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Bunyip Land: A Story of Adventure in New Guinea, a novel by George Manville Fenn |
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Chapter 24. How The Doctor Took Me In Hand |
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_ CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR. HOW THE DOCTOR TOOK ME IN HAND It is surprising how elastic the mind is in young people, and my experience has shown me that there is a great deal of resemblance between the minds of savages and those of the young. In this case we had all been, I may say, in a state of the most terrible despair one hour. The next, our black companions were laughing and chattering over their wet damper, and Jimmy was hopping about in the highest of glee, while I must confess to a singular feeling of exhilaration which I showed in company with Jack Penny, who, after resuming his garments, seemed to have been seized with the idea that the proper thing to do was to go round from one to another administering friendly slaps on the shoulder accompanied by nods and smiles. I used to wish that Jack Penny would not smile, for the effect upon his smooth boyish countenance was to make him look idiotic. When the doctor smiled there was a grave kindly benevolent look in his fine heavily-bearded massive face. When Jimmy smiled it was in a wholesale fashion, which gave you an opportunity of counting his teeth from the incisors right back to those known as wisdom-teeth at the angles of his jaws. He always smiled with all his might and made me think of the man who said he admired a crocodile because it had such a nice open countenance. Jimmy had a nice open countenance and a large mouth; but it in no respect resembled a crocodile's. His regular teeth were white with a china whiteness, more than that of ivory, and there was a genuine good-tempered look about his features which even the distortion produced by anger did not take away. It was only the rather comic grotesqueness seen sometimes in the face of a little child when he is what his mother calls a naughty boy, and distends his mouth and closes his eyes for a genuine howl. But Jack Penny had a smile of his own, a weak inane sickly smile that irritated instead of pleasing you, and made you always feel as if you would like to punch his head for being such a fool, when all the time he was not a fool at all, but a thoroughly good-hearted, brave, and clever fellow--true as steel--steel of the very elastic watch-spring kind, for the way in which he bent was terrible to see. So Jack Penny went about smiling and slapping people's backs till it was time to go, and we all watched the cessation of the flood with eagerness. The doctor, in talking, said that it was evident that this gorge ran right up into quite a mountainous region acting as a drain to perhaps a score of valleys which had been flooded by the sudden storm, and that this adventure had given us as true an idea of the nature of the interior we were about to visit as if we had studied a map. Down went the water more and more swiftly till, as I was saying to the doctor how grand it must have been to see the flood rolling over the great fall, we saw that the rocky ledge along which we had come and that on the other side of our little haven of safety were bare and drying up, being washed perfectly clean and not showing so much as a trace of mud. "Let us get on at once," the doctor said; "this is no road for a traveller to choose, for the first storm will again make it a death-trap." So here we were rescued, and we started at once, every one carefully avoiding the slightest reference to the fate of our pursuers, while in the broad light of day, in place of looking terrible, the chasm was simply grand. The cool rolling water seemed to bring with it a soft sweet breeze that made us feel elastic, and refreshed us as we trudged along at an ordinary rate, for there was no fear now of pursuit. So with one or two halts we walked on all day till I felt eager to get out from between the prison-like walls to where the trees were waving, and we could hear the voices of the birds. Here there was nothing but stone, stone as high as we could see. It was a great drawback our not being able to converse with the bearers, but we amended this a little every hour, for Ti-hi struggled hard to make us understand how much he knew about the place and how he knew that there were such floods as this from time to time. We managed to learn from him, too, that we should not escape from the gorge that night, and to our dismay we had to encamp on a broad shelf when the sun went down; but the night proved to be clear and calm, and morning broke without any adventure to disturb our much-needed rest. The gorge had been widening out, though, a great deal on the previous evening, and by noon next day, when we paused for a rest after a long tramp over constantly-rising ground, we were beyond risk from any such storm as that which had nearly been our destruction, but as we rested amid some bushes beside what was a mere gurgling stream, one of several into which the river had branched, Ti-hi contrived to make us understand that we were not in safety, for there were people here who were ready to fight and kill, according to his words and pantomimic action, which Jimmy took upon himself to explain. For days and days we journeyed on finding abundance of food in the river and on its banks by means of gun and hook and line. The blacks were clever, too, at finding for us roots and fruit, with tender shoots of some kind of grassy plant that had a sweet taste, pleasantly acid as well, bunches of which Jimmy loved to stick behind him in his waistband so that it hung down like a bushy green tail that diminished as he walked, for he kept drawing upon it till it all was gone. Now and then, too, we came upon the great pale-green broad leaves of a banana or plantain, which was a perfect treasure. Jimmy was generally the first to find these, for he was possessed of a fine insight into what was good for food. "Regular fellow for the pot," Jack Penny said one day as Jimmy set up one of his loud whoops and started off at a run. This was the first time we found a plantain, and in answer to Jimmy's _cooey_ we followed and found him hauling himself up by the large leaf-stalks, to where, thirty feet above the bottom, hung, like a brobdignagian bunch of elongated grapes, a monstrous cluster of yellow plantains. "I say, they ain't good to eat, are they?" said Jack, as Jimmy began hacking through the curved stalk. "Yup, yup! hyi, hyi!" shouted Jimmy, tearing away so vigorously at the great bunch that it did not occur to him that he was proceeding in a manner generally accredited to the Irishman who sawed off a branch, cutting between himself and the tree. The first knowledge he, and for the matter of fact we, had of his mistake, was seeing him and the bunch of bananas, weighing about a hundredweight, come crashing down amongst the undergrowth, out of a tangle of which, and the huge leaves of the plantain tree, we had to help our black companion, whose first motion was to save the fruit. This done he began to examine himself to see how much he was hurt, and ended by seizing my axe and bounding back into the jungle, to hew and hack at the tree till we called him back. "Big bunyip tree! Fro black fellow down," he cried furiously. "Got um bana, though!" he exclaimed triumphantly, and turning to the big bunch he began to separate it into small ones, giving us each a portion to carry. "I say, what's these?" said Jack Penny, handling his bunch with a look of disgust. "Bananas," I said. "Splendid fruit food." "How do you know?" said Jack sourly. "There's none in your garden at home." "My father has often told me about them," I replied. "They are rich and nutritious, and--let's try." I ended my description rather abruptly, for I was thirsty and hungry as well, and the presence of a highly flavoured fruit was not to be treated with contempt. I cut off one then, and looking at Jack nodded, proceeded to peel it, and enjoyed the new sweet vegetable butter, flavoured with pear and honey, for the first time in my life. "Is it good?" said Jack, dubiously. "Splendid," I said. "Why, they look like sore fingers done up in stalls," he said. "I say, I don't like the look of them." "Don't have any, then," I said, commencing another; while every one present, the doctor included, followed my example with so much vigour that Jack began in a slow solemn way, peeling and tasting, and making a strange grimace, and ending by eating so rapidly that the doctor advised a halt. "Oh, all right!" said Jack. "I won't eat any more, then. But, I say, they are good!" There was no likelihood of our starving, for water was abundant, and fruit to be found by those who had such energetic hunters as the blacks. So we proceeded steadily on, hoping day by day either to encounter some friendly tribe, or else to make some discovery that might be of value to us in our search. And so for days we journeyed on, hopeful in the morning, dispirited in the heat of the day when weary. Objects such as would have made glad the heart of any naturalist were there in plenty, but nothing in the shape of sign that would make our adventure bear the fruit we wished. If our object had been hunting and shooting, wild pig, deer, and birds innumerable were on every hand. Had we been seeking wonderful orchids and strangely shaped flowers and fruits there was reward incessant for us, but it seemed as if the whole of the interior was given up to wild nature, and that the natives almost exclusively kept to the land near the sea-shore. The doctor and I sat one night by our watch-fire talking the matter over, and I said that I began to be doubtful of success. "Because we have been all over the country?" he replied, smiling. "Well, we have travelled a great way," I said. "Why, my dear boy, what we have done is a mere nothing. This island is next in size to Australia. It is almost a continent, and we have just penetrated a little way." "But I can't help seeing," I said, "that the people seem to be all dwellers near the sea-coast." "Exactly. What of that?" he replied. "Then if my poor father were anywhere a prisoner, he would have been sure to have found some means of communicating with the traders if he had not escaped." "Your old argument, Joe," he said. "Are you tired of the quest?" "Tired? No!" I cried excitedly. "Then recollect the spirit in which we set about this search. We said we would find him." "And so we will: my mind is made up to find him--if he be living," I added mournfully. "Aha!" said the doctor, bending forward and looking at me by the light of the burning wood, "I see, my fine fellow, I see. We are a bit upset with thinking and worry. Nerves want a little tone, eh? as we doctors say. My dear boy, I shall have to feel your pulse and put you to bed for a day or two. This is a nice high and dry place: suppose we camp here for a little, and--" "Oh no, no, doctor," I cried. "But I say, Oh yes, yes. Why, Joe, you're not afraid of a dose of physic, are you? You want something, that's evident. Boys of your age don't have despondent fits without a cause." "I have only been thinking a little more about home, and--my poor father," I said with a sigh. "My dear Joe," said the doctor, "once for all I protest against that despondent manner of speaking. 'My poor father!' How do you know he is poor? Bah! lad: you're a bit down, and I shall give you a little quinine. To-morrow you will rest all day." "And then?" I said excitedly. "Then," he said thoughtfully--"then? Why, then we'll have a fishing or a shooting trip for a change, to do us both good, and we'll take Jack Penny and Jimmy with us." "Let's do that to-morrow, doctor," I said, "instead of my lying here in camp." "Will you take your quinine, then, like a good boy?" he said laughingly. "That I will, doctor--a double dose," I exclaimed. "A double dose you shall take, Joe, my lad," he said; and to my horror he drew a little flat silver case out of his pocket, measured out a little light white powder on the blade of a knife into our pannikin, squeezed into it a few drops of the juice of a lemon-like fruit of which we had a pretty good number every day, filled up with water, and held it for me to drink. "Oh, I say, doctor!" I exclaimed, "I did not think I should be brought out here in the wilderness to be physicked." "Lucky fellow to have a medical man always at your side," he replied. "There, sip it up. No faces. Pish! it wasn't nasty, was it?" "Ugh! how bitter!" I cried with a shudder. "Bitter? Well, yes; but how sweet to know that you have had a dose of the greatest medicine ever discovered. There, now, lie down on the blanket near the fire here, never mind being a little warm, and go to sleep." I obeyed him unwillingly, and lay attentively watching the doctor's thoughtful face and the fire. Then I wondered whether we should have that savage beast again which had haunted our camp at our first starting, and then I began to dose off, and was soon dreaming of having found my father, and taken him in triumph back to where my mother was waiting to receive us with open arms. _ |
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