Rob Harlow's Adventures Part 29

"Don't find it too hot, I s'pose, sir?"

"Oh, it's hot enough," interposed Giovanni; "but we don't mind, do we, Rob?"

"Not a bit. What fruit's that?"

"Which?" said Shaddy.

"That, on that tree, high up, swinging in the wind--the dark brown thing, like a great nut with a long stalk."

He pointed to the object which had taken his attention.

"G'long with yer," growled Shaddy. "I thought you was in arnest."

"So I am," cried Rob, looking at the man wonderingly. "I mean that one.

It isn't a cocoa-nut, because the tree is different, and I know that cocoanuts grow on a kind of palm."

"And that kind o' nut don't, eh?" said Shaddy, puckering his face. "Why you are laughing at me."

"Nonsense! I am not!" cried Rob. "You don't see the fruit I mean.

There, on that tallest tree with the great branch sticking out and hanging over the others. There now! can you see?"

"No," said Shaddy grimly; "it's gone."

"Yes; how curious that it should drop just at that moment. I saw it go down among the trees. You did see it?"

"Oh yes. I see it plain enough."

"And you don't know what fruit it was?"

"Warn't a fruit at all, sir."

"What then? some kind of nut?"

"No, sir; warn't nut at all. It was a nut-cracker."

Rob looked at him seriously.

"Who's joking now?" he said.

"Not me, sir," replied Shaddy. "That was a nut-cracker sure enough."

"Is that the native name?"

Joe burst into a roar of laughter, and Rob coloured, for there was a feeling of annoyance rising within him at being the b.u.t.t of the others'

mirth.

"Have I said something very stupid?" he asked.

"Why, couldn't you see?" cried Joe eagerly. "It was a monkey."

"I did not see any monkey," said Rob coldly. "I was talking about that great brown husky-looking fruit, like a cocoa-nut hanging by a long stalk in that tree. Look! there are two more lower down!" he cried eagerly, as the boat glided round a bend into a long reach, two of the men being at the oars backing water a little from time to time with a gentle dip, so as to keep the boat's head straight and check her to enable Brazier to scan the banks through the little binocular gla.s.s he carried, and be rowed close in when he wished to obtain specimens.

"Yes: there's two more lower down," said Shaddy, with his face puckered up like the sh.e.l.l of a walnut, and then Rob's mouth expanded into a grin as wide as that of Joe's, and he laughed heartily.

"Well," he cried, "that is comic, and no mistake. I really thought it was some kind of fruit. It _was_ a monkey."

"You ain't the first as made that mistake, Mr Rob, sir," said Shaddy.

"You see, they just take a turn with their tails round a branch, draws their legs up close, and cuddles them with their long arms round 'em, and then they looks just like the hucks of a cocoa-nut."

"Like the what?" cried Rob.

"Hucks of a cocoa-nut."

"Oh--husk."

"You may call it 'husk' if you like, sir: I calls it 'hucks.' Then they hangs head downwards, and goes to sleep like that, I believe. Wonderful thing a monkey's tail is. Why I've seen the young ones hold on to their mother by giving it a turn round the old girl's neck. They're all like that out here. Ring-tail monkeys we call 'em."

While they were talking the last two monkeys had swung themselves to and fro, and then lowered themselves down among the branches to get close to the river and watch the boat, like a couple of tiny savages stricken with wonder at the coming of the strange white men, and chattering away to each other their comments on all they saw.

The progress made was very slow, for the boat was constantly being anch.o.r.ed, so to speak, by the men rowing in and holding on by the hanging boughs of trees, while Brazier cut and hacked off bulb and blossom in what, with glowing face, he declared to be a perfect naturalist's paradise.

They had been floating down a few miles when, right ahead, the stream seemed to end, the way being blocked entirely by huge trees, and as they drew nearer there appeared to be a repet.i.tion of the entrance from the great river, where they pa.s.sed along through the dark tunnel overhung by trees.

"Oh, it's all right, sir," said Shaddy, on being appealed to. "Dessay we shall find a way on."

"Of course," replied Brazier, who only had eyes for the plants he was collecting and hardly looked up; "this great body of water must go somewhere."

"Look sharp round to the left!" cried Rob, standing up in the boat as they glided round a bend where the stream nearly turned upon itself and then back again, forming a complete S; and as they moved round the second bend Rob uttered a shout of delight, for the banks receded on either hand, so that they appeared to have glided into a wide opening about a mile long, floored with dark green dotted with silver, through which in a sinuous manner the river wound. A minute later, though, the two lads saw that the river really expanded into a lake, the stream in its rapid course keeping a pa.s.sage open, the rest of the water being densely covered with the huge, circular leaves of a gigantic water-lily, whose silvery blossoms peered up among the dark green leaves.

"Look at the jacanas!" cried Joe, pointing to a number of singular-looking birds like long-necked and legged moorhens, but provided with exaggerated toes, these being of such a length that they easily supported their owners as they walked about or ran on the floating leaves.

"Wouldn't be a bad place for a camp, sir," suggested Shaddy, when they were about half-way along the lake, and he pointed to a spot on their left where the trees stood back, leaving a gra.s.sy expanse not unlike the one at which they had first halted, only of far greater extent.

"Yes, excellent," replied Brazier; "but can we get there?"

"Oh yes, sir; I'll soon make a way through the leaves."

Shaddy seized a pole, said a few words to his men, and stepped right to the front of the boat, where he stood thrusting back the vegetation as it collected about the bows, while the men rowed hard forcing the boat onward, the huge leaves being sent to right and left and others pa.s.sing right under the keel, but all floating back to their former positions, so that as Rob looked back the jacanas were again running over the vegetation which had re-covered the little channel the boat had made.

In all probability a vessel had never entered that lake before, and it caused so little alarm that great fish, which had been sheltering themselves beneath the dark green disk-like leaves, lazily issued from their lurking places to stare so stupidly, often even with their back fins out of water, that the boys had no difficulty in startling a few of them into a knowledge of their danger by gently placing a hand under and hoisting them suddenly into the boat, where they displayed their alarm by leaping vigorously and beating the fragile bottom with their tails.

"Better hold hard, young gentlemen!" cried Shaddy, as soon as half a dozen were caught; "them fish won't keep, and we can easily catch more.

Ah! Why, Mr Joe, sir, I did think you knowed better."

This was to Joe, who had leaned over as far as he could to try and perform the same feat upon a long dark object floating half hidden by a leaf, but was met by a quick rush and a shower of water as the creature twisted itself round and dived down.

"It was only a little one, Shaddy," said Joe.