That which Shaddy pointed out was startling enough to cause Rob a
shudder; for, plainly seen upon a broad leaf, trampled-down amongst
others that were dead and dry, were a few spots of blood.
But after the momentary feeling of dread caused by the discovery there
came a reaction, and Rob exclaimed eagerly, "Some wild beasts have been
fighting;" and then as his companion shook his head, the boy uttered a
forced laugh, and, to carry off the excitement, said:
"I know what it is, Shaddy: two monkeys coming home from school have had
a fight, and one made the other's nose bleed."
"Wish I could laugh and joke about it like you do, squire," said Shaddy
sadly, as he peered about. "It's serious, my lad. Something very
wrong, I'm afraid."
"Don't say that, Shaddy," cried Rob huskily. "I only tried to turn it
off because I felt afraid and didn't want to show it. Do you really
think there's something very serious?"
"I do, my lad."
"Not that Mr Brazier has been here?"
"That's just what I do think, my lad; and I feel as if it was my fault
for sending him hunting and collecting by himself, instead of us waiting
on him and watching him."
"Shaddy, don't say anything has happened to him!" cried Rob in horror.
"I don't say as there is," said Shaddy; "I don't say as there ain't, my
lad: but you see that," he said, pointing down, "and you know that Mr
Brazier's a fine brave English gentleman, but, like all the natural
history people I ever see, so full of what he's doing that he forgets
all about himself and runs into all kinds of danger."
"But what kind of danger could he have run into here?"
"Don't know, my lad--don't know. All I do know is that he has been here
and got into trouble."
"But you don't know that he has been here," cried Rob passionately.
"What's this, then?" said Shaddy, holding out a piece of string, which
he had picked up unnoticed by his companion. "Mr Brazier had got one
of his pockets stuffed full of bits o' spun yarn and band, like that as
we used to tie up his plants with, and it looks to me as if he'd dropped
this."
"But couldn't--Oh no, of course not--it's impossible," cried Rob; "no
one else could have been here?"
"No, sir; no one else could have been here."
"Yes, they could," cried Rob excitedly: "enemies!"
Shaddy shook his head as he peered about, stooping and examining the
trampled-down growth.
"Wish I could track like an Indian does, Mr Rob, sir. He has been here
sure enough, but I can't make out which way he has gone. There's our
footmarks pressing down the twigs and moss and stuff; and there's his, I
fancy."
"And Indians?"
"Can't see none, sir; but that means nothing: they tread so softly with
their bare feet that a dozen may have been here and gone, and we not
know it."
"Then you do think he has been attacked by Indians, Shaddy?" cried Rob
reproachfully.
"Well, sir, I do, and I don't. There's no sign."
"Then what could it have been,--a jaguar?"
"Maybe, Mr Rob."
"Or a puma!"
"Maybe that, sir; or he may have come suddenly upon a deer as gave him a
dig with its horns. Here, let's get on back to camp as quickly as we
can."
"But he may not be there," cried Rob excitedly, as he looked round among
the densely packed trees. "Let's try and find some track by which he
has gone."
"That's what I've been trying to do, and couldn't find one, sir. If
he's been wounded, somehow he'd nat'rally make back for the hut, so as
to find us and get help. Come along."
"Oh, Shaddy, we oughtn't to have left him. We ought to have kept
together."
"No good to tell me that, Mr Rob, sir; I feel it now, but I did it all
for the best. There, sir, it's of no use to stay here no longer. Come
on, and we may hit upon his backward trail."
Rob gave another wild look round, and then joined Shaddy, who was
carefully studying the position of the sun, where a gleam came through
the dense foliage high above their heads, and lightened the deep green
twilight.
"That's about the course," he muttered, as he gave the iguana a hitch
over to his right shoulder. "Now then, Mr Rob, sir, let's make a swift
passage if we can, and hope for the best. Pah! Look at the flies
already after the meat. No keeping anything long here."
The remark struck Rob as being out of place at such a time, but he was
fain to recall how he had made speeches quite as incongruous, so he
followed his companion in silence, trusting to him implicitly, and
wondering at the confidence with which he pressed on in one direction,
with apparently nothing to guide him. In fact, all looked so strange
and undisturbed that Rob at last could not contain himself.
"Mr Brazier cannot have been anywhere here, Shaddy," he cried
excitedly. "Two wild beasts must have been fighting."
"For that there bit o' string, sir?" said the man, drily. "What do you
call that, then, and that?"
He pointed up to a bough about nine feet above him, where a cluster of
orchids grew, for the most part of a sickly, pallid hue, save in one
spot, where a shaft of sunlight came through the dense leafy canopy and
dyed the strangely-formed petals of one bunch with orange, purple and
gold, while the huge mossy tree trunk, half covered with parasitic
creepers, whose stems knotted it with their huge cordage, showed traces
of some one having climbed to reach the great horizontal bough.
"That looks like Mr Brazier, his mark, sir, eh?"
"Yes, yes," cried Rob eagerly.
"Come on then, sir: we're right."
"But did he make those marks coming or returning?"
"Can't say, sir," said Shaddy, gruffly; and then, to himself, "That
ain't true, for he made 'em coming, or I'm a Dutchman."
He made another careful calculation of their position, and was about to
start again, when he caught sight of something about Rob, or rather its
absence, and exclaimed,--
"Why, where's them mushrooms?"
"Mushrooms, Shaddy! I--I don't know."
"But, Master Rob!"
"Oh, who's to think about eating at a time like this? Go on, pray; I
shall not feel happy till I see Mr Brazier again."
Shaddy uttered a low grunt, gazed up at the shaft of light which shone
upon the cluster of flowers, and then shifted the iguana again, and
tramped on sturdily for about an hour, till there was a broad glare of
light before them, and he suddenly stepped out from the greenish
twilight into sunshine and day.
"Not so bad, Mr Rob, sir, without a compass!" he said, with a smile of
triumph.
But Rob, as he stepped out, was already looking round for their
fellow-prisoner in the forest, but looking in vain. There was no sign
of human being in the solitude; and a chilly feeling of despair ran
through the lad as he forgot his weariness and made a move for the hut,
about a hundred yards away.
It was hard work to get through the low tangled growth out there in the
sunlight; and before he was half-way there he stumbled and nearly fell,
but gathered himself up with a faint cry of fear, for there was a low
growl and a rush, as something bounded out, and he just caught a glimpse
of the long lithe tawny body of a puma as it sprang into a fresh tangle
of bush and reed, while Rob stood fast, and then turned to look at
Shaddy.
The man's face was wrinkled up, and for the moment he evidently shared
the boy's thoughts. Stepping close to him, he began to peer about
amongst the thick growth from which the animal had sprung, while Rob
felt sick as his imagination figured in the puma's lair the torn and
bleeding body of his friend; and as Shaddy suddenly exclaimed, "Here's
the place, sir!" he dared not look, but stood with averted eyes, till
the man exclaimed:
"Had his nest here, sir, and he was asleep. Bah! I ought to have
known. I never heard of a puma meddling with a man."
"Then Mr Brazier is not there?" said Rob faintly.
"Why, of course he ain't," replied the man sourly. "Come along, sir,
and let's see if he's in the hut."
They rushed to their newly thatched-in shelter, and Rob seized the side
and peered in, where all was black darkness to him, coming as he did
from the brilliant sunshine.
"Mr Brazier," he cried huskily; but there was no reply. "Mr Brazier,"
he shouted, "why don't you answer?"
"'Cause he ain't there, my lad," said Shaddy gruffly. "Here, wait till
I've doctored this iguana thing and hung it up. No, I'll cover it with
grass here in the cool, and then we must make back tracks and find Mr
Brazier before night."
"Oh, Shaddy!" cried Rob in an anguished tone, "then he has been horribly
hurt--perhaps killed!"
The man made no reply, but hurriedly cut open and cleaned the lizard at
some distance from the hut, then buried it beneath quite a pile of
grass, dead leaves and twigs, before stepping back to his companion in
misfortune.
"Oh, why did you stop to do that," cried Rob, "when Mr Brazier may be
lying dying somewhere in the forest?"
"Because when we find him, we must have food to eat, lad, and something
for him too. That thing may save all our lives. Don't you think I
don't want to get to him, because I do. Now then, sir, we've got to go
straight back the way we came, and find him."
"You'll go right back to where the spots--I mean, where we found the
piece of string?" whispered Rob, whose feeling of weariness seemed to
disappear at once.
"Yes, sir, straight back as an arrow, and it's of no use to hide facts;
you must take your place as a man now, and act like one, having the hard
with the soft, so I shall speak plainly."
"You need not, Shaddy," said Rob sadly. "You are afraid he has been
badly hurt and carried off by Indians--perhaps killed."
"Nay, my lad; that's making worse of it than I thought. My ideas was
bad enough, but not so bad as yours, and I think mine's right."
"Then what do you think?" said Rob, as after a sharp glance round they
made for the spot where they had re-entered the clearing from the
forest.
"Tell you what I _don't_ think first, my lad," replied Shaddy: "I don't
think it's Indians, because I haven't seen a sign of 'em, and if I had I
fancy they'd be peaceable, stupid sort of folk. No: he's got into
trouble with some beast or another."
"Killed?"
"Nay, nay; that's the very worst of all. There's hundreds of ways in
which he might be hurt; and what I think is, that he has started to come
back, and turned faint and laid down, and perhaps gone to sleep, so that
we passed him; or perhaps he has lost his way."
"Lost his way?" cried Rob, with a shiver of dread.
"Yes, my lad. It's of no use to hide facts now."
"Then we shall never find him again, and he will wander about till he
lies down and dies."
"Ah! now you're making the worst of it again, sir. He might find the
way out again by himself, but we've got to help him. Maybe we shall be
able to follow his tracks; you and me has got to try that: an Indian or
a dog would do it easily. Well, you and me ought to have more stuff in
us than Indians or dogs, and if we make up our minds to do it, why, we
shall. So, come along, and let's see if we can't muster up plenty of
British pluck, say a bit of a prayer like men, and with God's help we'll
find him before we've done."
He held out his hand to Rob, who made a snatch at it and caught it
between his, to cling to it tightly as he gazed in the rough,
sun-blackened face before him, too much oppressed by emotions to utter a
word.
But words were not needed in the solemn silence of that grand forest.
Their prayer for help rose in the midst of Nature's grandest cathedral,
with its arching roof of boughs, through which in one spot came a ray of
brilliant light, that seemed to penetrate to Rob's heart and lighten him
with hope; and then once more they swung round and plunged into the
forest depths.