Home > Authors Index > George Manville Fenn > Nat the Naturalist: A Boy's Adventures in the Eastern Seas > This page
Nat the Naturalist: A Boy's Adventures in the Eastern Seas, a fiction by George Manville Fenn |
||
Chapter 33. My Earthquake |
||
| < Previous |
Table of content |
Next > |
|
________________________________________________
_ CHAPTER THIRTY THREE. MY EARTHQUAKE I said very little to my uncle about my alarm, feeling sure that he would laugh very heartily at my mistake, but I lay awake for some little while thinking that it was time I grew to be more manly and brave, and not so ready to be frightened at everything I could not directly understand. It seemed so shocking, too, for I might in my cowardly fear have shot poor Ebo, who was one of the best and truest of fellows, and seemed never so happy as when able to do something for me. My last thoughts before I went to sleep were that I hoped I might grow into a brave and true man, and I determined to try hard not to be such a weak coward. I have often thought since, though, that if any ordinary man had been placed in the same situation he would have been as nervous as I; for to awake out of a deep sleep in a dark forest in a wild land, where dangerous beasts might be lurking, to hear a peculiar rustling noise, and through the faint light to make out the figure of the black, looking big and indistinct as he crept on all-fours, was, to put it as you may, very startling. I was ready enough to laugh at all the dread when I awoke in the morning to find the sun just up, and sending his rays through the long vistas of trees, where the birds were whistling, twittering, and screaming loudly, while every now and then from a distance came the hoarse cry of the birds of paradise. "It is terribly tempting, Nat," said my uncle, "but I think we had better make straight for camp and get a good breakfast before we do anything else. Hallo! what is Ebo doing?" "Making up the fire," I said; and directly the black had thrown on a great armful of dead wood he came to us laughing and rubbing the front of his person, squeezing himself in to show how empty he was, after which he picked up a stick, took aim at a bird, said "_Bop_!" and ran to pick it up; coming back laughing for us to applaud his performance. "Well, Nat, that's a piece of dumb-show that says very plainly we are to shoot some birds for breakfast before we do anything else, and it would perhaps be wise, so come along; there are some of our old friends in that great palm-tree." I followed my uncle closely, and we had no difficulty in shooting three of the great pigeons, which Ebo pounced upon and carried off in triumph, and in a few minutes they were roasting upon sticks, while our black cook busied himself in climbing a cocoa-tree, from which he detached half a dozen nuts, each of which came down with a tremendous thud. I was terribly hungry, but Uncle Dick said we should be worse if we stopped there smelling the roasting pigeons. So we took our guns and went across an opening to where there was tree after tree, rising some thirty or forty feet high, all covered with beautiful white sweet-scented starry flowers, each with a tube running up from it like that of a jasmine. All about this beautiful little birds were flitting, and as we watched them for some time I could see their feathers flash and glitter in the sunshine, as if some wore tiny helmets of burnished gold and breastplates of purple glittering scales. No colours could paint the beauty of these lovely little creatures, which seemed to be of several different kinds, for some had patches of scarlet, of orange, blue, and white to add to the brilliancy of their feathering; and so little used were they to the sight of man that they seemed to pay no attention to us, but allowed us to go very close, so that we could see them flit and hover and balance themselves before the sweet-scented starry bell-flowers, into whose depths they thrust their long thin beaks after the honey and insects that made them their home. I soon learned from my uncle that they were the sun-birds, the tiny little fellows that were in the Old World what the humming-birds were in the New, for there are no humming-birds in the East. Following Uncle Dick's example, I took the shot out of my gun, for he said that the concussion and the wad would be sufficient to bring them down. But, somehow, we were so interested in what we saw that neither of us thought of firing, and there we stood watching the glittering feathers, the graceful motions, and the rapidity with which these tiny birds seemed to flash from blossom to blossom, till a loud yell from Ebo summoned us to breakfast. "Yes, Nat," said my uncle, who seemed to read my thoughts, "that is the way to see the beauty of the sun-birds. No stuffed specimens of ours will ever reproduce a hundredth part of their beauty; but people cannot always come from England to see these things. Take care! What's that?" We were going through rather a dense patch of undergrowth, where the ground beneath was very soft and full of water, evidently from some boggy springs. There was a great deal of cane and tall grass, with water weeds of a most luxuriant growth, and the place felt hot and steamy as we forced our way through, till, as I was going first and parting the waving canes right and left with my gun barrel, I stepped upon what seemed to be a big branch of a rotten tree that had fallen there, when suddenly I felt myself lifted up a few inches and jerked back, while at the same moment the canes and grass crashed and swayed, and something seemed to be in violent motion. "Is it an earthquake, uncle?" I said, looking aghast at the spot from whence had been jerked. "Yes, Nat, and there it goes. Fire, boy, fire!" He took rapid aim a little to the left, where the canes and broad-leaved plants were swaying to and fro in a curious way, just as if, it seemed then, a little pig was rushing through, and following his example I fired in the same direction. But our shots seemed to have no effect, and whatever it was dashed off into a thicker part, where it was too swampy to follow even if we had been so disposed. "Your earthquake has got away for the present, Nat," said my uncle. "Did you see it?" "No, uncle," I said. "But you must have trodden upon it, and it threw you back." "No, uncle; I trod upon the trunk of a small tree, that was all." "You trod upon a large serpent, Nat, my boy," he exclaimed. "Ugh!" I ejaculated; and I made a jump back on to more solid ground. "The danger has passed now, Nat," he said, smiling at my dread; "but really I could not have believed such a creature existed in so small an island." "Oh, uncle!" I cried, "I shall never like to go about again for fear of treading upon another." "You will soon get over that, Nat, and perhaps we may have the luck to shoot the brute. I don't think we did it much mischief this time, though I got a good sight of it as it glided amongst the canes." "Why, we had no shot in our guns, uncle," I cried; "we took them out so as not to knock the sun-birds about too much." "Of course!" cried my uncle. "How foolish of me not to remember this!" We had both reloaded now, and then, without heeding a shout from Ebo, we stood looking in the direction taken by the reptile, though now all the luxuriant canes and grasses were quite still. "What do you say, Nat?" said my uncle. "Shall we follow the monster and try and shoot it?" "It must be forty or fifty feet long, uncle," I said, feeling a curious creeping sensation run through me. "Forty or fifty nonsenses, my boy!" he said, laughing. "Such serpents as that only exist in books. They rarely exceed twenty feet where they are largest. That fellow would not be fifteen. What do you say--will you come?" "Ye-es, uncle," I said hesitatingly, feeling hot and cold by turns. "Why, Nat," he said quietly, "you are afraid!" I did not speak for a moment or two, but felt the hot blood flush into my face as I stood there looking him full in the eyes, and unable to withdraw my gaze. "Yes, uncle," I said at last. "I did not want to be, but a serpent is such a horrible thing, and I am afraid." "Yes, it is a horrible monster, Nat," he said quietly. "I don't like them myself, but if we could kill it--" "I can't help feeling afraid, uncle," I said, "but I'm ready to go on now." "What! to attack it, Nat?" "Yes, uncle." "It will be rather dangerous, my boy." "Yes, uncle," I said. "I suppose so; but I want to get over being so afraid of things. I'm quite ready now." I looked to him to come on at once, but he did not move, and stood looking at me for some minutes without speaking. "Then we will go and attack the brute, Nat," he said; "but it will not go away from that bit of a swamp, so we will try and put a little more nerve into our hearts with a good breakfast, and then have Ebo to help us, unless he proves to be a worse coward than you." "He could not be, uncle," I said pitifully; and I felt very, very miserable. "Oh! yes, he could be, Nat, my boy," said my uncle, smiling, and grasping me affectionately by the arm. "You are a coward, Nat, but you fought with your natural dread, mastered it, and are ready to go and attack that beast. Master Ebo may be a coward and not fight with and master his dread. So you see the difference, my boy." Another shout from the black made us hasten our steps to where he was dancing about and pointing to the crisp brown pigeons, big as chickens, with great green leaves for plates, and the new ripe cocoa-nuts divested of their husks; but for a few moments I could not eat for thinking of the serpent. My fresh young appetite asserted itself though soon after, and, forgetting the danger to come, I made one of the most delicious of meals. _ |
||