Mother Carey's Chicken Part 41

"Sure to be of some kind. The place is evidently extensive. Pig, perhaps deer; plenty of birds; and we have guns and ammunition. Then there will be fruit."

"Do you think so, sir?"

"I'm sure of it. There are the cocoa-nuts to begin with. Fruit! yes, and vegetables too."

Mark smiled.

"Ah, you don't know! Knock that fly off Morgan's cheek. But I do, my lad. We sha'n't get any asparagus; but we can eat the palm-shoots; and as for cabbage, we sha'n't regret that as long as we can get at the hearts of the palms."

"Do you think there will be any snakes?" asked Mark.

"Sure to be."

"Poisonous?"

"Very likely. Perhaps some big ones. They'll do to eat if we are very hungry."

"Ugh!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Mark, with a shudder.

"Well, I'm like the Yankee backwoodsman, Mark, my lad. He didn't 'hanker arter crows' after he had eaten them once. I don't 'hanker arter' snakes, but I'd sooner sit down to a section of boa-constrictor roasted in the ashes than starve."

"I don't think I would."

"Wait till you are starving, my lad."

"Should you say there are any big dangerous animals?" continued Mark, after a pause; "lions, or tigers, or leopards?"

"Certainly not; but there may be rhinoceros or elephant, if the island is big enough, or near the mainland, and--what the d.i.c.kens is that?"

He jumped up as rapidly as Mark sprang to his feet, for just then there came, apparently not from very far off, so terrible a roar that the major ran to the nearest gun, examined the loading, and then stood with the weapon c.o.c.ked.

Mark involuntarily caught his arm.

"Don't do that, boy," said the major in a low angry voice. "That is what a woman would do--try to find protection, and hinder the man. Get a weapon if it's only your knife."

Mark's pale face flushed, and he caught up a gun, to stand beside the major, as the terrific harsh yelling roar came again.

It was a sound horrible enough to startle the stoutest hearted, so weird and peculiar was it in its tones; while the silence which succeeded was even more terror inspiring, for it suggested that the wild beast which had uttered the cry might have caught sight of them, and be coming nearer.

The sound seemed to come from the rocky rapidly-rising ground beyond the narrow tree-fern shaded gorge where the spring had been found; but though they listened intently for a few moments, there was utter stillness till all at once there was a fresh sound, something between a sigh and a moan, such as an animal might utter if it had been struck down.

Mark's eyes swept the land beyond the cocoa-nut grove wildly; but he could see nothing save the rocks and flowering shrubs; then he glanced at the shaded sands where their friends were sleeping, but the sound had not awakened them.

"I can't make it out, Mark," said the major, as he keenly swept the place as far as the trees would allow. "Couldn't be fancy, could it?"

The answer came in a piteous burst of howls, followed by a hissing sound, and directly after Bruff appeared, tearing along on three legs, his last tucked out of sight, the rough s.h.a.ggy hair which formed a ruff about his neck bristling; and close behind him, Jacko running as if for his life.

"No," said the major; "it couldn't be fancy. They heard it too."

Bruff ran up to Mark, and crouched at his feet s.h.i.+vering and whining; while Jacko kept running from one to the other, chattering in a low tone and staring wildly about as if in a terrible state of excitement.

"Can you hear anything coming, Mark?" said the major. "Down, dog! lie still!"

Mark listened intently; but there was not a sound to be heard but the distant boom of the breakers on the barrier reef, the beating of his heart, and the growling of the dog. Once only came a shrill chizzling chirping, evidently made by some kind of cricket, otherwise there was the stillness of a torrid day when the very vegetation begins to flag.

"I can't hear it, sir," he whispered.

"So it can't be coming," said the major, looking uneasy. "I'm puzzled, Mark. It was neither lion nor tiger, though something like the roar a lion can give; it was not like an elephant's trumpeting, nor the grunting of a rhinoceros; and it could not be a hippopotamus, for we are out of their range, and there is no big river--there can't be--here."

"Could it be some enormous serpent?" whispered Mark.

"I never heard a serpent do anything but hiss, my lad, though they say the anacondas make strange thunder in the North American forests."

"It might be a large crocodile."

"Yes, it might," said the major; "but if it was, the noise is something quite new to me."

"It is more likely to be some terrible beast here that we never heard of before, sir," faltered Mark. "Don't laugh at me, sir, I can't help feeling nervous."

"You'd be a wonder if you could," said the major. "I feel ten times as uncomfortable as I did at any time yesterday. We knew what we had to meet then, but this is something--"

Whoor-r-oor!

The sound came again with terrible violence, but though it was as horrible and awe-inspiring it was either farther away or the animal which uttered the cry had turned its head in another direction.

"It's beyond me, Mark, my lad," said the major, drawing a long breath; "but it can't see us here, whatever it is, and it is something strange to be roaring like that by day."

"I wonder it has not woke anyone up," whispered Mark.

"Worn out," replied the major, laconically; and then they stood peering out from among the trees, and watching intently for a long time without hearing a sound, till the cricket began to utter its chirruping note again.

This was taken up by another close by, and by another at a distance, and then quite a chorus followed, resembling the sounds made by the house-cricket of the English hearth, but more whirring and ear-piercing.

"It must have gone back into the jungle, Mark," said the major, "or else fallen asleep. Anyhow I'm not at all pleased to find we have such a neighbour."

"Do you think it is a dangerous beast?" whispered Mark.

"I can't say till I've seen it, but it sounds very much like it."

"I know what it is!" said Mark in a low excited voice.

"You do?"

"Yes. It is in that jungle, yonder."

"I don't know where it is, but it must be somewhere near. Well, what is it?"

"A wild man of the woods."