Robert Michael Ballantyne – The Complete Collection

Chapter 100

It seemed as if the professor was to be specially rewarded for his generous self-denial on this occasion, for while he was yet speaking, a soft "hush!" from Van der Kemp caused the whole party to halt in dead silence and look at the hermit inquiringly.

"You are in luck, professor," he murmured, in a soft, low voice--very different from that hissing whisper which so many people seem to imagine is an inaudible utterance. "I see a splendid Argus pheasant over there making himself agreeable to his wife!"

"Vare?oh ! vare?" exclaimed the enthusiast with blazing eyes, for although he had already seen and procured specimens of this most beautiful creature, he had not yet seen it engage in the strange love-dance--if we may so call it--which is peculiar to the bird.

"You'll never get near enough to see it if you hiss like a serpent," said the hermit. "Get out your binoculars, follow me, and hold your tongue, all of you--that will be the safest plan. Tread lightly."

It was a sight to behold the professor crouching almost double in order to render himself less conspicuous, with his hat pushed back, and the blue glasses giving him the appearance of a great-eyed seal. He carried his butterfly-net in one hand, and the unfailing rifle in the other.

Fortunately the hermit's sharp and practised eye had enabled him to distinguish the birds in the distance before their advance had alarmed them, so that they were able to reach a mound topped with low bushes over which they could easily watch the birds.

"Zat is very koorious an' most interesting," murmured the professor after a short silence.

He was right. There were two Argus pheasants, a male and female--the male alone being decorated superbly. The Argus belongs to the same family as the peacock, but is not so gaudy in colouring, and therefore, perhaps, somewhat more pleasing. Its tail is formed chiefly by an enormous elongation of the two tail quills, and of the secondary wing feathers, no two of which are exactly the same, and the closer they are examined the greater is seen to be the extreme beauty of their markings, and the rich varied harmony of their colouring.

When a male Argus wishes to show off his magnificence to his spouse--or when she asks him to show it off, we know not which--he makes a circle in the forest some ten or twelve feet in diameter, which he clears of every leaf, twig, and branch. On the margin of this circus there is invariably a projecting branch, or overarching root a few feet above the ground, on which the female takes her place to watch the exhibition. This consists of the male strutting about, pluming his feathers, and generally displaying his gorgeous beauty.

"Vat ineffable vanity!" exclaimed the professor, after gazing for some time in silence.

His own folly in thus speaking was instantly proved by the two birds bringing the exhibition to an abrupt close and hastily taking wing.

Not long after seeing this they came to a small but deep and rapid river, which for a time checked their progress, for there was no ford, and the porters who carried Verkimier's packages seemed to know nothing about a bridge, either natural or artificial. After wandering for an hour or so along its banks, however, they found a giant tree which had fallen across the stream and formed a natural bridge.

On the other side of the stream the ground was more rugged and the forest so dense that they had to walk in a sort of twilight--only a glimpse of blue sky being visible here and there through the tree-tops. In some places, however, there occurred bright little openings which swarmed with species of metallic tiger-beetles and sand-bees, and where sulphur, swallow-tailed, and other butterflies sported their brief life away over the damp ground by the water's edge.

The native forest path which they followed was little better than a tunnel cut through a grove of low rattan-palms, the delicate but exceedingly tough tendrils of which hung down in all directions. These were fringed with sharp hooks which caught their clothing and tore it, or held on unrelentingly, so that the only way of escape was to step quietly back and unhook themselves . This of itself would have rendered their progress slow as well as painful, but other things tended to increase the delay. At one place they came to a tree about seven feet in diameter which lay across the path and had to be scrambled over, and this was done with great difficulty. At another, a gigantic mud-bath--the wallowing hole of a herd of elephants--obstructed the way, and a yell from one of the porters told that in attempting to cross it he had fallen in up to the waist. A comrade in trying to pull him out also fell in and sank up to the armpits. But they got over it--as resolute men always do--somehow!

"Zis is horrible!" exclaimed the professor, panting from his exertions, and making a wild plunge with his insect-net at some living creature. "Hah! zee brute! I have 'im."

The man of science was flat on his stomach as he spoke, with arm outstretched and the net pressed close to the ground, while a smile of triumph beamed through the mud and scratches on his face.

"What have you got?" asked Nigel, doing his best to restrain a laugh.

"A splendid Ornit'optera a day-flying moss'," said Verkimier as he cautiously rose, "vich mimics zee Trepsichrois mulciber . Ant zis very morning I caught von Leptocircus virescens , vich derives protection from mimicking zee habits ant appearance of a dragon-fly."

"What rubbish dat purfesser do talk!" remarked Moses in an undertone to the hermit as they moved on again.

"Not such rubbish as it sounds to you, Moses. These are the scientific names of the creatures, and you know as well as he does that many creatures think they find it advantageous to pretend to be what they are not. Man himself is not quite free from this characteristic. Indeed, you have a little of it yourself," said the hermit with one of his twinkling glances. "When you are almost terrified of your wits don't you pretend that there's nothing the matter with you?"

"Nebber, massa, nebber!" answered the n***o with remonstrative gravity. "When I's nigh out ob my wits, so's my innards feels like nuffin' but warmish water, I gits whitey-grey in de chops, so I's told, an' blue in de lips, an' I pretends nuffin'--I don't care who sees it!"

The track for some distance beyond this point became worse and worse. Then the nature of the ground changed somewhat--became more hilly, and the path, if such it could be styled, more rugged in some places, more swampy in others, while, to add to their discomfort, rain began to fall, and night set in dark and dismal without any sign of the village of which they were in search. By that time the porters who carried Verkimier's boxes seemed so tired that the hermit thought it advisable to encamp, but the ground was so wet and the leeches were so numerous that they begged him to go on, assuring him that the village could not be far distant. In another half-hour the darkness became intense, so that a man could scarcely see his fellow even when within two paces of him. Ominous mutterings and rumblings like distant thunder also were heard, which appeared to indicate an approaching storm. In these circumstances encamping became unavoidable, and the order was given to make a huge fire to scare away the tigers, which were known to be numerous, and the elephants whose fresh tracks had been crossed and followed during the greater part of the day. The track of a rhinoceros and a tapir had also been seen, but no danger was to be anticipated from those creatures.

"Shall we have a stormy night, think you?" asked Nigel, as he assisted in striking a light.

"It may be so," replied the hermit, flinging down one after another of his wet matches, which failed to k****e. "What we hear may be distant thunder, but I doubt it. The sounds seem to me more like the mutterings of a volcano. Some new crater may have burst forth in the Sumatran ranges. This thick darkness inclines me to think so--especially after the new activity of volcanic action we have seen so recently at Krakatoa. Let me try your matches, Nigel, perhaps they have escaped--mine are useless."

But Nigel's matches were as wet as those of the hermit. So were those of the professor. Luckily Moses carried the old-fashioned flint and steel, with which, and a small piece of tinder, a spark was at last kindled, but as they were about to apply it to a handful of dry bamboo scrapings, an extra spirt of rain extinguished it. For an hour and more they made ineffectual attempts to strike a light. Even the cessation of the rain was of no avail.

"Vat must ve do now ?" asked the professor in tones that suggested a wo- begone countenance, though there was no light by which to distinguish it.

"Grin and bear it," said Nigel, in a voice suggestive of a slight expansion of the mouth--though no one could see it.

"Dere's nuffin' else left to do," said Moses, in a tone which betrayed such a very wide expansion that Nigel laughed outright.

"Hah! you may laugh, my yoong frond, hot if zee tigers find us out or zee elephants trample on us, your laughter vill be turned to veeping. Vat is zat? Is not zat vonderful?"

The question and exclamation were prompted by the sudden appearance of faint mysterious lights among the bushes. That the professor viewed them as unfriendly lights was clear from the click of his rifle-locks which followed.

"It is only phosphoric light," explained Van der Kemp. "I have often seen it thus in electric states of the atmosphere. It will probably increase--meanwhile we must seat ourselves on our boxes and do the best we can till daylight. Are you there, boys?"

This question, addressed to the bearers in their native tongue, was not answered, and it was found, on a feeling examination, that, in spite of leeches, tigers, elephants, and the whole animal creation, the exhausted porters had flung themselves on the wet ground and gone to sleep while their leaders were discussing the situation.

Dismal though the condition of the party was, the appearances in the forest soon changed the professor's woe into eager delight, for the phosphorescence became more and more pronounced, until every tree-stem blinked with a palish green light, and it trickled like moonlight over the ground, bringing out thick dumpy mushrooms like domes of light. Glowing caterpillars and centipedes crawled about, leaving a trail of light behind them, and fireflies darting to and fro peopled the air and gave additional animation to the scene.

In the midst of the darkness, thus made singularly visible, the white travellers sat dozing and nodding on their luggage, while the cries of metallic-toned horned frogs and other nocturnal sounds peculiar to that weird forest formed their appropriate lullaby.

But Moses neither dozed nor nodded. With a pertinacity peculiarly his own he continued to play a running accompaniment to the lullaby with his flint and steel, until his perseverance was rewarded with a spark which caught on a dry portion of the tinder and continued to burn. By that time the phosphoric lights had faded, and his spark was the only one which gleamed through intense darkness.

How he cherished that spark! He wrapped it in swaddling clothes of dry bamboo scrapings with as much care as if it had been the essence of his life. He blew upon it tenderly as though to fan its delicate brow with the soft zephyrs of a father's affection. Again he blew more vigorously, and his enormous pouting lips came dimly into view. Another blow and his flat nose and fat cheeks emerged from darkness. Still another--with growing confidence--and his huge eyes were revealed glowing with hope. At last the handful of combustible burst into a flame, and was thrust into a prepared nest of twigs. This, communicating with a heap of logs, kindled a sudden blaze which scattered darkness out of being, and converted thirty yards of the primeval forest into a chamber of glorious light, round which the human beings crowded with joy enhanced by the unexpectedness of the event, and before which the wild things of the wilderness fled away.