Commodore Junk Part 12

"Nay, lad, never mind," said Bart. "I'm sorry for you; but don't speak hard things of Mary."

"I'll try not," said Abel, as he hoed away excitedly; "but I hope this coffee we grow may poison those who drink it."

"What for? They can't help it," said Bart, smiling. "There, lad, take it coolly. Some day we may make a run for it."

"And be shot!" said Abel, bitterly. "There, you're down to the end of that row. I'll go this way. He's watching us."

Bart obeyed. He was one who always did obey; and by degrees the young men were working right away from each other, till they were a good two hundred yards apart.

Abel was at the end of his row first, and he stopped and turned to begin again and go down, so as to pa.s.s Bart at about the middle of the clearing; but Bart had another minute's chopping to do before turning.

He was close up to a dense patch of forest--one wild tangle of cane and creeper, which literally tied the tall trees together and made the forest impa.s.sable--when the shrieking of a kind of jay, which had been flitting about excitedly, stopped, and was followed by the melodious whistle of a white bird and the twittering of quite a flock of little fellows of a gorgeous scarlet-crimson. Then the shrieking of several parrots answering each other arose; while just above Bart's head, where cl.u.s.ters of trumpet-shaped blossoms hung down from the edge of the forest, scores of brilliantly-scaled humming-birds literally buzzed on almost transparent wing, and then suspended themselves in mid-air as they probed the nectaries of the flowers with their long bills.

"You're beauties, you are," said Bart, stopping to wipe his brow; "but I'd give the hull lot on you for a sight of one good old sarcy sparrer a-sitting on the cottage roof and saying _chisel chisel_. Ah! shall us ever see old Devonshire again?"

The parrots hung upside-down, and the tiny humming-birds flitted here and there, displaying, from time to time, the brilliancy of their scale-like feathers, and Bart glanced at his fellow-convict and was about to work back, when there came a sound from out of the dark forest which made him stare wildly, and then the sound arose again.

Bart changed colour, and did not stop to hoe, but walked rapidly across to Abel.

"What's the matter?" said the latter.

"Dunno, lad," said the other, rubbing his brow with his arm; "but there's something wrong."

"What is it?"

"That's what I dunno; but just now something said quite plain, 'Bart!

Bart!'"

"Nonsense! You were dreaming."

"Nay. I was wide awake as I am now, and as I turned and stared it said it again."

"It said it?"

"Well, she said it."

"Poll parrot," said Abel, gruffly. "Go on with your work. Here's the overseer."

The young men worked away, and their supervisor pa.s.sed them, and, apparently satisfied, continued his journey round.

"May have been a poll parrot," said Bart. "They do talk plain, Abel, lad; but this sounded like something else."

"What else could it be?"

"Sounded like a ghost."

Abel burst into a hearty laugh--so hearty that Bart's face was slowly overspread by a broad smile.

"Why, lud, that's better," he said, grimly. "I ar'n't seen you do that for months. Work away."

The hint was given because of the overseer glancing in their direction, and they now worked on together slowly, going down the row toward the jungle, at which Bart kept on darting uneasy glances.

"Enough to make a man laugh to hear you talk of ghosts, Bart," said Abel, after a time.

"What could it be, then?"

"Parrot some lady tamed," said Abel, shortly, as they worked on side by side, "escaped to the woods again. Some of these birds talk just like a Christian."

"Ay," said Bart, after a few moments' quiet thought, "I've heared 'em, lad; but there's no poll parrot out here as knows me."

"Knows you?"

"Well, didn't I tell you as it called to me 'Bart! Bart!'"

"Sounded like it," said Abel, laconically. "What does he want?"

For just then the overseer shouted, and signed to the gang-men to come to him.

"To begin another job--log-rolling, I think," growled Bart, shouldering his hoe.

At that moment, as Abel followed his example, there came in a low, eager tone of voice from out of the jungle, twenty yards away--

"Bart!--Abel!--Abel!"

"Don't look," whispered Abel, who reeled as if struck, and recovered himself to catch his companion by the arm. "All right!" he said aloud; "we'll be here to-morrow. We must go."

CHAPTER TWELVE.

IN DEADLY PERIL.

It was quite a week before the two young men were at work in the plantation of young trees again, and during all that time they had feverishly discussed the voice they had heard. Every time they had approached the borders of the plantation when it ran up to the virgin forest they had been on the _qui vive_, expecting to hear their names called again, but only to be disappointed; and, after due consideration, Abel placed a right interpretation upon the reason.

"It was someone who got ash.o.r.e from a boat," he said, "and managed to crawl up there. It's the only place where anyone could get up."

"Being nigh that creek, lad, where the crocodiles is," said Bart. "Ay, you're right. Who could it be?"

"One of our old mates."

"Nay; no old mate would take all that trouble for us, lad. It's someone Mary's sent to bring us a letter and a bit of news."

It was at night in the prison lines that Bart said this, and then he listened wonderingly in the dark, for he heard something like a sob from close to his elbow.

"Abel, matey!" he whispered.

"Don't talk to me, old lad," came back hoa.r.s.ely after a time. And then, after a long silence, "Yes, you're right. Poor la.s.s--poor la.s.s!"

"Say that again, Abel; say that again," whispered Bart, excitedly.