like a gigantic beech-tree completely alive with tiny blue-and-green parrots about the size of sparrows, climbing, fluttering, chattering, and chirping, now with their heads up, now heads down, and forming one of the prettiest sights I had ever seen.
I could have shot twenty or thirty together as they sat in rows upon the bare branches, so little did they heed our presence; but it was unnecessary to destroy their little lives, and we passed on.
I was less merciful an hour later, for food was a necessity, and I was fortunate enough to bring down at the first shot a beautiful little deer that started up in our very path.
My shot seemed to alarm the whole forest and set it in an uproar: birds shrieked, monkeys chattered, and to right and left there was a rushing crackling noise, as of big creatures seeking flight. There was a deep-mouthed howl, too, away on our right that made me look anxiously at the doctor.
“I don’t know, Joe,” he replied, as if in answer to a spoken question. “There may be tigers here, and leopards, and old men of the woods, big as ourselves. It is new land, my lad, so don’t look to me for information.”
“Dat big bunyip,” said Jimmy in a scared whisper. “Take black fellow—kill um, eatum.”
Just then we heard the same beating noise that had fallen upon our ears the previous day.
“Dat big bunyip beat um gin,” whispered Jimmy, with a curious awe-stricken look in his countenance.
“’Taint,” said Jack Penny slowly. “I don’t believe in bunyips. If it was a bunyip beating his gin, she’d holloa out like hooray, and squeak the leaves off the trees.”
“’Fraid squeak,” said Jimmy eagerly, as he caught Jack’s meaning.
“Well, perhaps Jimmy’s right,” said the doctor slowly; “and as I’ve never seen a bunyip the present is a favourable opportunity, and we can interfere to stop him from too severely castigating his wife. Come, Jimmy, lead on.”
Jimmy’s jaw dropped, but his hand stole to his waistband, from which he drew his waddy, talking slowly the while, till, seeing the doctor make a movement towards him, he turned round and darted into the bush.
“He won’t stop till he gets back to the village,” drawled Jack.
“He won’t go farther than the first big tree,” I said, laughing. “He’s watching us now, I’ll be bound.”
“Then you and I will have to meet the bunyip, Joe,” said the doctor. “Are you coming, Penny?”
“Yes, I’ll come,” said Jack quietly. “I should like to see a bunyip. Come along.”
Jack went on—not first, for Gyp started before him and, guided by the noise, we pushed on amongst the dense growth, finding the earth grow moister beneath our feet; and then all at once it seemed as if the big trees had come to an end and we were in a lighter place.
“There’s the water,” I cried, as I caught sight of a flash.
“You’ll be in it here directly, same as I was,” drawled Jack. “I say, doctor, ain’t this the sort of place big snakes like?”
“Hush!” whispered the doctor; and pressing back the thick growth we advanced cautiously, and following his example I, too, stepped from tuft to tuft, listening to the beating noise and to the other sounds that arose.
First there was the loud rustle of wings as some water birds flew up, long-legged creatures with far-stretching necks. Then on my left there was an ominous noise, as of something crawling amongst the reeds, and I shuddered as I saw that Jack Penny was holding his gun ready, and that Gyp’s hair was bristling all about his neck, while his teeth were bared.
The doctor was some distance before us now, and I could see him peering between some bushes and waving his hand to me to come forward; so, forgetting the danger, if danger there was, I went cautiously to my companion’s side, to gaze with astonishment at the scene before me.
There was no bunyip or native Australian demon there, but a great shallow, muddy pond or lake, which seemed as if it must be swarming with fish and crocodiles, for every here and there, as the great rugged backs of the horrible lizards were seen pushing towards the shore, shoals of silvery fish leaped out, flashing in the sunshine before they splashed back into the water.
Here, then, was the secret of the mysterious noise which was being produced before my eyes. For the crocodiles were driving the shoals of fish into the little bays and creeks, and then stunning them by beating the water heavily with their tails, the result being that the paralysed fish were easily devoured.
I felt as if I could never tire of gazing at the monsters so busy before us. There must have been at least five-and-twenty, and all of large size; and it was not a pleasant thought to consider what would have been the consequences if we had attempted to wade across the lagoon.
Before leaving, however, the doctor took out his glass and swept the shore of the great pond, to nod with satisfaction.
“This is only a sort of bay belonging to the river we are seeking, Joe,” he said. “Look there to the left, and you can see the entrance choked up with reeds.”
We crept back cautiously, to find Jimmy awaiting our return; and then making a détour towards the lake, we soon reached the river, along whose bank was a well-trodden path, in whose softer parts, besides those of deer, it was plain to see the ugly toes of crocodiles, and the long trail they made as they dragged themselves along.
We did not halt until we had left the crocodile pond a long way behind; but a fine dry, open spot, close to the flashing water of the swift river, was so tempting that we did not go so far as we had intended.
Here a fire was soon lit, and Jimmy sat watching the roasting of the buck with an indescribable look of satisfaction in his countenance; while, eager to try whether it would be possible to add to our provision store at any time from the river, I went on down to the water’s edge. For if there were fish in such abundance in the lagoon, I felt sure that if they would bite there must be plenty in the stream.
My first idea had been to have a bathe in the cool-looking water, but, seeing my intention, the black who had been my companion in the watch, took my hand, led me cautiously along for a short distance, and then pointed to where there was lying, dimly outlined in the thickened water, one of the hideous creatures such as I had seen in the lagoon.
The black then put his wrists together, spread wide his hands, and closed them sharply upon my arm like a pair of jaws, and snatched me sidewise with a good tug.
I was quite satisfied, and nodding and shuddering I joined the doctor, who was ready enough to help me fish.
We soon had our lines ready, and baiting the hooks with pieces of raw meat, we threw out and waited, after the manner of fishermen at home, for a bite.
After a time I examined my bait and threw in again. Then the doctor examined his and threw in again, but neither of us had the slightest touch, and growing weary we went back to the fire to find the buck sufficiently roasted and Jimmy’s eyes standing out of his head with hunger; so we made a hasty meal, left the blacks to finish it, and Jack Penny to rest his long body, while we had another try at the fishing.
But Jack Penny did not care to rest when anything was going on, and after we had been fishing without result for about half an hour he joined us.
“Caught anything?” he said; and on our replying in the negative, “Here, let me try,” he said.
I handed him my line, and he twisted it well round his hand.
“Fish run big, sometimes,” he said, nodding his head sagaciously. “Don’t leave your line like that, doctor,” he added; “make it fast to that bough.”
The doctor obeyed, and leaving Jack looking very drowsy and dreamy we two took our guns and started along the river bank, thinking that perhaps we might find something useful for the larder, the heat of the climate rendering it necessary for a supply to be obtained from day to day.
It was a glorious walk past quiet bends of the riverthat were as still as ponds, and full of red and white lotus plants which shot up their lovely blossoms from amidst their floating liliaceous leaves. Trees in places overhung the water, and great wreaths of blossom or leaves of dazzling green were reflected on the surface. Insect life was abundant: burnished beetles and lovely coloured butterflies flitting from flower to flower. Birds, too, especially waders and great creatures that I took to be pelicans, were busy in the shallows, where now and then a great crocodile wallowed through the mud, evidently roused by our approach, for though we saw several of these creatures, not one gave the slightest sign of a disposition to attack.
“There, we are not likely to see deer before evening when they come down to drink,” said the doctor. “Let’s get back, Joe, my lad, the sun is not so powerful as it was, and we may as well make a fresh start.”
We were about three parts of the way back, finding some fresh object of interest at every turn, when I suddenly caught hold of my companion’s arm, for a peculiar cry fell upon my ear.
“Something wrong!” exclaimed the doctor, and we set off at a sharp run where the undergrowth would allow.
A curious sensation of dread came over me, and a cold damp feeling was on my brow and in the palms of my hands as the cry rose once more—a singularly doleful cry, as of some one in great peril.
“Are you loaded?” said the doctor, as we ran on, and his voice sounded hoarse with emotion.
I nodded, for I could not speak, and, full of the idea that our little camp had been attacked by savages and that some of our followers were being killed, I ran on.
It was hard work and like running in a nightmare to get back to our starting-place, for there was always some thorn or tangle that we had not noticed in our careful advance seeming to stop us on our way; but at last we came within sight of the spot where we had left Jack Penny, but he was not there.
“There’s something wrong at the camp,” I panted.
“Be cool,” replied the doctor, “we may have to fire. Try and keep your nerve. Ah!”
This ejaculation was consequent upon our simultaneously catching sight of Jack Penny, up to the armpits in the river, holding on by the branch of a tree.
As he saw us he shouted lustily for help. It was no drawl now, but a sharp quick shout.
I ran down the bank and the doctor following, we joined hands, when, catching at Jack’s wrist, I held on tightly.
“Now, then,” I said, as I gazed wonderingly in his ghastly face and staring eyes, “let go, and we’ll draw you ashore.”
“No, no,” he cried hoarsely. “Got hold of me—drag me in.”
“Got hold? Of course,” I said, “we’ll drag you in.”
“One of those brutes has got him, Joe,” cried the doctor excitedly, and his words sent such a thrill through me that I nearly loosed my hold. “Here, pull both together,” he said, as he got down by my side and seized Jack Penny by the other arm.
We gave a fierce drag, to find that it was answered from below, Jack being nearly drawn out of our hands, his head going down nearly to the eyes, and for the moment it seemed as if we were to be drawn in as well.
But fortunately Jack still had tight hold of the branch, to which he clung in the agony of desperation, and he uttered such a piercing cry that it served to arouse the sleeping blacks, the result being that, as we were holding on, and just maintaining our ground, Jimmy and Ti-hi, the black who had attached himself to me, came running down.
They saw what was wrong, and Jimmy seized me, the black doing the same by Jimmy, with the effect of dragging poor Jack Penny farther and farther from the water in spite of the struggles of the reptile that was trying to haul him back. First we had him out to the chest, then to the hips, then nearly to the knees, and I never till then thoroughly realised what a lot there was of him, for it seemed as if he would never end.
“Hold on!” cried the doctor suddenly. “I’m going to loose him.”
“No, no!” panted Jack, with a horrified look; but the doctor did loose his hold and caught up his gun.
“Now, then,” he cried. “All together. Haul with all your might.”
We obeyed, and though we were for the moment mastered we gave a good swing again, and it seemed as if Jack Penny must be dragged in two.
It was like playing a game of French and English, and we were in danger of getting the worst of it. We saw what the doctor wanted, and that was to get the reptile so near the surface that he could fire; but as soon as we got poor Jack nearly ashore the creature gave a tremendous tug, making the water swirl and the mud and sand from the bottom rise in clouds.
This went on for five minutes, during which we were striving with all our might, when I nearly loosed my hold, for Jack said in a low despairing tone of voice:
“Joe Carstairs, don’t let him have me till you’ve shot me first.”
I held fast though, and the fight went on, till, just as we were beginning to despair, the reptile came nearer to the surface, the ugly protuberances over its eyes were level with the water, and, bending down, the doctor reached out with his gun in one hand, held the muzzle close to the creature’s eye, and fired.
There was a tremendous sputter and we were nearly forced to leave go, but the next moment there was no resistance but weight, and we drew Jack and his aggressor, a crocodile about ten feet long, right up to the bank, the monster’s jaws, which had closed over one of Jack’s stoutly booted feet, remaining fast, though the upper part of its head was all blown away.
“Dat a big bunyip,” cried Jimmy, forcing the end of his spear through the reptile’s jaws and trying to push them open, which he did with his companion’s help, and Jack Penny was free to limp feebly for a few yards, and sink down amongst the reeds.
Jimmy did not seem in the least afraid of the bunyip now, for hacking off a long lithe cane he put it over the reptile’s jaw, and, twisting it tightly rope-fashion, he and Ti-hi dragged it right away from the water, and, avoiding the frantic lashings of its tail, they turned it over with their spears, used like levers, and kept on stabbing it in its tender underparts until it ceased to struggle, when Jimmy turned it over again and began to perform a triumphant war-dance on its back.
Meanwhile poor Jack Penny, who had been nearly speechless, began to revive.
“That’s better,” said the doctor. “Now let me look at your foot.”
“Has he bit it right off?” said Jack faintly. “I can’t feel it. Just when I needed it so badly, too!”
“Bit it off! No!” I cried. “Is it much hurt, doctor?”
“I can’t tell till I have unlaced his boot,” he replied. “Tell me if I hurt you much, my lad.”
“It don’t hurt,” said Jack faintly. “I can’t feel at all.”
It was rather hard work to get the boot off; but at last it was free, and the doctor inspected a double row of red spots, two of which bled a little, but not much.
“I’m beginning to feel now,” said Jack dolefully. “Why, he ain’t bit it off!” he said, raising himself so that he could look down at the injured member. “I thought it was gone.”
“No; your foot has only had an ugly pinch; the stout boot saved it. Let it bleed a little, my lad; it will save you pain.”
“What! had he only got hold of my boot?” said Jack excitedly.
“And the foot in it,” said the doctor. “See, here are the marks of the teeth.”
“I thought he’d bit it right off, Joe Carstairs,” said Jack dolefully. “An’ I say, what a coward I am!”
“Coward!” I exclaimed. “Why?”
“To be so frightened as I was,” replied Jack, with a dismal sigh.
“Well, I don’t know about being a coward, Master Jack Penny,” said the doctor quietly; “but I do know that if I had had my foot in that reptile’s mouth I should have been in a most horrible state of fear. There, my lad,” he continued kindly, “don’t think any more about it, only to be thankful for your escape.”
“But he ought to tell us first how he was caught like that,” I said.
“Oh, there ain’t much to tell,” said Jack, sitting up and raising his leg, and softly rubbing his injured foot. “I was fishing, and the fish wouldn’t bite, and I got a little nearer to the river side and threw in again and fished; and the sun seemed to get hotter, and I suppose I fell asleep, for I remember dreaming that the dingoes had got among father’s sheep again, and that he flicked his whip-lash round my wrist. Then I tried to start up, but a big fish had hold of the line, and it tugged away so hard that I was overbalanced, and took a header off the bank right into the river; and when I came up, pretty tidy astonished like, and began to swim for the bank, the fish on the line, which I had twisted round my wrist, began tugging me out into the stream. It took me out ever so far before I could get the line off my wrist; and then I swam easily back, feeling awful popped like at having lost the fish and the line; and I was just wondering what you would say, when all at once there was a regular rush in the water, and something shut on my foot, giving me such an awful nip that I yelled out as I caught hold of that branch, and held on, shivering all the while with fear, for I forgot about the crocodiles, and thought it must be a shark.”
“Well!” I said, excitedly; for he stopped.
“Well, what?” said Jack.
“What next? What did you do?” I said.
“Hollered!” replied Jack laconically. “So would you if you had been me.”
“Yes,” I said, “of course; but what took place next?”
“Oh, nothing; only that I held tight and he held tight, and as often as he tugged at me it jumped the bough up and down like a see-saw, and it was very horrid.”
“Most horrible!” said the doctor.
“Then I hollered again,” said Jack.
“Yes; go on!” I cried impatiently.
“I did go on,” he replied. “I went on hollering, but them chaps at the camp were asleep, and I began to feel that I should have to let go soon; only I wouldn’t, because I wanted to find out first what had become of the professor. Then at last you came, and that’s all; only I don’t feel much like walking very far to-day, so I shall sit still and fish.”
“Fish! what, with things like that in the water?” I exclaimed.
“Oh! they won’t hurt me,” said Jack; “because I shall be on the look-out now, and won’t go in after the next fish that takes my line. I say, where’s Gyp?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “I have not seen him.”
“Crocodiles are very fond of dogs,” said Jack quietly. “I hope one of ’em hasn’t got Gyp.”
“Oh, no! he’d be too sharp for one of the reptiles,” said the doctor reassuringly.
“I don’t know,” said Jack in his quiet drawl. “I thought I was much too clever for crocodiles; but they’re sharp—precious sharp about the teeth. Perhaps he’s gone hunting something. He often used at home.”
“Oh, yes; he’ll come back,” I said.
“Well, we shall see,” said Jack. “I’m better now. Lend me another line, Joe Carstairs. I want to see if I can’t catch a fish.”
I looked about first to see if I could trace my line, but it was hopelessly gone. To my surprise and pleasure, though, I found the doctor’s where he had left it, tied to a root and drawn out tight, evidently with a fish at the end.
I imagined that I could easily draw this out, and I did get it close up to the bank, but as soon as it was in the shallow water it sprang right out and darted away again, making the line rush through my hands so rapidly that it burned my skin.
As it leaped out I had a good opportunity of seeing that a great silvery fellow, fully a yard long, had hooked itself, and meant to have some playing before it turned over upon its side in token of submission.
I kept on playing the fish, which seemed to grow stronger instead of weaker as I went on at give and take with it, till I was almost tired. At least six times did I draw it in and try to bring it within reach of Ti-hi’s fingers, but in vain, for it always darted off as if refreshed.
At last, though, I drew it well in, and once more it was about to repeat its tactics; but this time it was too late, for the black pounced down upon it, thrust his hooked finger into its gills, and pulled it up on to the bank.
Just then Jimmy came trotting up, hauling away at a line, and to my great delight I found that he had hunted out the one we had left with Jack Penny.
“Fastum round big wood!” he cried; and then he tried to explain how the fish had entangled the line round what an American would call a snag; and the result was that we had two fine fish to carry back to the camp, Jimmy’s being tired out and readily yielding as he hauled on the line.
“I don’t think I’ll fish to-day,” said Jack Penny then. “I say, I feel as if that buck warn’t good enough to eat.”
Hardly had he spoken before he softly sank down sidewise, and lay looking very white, and with his eyes shut.
“Is it the venison?” I said in a whisper to the doctor.
“No. He is a little faint, now the reaction has set in,” replied the doctor; and we had to carry poor wet Jack Penny as well as the fish into camp, and of course we got no farther on our journey that day.
Chapter Fourteen.How a strange Visitor came to Camp.Jack seemed very little the worse after a good night’s rest, that is to say bodily. He was a little white, and his breakfast did not disappear so rapidly as usual, for, probably on account of his great length, and the enormous amount of circulation and support to keep up, Jack Penny used to eat about as much as two ordinary boys. He was, however evidently a little bit upset in his mind, and he laid this open to me just before starting once more.“I say,” he said in a low tone, “did I seem such a very great coward yes’day, Joe Carstairs?”“Coward! No,” I said; “not you. Any one would have been frightened.”“But I hollered so,” whispered Jack. “I don’t think a young fellow ought to holler like a great girl.”“I know I should,” I replied. “There, never mind now. They’re all ready to start. Come on!”Jack Penny shook his head rather thoughtfully, and then, in a dissatisfied dreamy way, he walked on with me, shouldering his gun, and stooping more than ever, so that it seemed as if he were looking for something which he could not find.We had to pass pretty close to the crocodile, so close that Jack nearly stumbled over it, and a cry of horror involuntarily escaped him as he jumped aside.Then, turning scarlet with annoyance, he gave the monster a kick, and darted back holding his nose, for it was exhaling a most offensive musky odour.I looked at the creature closely and with some curiosity, thinking the while how much smaller it was than those we had seen in the lagoon. All the same, though, it was fully as big in body as a man, though double the length.It was not going to poison the air long, for already it was covered with something red, and a long red line extended from it right away into the jungle. Each tiny red object was an ant, and from experience I knew that very soon every particle of flesh would be devoured.Keeping within easy reach of the river we journeyed steadily on, finding the country grow more beautiful at every step. The trees were bigger, the bamboos taller and more feathery. In the sunny patches flowers were in abundance, and we had no want of opportunities for supplying our larder, large pheasant-like birds, with long tails and crests, and plumage of the most beautiful tints, being plentiful.It seemed a pity to shoot them, but it was a necessity, for our supply of powder, shot, and ball was looked upon by us as so much condensed meat, ready to be expanded when opportunity served.We encountered nothing particular that day except Gyp, who turned up all at once with a piece of furry skin in his mouth, all he had been able to carry of some deer that he had run down; and at the sight of his friend Jack Penny became more himself, throwing off a good deal of his gloom. In fact I saw the tears stand in his eyes as he saw him once more; but catching sight of me looking at him he scowled, and, running to the dog, kicked him over and over again quite savagely.“Just you run away again,” he drawled angrily, “and I’ll ’bout kill yer. That’s what I’ll do with you.”Gyp closed his eyes and winced and crouched down close to the ground till his master had ceased punishing him, and then he rose dejectedly, and followed quite in the rear of our party with drooping head and tail.I noticed at the time that Jimmy had watched all this with sparkling eyes, wonderfully intent, but I thought no more of it till I saw the black glance at us all in turn, and then begin to slink back.“What is he after now?” I said to myself; and stepping aside among the thick leafage, I let our party go by and stopped to see what Jimmy was about to do.I had not long to wait, for the fact was that the black had snatched at the opportunity to tyrannise over something. He had been summarily checked when amusing himself by sticking his spear into the New Guinea men, and, as we have seen, one of them resented it; but here was a chance. Gyp had been beaten, and had cowered down under his master’s blows, so Jimmy took out his waddy, and after glancing forward to see that he was not observed, he waited until Gyp came up slowly, and casting sidelong looks at the Australian, who gave him a heavy thump on the ribs with the war-club.“Bad bunyip dog. Good for nothing, dirty dingo dog,” cried Jimmy. “Go long, bad for good dog. Get—yah!”This last was a terrific yell of fear and pain, for instead of cowering down and suffering himself to be beaten and kicked, Gyp knew that this was not his master. For one moment he had stood astonished at the blow, and then seemed puzzled by the strange broken English objurgations; then with a fierce snarl he darted at the black and tried to seize him by the legs, an attack which Jimmy avoided by making a tremendous spring, catching at a horizontal branch above him, and swinging himself up into a tree, where he crouched like a monkey, showering down angry epithets upon the dog as it yelped and barked at him furiously.I came out of my hiding-place laughing till the tears ran down my cheeks; and the noise made by Gyp brought back the doctor and Jack Penny, the latter taking in the situation at a glance and indulging in a broad grin.“Take away bunyip dog; take um way or Jimmy killum,” cried the black.“All right!” said Jack Penny; “come down and kill him then.”But Jimmy showed no disposition to move, and it was not until Jack had ordered the dog away that the black dropped down, looking at me very sheepishly and acting like a shamefaced child.As we proceeded farther into the interior, wild creatures grew more abundant, and we saw fewer traces of man having traversed these regions. As I noted the various objects I could not help feeling how my father must have revelled in exploring such a naturalist’s paradise as this, and I grew more hopeful as the idea gained ground in my mind that very likely he was busy in the interior still pursuing his researches.We travelled very little way now without catching glimpses of some of the occupants of these wilds. Perhaps it was but a glimpse, but generally we were able to distinguish what it was that darted through bush, tree, or shadowy glade. Once or twice we caught sight of the spots of leopards; then a graceful deer would stand at gaze for a moment before going off like the wind. Once a herd of heavy buffaloes started up before us and crashed through the undergrowth; and at last, as we drew near a great tree, the doctor said, pointing upward:“No fear of our wanting food, Joe, while there are such birds as these.”As he spoke, with a noise like a whirlwind a flock of great pigeons took flight—great fellows, three times as big as ordinary pigeons, and, as we knew from those shot in Australia, splendid eating.The great tree offered so pleasant a camping place that we decided to pass the night there, and after a look round to see if there was likely to be danger lurking near, the fire was lit, the blacks setting to work at once to collect wood when they had put down their burdens. Then food was prepared and a hearty meal enjoyed, the restful sensation that came over us after the day’s exertion being most delicious. Then one by one our followers dropped asleep, Jack Penny, who was still rather grumpy, last.The doctor and I were sitting together by the fire that night, talking in a low voice about our plans, and agreeing that we could not do better than wander on and on through the wilds until we learned some tidings of the lost man, when suddenly my companion laid his finger on his lips and bent forward as if listening.I listened too, thinking the while how strange it all looked about us, with the fire casting weird shadows all around, while the silence now was almost appalling.“Nothing, Joe,” said the doctor, dropping his hand. “I thought I heard something.”“I’m sure I did,” I whispered, with a strange feeling upon me that it would be dangerous to speak aloud.“There are curious sounds heard sometimes in forests,” he said thoughtfully. “There, go on—what were we talking about?”As he spoke there was a strange rushing noise, then a peculiar whining sound not far distant among the trees.“What can that be, doctor?” I whispered.“Can’t say, Joe. Sounds as if some animal had been climbing along a branch, or had bent down a sapling and then let it fly up again with a loud whish among the trees.”“That is just how it sounded to me,” I said, gazing full in his eyes.He remained silent for a few moments, not listening but thinking.“We must take a lesson from our friend Jack Penny, there,” he said, smiling in my face as he stroked his broad beard. “I must confess, Joe, to feeling a curious sensation of awe as we sit out here in this primeval forest, surrounded by teeming savage life; but Jack Penny coolly sleeps through it all, and, as I say, we must take a lesson from him, and get used to these strange sounds.”“There it is again!” I said, catching his arm, and unable to control the feeling that at any moment something might spring out of the darkness upon my back.For the same curious rustling of leaves came whispering from among the trees, and then there was a low expiration of breath, as if some great beast had yawned.Click-click, click-click sounded loudly on the night air, and I followed the doctor’s example, cocking both barrels of my piece.“It’s coming nearer, whatever it is,” said the doctor in a low tone, “and that strange noise means, I think, that it is some great serpent.”“But would serpents be out at night?” I said.“That one was the other night, Joe, and we must not reckon upon the regular habits of animals if we light great fires in their lairs.”We sat listening again, and the rustling sound began once more.“It’s just as if the thing were climbing along trees that are not strong enough to bear it,” I said in an excited whisper, “and they keep flying up after it passes.”“Hush!” said the doctor.We listened, and from out of the darkest part before us there arose a loud tearing noise as if bark was being scratched from a tree trunk.“Some kind of beast of the cat family, I should say,” whispered the doctor. “Pst! be ready; but don’t fire unless we are attacked.”Just then there was a rush, a scramble, a dull thud, and some creature uttered a sound that seemed like the wordHowlin a hollow echoing tone.Again and again there was the low rustling, and then that wordHowlthat seemed to come from some great throat; and in imagination I saw in the darkness a pair of fiery eyes and a set of great sharp teeth.“Yes; some kind of cat, leopard, or panther,” said the doctor; but, low as his utterance was, it seemed to irritate the creature in our neighbourhood, as it kept on the rustling, for there was a harsh exclamation and the earth seemed to be torn up.Then all at once the sound ceased, and it was perfectly still for quite a quarter of an hour, which seemed an endless time; and then, tired of staring intently into the darkness, and too much excited to be silent, I whispered:“This night-watching is the hardest part of our work, doctor.”“Oh! no, my boy. It makes you a little creepy at first, but as soon as you feel your own power and how you must alarm these creatures, you will get used to it.”“But the fire makes them see us, and we can’t see them,” I said, in an ill-used tone.Just then there arose from what seemed to be just the other side of the fire one of the most awful cries I ever heard, and my hair felt as if a tiny cold hand were stirring it about the roots, while a curious sensation ran down my back.As the fearsome howl rang out the doctor levelled his piece, ready to fire, and as the fire shone full upon him in his half-kneeling position there was something terribly earnest in his face, and he looked so brave that it seemed to give me a little courage just when I seemed to have none.“Pick up some of those thin branches and throw them on the fire,” said the doctor; and I hurried to obey his command, when there was another awful howling roar, and the creature, whatever it was, charged at me; but I threw on the branches all the same, when the fire leaped up with a tremendous blaze, lighting the forest all round.“See it, doctor?” I whispered.“No,” he answered; “it keeps in amongst the trees.”The doctor’s voice sounded so hoarse and strange that it added to my trepidation. He stopped, and I wanted him to go on talking, but he remained silent, while once more the forest resounded with the hideous cry of the beast.The wood blazed well, so that I could see, as it were, a circle of light, and behind us our black shadows were thrown upon the trees, quite startling me as I looked round.“Keep up the fire,” whispered the doctor; “whatever it is it will not attack while there is this blaze.”I obeyed him and kept on throwing twigs and boughs that had been laid in a heap ready, but with a curious sensation of dread the while, for it seemed to me that if the fire consumed all our wood we should be left at the creature’s mercy.All at once it seemed to me that the rustling and snuffling noise was coming round to our left, and as if I had drawn his attention to the fact, the doctor exclaimed:“Yes, it is coming on here; keep round this way.”We edged round the fire so as to keep it between us and the animal that seemed to be watching us, when all at once the sound came from close behind us, and, as if moved by one impulse, we bounded past the fire, the pieces I had held in my hand making a crackling blaze and shower of sparks.This seemed to excite our assailant, which uttered three hideous roars at intervals, and each seemed nearer than the last, so that we were driven to keep on edging round the fire so as to keep it as our shield.We walked slowly round the fire three times, fully aware of the fact that the creature was regularly stalking us, for it kept up the scratching rustling noise, and howled at intervals.This was trying enough to our nerves; but when, all at once, every sound ceased, and we stood there by the ruddy blaze, it seemed terrible to know that our enemy was close at hand, but not to know exactly where. At any moment we felt that it might spring upon us, and I turned a wistful look upon the doctor, which he responded to by saying:“Throw on more wood.”I obeyed him, and the blaze flashed up higher once again, spreading a cloud of sparks on high to rise among the leaves and tinge the broad branches with a ruddy golden glow.I gazed in all directions for the danger, and started with nervous trepidation every time the doctor spoke, his words being generally—“Throw on more wood.” But at last, after a terrible period of anxious silence, he whispered my name.“Yes,” I said.“This can’t go on much longer. I’m afraid the beast is coming nearer. Can you see anything your side?”“Yes—no—yes, I think so,” I whispered back. “There’s a shadowy something just at the edge of the light. I think it is some kind of wild beast.”“Is it the dog?” he whispered back.“No,” I said. “Gyp always sleeps close to his master.”“Do you think you could take steady aim at it, my lad?” he said.“I don’t know,” I replied, “but I will try. Shall I fire at it?”“Let me think,” he answered. “I don’t know whether it would be wise to fire, and perhaps only wound the creature.”“But perhaps I shall kill it,” I said.“It is doubtful, Joe,” he replied, “and the noise of your piece would bring out our people, perhaps into danger. Let us wait. Here,” he said, “I have it! This beast has been cautiously following us round, always keeping out of our sight. I think now that the best way will be for you to continue the retreat round the fire while I stop here on one knee. The beast will then follow you, and I shall get a good certain shot at him.”I did not like the idea at all, for it seemed like setting a trap and making me the bait; but I said nothing beyond intimating that I would do as he wished, and he went on:“I shall be certain to hit the brute, but I may not kill, so be ready to fire in turn; you will get a good chance for a sure hit, the animal will be less cautious.”“Stop a moment,” I said. “I thought at first that it would be very dangerous for me; now I see that it will be more dangerous for you. Let’s keep together.”“Do as I bid you,” he replied sternly. “Now go on round, as if trying to keep the fire between you and danger. Fire quickly if you have a good chance, and don’t miss. But first of all let’s try the effect of a firebrand or two in the direction you think you saw the brute.”He picked up a piece of blazing wood and gave it a whirl round his head.The result was to bring a fierce roar from the wood close behind us, and we involuntarily sprang to the other side of our fire.“There’s no knowing where to have the beast,” muttered the doctor, as he realised the cunning sneaking habits of our enemy.As he spoke he stooped and picked up another blazing piece of wood, for he had dropped the first to bring his gun to bear. Now, holding the gun in his left hand, he gave the blazing wood a whirl round his head and threw it in the direction from which the fierce roar had come.To my horror and consternation it was answered by a savage yell, and something charged out nearly to the fire but dashed back directly, so quickly, indeed, that we had no time to get more than a sharp shot apiece at the fierce creature.“Load again quickly,” whispered the doctor; and I obeyed him, listening the while to the rustling crackling noise at a little distance.“Do you think we hit it?” I said softly. I was afraid to speak aloud lest it should bring down a charge upon us.“I’m afraid not,” he replied, as he reloaded and then stood scanning the edge of the circle of light formed by the fire’s glow.There was nothing visible but what seemed to be a dark opening amongst the trees, through which it appeared to me that our enemy must have passed.Then we waited, watching so excitedly for the next attack that the fire was for the moment forgotten. Then, seeing the glow it cast become less, we both seized upon armfuls of wood and threw them on, deadening the flame so that the space around was comparatively dark.That was the most anxious time of all, for, do what we would, the fire sent forth huge volumes of smoke, but would not blaze. At any moment it seemed that the great beast might take advantage of the gloom and spring upon us, and we shook the ends of the burning branches and half-consumed pieces of wood, but in vain. Instead of the light glow there was comparative darkness, and in despair, as if again moved by the same impulse, we ceased troubling about the fire, and stood with hand on trigger, ready to pull at the first chance.Then all at once there was a vivid tongue of flame cutting right through the thick smoke, another and another, and I uttered a sigh of relief as the heap of smouldering boughs and leaves burst once more into a blaze.“Now while the light lasts let’s have a good shot at the brute,” said the doctor, speaking as if nerved to desperation by the torture under which we both writhed. “I’m going to kneel here, Joe; you walk on, and that will make the tiger, or whatever it is, show itself in watching you.”“It isn’t a tiger,” I whispered. “I caught sight of it, and it looked more like a man.”The doctor gave me a quick look, and then said sharply, “Go on!”I obeyed him, walking backwards round the fire, my piece ready, so as to get a shot if I saw the creature again; but this time all remained perfectly still, and though I went right round the fire, no sound came from among the trees.“Take a piece of burning wood and throw it opposite to where you stand, Joe.”I did so, and the blazing wood described an arc, fell in a tuft of dry undergrowth which burst out into a vivid column of light for a few minutes and died out, but there was no charge, no roar from our enemy, not even the rustling of the bushes as it passed through.“It’s very strange, Joe,” whispered the doctor. “Pile on more wood.”I obeyed him, and this time it caught directly and there was a tremendous blaze, but no attack followed; and we stood listening for some sound of the enemy in vain.“You must have shot it,” I said, speaking with some confidence.“Or else you did, Joe,” said the doctor.I shook my head, and we remained listening for quite a quarter of an hour, but still in vain. The silence in the forest was now awful, and though we strained our eyes till the fire across which we looked dazzled them, we could see nothing to cause alarm.“Either it’s dead or it has gone off, scared by our fire,” said the doctor at last. And now that we found time to think, he continued, with a smile, “I hope we are not going to have many such night-watches as this on our expedition. I say though, my lad, how some people can sleep! I should have thought that those howls would have wakened anything. Why, hallo! Gyp, didn’t you hear anything? Where’s your master?”He stooped and patted the dog, which came trotting up to us, and then yawned and stretched himself out.“Here I am,” said Jack Penny, involuntarily imitating his dog. “Here, where’s that chap Jimmy? He was to watch with me, wasn’t he? Is it time?”“Time! Yes,” I said impatiently. “You ought to have been here two hours ago. He’ll have to look out, won’t he, doctor, for that tiger or wild man.”“Yah! stuff!” said Jack with a sneer. “I sha’n’t see no— hullo! what has Gyp found? Look, there’s something there.”We all turned to see the dog, which had picked up some scent about half-way between the fire and the edge of the circle of light. He ran at once to the thick bushes, barked angrily, and then followed the scent round and round the fire at the distance of about twenty yards, ending by dashing right off into the forest depths, his bark growing fainter as we listened.“I say, ought we to follow Gyp?” said Jack Penny.“If we wish to lose our lives,” replied the doctor. “You see, Joe, it has gone right off.”“But I don’t like Gyp to go off after anything and not follow him,” cried Jack Penny. “He’s a good dog, you know. What is it he’s after?”“Some savage beast that has been haunting us all night,” cried the doctor. “I should like to follow Gyp, but it would be madness, my lads, and—hark, what’s that?”I felt cold as a most unearthly howl came from a long distance away.“Is—is that him?” said Jack, whose eyes looked round and large.“Dat big bunyip,” said a voice that made us start, for Jimmy had come up from the dark camp unperceived. “Eat black fellow, white man, anyfing.”No one replied to Jimmy’s piece of information, and we listened for some minutes till a faint rustling, heard first by the black, who stood ready to hurl his spear, made us all place a finger on the trigger.But it was only caused by the dog, who soon after came into sight, with his tail between his legs, and his hair bristling with terror.He ran right to his master and stood behind him, shivering and whining, as he stared in the direction from which he had come.“Gyp see big bunyip!” cried Jimmy. “Gyp find a bunyip!”“I say,” said Jack; “it’s my watch now. I s’pose you two are going to lie down.”“Frightened, Jack?” I said maliciously.“P’r’aps I am, and p’r’aps I ain’t,” said Jack stoutly. “I should say I felt frightened if I was; but if you two were going to watch I wouldn’t go away and leave you with a big beast like that about. He must be a big one or he wouldn’t have frightened Gyp, who’ll tackle old man kangaroos six-foot high. You can go if you like, though.”This was a long speech for Jack Penny, who rubbed one of his ears in an ill-used way.“Jimmy, black fellow ’fraid um bunyip; oh, yes!” said my follower; “but Jimmy no run away.”“We shall not leave you alone, Penny,” said the doctor, smiling. “It would not be fair.”So we stayed with him till day broke, and not having heard the slightest sound to intimate the neighbourhood of danger, and the dog lying quite still and content by his master, the doctor and I went to get a couple of hours’ rest, just as the forest glades were beginning to echo with the screaming of birds of the parrot family, Jimmy bending over me and poking me with the butt end of his spear, almost directly, so it seemed to me, that I had lain down.“Jimmy hungry,” he said; “gimmy damper—brackfass. Come long.”“Did you hear the bunyip any more, Jimmy?” I said, yawning.“No. Bunyip go sleep all a morning—all a day! Come a night. How-wow!”He put his head on one side and gave so marvellous an imitation of the terrible cries I had heard during the night that I felt sure he must know the creature.“What is it makes that noise, Jimmy?” I said eagerly.“Bunyip—big ugly fellow bunyip!” he exclaimed; and I felt so cross and annoyed with his eternal bunyip that I was ready to kick him; but I refrained, and went instead to the fire, where the doctor was waiting breakfast, after sending Jimmy to wake me up.
Jack seemed very little the worse after a good night’s rest, that is to say bodily. He was a little white, and his breakfast did not disappear so rapidly as usual, for, probably on account of his great length, and the enormous amount of circulation and support to keep up, Jack Penny used to eat about as much as two ordinary boys. He was, however evidently a little bit upset in his mind, and he laid this open to me just before starting once more.
“I say,” he said in a low tone, “did I seem such a very great coward yes’day, Joe Carstairs?”
“Coward! No,” I said; “not you. Any one would have been frightened.”
“But I hollered so,” whispered Jack. “I don’t think a young fellow ought to holler like a great girl.”
“I know I should,” I replied. “There, never mind now. They’re all ready to start. Come on!”
Jack Penny shook his head rather thoughtfully, and then, in a dissatisfied dreamy way, he walked on with me, shouldering his gun, and stooping more than ever, so that it seemed as if he were looking for something which he could not find.
We had to pass pretty close to the crocodile, so close that Jack nearly stumbled over it, and a cry of horror involuntarily escaped him as he jumped aside.
Then, turning scarlet with annoyance, he gave the monster a kick, and darted back holding his nose, for it was exhaling a most offensive musky odour.
I looked at the creature closely and with some curiosity, thinking the while how much smaller it was than those we had seen in the lagoon. All the same, though, it was fully as big in body as a man, though double the length.
It was not going to poison the air long, for already it was covered with something red, and a long red line extended from it right away into the jungle. Each tiny red object was an ant, and from experience I knew that very soon every particle of flesh would be devoured.
Keeping within easy reach of the river we journeyed steadily on, finding the country grow more beautiful at every step. The trees were bigger, the bamboos taller and more feathery. In the sunny patches flowers were in abundance, and we had no want of opportunities for supplying our larder, large pheasant-like birds, with long tails and crests, and plumage of the most beautiful tints, being plentiful.
It seemed a pity to shoot them, but it was a necessity, for our supply of powder, shot, and ball was looked upon by us as so much condensed meat, ready to be expanded when opportunity served.
We encountered nothing particular that day except Gyp, who turned up all at once with a piece of furry skin in his mouth, all he had been able to carry of some deer that he had run down; and at the sight of his friend Jack Penny became more himself, throwing off a good deal of his gloom. In fact I saw the tears stand in his eyes as he saw him once more; but catching sight of me looking at him he scowled, and, running to the dog, kicked him over and over again quite savagely.
“Just you run away again,” he drawled angrily, “and I’ll ’bout kill yer. That’s what I’ll do with you.”
Gyp closed his eyes and winced and crouched down close to the ground till his master had ceased punishing him, and then he rose dejectedly, and followed quite in the rear of our party with drooping head and tail.
I noticed at the time that Jimmy had watched all this with sparkling eyes, wonderfully intent, but I thought no more of it till I saw the black glance at us all in turn, and then begin to slink back.
“What is he after now?” I said to myself; and stepping aside among the thick leafage, I let our party go by and stopped to see what Jimmy was about to do.
I had not long to wait, for the fact was that the black had snatched at the opportunity to tyrannise over something. He had been summarily checked when amusing himself by sticking his spear into the New Guinea men, and, as we have seen, one of them resented it; but here was a chance. Gyp had been beaten, and had cowered down under his master’s blows, so Jimmy took out his waddy, and after glancing forward to see that he was not observed, he waited until Gyp came up slowly, and casting sidelong looks at the Australian, who gave him a heavy thump on the ribs with the war-club.
“Bad bunyip dog. Good for nothing, dirty dingo dog,” cried Jimmy. “Go long, bad for good dog. Get—yah!”
This last was a terrific yell of fear and pain, for instead of cowering down and suffering himself to be beaten and kicked, Gyp knew that this was not his master. For one moment he had stood astonished at the blow, and then seemed puzzled by the strange broken English objurgations; then with a fierce snarl he darted at the black and tried to seize him by the legs, an attack which Jimmy avoided by making a tremendous spring, catching at a horizontal branch above him, and swinging himself up into a tree, where he crouched like a monkey, showering down angry epithets upon the dog as it yelped and barked at him furiously.
I came out of my hiding-place laughing till the tears ran down my cheeks; and the noise made by Gyp brought back the doctor and Jack Penny, the latter taking in the situation at a glance and indulging in a broad grin.
“Take away bunyip dog; take um way or Jimmy killum,” cried the black.
“All right!” said Jack Penny; “come down and kill him then.”
But Jimmy showed no disposition to move, and it was not until Jack had ordered the dog away that the black dropped down, looking at me very sheepishly and acting like a shamefaced child.
As we proceeded farther into the interior, wild creatures grew more abundant, and we saw fewer traces of man having traversed these regions. As I noted the various objects I could not help feeling how my father must have revelled in exploring such a naturalist’s paradise as this, and I grew more hopeful as the idea gained ground in my mind that very likely he was busy in the interior still pursuing his researches.
We travelled very little way now without catching glimpses of some of the occupants of these wilds. Perhaps it was but a glimpse, but generally we were able to distinguish what it was that darted through bush, tree, or shadowy glade. Once or twice we caught sight of the spots of leopards; then a graceful deer would stand at gaze for a moment before going off like the wind. Once a herd of heavy buffaloes started up before us and crashed through the undergrowth; and at last, as we drew near a great tree, the doctor said, pointing upward:
“No fear of our wanting food, Joe, while there are such birds as these.”
As he spoke, with a noise like a whirlwind a flock of great pigeons took flight—great fellows, three times as big as ordinary pigeons, and, as we knew from those shot in Australia, splendid eating.
The great tree offered so pleasant a camping place that we decided to pass the night there, and after a look round to see if there was likely to be danger lurking near, the fire was lit, the blacks setting to work at once to collect wood when they had put down their burdens. Then food was prepared and a hearty meal enjoyed, the restful sensation that came over us after the day’s exertion being most delicious. Then one by one our followers dropped asleep, Jack Penny, who was still rather grumpy, last.
The doctor and I were sitting together by the fire that night, talking in a low voice about our plans, and agreeing that we could not do better than wander on and on through the wilds until we learned some tidings of the lost man, when suddenly my companion laid his finger on his lips and bent forward as if listening.
I listened too, thinking the while how strange it all looked about us, with the fire casting weird shadows all around, while the silence now was almost appalling.
“Nothing, Joe,” said the doctor, dropping his hand. “I thought I heard something.”
“I’m sure I did,” I whispered, with a strange feeling upon me that it would be dangerous to speak aloud.
“There are curious sounds heard sometimes in forests,” he said thoughtfully. “There, go on—what were we talking about?”
As he spoke there was a strange rushing noise, then a peculiar whining sound not far distant among the trees.
“What can that be, doctor?” I whispered.
“Can’t say, Joe. Sounds as if some animal had been climbing along a branch, or had bent down a sapling and then let it fly up again with a loud whish among the trees.”
“That is just how it sounded to me,” I said, gazing full in his eyes.
He remained silent for a few moments, not listening but thinking.
“We must take a lesson from our friend Jack Penny, there,” he said, smiling in my face as he stroked his broad beard. “I must confess, Joe, to feeling a curious sensation of awe as we sit out here in this primeval forest, surrounded by teeming savage life; but Jack Penny coolly sleeps through it all, and, as I say, we must take a lesson from him, and get used to these strange sounds.”
“There it is again!” I said, catching his arm, and unable to control the feeling that at any moment something might spring out of the darkness upon my back.
For the same curious rustling of leaves came whispering from among the trees, and then there was a low expiration of breath, as if some great beast had yawned.
Click-click, click-click sounded loudly on the night air, and I followed the doctor’s example, cocking both barrels of my piece.
“It’s coming nearer, whatever it is,” said the doctor in a low tone, “and that strange noise means, I think, that it is some great serpent.”
“But would serpents be out at night?” I said.
“That one was the other night, Joe, and we must not reckon upon the regular habits of animals if we light great fires in their lairs.”
We sat listening again, and the rustling sound began once more.
“It’s just as if the thing were climbing along trees that are not strong enough to bear it,” I said in an excited whisper, “and they keep flying up after it passes.”
“Hush!” said the doctor.
We listened, and from out of the darkest part before us there arose a loud tearing noise as if bark was being scratched from a tree trunk.
“Some kind of beast of the cat family, I should say,” whispered the doctor. “Pst! be ready; but don’t fire unless we are attacked.”
Just then there was a rush, a scramble, a dull thud, and some creature uttered a sound that seemed like the wordHowlin a hollow echoing tone.
Again and again there was the low rustling, and then that wordHowlthat seemed to come from some great throat; and in imagination I saw in the darkness a pair of fiery eyes and a set of great sharp teeth.
“Yes; some kind of cat, leopard, or panther,” said the doctor; but, low as his utterance was, it seemed to irritate the creature in our neighbourhood, as it kept on the rustling, for there was a harsh exclamation and the earth seemed to be torn up.
Then all at once the sound ceased, and it was perfectly still for quite a quarter of an hour, which seemed an endless time; and then, tired of staring intently into the darkness, and too much excited to be silent, I whispered:
“This night-watching is the hardest part of our work, doctor.”
“Oh! no, my boy. It makes you a little creepy at first, but as soon as you feel your own power and how you must alarm these creatures, you will get used to it.”
“But the fire makes them see us, and we can’t see them,” I said, in an ill-used tone.
Just then there arose from what seemed to be just the other side of the fire one of the most awful cries I ever heard, and my hair felt as if a tiny cold hand were stirring it about the roots, while a curious sensation ran down my back.
As the fearsome howl rang out the doctor levelled his piece, ready to fire, and as the fire shone full upon him in his half-kneeling position there was something terribly earnest in his face, and he looked so brave that it seemed to give me a little courage just when I seemed to have none.
“Pick up some of those thin branches and throw them on the fire,” said the doctor; and I hurried to obey his command, when there was another awful howling roar, and the creature, whatever it was, charged at me; but I threw on the branches all the same, when the fire leaped up with a tremendous blaze, lighting the forest all round.
“See it, doctor?” I whispered.
“No,” he answered; “it keeps in amongst the trees.”
The doctor’s voice sounded so hoarse and strange that it added to my trepidation. He stopped, and I wanted him to go on talking, but he remained silent, while once more the forest resounded with the hideous cry of the beast.
The wood blazed well, so that I could see, as it were, a circle of light, and behind us our black shadows were thrown upon the trees, quite startling me as I looked round.
“Keep up the fire,” whispered the doctor; “whatever it is it will not attack while there is this blaze.”
I obeyed him and kept on throwing twigs and boughs that had been laid in a heap ready, but with a curious sensation of dread the while, for it seemed to me that if the fire consumed all our wood we should be left at the creature’s mercy.
All at once it seemed to me that the rustling and snuffling noise was coming round to our left, and as if I had drawn his attention to the fact, the doctor exclaimed:
“Yes, it is coming on here; keep round this way.”
We edged round the fire so as to keep it between us and the animal that seemed to be watching us, when all at once the sound came from close behind us, and, as if moved by one impulse, we bounded past the fire, the pieces I had held in my hand making a crackling blaze and shower of sparks.
This seemed to excite our assailant, which uttered three hideous roars at intervals, and each seemed nearer than the last, so that we were driven to keep on edging round the fire so as to keep it as our shield.
We walked slowly round the fire three times, fully aware of the fact that the creature was regularly stalking us, for it kept up the scratching rustling noise, and howled at intervals.
This was trying enough to our nerves; but when, all at once, every sound ceased, and we stood there by the ruddy blaze, it seemed terrible to know that our enemy was close at hand, but not to know exactly where. At any moment we felt that it might spring upon us, and I turned a wistful look upon the doctor, which he responded to by saying:
“Throw on more wood.”
I obeyed him, and the blaze flashed up higher once again, spreading a cloud of sparks on high to rise among the leaves and tinge the broad branches with a ruddy golden glow.
I gazed in all directions for the danger, and started with nervous trepidation every time the doctor spoke, his words being generally—“Throw on more wood.” But at last, after a terrible period of anxious silence, he whispered my name.
“Yes,” I said.
“This can’t go on much longer. I’m afraid the beast is coming nearer. Can you see anything your side?”
“Yes—no—yes, I think so,” I whispered back. “There’s a shadowy something just at the edge of the light. I think it is some kind of wild beast.”
“Is it the dog?” he whispered back.
“No,” I said. “Gyp always sleeps close to his master.”
“Do you think you could take steady aim at it, my lad?” he said.
“I don’t know,” I replied, “but I will try. Shall I fire at it?”
“Let me think,” he answered. “I don’t know whether it would be wise to fire, and perhaps only wound the creature.”
“But perhaps I shall kill it,” I said.
“It is doubtful, Joe,” he replied, “and the noise of your piece would bring out our people, perhaps into danger. Let us wait. Here,” he said, “I have it! This beast has been cautiously following us round, always keeping out of our sight. I think now that the best way will be for you to continue the retreat round the fire while I stop here on one knee. The beast will then follow you, and I shall get a good certain shot at him.”
I did not like the idea at all, for it seemed like setting a trap and making me the bait; but I said nothing beyond intimating that I would do as he wished, and he went on:
“I shall be certain to hit the brute, but I may not kill, so be ready to fire in turn; you will get a good chance for a sure hit, the animal will be less cautious.”
“Stop a moment,” I said. “I thought at first that it would be very dangerous for me; now I see that it will be more dangerous for you. Let’s keep together.”
“Do as I bid you,” he replied sternly. “Now go on round, as if trying to keep the fire between you and danger. Fire quickly if you have a good chance, and don’t miss. But first of all let’s try the effect of a firebrand or two in the direction you think you saw the brute.”
He picked up a piece of blazing wood and gave it a whirl round his head.
The result was to bring a fierce roar from the wood close behind us, and we involuntarily sprang to the other side of our fire.
“There’s no knowing where to have the beast,” muttered the doctor, as he realised the cunning sneaking habits of our enemy.
As he spoke he stooped and picked up another blazing piece of wood, for he had dropped the first to bring his gun to bear. Now, holding the gun in his left hand, he gave the blazing wood a whirl round his head and threw it in the direction from which the fierce roar had come.
To my horror and consternation it was answered by a savage yell, and something charged out nearly to the fire but dashed back directly, so quickly, indeed, that we had no time to get more than a sharp shot apiece at the fierce creature.
“Load again quickly,” whispered the doctor; and I obeyed him, listening the while to the rustling crackling noise at a little distance.
“Do you think we hit it?” I said softly. I was afraid to speak aloud lest it should bring down a charge upon us.
“I’m afraid not,” he replied, as he reloaded and then stood scanning the edge of the circle of light formed by the fire’s glow.
There was nothing visible but what seemed to be a dark opening amongst the trees, through which it appeared to me that our enemy must have passed.
Then we waited, watching so excitedly for the next attack that the fire was for the moment forgotten. Then, seeing the glow it cast become less, we both seized upon armfuls of wood and threw them on, deadening the flame so that the space around was comparatively dark.
That was the most anxious time of all, for, do what we would, the fire sent forth huge volumes of smoke, but would not blaze. At any moment it seemed that the great beast might take advantage of the gloom and spring upon us, and we shook the ends of the burning branches and half-consumed pieces of wood, but in vain. Instead of the light glow there was comparative darkness, and in despair, as if again moved by the same impulse, we ceased troubling about the fire, and stood with hand on trigger, ready to pull at the first chance.
Then all at once there was a vivid tongue of flame cutting right through the thick smoke, another and another, and I uttered a sigh of relief as the heap of smouldering boughs and leaves burst once more into a blaze.
“Now while the light lasts let’s have a good shot at the brute,” said the doctor, speaking as if nerved to desperation by the torture under which we both writhed. “I’m going to kneel here, Joe; you walk on, and that will make the tiger, or whatever it is, show itself in watching you.”
“It isn’t a tiger,” I whispered. “I caught sight of it, and it looked more like a man.”
The doctor gave me a quick look, and then said sharply, “Go on!”
I obeyed him, walking backwards round the fire, my piece ready, so as to get a shot if I saw the creature again; but this time all remained perfectly still, and though I went right round the fire, no sound came from among the trees.
“Take a piece of burning wood and throw it opposite to where you stand, Joe.”
I did so, and the blazing wood described an arc, fell in a tuft of dry undergrowth which burst out into a vivid column of light for a few minutes and died out, but there was no charge, no roar from our enemy, not even the rustling of the bushes as it passed through.
“It’s very strange, Joe,” whispered the doctor. “Pile on more wood.”
I obeyed him, and this time it caught directly and there was a tremendous blaze, but no attack followed; and we stood listening for some sound of the enemy in vain.
“You must have shot it,” I said, speaking with some confidence.
“Or else you did, Joe,” said the doctor.
I shook my head, and we remained listening for quite a quarter of an hour, but still in vain. The silence in the forest was now awful, and though we strained our eyes till the fire across which we looked dazzled them, we could see nothing to cause alarm.
“Either it’s dead or it has gone off, scared by our fire,” said the doctor at last. And now that we found time to think, he continued, with a smile, “I hope we are not going to have many such night-watches as this on our expedition. I say though, my lad, how some people can sleep! I should have thought that those howls would have wakened anything. Why, hallo! Gyp, didn’t you hear anything? Where’s your master?”
He stooped and patted the dog, which came trotting up to us, and then yawned and stretched himself out.
“Here I am,” said Jack Penny, involuntarily imitating his dog. “Here, where’s that chap Jimmy? He was to watch with me, wasn’t he? Is it time?”
“Time! Yes,” I said impatiently. “You ought to have been here two hours ago. He’ll have to look out, won’t he, doctor, for that tiger or wild man.”
“Yah! stuff!” said Jack with a sneer. “I sha’n’t see no— hullo! what has Gyp found? Look, there’s something there.”
We all turned to see the dog, which had picked up some scent about half-way between the fire and the edge of the circle of light. He ran at once to the thick bushes, barked angrily, and then followed the scent round and round the fire at the distance of about twenty yards, ending by dashing right off into the forest depths, his bark growing fainter as we listened.
“I say, ought we to follow Gyp?” said Jack Penny.
“If we wish to lose our lives,” replied the doctor. “You see, Joe, it has gone right off.”
“But I don’t like Gyp to go off after anything and not follow him,” cried Jack Penny. “He’s a good dog, you know. What is it he’s after?”
“Some savage beast that has been haunting us all night,” cried the doctor. “I should like to follow Gyp, but it would be madness, my lads, and—hark, what’s that?”
I felt cold as a most unearthly howl came from a long distance away.
“Is—is that him?” said Jack, whose eyes looked round and large.
“Dat big bunyip,” said a voice that made us start, for Jimmy had come up from the dark camp unperceived. “Eat black fellow, white man, anyfing.”
No one replied to Jimmy’s piece of information, and we listened for some minutes till a faint rustling, heard first by the black, who stood ready to hurl his spear, made us all place a finger on the trigger.
But it was only caused by the dog, who soon after came into sight, with his tail between his legs, and his hair bristling with terror.
He ran right to his master and stood behind him, shivering and whining, as he stared in the direction from which he had come.
“Gyp see big bunyip!” cried Jimmy. “Gyp find a bunyip!”
“I say,” said Jack; “it’s my watch now. I s’pose you two are going to lie down.”
“Frightened, Jack?” I said maliciously.
“P’r’aps I am, and p’r’aps I ain’t,” said Jack stoutly. “I should say I felt frightened if I was; but if you two were going to watch I wouldn’t go away and leave you with a big beast like that about. He must be a big one or he wouldn’t have frightened Gyp, who’ll tackle old man kangaroos six-foot high. You can go if you like, though.”
This was a long speech for Jack Penny, who rubbed one of his ears in an ill-used way.
“Jimmy, black fellow ’fraid um bunyip; oh, yes!” said my follower; “but Jimmy no run away.”
“We shall not leave you alone, Penny,” said the doctor, smiling. “It would not be fair.”
So we stayed with him till day broke, and not having heard the slightest sound to intimate the neighbourhood of danger, and the dog lying quite still and content by his master, the doctor and I went to get a couple of hours’ rest, just as the forest glades were beginning to echo with the screaming of birds of the parrot family, Jimmy bending over me and poking me with the butt end of his spear, almost directly, so it seemed to me, that I had lain down.
“Jimmy hungry,” he said; “gimmy damper—brackfass. Come long.”
“Did you hear the bunyip any more, Jimmy?” I said, yawning.
“No. Bunyip go sleep all a morning—all a day! Come a night. How-wow!”
He put his head on one side and gave so marvellous an imitation of the terrible cries I had heard during the night that I felt sure he must know the creature.
“What is it makes that noise, Jimmy?” I said eagerly.
“Bunyip—big ugly fellow bunyip!” he exclaimed; and I felt so cross and annoyed with his eternal bunyip that I was ready to kick him; but I refrained, and went instead to the fire, where the doctor was waiting breakfast, after sending Jimmy to wake me up.
Chapter Fifteen.How Jack Penny was persecuted by Pigs.I have often thought since what a wild journey ours was, and how ignorant we must have been to plunge recklessly and in such a haphazard way into a country that, though an island, is a long way on towards being large enough to be called a continent.Still we made the venture, and somehow as soon as a peril was passed we all looked upon it as belonging to yesterday, and troubled ourselves about it no more.I had risen on the morning after our nocturnal adventure feeling despondent and sleepy; but the bright sunshine and the tempting odour of roasting bird stuck on a stick close to the flame, soon made me forget the troubles of the night, and an hour later, with every one in the best of spirits, we made a fresh start, keeping near the river, but beneath the shade of the trees, for the sun seemed to be showering down burning arrows, and wherever we had to journey across the open the heat was intense.In the shady parts the green of the undergrowth looked delicate and pale, but in the sunshine it was of the most vivid green; and bathing in it, as it were, flies and beetles hummed and buzzed, and beat their gauzy wings, so that they seemed invisible, while wherever there was a bare patch of stony or rocky earth lizards were hurrying in and out, and now and then a drab-looking little serpent lay twisted up into a knot.The bearers stepped along lightly enough beneath their loads, and I observed that they never looked to right or left, or seemed to admire anything before them, their eyes being always fixed upon the earth where they were about to plant their feet.Ti-hi in particular tried to warn me to be on the look-out, pointing over and over again to the spade-headed little serpents we saw now and then gliding in amongst the grass.“Killum,” said Jimmy upon one of these occasions, and he suited the word to the action by striking one of these little reptiles with his spear and breaking its back. After this he spat viciously at the little creature, picking it up by its tail and jerking it right away amongst the trees.“No killum kill all a body,” said Jimmy nodding; and he went through a sort of pantomime, showing the consequences of being bitten by a viper, beginning with drowsiness, continuing through violent sickness, which it seemed was followed by a fall upon the earth, a few kicks and struggles, and lastly by death, for the black ended his performance by stretching himself out stiffly and closing his eyes, saying:“Jimmy dead; black fellow dig big hole and put um in de ground. Poor old Jimmy!”Then he jumped up and laughed, saying: “Killum all um snake! No good! No!”“I say, Joe Carstairs,” said Jack Penny, who had watched the performance with a good deal of interest; “don’t that chap ever get tired?”“Oh yes; and goes to sleep every time he gets a chance,” I said.“Yes! but don’t his back ache? Mine does, horrid, every day, without banging about like that;” and as if he felt his trouble then Jack Penny turned his rueful-looking boy’s face to me and began softly rubbing his long man’s back just across the loins.It was very funny, too, when Jack was speaking earnestly. In an ordinary conversation he would go on drawl, drawl, drawl in a bass voice; but whenever he grew excited he began to squeak and talk in a high-pitched treble like a boy, till he noticed it himself, and then he would begin to growl again in almost an angry tone; and this was the case now.“Here, you’re laughing!” he said savagely. “I can’t help being tall and thin, and having a gruff voice like a man, when I’m only a boy. I don’t try to be big and tall! I grew so. And I don’t try to talk gruff.”“Oh yes! you do, Jack,” I said.“Well, p’r’aps I do; but I don’t try to talk thin, like I do sometimes.”“I couldn’t help laughing, Jack,” I said, holding out my hand. “I did not mean to ridicule you.”He gave my hand quite an angry slap and turned away, but only to come back directly.“Here, I say; I beg your pardon, Joe Carstairs,” he said, holding out his hand, which I shook heartily. “I wish I hadn’t got such a beastly bad temper. I do try not to show it, but it makes me wild when people laugh at me.”“Well, I won’t laugh at you any more, Jack,” I said earnestly.“No, don’t; there’s a good chap,” he said, with the tears in his eyes. “It’s partly why I came away from home, you know. I wanted to come and find the professor, of course, and I like coming for the change; but it’s principally that.”“Principallythat!” I said. “I don’t understand you, Jack.”“Why, I mean about being laughed at! Everybody has always been laughing at me, because I grew so thin and long and weak-looking, and I got tired of it at last, and was precious glad to come out to New Guinea to stop till I had grown thicker. For I said to myself, I don’t s’pose the savage chaps will laugh at me, and if they do I can drop on ’em and they won’t do it again.”“It must have been unpleasant, Jack,” I said.“It’s horrid, old fellow,” he said confidentially; “and all the more because you are obliged to laugh at it all when you feel as if you’d like to double ’em up and jump on ’em.”“Well, there, Jack; I give you my word I won’t laugh at you again.”“Will you?” cried Jack, with his face beaming, and looking quite pleasant. “Well, that is kind of you. If the doctor wouldn’t laugh either I should be as happy as the day’s long.”“I’ll ask him not to,” I said.“Oh, no; don’t do that!” he cried quickly then; “he’d leave off laughing at me just out of pity, and I’d rather he laughed at me than pitied me, you know. Don’t ask him not.”“All right!” I said. “I will not.”“I’d rather he laughed at me,” said Jack again thoughtfully; “for I like the doctor; he’s such a brave chap. I say, Joe Carstairs, I wish I could grow into a big broad-chested brave chap with a great beard, like the doctor.”“So you will some day.”“Tchah!” he cried impatiently. “Look there—there’s long thin arms! There’s a pair of legs! And see what a body I’ve got. I ain’t got no looking-glass here, but last time I looked at myself my head and face looked like a small knob on the top of a thin pump.”“You let yourself alone, and don’t grumble at your shape,” I said sturdily, and to tell the truth rather surprising myself, for I had no idea that I was such a philosopher. “Your legs are right enough. They only want flesh and muscle, and it’s the same with your arms. Wait a bit and it will all come, just as beards do when people grow to be men.”“I sha’n’t never have any beard,” said Jack, dolefully; “my face is as smooth as a girl’s!”“I daresay the doctor was only a little smooth soft baby once,” I said; “and now see what he is.”“Ah! ain’t he a fine fellow?” said Jack. “I’m going to try and do as he does, and I want to have plenty of pluck; but no sooner do I get into a scrape than I turn cowardly, same as I did over that little humbug of a crocodile.”“Don’t talk nonsense, Jack!” I said.“’Tisn’t nonsense! Why, if I’d had as much courage as a wallaby I should have kicked that thing out of the water; and all I did was to lay hold of a bough and holler murder!”“I didn’t hear you,” I said.“Well,help! then. I know I hollered something.”“And enough to make you. The doctor said he is sure he should not have borne it so bravely as you.”“No: did he? When?”“To be sure he did, when we were sitting watching last night.”“Bah! it was only his fun. He was laughing at me again.”“He was not,” I said decidedly. “He was in real earnest.”“Oh!” said Jack softly; and there was once more the pleasant light in his countenance that quite brightened it up.I was going to say something else, but he made a motion with his hand as if asking me to be silent; and he walked on to the front to go behind Ti-hi, who was first man, while I went and marched beside the doctor, and chatted with him about the country and our future prospects.“It seems, almost too lovely,” I said; “and it worries me because I feel as if I ought to be sad and unhappy, while all the time everything seems so beautiful that I can’t help enjoying it.”“In spite of perils and dangers, Joe, eh?” he said smiling; and then we went on threading our way amongst the magnificent trees, and every now and then coming upon one standing all alone, its position having allowed of its growing into a perfect state.Again we came upon one of these, literally alive with parrots; and, as I stopped to admire them, I could see that when they opened their vivid green wings the inner parts were of a brilliant flame colour, and there was a ruddy orange patch upon the little feathers at the inset of their tails.Then we came upon monkeys again, quite a family of them, and instead of running away and leaping from branch to branch they began to chatter and shriek and dash about in the greatest excitement, just as if they were scolding us for coming among them, chattering among themselves directly after as if meditating an attack.Before another hour had passed, after noting the beauty of the butterflies, which seemed to increase in number as we penetrated farther into the interior, we came next upon an enormous tree full of gaudily-tinted parroquets, which were nearly as numerous as the parrots of an hour before.“We sha’n’t want for food, Joe,” the doctor said, “so long as we have plenty of powder; parroquets and parrots are fruit birds, and splendid eating. Look there.”As he spoke he raised his gun, fired, and directly the report had struck my ears I saw Jimmy and Gyp set off at full speed.They returned both at odds, the one growling, the other calling his rival a bad bunyip dog, but both holding tightly by a large bird, Gyp having its head, Jimmy the legs.It proved to be something between a turkey and a pheasant, and from its look it promised to be good eating, for which purpose it was handed over to Ti-hi’s care.The leader now bore off a little to our left, the result being that we once more struck the river, to find it a large swift stream, but not an attractive place for travellers, since from that one spot where we stood beneath the shelter of some trees I counted at least twenty crocodiles floating slowly down, with the protuberances above their eyes just visible, and here and there at least thirty more lying about on the muddy banks.Towards evening, as we were journeying slowly on, Jimmy came running back to fetch me, and catching me by the hand he led me through some bushes to where a thickly wooded park-like stretch of land began, and motioning me to be silent and follow him he crept from tree to tree, till, having reached what he considered to be a satisfactory position, he pointed upward, and from behind the tree where we were ensconced I looked among the branches far overhead, and for the first time saw one of those wonderfully plumaged creatures—the birds of paradise.I could have stopped there for long, gazing at the beautiful creatures with their fountain-like plumage of pale gold, but time would not permit of my lagging behind, and to Jimmy’s great disgust I hurried back, and determined that no object should lead me away from the great aim of our journey.The turkey was ample as a meal for us, but we wanted food for our followers, so as to husband our flour and biscuits. Birds were all very well, but we wanted to kill something more substantial, and for a long time past we had seen no sign of deer, though traces of buffalo were pretty frequent in spots where they had made a peculiar track down to the river, evidently going regularly to quench their thirst.The sight of the buffalo tracks formed the subject of a discussion. Fresh meat was wanted for our followers, who made very light of birds, and one of these animals would have been invaluable to us just then; but the doctor decided that it would not be prudent to follow them, they being rather dangerous beasts, and therefore, though the meat would have been so useful both for present use and to dry in the sun, we gave up the idea of trying to obtain any, preferring to trust to finding deer, and continued our journey.We had gone very little farther, and I was just about to propose to the doctor that we should venture as far as the river and try for some fish, when there was an alarm given by the native who was leading, and in an instant loads were thrown down and every man sought refuge in a tree.We did not understand the natives’ words, but their actions were easy enough to read, and all followed their example, the doctor and I getting up into the same tree, one which forked very low down, and we were just in safety when we heard a cry, and saw that Jack Penny was in difficulties. He too had climbed part of the way into a tree, when he had slipped, and in spite of all his efforts he could not at first contrive to get back; and this was just as a rushing noise was heard, that I thought must be a herd of buffalo, but, directly after, a drove of small wild pig came furiously charging down.My attention was divided between the sight of the pigs and Jack Penny, whose long legs kept dropping down, and then being spasmodically snatched up.I burst into a roar of laughter, and Jimmy, who was standing, spear in hand, upon a branch, holding on by another, danced with excitement and delight.“Pull yourself right up, Jack,” I shouted, and I had hard work to make my voice heard above the grunting and squealing.“I can’t,” he yelled back.“Then kick out at the little brutes,” I shouted; and just then he lowered himself to the full length of his arms, swung to and fro, and half-a-dozen pigs rushed at him, but he had gained impetus, and just as they made a dash at him he swung his legs up, and clung with them to a branch.“Hurrah!” I shouted; and then a sharp squeal uttered by one unfortunate pig as Jimmy drove his spear through it as it passed beneath his feet, and the sharp report of the doctor’s piece, brought me to my senses.The scene had been so comical, especially as regarded Jack Penny, that I had forgotten that I was letting several good dinners slip away, and I had just time to get a quick shot at one of the pigs which was stamping his hoof and grunting defiantly at Jack Penny, before the whole drove, including one that had received an arrow from Ti-hi’s bow, swept by us as hurriedly as they came, and were gone.“Not hurt, are you, Jack?” I said, preparing to jump.“Keep your place,” cried the doctor; “they may come back.”“Well, I shall have a better shot at them,” I said.“You foolish boy!” cried the doctor. “Why, the boars would rip you to pieces.”I returned to my place at this, and it was fortunate that I did so, for directly after, as if in the wildest of haste, the pig drove came dashing back, to stop as hastily as they came up, and stand snapping, tossing their heads, grunting, squealing, and at times literally barking at us.A couple of shots which laid low one of their party seemed, however, to scare them, and they dashed on once more, and hardly had they gone twenty yards before there was a loud thud and Jack Penny fell from the branch, where he had been clinging, flat upon his back.“Oh my!” he cried, as he sat up and looked about. “I couldn’t hold on any longer. It’s lucky they are gone.”“Look out!” I cried, swinging myself down, dropping my gun, and pulling my hatchet from my belt; but Jack would have fared badly if he had depended on me.For the little boar that had been wounded by an arrow, had dropped, apparently dying, when its companions swept by the second time, but it had fierce life enough left in it to take advantage of Jack Penny’s helpless condition, and leaping up it charged at him, its tusks glistening, and the foam tossed from its snapping jaws falling upon its sides.A bullet would have given the fierce beast its quietus, but the doctor would not fire for fear of hitting Jack, and he sat with his gun raised waiting for an opportunity.Jack saw his danger and rolled himself over, trying vainly the while to drag his axe from his belt. Then just as the furious little boar was dashing at him, I saw something black dart down from above; there was a rush, a squeal, and the boar was literally pinned to the earth, while Jimmy stood grinning and staring from the doctor to me and back, as if asking to be complimented upon his feat. For it really was a feat. He had jumped fully ten feet to the ground spear in hand, and literally thrown himself upon the little boar.“A magnificent jump, Jimmy,” I cried.“Jimmy de boy to jump,” he said, complacently. “Pig, pig kill Mass Jack Penny, Jimmy no spear um.”“Yes, I ’spect I should have ketched it pretty warmly,” said Jack, gathering himself up. “Oh, I say, I did come down such a bump, Joe Carstairs. It seemed to shake my back joints all to pieces.”“Jimmy spear um lil pig, pig,” said the black.“Yes, and I’ll give you my knife for it,” said Jack, taking out his great clasp-knife. “It’s a real good one, Jimmy, and I wouldn’t have parted with it for a deal.”“Jimmy got knife,” said the black, with a contemptuous look. “Jimmy don’t want knife.”“Well, then, what shall I give you?” said Jack.“Tickpence,” said he, grinning; “give Jimmy tickpence.”“Why, what for?” I cried. “What are you going to do withtickpence?”“Spend um,” said Jimmy; “black fellow spend money, money. Give Jimmy all a tickpence.”“But there’s nowhere to spend it,” I said.“Nev mind, Jimmy spend tickpence all a same. Give Jimmy tickpence.”Jack had not a single coin about him, neither had I, but fortunately the doctor had one, which he handed to Jack, who gave it to the delighted black, and it was forthwith thrust into the pocket of the curtailed trousers, after which he strutted about, leaving the other blacks to perform the duty of dressing the pigs.
I have often thought since what a wild journey ours was, and how ignorant we must have been to plunge recklessly and in such a haphazard way into a country that, though an island, is a long way on towards being large enough to be called a continent.
Still we made the venture, and somehow as soon as a peril was passed we all looked upon it as belonging to yesterday, and troubled ourselves about it no more.
I had risen on the morning after our nocturnal adventure feeling despondent and sleepy; but the bright sunshine and the tempting odour of roasting bird stuck on a stick close to the flame, soon made me forget the troubles of the night, and an hour later, with every one in the best of spirits, we made a fresh start, keeping near the river, but beneath the shade of the trees, for the sun seemed to be showering down burning arrows, and wherever we had to journey across the open the heat was intense.
In the shady parts the green of the undergrowth looked delicate and pale, but in the sunshine it was of the most vivid green; and bathing in it, as it were, flies and beetles hummed and buzzed, and beat their gauzy wings, so that they seemed invisible, while wherever there was a bare patch of stony or rocky earth lizards were hurrying in and out, and now and then a drab-looking little serpent lay twisted up into a knot.
The bearers stepped along lightly enough beneath their loads, and I observed that they never looked to right or left, or seemed to admire anything before them, their eyes being always fixed upon the earth where they were about to plant their feet.
Ti-hi in particular tried to warn me to be on the look-out, pointing over and over again to the spade-headed little serpents we saw now and then gliding in amongst the grass.
“Killum,” said Jimmy upon one of these occasions, and he suited the word to the action by striking one of these little reptiles with his spear and breaking its back. After this he spat viciously at the little creature, picking it up by its tail and jerking it right away amongst the trees.
“No killum kill all a body,” said Jimmy nodding; and he went through a sort of pantomime, showing the consequences of being bitten by a viper, beginning with drowsiness, continuing through violent sickness, which it seemed was followed by a fall upon the earth, a few kicks and struggles, and lastly by death, for the black ended his performance by stretching himself out stiffly and closing his eyes, saying:
“Jimmy dead; black fellow dig big hole and put um in de ground. Poor old Jimmy!”
Then he jumped up and laughed, saying: “Killum all um snake! No good! No!”
“I say, Joe Carstairs,” said Jack Penny, who had watched the performance with a good deal of interest; “don’t that chap ever get tired?”
“Oh yes; and goes to sleep every time he gets a chance,” I said.
“Yes! but don’t his back ache? Mine does, horrid, every day, without banging about like that;” and as if he felt his trouble then Jack Penny turned his rueful-looking boy’s face to me and began softly rubbing his long man’s back just across the loins.
It was very funny, too, when Jack was speaking earnestly. In an ordinary conversation he would go on drawl, drawl, drawl in a bass voice; but whenever he grew excited he began to squeak and talk in a high-pitched treble like a boy, till he noticed it himself, and then he would begin to growl again in almost an angry tone; and this was the case now.
“Here, you’re laughing!” he said savagely. “I can’t help being tall and thin, and having a gruff voice like a man, when I’m only a boy. I don’t try to be big and tall! I grew so. And I don’t try to talk gruff.”
“Oh yes! you do, Jack,” I said.
“Well, p’r’aps I do; but I don’t try to talk thin, like I do sometimes.”
“I couldn’t help laughing, Jack,” I said, holding out my hand. “I did not mean to ridicule you.”
He gave my hand quite an angry slap and turned away, but only to come back directly.
“Here, I say; I beg your pardon, Joe Carstairs,” he said, holding out his hand, which I shook heartily. “I wish I hadn’t got such a beastly bad temper. I do try not to show it, but it makes me wild when people laugh at me.”
“Well, I won’t laugh at you any more, Jack,” I said earnestly.
“No, don’t; there’s a good chap,” he said, with the tears in his eyes. “It’s partly why I came away from home, you know. I wanted to come and find the professor, of course, and I like coming for the change; but it’s principally that.”
“Principallythat!” I said. “I don’t understand you, Jack.”
“Why, I mean about being laughed at! Everybody has always been laughing at me, because I grew so thin and long and weak-looking, and I got tired of it at last, and was precious glad to come out to New Guinea to stop till I had grown thicker. For I said to myself, I don’t s’pose the savage chaps will laugh at me, and if they do I can drop on ’em and they won’t do it again.”
“It must have been unpleasant, Jack,” I said.
“It’s horrid, old fellow,” he said confidentially; “and all the more because you are obliged to laugh at it all when you feel as if you’d like to double ’em up and jump on ’em.”
“Well, there, Jack; I give you my word I won’t laugh at you again.”
“Will you?” cried Jack, with his face beaming, and looking quite pleasant. “Well, that is kind of you. If the doctor wouldn’t laugh either I should be as happy as the day’s long.”
“I’ll ask him not to,” I said.
“Oh, no; don’t do that!” he cried quickly then; “he’d leave off laughing at me just out of pity, and I’d rather he laughed at me than pitied me, you know. Don’t ask him not.”
“All right!” I said. “I will not.”
“I’d rather he laughed at me,” said Jack again thoughtfully; “for I like the doctor; he’s such a brave chap. I say, Joe Carstairs, I wish I could grow into a big broad-chested brave chap with a great beard, like the doctor.”
“So you will some day.”
“Tchah!” he cried impatiently. “Look there—there’s long thin arms! There’s a pair of legs! And see what a body I’ve got. I ain’t got no looking-glass here, but last time I looked at myself my head and face looked like a small knob on the top of a thin pump.”
“You let yourself alone, and don’t grumble at your shape,” I said sturdily, and to tell the truth rather surprising myself, for I had no idea that I was such a philosopher. “Your legs are right enough. They only want flesh and muscle, and it’s the same with your arms. Wait a bit and it will all come, just as beards do when people grow to be men.”
“I sha’n’t never have any beard,” said Jack, dolefully; “my face is as smooth as a girl’s!”
“I daresay the doctor was only a little smooth soft baby once,” I said; “and now see what he is.”
“Ah! ain’t he a fine fellow?” said Jack. “I’m going to try and do as he does, and I want to have plenty of pluck; but no sooner do I get into a scrape than I turn cowardly, same as I did over that little humbug of a crocodile.”
“Don’t talk nonsense, Jack!” I said.
“’Tisn’t nonsense! Why, if I’d had as much courage as a wallaby I should have kicked that thing out of the water; and all I did was to lay hold of a bough and holler murder!”
“I didn’t hear you,” I said.
“Well,help! then. I know I hollered something.”
“And enough to make you. The doctor said he is sure he should not have borne it so bravely as you.”
“No: did he? When?”
“To be sure he did, when we were sitting watching last night.”
“Bah! it was only his fun. He was laughing at me again.”
“He was not,” I said decidedly. “He was in real earnest.”
“Oh!” said Jack softly; and there was once more the pleasant light in his countenance that quite brightened it up.
I was going to say something else, but he made a motion with his hand as if asking me to be silent; and he walked on to the front to go behind Ti-hi, who was first man, while I went and marched beside the doctor, and chatted with him about the country and our future prospects.
“It seems, almost too lovely,” I said; “and it worries me because I feel as if I ought to be sad and unhappy, while all the time everything seems so beautiful that I can’t help enjoying it.”
“In spite of perils and dangers, Joe, eh?” he said smiling; and then we went on threading our way amongst the magnificent trees, and every now and then coming upon one standing all alone, its position having allowed of its growing into a perfect state.
Again we came upon one of these, literally alive with parrots; and, as I stopped to admire them, I could see that when they opened their vivid green wings the inner parts were of a brilliant flame colour, and there was a ruddy orange patch upon the little feathers at the inset of their tails.
Then we came upon monkeys again, quite a family of them, and instead of running away and leaping from branch to branch they began to chatter and shriek and dash about in the greatest excitement, just as if they were scolding us for coming among them, chattering among themselves directly after as if meditating an attack.
Before another hour had passed, after noting the beauty of the butterflies, which seemed to increase in number as we penetrated farther into the interior, we came next upon an enormous tree full of gaudily-tinted parroquets, which were nearly as numerous as the parrots of an hour before.
“We sha’n’t want for food, Joe,” the doctor said, “so long as we have plenty of powder; parroquets and parrots are fruit birds, and splendid eating. Look there.”
As he spoke he raised his gun, fired, and directly the report had struck my ears I saw Jimmy and Gyp set off at full speed.
They returned both at odds, the one growling, the other calling his rival a bad bunyip dog, but both holding tightly by a large bird, Gyp having its head, Jimmy the legs.
It proved to be something between a turkey and a pheasant, and from its look it promised to be good eating, for which purpose it was handed over to Ti-hi’s care.
The leader now bore off a little to our left, the result being that we once more struck the river, to find it a large swift stream, but not an attractive place for travellers, since from that one spot where we stood beneath the shelter of some trees I counted at least twenty crocodiles floating slowly down, with the protuberances above their eyes just visible, and here and there at least thirty more lying about on the muddy banks.
Towards evening, as we were journeying slowly on, Jimmy came running back to fetch me, and catching me by the hand he led me through some bushes to where a thickly wooded park-like stretch of land began, and motioning me to be silent and follow him he crept from tree to tree, till, having reached what he considered to be a satisfactory position, he pointed upward, and from behind the tree where we were ensconced I looked among the branches far overhead, and for the first time saw one of those wonderfully plumaged creatures—the birds of paradise.
I could have stopped there for long, gazing at the beautiful creatures with their fountain-like plumage of pale gold, but time would not permit of my lagging behind, and to Jimmy’s great disgust I hurried back, and determined that no object should lead me away from the great aim of our journey.
The turkey was ample as a meal for us, but we wanted food for our followers, so as to husband our flour and biscuits. Birds were all very well, but we wanted to kill something more substantial, and for a long time past we had seen no sign of deer, though traces of buffalo were pretty frequent in spots where they had made a peculiar track down to the river, evidently going regularly to quench their thirst.
The sight of the buffalo tracks formed the subject of a discussion. Fresh meat was wanted for our followers, who made very light of birds, and one of these animals would have been invaluable to us just then; but the doctor decided that it would not be prudent to follow them, they being rather dangerous beasts, and therefore, though the meat would have been so useful both for present use and to dry in the sun, we gave up the idea of trying to obtain any, preferring to trust to finding deer, and continued our journey.
We had gone very little farther, and I was just about to propose to the doctor that we should venture as far as the river and try for some fish, when there was an alarm given by the native who was leading, and in an instant loads were thrown down and every man sought refuge in a tree.
We did not understand the natives’ words, but their actions were easy enough to read, and all followed their example, the doctor and I getting up into the same tree, one which forked very low down, and we were just in safety when we heard a cry, and saw that Jack Penny was in difficulties. He too had climbed part of the way into a tree, when he had slipped, and in spite of all his efforts he could not at first contrive to get back; and this was just as a rushing noise was heard, that I thought must be a herd of buffalo, but, directly after, a drove of small wild pig came furiously charging down.
My attention was divided between the sight of the pigs and Jack Penny, whose long legs kept dropping down, and then being spasmodically snatched up.
I burst into a roar of laughter, and Jimmy, who was standing, spear in hand, upon a branch, holding on by another, danced with excitement and delight.
“Pull yourself right up, Jack,” I shouted, and I had hard work to make my voice heard above the grunting and squealing.
“I can’t,” he yelled back.
“Then kick out at the little brutes,” I shouted; and just then he lowered himself to the full length of his arms, swung to and fro, and half-a-dozen pigs rushed at him, but he had gained impetus, and just as they made a dash at him he swung his legs up, and clung with them to a branch.
“Hurrah!” I shouted; and then a sharp squeal uttered by one unfortunate pig as Jimmy drove his spear through it as it passed beneath his feet, and the sharp report of the doctor’s piece, brought me to my senses.
The scene had been so comical, especially as regarded Jack Penny, that I had forgotten that I was letting several good dinners slip away, and I had just time to get a quick shot at one of the pigs which was stamping his hoof and grunting defiantly at Jack Penny, before the whole drove, including one that had received an arrow from Ti-hi’s bow, swept by us as hurriedly as they came, and were gone.
“Not hurt, are you, Jack?” I said, preparing to jump.
“Keep your place,” cried the doctor; “they may come back.”
“Well, I shall have a better shot at them,” I said.
“You foolish boy!” cried the doctor. “Why, the boars would rip you to pieces.”
I returned to my place at this, and it was fortunate that I did so, for directly after, as if in the wildest of haste, the pig drove came dashing back, to stop as hastily as they came up, and stand snapping, tossing their heads, grunting, squealing, and at times literally barking at us.
A couple of shots which laid low one of their party seemed, however, to scare them, and they dashed on once more, and hardly had they gone twenty yards before there was a loud thud and Jack Penny fell from the branch, where he had been clinging, flat upon his back.
“Oh my!” he cried, as he sat up and looked about. “I couldn’t hold on any longer. It’s lucky they are gone.”
“Look out!” I cried, swinging myself down, dropping my gun, and pulling my hatchet from my belt; but Jack would have fared badly if he had depended on me.
For the little boar that had been wounded by an arrow, had dropped, apparently dying, when its companions swept by the second time, but it had fierce life enough left in it to take advantage of Jack Penny’s helpless condition, and leaping up it charged at him, its tusks glistening, and the foam tossed from its snapping jaws falling upon its sides.
A bullet would have given the fierce beast its quietus, but the doctor would not fire for fear of hitting Jack, and he sat with his gun raised waiting for an opportunity.
Jack saw his danger and rolled himself over, trying vainly the while to drag his axe from his belt. Then just as the furious little boar was dashing at him, I saw something black dart down from above; there was a rush, a squeal, and the boar was literally pinned to the earth, while Jimmy stood grinning and staring from the doctor to me and back, as if asking to be complimented upon his feat. For it really was a feat. He had jumped fully ten feet to the ground spear in hand, and literally thrown himself upon the little boar.
“A magnificent jump, Jimmy,” I cried.
“Jimmy de boy to jump,” he said, complacently. “Pig, pig kill Mass Jack Penny, Jimmy no spear um.”
“Yes, I ’spect I should have ketched it pretty warmly,” said Jack, gathering himself up. “Oh, I say, I did come down such a bump, Joe Carstairs. It seemed to shake my back joints all to pieces.”
“Jimmy spear um lil pig, pig,” said the black.
“Yes, and I’ll give you my knife for it,” said Jack, taking out his great clasp-knife. “It’s a real good one, Jimmy, and I wouldn’t have parted with it for a deal.”
“Jimmy got knife,” said the black, with a contemptuous look. “Jimmy don’t want knife.”
“Well, then, what shall I give you?” said Jack.
“Tickpence,” said he, grinning; “give Jimmy tickpence.”
“Why, what for?” I cried. “What are you going to do withtickpence?”
“Spend um,” said Jimmy; “black fellow spend money, money. Give Jimmy all a tickpence.”
“But there’s nowhere to spend it,” I said.
“Nev mind, Jimmy spend tickpence all a same. Give Jimmy tickpence.”
Jack had not a single coin about him, neither had I, but fortunately the doctor had one, which he handed to Jack, who gave it to the delighted black, and it was forthwith thrust into the pocket of the curtailed trousers, after which he strutted about, leaving the other blacks to perform the duty of dressing the pigs.