Chapter 25. Termination Of Our Excursion

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_ CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE. TERMINATION OF OUR EXCURSION

We made our way along the shores of the lower lake till we came out by the side of a beautiful cascade, which fell down over the cliff into a river below us, whence the water flowed away, we concluded, towards the sea; but the dense forest prevented us seeing the course it took. The lower lake I have been describing was raised but a little way above the level of the country. The height of the cascade was fifty feet; and, giving another fifty for the fall of the river, we supposed that we were not much more than one hundred feet above the sea. My uncle, having examined his compass, now settled, as far as he was able, the course we were to take. The river would be our guide, we saw, for a considerable distance; indeed, the stream we crossed by the bamboo bridge was evidently a portion of it. Turning back, we saw, rising above us, the lofty mountain, a shoulder of which we had crossed. We were now better able to judge of its height. Numerous other lofty hills rose on either side of it--mostly bare of trees--some almost black, others of a shining white, which might have been mistaken at a distance for snow; while, from the centre of the cone, wreaths of smoke circled upwards to the sky, giving unmistakable signs of its volcanic character. Our uncle looked at it earnestly.

"It seems to me to be sending forth denser smoke than I have hitherto observed," I heard him remark to Dick Tarbox. "I hope it is not going to play us any trick."

"Maybe a little more tobacco has been put into the pipe," observed the boatswain, in return; "and the old gentleman, whoever he is, who is smoking it, is having a harder pull than usual."

"I hope so; but I had rather he had put off his smoking for a few weeks longer, till we are clear of the place," said my uncle, turning round.

I remembered the fearful danger Oliver and I had escaped when carried off by the Papuans from our island; and I prayed that we might be again preserved from a similar catastrophe. We had made no great progress when it was time to encamp.

"I must charge you, my friends," said Mr Sedgwick, "whoever is on the watch at night, to keep a bright look-out. The orang-outans are our least formidable enemies, for it is seldom that they will attack a person, as the one did we have just encountered; but tigers are far more daring; and if we were to allow the fire to get low, we should run a great risk of a visit from one of them."

We had still an hour or two of daylight. We were all somewhat tired with our long climb: the girls especially required rest. We immediately set to work to form our encampment, making huts, as we had done on the previous nights. Having collected a good supply of dried leaves, we spread mats over them inside the young ladies' bower, to which they retired to rest while supper was preparing. We had still some birds remaining; but my uncle took his gun, saying that he would try to shoot a few more for our meal, and I begged to be allowed to accompany him.

"You will not have much difficulty in providing our supper," I observed, "considering the number of birds flying about in all directions."

The woods were indeed full of sounds of all sorts. I fancied that among them I could distinguish the voices of wild beasts.

"Hark!" I said. "Surely that must be a lion! It is just like the cry I have heard they often give."

My uncle laughed.

"No, indeed," he said. "The voices you hear are those of pigeons."

I could scarcely suppose, however, that he was right, so loud and booming was the sound which came from the woods.

"Oh, what beautiful apples are those?" I observed, as I looked up at a tree in which a number of various birds were collected, among which were several white cockatoos. "I should like to carry some back to the camp."

The fruit we were looking at was round, with a smooth shining skin of a golden orange colour, which might rival in appearance the golden apples of the Hesperides.

"Let them remain where they hang," he answered. "Whoever might attempt to eat them would certainly be made very ill, if they did not die. Those beautiful apples possess the most poisonous properties of any fruit in these regions. They are what we naturalists call _Apocynaceae_. The birds, however, eat those rosy seeds which you see displayed from the ripe fruit, which has burst open.--But stay! There's a fellow; I must have him." He raised his gun, and brought down a fine jungle cock, which Merlin, who had accompanied us, instantly ran forward to catch. He brought it to us, highly pleased with his performance. "He, at all events, will afford a supper for a couple of us, hungry as we may be," said my uncle. "This fellow, or his ancestors rather, is the grandfather of all our domestic poultry in England. They have lost a good deal of their beauty, to be sure, by civilisation, though they may have improved in size and egg-laying powers."

I was fortunate in shooting a couple of great green fruit-pigeons directly afterwards; indeed, in a short time we had as many birds as would supply us for supper and breakfast. We were passing through a wood which consisted chiefly of the great palm, which my uncle said the Malays call the _gubbong_. The trees were in various conditions. Some were simply in leaf, others had flowers on them, others fruit, while many were dead, apparently ready to fall. The leaves were large and fan-shaped, and I remarked that those which had flowers were destitute of leaves; indeed, I could scarcely have supposed that they were the same trees. The full-grown trees had lofty cylindrical stems, and were mostly two hundred feet in height, and two or three feet in diameter. The flowers were on the summit, in the form of a huge terminal spike. On the top of this was the fruit, consisting of masses of smooth round balls, of a green colour, and about an inch in diameter. My uncle told me that each tree only flowers once in its life; and that when the fruit ripens the tree dies, though it remains standing a year or two before it falls to the ground. It was on a branch of one of these trees that I saw the pigeons, where they had settled after feeding on the fruit.

We had gone a little way after I had last fired, when, as we were standing under a tree looking for another shot, a shower of the fruit I have described came falling down thickly about our heads. We quickly ran from under it, when, looking up, my uncle shouted loudly, and immediately a loud chattering was heard, and away scampered a whole tribe of monkeys, making an enormous rustling as they leaped among the dead palm-leaves. One would have fancied that some huge beast was rushing through the wood, so loud was the noise.

It was now time to turn back to the camp. My uncle was a little in advance. He had just fired at a couple of birds, one of which he had brought to the ground, when I saw him start back with an expression of alarm which I had never before heard him utter. Merlin, who was near me, stood still for a moment in an unusual way, poking his head out somewhat like a pointer; and there I saw on the ground, not ten paces from my uncle, a huge snake, with head erect, as if about to make a spring. I well knew that it must be of a venomous character from the exclamation that I heard. Merlin instinctively seemed to think the same. I dreaded lest it should make its spring. In an instant it might do so. I trembled lest I should miss it. I might run the risk also, in firing, of hitting my uncle. I would gladly have rushed forward in his defence. In another instant its envenomed fangs might be fixed in his body. I levelled my fowling-piece, and took a steady aim. I fired! As I did so, Merlin rushed forward with a bound. I thought I saw through the smoke the snake in the air. My uncle had sprung on one side, lifting his gun by the muzzle. "I am safe!" he shouted out. "Walter, you did it well!"

The snake had sprung, but, wounded by the shot, had failed to reach its object, and had been struck to the ground by the butt of the gun. I did not suppose from what I had seen of my uncle that he could be so agitated as he now was. He knew, he told me, the venomous nature of the serpent, and that had it struck him, he should probably have been dead in the course of a few minutes.

"You saved my life by your coolness, my boy," he said. "I believe this serpent is rare in the island, for I have never seen one like it; and it is far more dangerous than the larger python, of which there are many. They can swallow a deer whole, but seldom attack human beings. They would take our friend Merlin down in a gulp; but he probably has sagacity enough to keep out of their way, so you need not be alarmed on his account."

I begged that I might carry the serpent as a trophy to the camp. To do so I coiled it round a stick, and secured it with a piece of thin ratan. As I walked along, Merlin every now and then came up sniffing behind me, and seemed very much inclined to have a bite at it. We saw several more jungle cocks on our way. They were very like the common game-cock, but the voice was much shorter, and more abrupt. The Malays call it the _bekeko_. We had reached an open space, when we saw running before us a couple of the most magnificent peacocks. Their tails, spread out as they ran along, were fully seven feet in length. They had been feeding apparently on the ground, till they were frightened at our approach. Having the snake over my shoulder, I could not fire. My uncle raised his gun, but recollected that he had not loaded. He stopped to do so, when the birds, running on rapidly for a short distance, rose obliquely in the air, and, to my surprise, flew over some lofty trees before them and disappeared. I could scarcely have supposed that birds with such large appendages could have risen thus easily. It was a magnificent sight, as they spread out their spangled tails to aid them in their flight.

At length we reached the camp, where Potto Jumbo had already prepared part of the supper, and was eagerly waiting our return to cook the game we might bring. The tea was boiling in our kettle, and we sat down to our repast, while he plucked and cooked the remainder. Emily and Grace came out of their bower, and officiated at our rural tea-table. Tarbox and Roger Trew arrived directly afterwards. They had gone on an excursion down the river, and reported that they had seen a large animal bounding through the underwood. They had not got a clear sight of it; but, from the account they gave, my uncle pronounced it to be a tiger.

"I must again warn you, my friends, to be on the alert," he observed. "The scent of our cooking may attract him here; but unless he is very hungry, I do not think he will venture among us."

All the party were eager to examine the snake which I had brought in. Emily and Grace, however, shuddered when they saw it, and still more so when they heard the risk to which Mr Sedgwick had been exposed. He again complimented me on the coolness I had displayed when firing at the animal.

Before leaving the camp, we had persuaded Oliver to lie down. My uncle examined his arm, and bathed it in the cool water which we brought from the river.

"You are in good health, or it might have been a serious affair," he observed. "However, I hope, after a night's rest, you will be able to proceed on the journey."

Oliver said nothing, but I saw by the expression of his countenance that he was suffering a good deal of pain; indeed, it seemed surprising, when I looked at his slight arm, and thought of the big jaws of the mias, that it had not been bitten through. As may be supposed, after the warning we had received, we kept up a blazing fire all night, and instead of one watchman, we had two, always awake--either Roger Trew and I, or the boatswain and Potto Jumbo. All night long our ears were assailed with strange sounds--the croaking of frogs, the shrieks of night-birds, and the terror-inspiring cries of beasts of prey. I went to sleep with them still ringing in my ears, and when I awoke, the same sounds were heard. I had been seated on the ground for some time, carefully making up the fire, when a loud rustling among the dried leaves and shrubs at a little distance reached my ears. I started up, fowling-piece in hand, and telling Roger Trew to be on his guard, advanced carefully towards the spot whence the sound had proceeded. I was standing near the camp, behind Emily and Grace's hut, when I saw the head of a huge creature with glaring eyes fixed on me. Still I did not like to arouse my friends. I kept my hand, however, on the trigger, ready to fire should it advance, for it seemed as if it was about to make a spring towards me. There I stood gazing at the animal, with the animal gazing at me, and wondering, probably, what sort of a creature I was. I doubted whether it would be wise to fire; for though my gun was loaded with ball, I might possibly miss it, when it was likely to become more furious than if let alone. I cast one glance behind me at our leafy village, towards which I slowly retreated. As soon as I got near enough for Roger Trew to hear me, I asked him to accompany me to the spot where I had been, that we might be sure what the creature was. He was soon by my side.

"Why, a tiger, to be sure!" he exclaimed, levelling his musket.

He fired, and there was a loud rustling among the trees, as if some large creature were bounding through them. I caught a glimpse of it, and fired. In an instant the whole camp was alarmed. The girls looked out of their bower with scared looks, wondering what had happened, while my uncle and Dick Tarbox came out with their guns in their hands.

"I thought it would be so," said the former; "but you have done well to keep the creature at a distance. However, he is perhaps not far off, and we may before long have another shot at him."

We had some difficulty in persuading the girls to return to their bower after this, while my uncle and Roger Trew insisted on remaining on watch for the remainder of the night. We added fresh fuel to our fire, and loaded and frequently fired our muskets, and kept, as may be supposed, a very strict watch. Next morning we found some hair of the creature in the spot where he had been observed clinging to the bushes, while drops of blood were seen for some distance in the direction he had taken.

At an early hour we proceeded on our road to the house. The banks of the river were very picturesque, though there was not much water in it. It was, however, my uncle supposed, the only full stream in the island. He had discovered the beds of several others, which remained perfectly dry. We were eagerly looking out in the hope of seeing another mias, my uncle being as anxious as any one. He had some time before, he told us, captured a couple; but one of them had managed to escape, and the other, left alone, had pined for his mate, while he evidently resented the close captivity to which he was subjected. Proceeding down the banks of the river, we came to a part where, though not much increased in width, it was evidently deeper, with two or three calm pools, over which the trees threw their boughs, clearly reflected on the smooth surface. At the lower end of one of the pools I caught sight of what appeared to be a log floating on the water. Presently I saw it moving against the stream. "There must be a powerful eddy there," I thought. I pointed it out to Mr Sedgwick. After looking at it for an instant, he made a sign to the rest of the party to keep back. We were all collected together behind a bush, through the branches of which we could observe the banks of the river below us. Presently there was a rustling in the underwood in the direction we were looking, and we caught sight of a huge orang-outan making his way down to the water. Some fruit-bearing tree hung over it, in the branches of which he took his seat, and began to eat away at his leisure, letting the husks and rind fall into the water, and now and then a whole fruit. The log, so it still seemed, was coming close under where the baboon was seated, and remained stationary. The orang-outan apparently took no notice of the object in the water.

"If we were nearer, we should see a pair of wicked eyes looking up out of the end of that log," whispered my uncle, "with some rows of formidable teeth, and a huge mouth below it."

"What! is that log a crocodile?" I asked.

"No doubt about it," was the answer. "The creature expects to make its dinner off the mias; but from what I have heard, the mias will be too clever to be caught by it. But we will see."

After a time, the mias, having eaten as much food as he required, descended the tree towards the edge of the water, holding on to a branch with one of his powerful hands, while he stooped down to spoon out the water with the other. By an almost imperceptible motion the crocodile approached; but the mias, although he appeared to be only intent on quenching his thirst, had evidently a corner of his eye resting on the seemingly harmless log. The crocodile thought it was sure of its prey, and opening its huge jaws, attempted to seize the mias. The latter, however, swung himself quickly up the tree with his arms, and remained looking down on the crocodile within a few feet of its jaws. Then quietly stooping down, he held out a hand within as many inches of his enemy's nose. This, evidently, excited the crocodile's desire to get hold of him, and the amphibious monster began to climb up the bank of the river. The mias waited quietly till it was within two feet of him, and then swung himself along a short distance above it from bough to bough, stopping again when the crocodile had got securely up the bank. As the crocodile got near him, he proceeded on a little further; and thus he went on till he had allured the monster to a considerable distance from the stream. What he was going to do we could not conjecture; indeed, so daring had the mias become, that it seemed very likely, after all, he would fall into the crocodile's jaws. Suddenly, however, we saw him climb up a tree to some distance, and run along a branch which hung directly over where the crocodile was crawling. Then suddenly he flung himself off the branch right on the animal's back, and with his powerful fists began belabouring away at its head and eyes. It seemed, from the movements of the crocodile, that it was already blinded. In vain it snapped its enormous jaws--the loud sound, as its huge teeth met each other, reverberating through the woods. The mias had not the slightest difficulty in keeping his position on the scaly monster's back, as its movements were far too slow to throw him off. He continued belabouring it with his fists till it ceased to move. Then, as the upper jaw was lifted up, he seized it in his powerful grasp, and placing his feet upon its neck, with a power which his lever-like position and prodigious strength made irresistible, he literally tore back the monster's jaw. Having done this, he sprang up a tree, and awaited the result of the injuries he had inflicted. The creature was, however, not completely dead; but though it struggled violently and moved its tail about, its once formidable jaw had lost its means of doing harm. After sitting there a little time we saw him, as if content with his triumph, move off through the forest among the lofty branches of the trees, swinging himself from one to the other with an ease which gave almost grace to his movements.

"The fellow deserves his victory. We will not attempt to shoot him," said Mr Sedgwick.

Indeed, I suspect by that time he might easily have escaped our bullets, had we attempted to kill him. We now hurried out from our shelter, eager to see the injuries which the mias had inflicted on his antagonist. There it lay, utterly helpless, and we could stand by and examine its huge proportions and strong coat of armour without danger. Its struggles became fainter and fainter, and in a short time it seemed perfectly still and dead. Knowing the strength of the crocodile, it gave us a good idea of the immense power of muscle exercised by the mias; and Oliver said it made him feel doubly grateful that he had escaped from the creature which had so nearly killed him. His hurts still gave him pain. We stopped every now and then that a cooling lotion might be applied to them, and he got over the ground as well as the rest of us.

Our return journey gave us rather more anxiety than we had felt on the previous days. The knowledge that there were wild beasts on the island kept us constantly on the alert; but, for my part, I dreaded those huge serpents more than anything else. They none of them gave signs of their approach, as the rattlesnake of America does, while several were of a most venomous description.

We had been going along, keeping a bright look-out on either side, when, being ahead as usual, my uncle looking out for game, I saw a number of birds flying round and round a tree in a curious fashion. I was on the point of levelling my gun and firing, when I thought I would refrain, that I might ascertain what they were about. My uncle just then came up, having observed the same unusual movement of the birds. Most of them were wood-pigeons.

"Look up there," said my uncle in a whisper. "Do you see that seeming branch, and the huge lifeless creeper clinging to the trunk?"

I earnestly watched the object he pointed at, when I perceived that what I took to be the stump of a branch was in reality the head of a huge serpent, whose body was coiled round the tree. The birds came nearer and nearer. One beautiful pigeon was standing on a bough directly above the serpent's head, while others of gay plumage flitted round and round, evidently brought there by some fascinating power it was exerting. The upper part of its body was not coiled round the tree, but simply pressed against it, so that in an instant it could reach to a considerable distance. We watched without uttering a sound, and suddenly its tongue projected from its mouth, and, quick as lightning, it darted forward its head and seized the beautiful pigeon on the nearest branch. So rapid was the movement, that I thought the bird had fallen to the ground; but, as we looked, we saw by the swelling in the creature's throat that it had secured its prey. Again it drew back into its former position, where it remained perfectly motionless; while the other birds came nearer and nearer, and one at length took the place of its unfortunate fellow which had been captured. After a little time the first bird was swallowed, and another caught in the same manner. I was anxious to shoot the serpent. I fired, but missed, I suppose, for the creature did not move. My uncle then took aim at its head. He killed it apparently; but instead of falling down, it remained coiled up, the head as it fell catching in the fork of a branch, which held it securely. There it hung, and we were unable to reach it to ascertain more particularly the species to which it belonged. The birds, frightened by the report, flew away. _

Read next: Chapter 26. An Expedition Along The Coast--Pirates Appear

Read previous: Chapter 24. Excursion Continued--Fearful Encounter With A Monster

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