CHAPTER TWENTY NINE.
A STRANGE CRY IN THE WOODS.
When I opened my eyes again the sea was dancing and sparkling, and theleaves waving gently in the soft warm breeze. I could see from where Ilay that the water was rippling gently upon the sand, and not far fromthe hut door my uncle was busy skinning some bright-plumaged bird, whileEbo was cooking a couple of pigeons, and watching a little kettle stuckamongst the glowing ashes.
I was very comfortable, and did not feel disposed to move, for allseemed so calm and pleasant; and when I thought a little about myprevious night's fancies I was ready to smile at them as being perfectlyabsurd.
I did not speak, but lay quite still, gazing at the lovely pictureframed by the open door, and thinking how beautiful it all was, and howfoolish I had been to go on fancying such dangers as I had in the night.
Then it was very pleasant, too, to watch Uncle Dick, and how very muchquicker and cleverer he was at making a skin than I was. Still, I hopedby practice to get to be as quick.
He went on till he had dressed the interior of the skin with the soappreparation, and after filling certain parts with cotton-wool, and tyingthe wing-bones together, he turned it back, smoothed the plumage, and Isaw that it was another of the short blue-barred kingfishers similar tothat we had obtained before.
I could not help noticing as I lay there so quietly what great care andattention he gave to his task, seeming as if he thoroughly enjoyed hiswork, and felt it to be a duty to do it well.
At last, though, it was put away to dry, and after carefully washing hishands he came to the hut door very gently to see if I was awake.
"Ah, Nat," he said smiling, "how are you after your long sleep?"
"Long sleep, uncle!" I cried. "Is it very late?"
"Nearly noon, my boy. Well, how are you?"
"I--I think I'm quite well, thank you, uncle," I said, springing up, andfeeling ashamed to be lying there, but turning so giddy that I shouldhave fallen had Uncle Dick not caught my arm.
"Sit down," he said quietly. "There, that is better."
"Yes; I feel better now," I said.
"To be sure you do. Well, Nat, I think we have beaten the fever. Youwill feel weak for a day or two, but you will soon be all right."
And so it proved. For after two or three days of weakness, and astrange weary feeling that was quite new to me, I rapidly got better andfelt no more dread of being alone at night; in fact I slept soundly ascould be, and got up ready and fresh for any new work.
Uncle Dick was very kind, for until I was stronger he contented himselfwith shooting just about the hut, finding plenty of beautiful birds; butas soon as I was strong enough we prepared some cold provisions andstarted off for a longer exploration.
Ebo was delighted, and capered about in the excess of his joy,chattering in his own tongue and introducing every English word he hadpicked up, and these began now to be a good many; but he had very littleidea of putting them to a proper use, muddling them up terribly, butkeeping in the most perfect humour no matter how we laughed at him.
"It is my belief, Nat," said Uncle Dick, "that we shall find somethingbetter worthy of our notice yet if we make a good long expedition intothe more wooded parts of the island."
"I thought we could not be better off, uncle," I said, "for we aregetting some lovely birds."
"So we are, Nat; but one is never satisfied, and always wants more. Iexpect we shall find some birds of paradise, for it strikes me that thecry I have heard several times at daybreak comes from one of them."
"Birds of paradise! Here, uncle?" I cried.
"Why not, my boy? It is as likely a place as it is possible to imagine:an island near the equator, deeply wooded, and hardly ever visited byman. I should say that we must find some here."
"Oh, uncle!" I cried as my eyes glistened, and I felt my cheeks flushat the anticipation of seeing one of these noble birds before the muzzleof my gun.
"I shall be greatly disappointed if we do not find some, and I shouldhave been in search of them before now, only I thought you would like togo, and there was plenty of work close home."
I did not say much, but I felt very grateful at his thoughtfulness, andthe very next morning we were off before it was day, tramping throughthe thick herbage and mounting the rising ground towards the south.
"I purpose trying to get right across the island to-day, Nat," he said,"and if we are too tired to get back all the way we must contrive enoughshelter and camp out for one night in the woods."
"I shall not mind, uncle," I said, and on we went.
This time we had provided ourselves with light small baskets, such as wecould swing from a cord that passed over our right shoulders, and longand deep enough to hold a good many specimens. We all three bore these,Ebo's being double the size of ours, as he had no gun to use, buttrotted easily by our side with his spear over his shoulder.
Before we had gone two miles several lovely birds had fallen to ourguns, principally of the thrush family, for our way was amongst busheson the rising ground.
It is impossible to describe properly the beauty of these lovelysoftly-feathered objects. Fancy a bird of the size of our thrush butwith a shorter tail, and instead of being olive-green and speckled withbrown, think of it as having a jetty head striped with blue and brown,and its body a blending of buff, pale greyish blue, crimson, and black.
We kept on, taking our prizes from the baskets, where they lay incotton-wool, to examine and admire them again and again.
No sooner had we feasted our eyes upon these birds than something asbright of colour fell to our guns. Now it would be a golden oriole orsome glittering sun-bird. Then a beautiful cuckoo with crimson breastand cinnamon-brown back. Then some beautifully painted paroquet with adelicate long taper tail; and we were in the act of examining one ofthese birds, when, as we paused on the edge of a forest of great treesby which we had been skirting, my uncle grasped my arm, for, soundinghollow, echoing, and strange, there rang out a loud harsh cry:"_Quauk-quauk-quauk! Qwok-qwok-qwok_!"
This was answered from a distance here and there, as if there wereseveral of the birds, if they were birds, scattered about the forest.
"There, Nat," said my uncle; "do you hear that?"
"Yes," I said, laughing. "I could hear it plainly enough, uncle. Whatwas it made by--some kind of crow?"
"Yes, Nat, some kind of crow."
"Are they worth trying to shoot, uncle?" I asked.
"Yes," he said with a peculiar smile; and then, as the cry rang outagain, apparently nearer, he signified to Ebo that he should try andguide us in the direction of the sounds.
The black understood him well enough, and taking the lead he went onswiftly through the twilight of the forest, for it was easy walking herebeneath the vast trees, where nothing grew but fungi and a fewpallid-looking little plants.
And so we went on and on, with the trees seeming to get taller andtaller, and of mightier girth. Now and then we caught a glimpse of theblue sky, but only seldom, the dense foliage forming a complete screen.
Every now and then we could hear the hoarse harsh cry; but though wewent on and on for a tremendous distance, we seemed to get no nearer,till all at once Ebo stopped short, there was the hoarse cry justoverhead, and I saw something sweep through the great branches a hundredand fifty feet away.
I had not time to fire, for my uncle's gun made the forest echo, thoughnothing fell.
"I missed it, Nat," he said, "for the branches were in my way; but Ithought I would not let the slightest chance go by."
"What was it, uncle?" I said.
"One of your crows," he replied, laughing; and Ebo went on again.
Just then my uncle glanced at his compass, and saw that we weretravelling in the right direction--due south--so it did not matter howfar we went; but though we kept hearing the cries of the crow-birds, asI eventually called them, we saw no more, and felt disappointed for atime, but not for long; there were too many fresh objects for ournotice.
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At last daylight appeared ahead, and we came out from amongst thetrunks, which had risen up on every side of us like pillars, into abeautiful open valley dotted with trees, some of which were green withluxuriant branches right to the ground.
We did not spend many moments gazing at the beautiful landscape, solovely that I half expected to see houses there, and that it was theresult of clever gardening; but it was nature's own work, and in everytree there were so many birds, and of such lovely kinds, that we seemedto have come to the very place of all in the world to make ourcollection.
"There, Nat, look!" said my uncle, pointing to where, in the fullsunshine, a great bird with a train of soft amber plumage flew acrossthe opening, to disappear amongst the trees; "there goes one of yourcrows."
"That lovely buff bird, uncle?" I said; "why, it looked like what Ishould think a bird of paradise would be."
"And that's what it was, undoubtedly, Nat," he said, "though I neverbefore saw one on the wing."
"But you said crow, uncle," I said. "Oh! of course, you said the birdsof paradise belonged to the crow family. I wish you could have shotit."
"It would have required a rifle to hit it at that distance, Nat; butwait a bit. We have learned one thing, and that is the fact that wehave birds of paradise here, and that satisfies me that we cannot dobetter than keep to our present quarters. This place exceeds my highesthopes for a collecting ground. There, look at that bird by the greathollow-looking tree."
"I was looking at it, uncle. It is one of those great birds with thebig bill and a thing upon it like a deck-house."
"Yes," said my uncle, "and there is something more. Look, Ebo has goneon. He seems to understand by our looks when he cannot make out ourwords."
For Ebo had trotted forward towards the tree that had taken ourattention, where the great hornbill had flown to a dead trunk someten-feet from the ground, and then flapped away.