CHAPTER THIRTY ONE.
LOST IN THE FOREST.
There was no occasion for alarm, the cry only coming from Ebo, who, assoon as he saw us, began making frantic signs to us to come.
"That means the pigeons are cooked, Nat," said my uncle, laughing; andthis was the case, for, as soon as he saw us, the black came running upgesticulating and pointing behind him in the direction of the fire,where the delicious birds were waiting for us to eat.
Those were delightful meals that we had out in the shade of some grandwide-spreading tree, in whose branches every now and then a parrot wouldcome shrieking, to be followed by others; and as we ate our dinner sowould they busily find and eat theirs, hanging by their legs, perhapshead downwards, or perching on one leg and using the other with its softclasping yoke toes like a hand to convey the food towards its beak.
I never felt tired of watching the parrots and paroquets, for besidestheir beauty of plumage of all kinds of soft tints of green, brightenedwith orange and scarlet and blue, they always looked such plump anddelicately feathered birds. I have seen hundreds of them stuffed, andhave admired the bird-mounters' skill, but they never get anywhere nearnature and the soft and downy beauty of a bird in its native state.
The wonder to me was that they could keep themselves so prim, and withevery feather in such perfect order. The paroquets, for instance, hadthe central feathers of their tail so long and thin and delicate, thatit seemed that, flitting and climbing about the trees so much, they mustget them broken, but they apparently never did, except when they weredamaged by our shot.
It was the same with the lovely racket-tailed kingfishers and thefly-catchers, some of which had tails double the length of their ownbodies, and of a delicacy that was beautiful in the extreme.
But I must go back to the rest of our adventures that day, for as soonas we had dined and had a rest, Uncle Dick signed to Ebo that he shouldmake a rough hut beneath this tree, ready for our sleeping that night,and leaving him industriously at work, we started off together to tryand explore a little more of the island.
Going as straight as we could, we were not very long before, from a bitof a hill, we could see the blue waters of the ocean spreading far andwide, and soon after we made out the great rollers falling over upon thesands, which spread right and left, of a dazzling whiteness, beingcomposed entirely of powdered-up coral and madrepore.
There was no need, my uncle said, to go farther that day, for we hadfound out that it was no great distance across the island; the thing nowwas to discover its length.
"It seems a foolish thing to do, perhaps, Nat," said my uncle, "but Ishould very much like to try a little more exploration to-day. I don'tthink we will shoot any more birds, but examine the land instead, so asto be a little at home with its shape, ready for making a trip here andthere in the future. We shall be able to mark down good spots, too, forfinding specimens in the future."
"But shall you stay here long, uncle?" I asked.
"That I cannot answer, Nat," he replied, as we shouldered our guns andtrudged on. "It all depends upon the number of specimens we find, andso far it seems to me that we might travel far before we hit again uponsuch a wild paradise."
"I wonder how Uncle Joe would like to live here!" I said laughing."What a garden he might have, and how things would grow! Oh, how Ishould like to help him build the house and get the garden in order!"
"Your Uncle Joe would be happy anywhere, Nat," said my uncle. "He isone of those contented amiable men who are always at rest; but I'mafraid your Aunt Sophia would soon find it dull, and be grumblingbecause there was no gas, no pavement, no waterworks, no omnibuses, nocabs, no railroads. No, Nat, my boy, your Aunt Sophia would bemiserable here."
"And yet it is such a lovely place," I cried enthusiastically."Everything is so beautiful. Oh! uncle, I could stay here forever."
"No, Nat, you could not," he replied laughing; "but it is very beautifulall the same. I have travelled a great deal, and have seen somewonderful scenery, but I have never met with so much beauty condensed inso small a space."
We kept on walking, but it was only to stop every now and then beforesome fresh find--sometimes it would be a curiously-shaped orchid, or apitcher-plant half full of dead insects. Then some great forest treefull of sweet-scented blossoms, and alive with birds and insects, wouldarrest our attention; or down in some moist hollow, where a tiny streamtrickled from the rocks, there would be enormous tree-ferns springing uptwelve or fifteen feet above us, and spreading their beautiful frondslike so much glorious green lace against the sky. A fern is always abeautiful object, but these tree-ferns were more than beautiful--theywere grand.
The farther we went the more beauties we found, and we kept on notingdown places to visit again where there were palm and other trees full offruit, which evidently formed the larder of various kinds of beautifulbirds. We could have shot enough in that walk to have kept us busymaking skins for days, but we kept to the determination my uncle hadmade, not to shoot any more that day, except once, when the curioushoarse cry of some bird of paradise, answered by others at a distance,tempted us away.
"Birds of paradise are exceptions, Nat," said my uncle, smiling. "Wemust get them when we can."
I immediately seemed to see the beautiful bird flying amongst the trees,with its lovely buff plumes trailing behind like so much live sunshine,and glancing once at my gun to see that the cartridges were in allright, I crept cautiously on amongst the trees on one side as Uncle Dickmade a bit of a curve round in another, so that we had a good many greatforest trees between us, whose foliage we carefully watched as we wentcautiously on.
Every now and then, after a silence that made us think that our labourwas all in vain, and we were about to give up, the loud harsh cry wouldcome echoing from amongst the trees, and always seeming so near that Ithought I must get a shot at the bird in a moment or two, and I bentdown and crept on as quietly as I could, till the tree from which thesound seemed to come was reached.
Then I would stand ready to fire, watching carefully for a shot, peeringamongst the boughs, and fancying a dozen times over that I could catchglimpses of the bird amongst the leaves, when, as if laughing at me formy pains, the cry would come again from a couple of hundred yards away,and the chase went on.
I did not shout to Uncle Dick, for by stopping to listen now and then Icould hear the rustling of the leaves and twigs as he went on, besidesevery now and then catching through the dim light a glimpse of his face.
Once or twice, when a beautiful bird sprang up between us, my heartbegan to beat more quickly, for I thought that if uncle was tempted toshoot at it he might hit me; but by degrees I grew more confident andwalked boldly on, feeling that I had nothing to fear.
That bird must have led us for miles. Every time we were ready to giveup, the hoarse cry rang out again, and we followed once more, feelingsure that sooner or later we must get a shot at it, or at one of theothers which kept answering from a distance; but at last I heard apeculiar whistle from where my uncle would be, and I forced my waythrough the undergrowth and joined him.
"Nat," he said, wiping the perspiration from his face, "that must havebeen a wild-goose instead of a bird of paradise. Have you heard itlately?"
"No, uncle; not for quite a quarter of an hour. I think it must havetaken a longer flight this time."
"_Yawk, yawk--wok, wok, wok, wok, wok_," rang out close behind us, andwe both fired simultaneously at a faint gleam of what seemed to beyellow light as it flitted through the glade, running forward to getbeyond the smoke in the hope that we might have hit it.
But even if we had we should not have been able to find it, for in theeagerness of our pursuit we had come now into one of the densest partsof the forest that we had found, and after wandering on through a faintwarm glow caused by the setting sun shining through the tree trunks, asudden dull greyness had come upon us, followed almost at once bydarkness, and we knew that we were lost.
"I ought to have known better, Nat,"
said my uncle, with an exclamationof impatience. "I have not the most remote idea where our camp is, andEbo will be expecting us back."
"Oh! never mind, uncle," I said; "let's have a try. I dare say we canfind the way back."
"My dear boy, it would be sheer folly," he replied. "How is itpossible? We are tired out now, and it would be only exhaustingourselves for nothing, and getting a touch of fever, to go striving onthrough the night."
"What are we to do then, uncle?"
"Do, my boy? Do as Adam did, make ourselves as comfortable as we canbeneath a tree. We can do better, for we can cut some wood and leavesto make ourselves a shelter."
"What, build a hut, uncle?" I said in dismay; for I was now beginningto find out how tired I really was.
"No; we won't take all that trouble; but what we do we must do quickly.Come along."
I followed him up a slope to where the ground seemed to be a trifle moreopen and the trees larger, and as we forced our way on my uncle drew hisgreat hunting-knife and chopped down a straight young sapling, which,upon being topped and trimmed, made a ten-feet pole about as thick as myarm was then.
This he fixed by resting one end in the fork of a tree and tying theother to a branch about five feet from the ground.
"Now then, Nat," he cried, "get your big sheath-knife to work and clearthe ground here. Does it seem dry?"
"Yes, uncle, quite," I said.
"Well, then, you chop off plenty of soft twigs and leaves and lay themthickly for a bed, while I make a roof over it."
We worked with a will, I for my part finding plenty of tree-ferns, whosefronds did capitally, and Uncle Dick soon had laid sloping against thepole a sufficiency of leafy branches to form an ample shelter againstthe wind and rain should either come.
"So far, so good, Nat," he said; "now are you very hungry?"
"I'm more tired than hungry, uncle," I said.
"Then I think we will light a fire and then have as good a night's restas we can."
There was no difficulty in getting plenty of dried wood together, andafter a few failures this began to blaze merrily, lighting up the leavesof the trees with a rich red glow; and when it was at its height settinga good many birds flitting about in the strange glow, so that we couldhave procured more specimens here. But after sitting talking by thefire for some time we crept in under our leafy shed, and it seemed to methat no sooner had I stretched myself out than I fell fast asleep.
Nat the Naturalist: A Boy's Adventures in the Eastern Seas Page 31
