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.