King o' the Beach Part 39

A couple more large turkey-like birds were brought down and hung up in the shady forest they were now pa.s.sing, the spreading branches of the huge trees being most grateful interposed between Carey's head and the sun. Here the blacks proceeded with the greatest care, starting no less than three snakes, which were allowed to scuffle off. At last one of the blacks uttered a faint cry, and he took the lead, following the trail of something quickly, till he stopped short beneath a huge fig-tree whose boughs spread far and wide.

The black here turned to Carey and pointed upward with his spear to where, half hidden by the dense foliage, a clump of knots and folds upon some interlacing horizontal boughs revealed the presence of a carpet snake, whose soft warm brown and chocolate markings of various shades were strikingly beautiful.

"Ugh! the monster!" exclaimed Carey, shrinking back. "Are you going to kill it?"

"Mumkull, eatum. Good, good," cried Jack.u.m, and the noise made below roused the sleeping serpent, whose head rose up, showing the mark where the mouth opened, and Carey could see the glistening forked tongue darting in and out through the orifice at the apices of the jaws. And now the creature seemed all in motion, fold gliding over fold, and one great loop hanging down from the bough some fifteen feet above their heads.

"I mustn't run off," thought Carey; "but it looks a dangerous brute."

He stood fast then, and the attack began, the blacks hurling their clubs up at the reptile with such accuracy and force that in less than a minute the creature had been struck in several places, and was striking out with its jaws and lashing its tail furiously.

Another blow from a whizzing boomerang made the creature cease its attempts to get to a safer part of the tree and writhe so violently in a horrible knot of convolutions that it lost its hold upon the branch and came down through the interlacing boughs with a rush and a thud upon the ground.

Here it seemed to see its aggressors for the first time, and, gathering itself up, its head rose with the jaws distended, and it struck at the nearest black.

But his enemy was beforehand. Holding his spear with both hands he used it as a British yeoman of old handled a quarter-staff, and a whistling blow caught the reptile a couple of feet below the head, which dropped inert, the vertebrae being broken, and a series of blows from other spears, one aimed at the tail, finished the business.

The danger was over, and the serpent began to untwine itself, till it lay out, a long heaving ma.s.s of muscles, completely disabled and dying after the slow fashion of its kind.

"Why, it must be sixteen or eighteen feet long," thought Carey, and then he stood looking on while the delighted blacks, who looked upon their prize as a delicacy that would be exclusively their own, cut a few canes, twined them into a loose rope, made a noose round the writhing creature's neck, and after one of the party had pa.s.sed this rope over a convenient bough the reptile was hauled up so that the tail was clear of the ground and safe from the attacks of marauding ants.

Then the hunt was continued. Several splendid birds were knocked over, and they were now high up in the river valley, where the great monitor lizards haunted the sun-baked volcanic stones.

"Knock one of those down, Jack.u.m," said Carey, who was anxious to see how the blacks would deal with the tail-lashing creatures.

"Plenty, plenty," said the black, grinning; but he obeyed directly after, sending his boomerang whizzing at one, which suddenly bounded on to a rock and turned defiantly with open jaws upon those who had interrupted his noon-tide sleep.

Carey had ocular proof that the nude blacks were cautious enough to keep their skins clear of the fearful lash formed by the steel-wire-like tails. For the boomerang struck the distended jaws with a sharp crack, and the next moment the reptile was down, with its silvery-grey scales flashing in the sun like oxidised silver, as it lashed its tail about like a coil-whip. It was not round Jack.u.m's legs, however, when he ran up to recover his boomerang, but round and round the spear-shaft which he held ready for the purpose.

A few minutes later the great lizard was dead. "Plenty cookie now,"

said Jack.u.m, and they began to return, picking up their trophies as they went back exactly over their trail.

"They'll only cut a piece out of the carpet snake," thought Carey.

"It's too big to take back."

But he was mistaken. That serpent was too fat and juicy, and promised too many pleasant cookings, to be left behind, and it was soon lowered down, to be dragged after the party by two of the blacks, who harnessed themselves to the canes about the reptile's neck, the smooth hard scales making the elongated body glide easily enough over the gra.s.s and sandy earth.

"But I'm not going to ride in the canoe with that horrid beast,"

muttered Carey. "It's alive and moving still."

But he did, for, when all their game had been successively picked up and they reached the edge of the lagoon, the great serpent was dragged in and fitted itself in the bottom of the canoe, and the rest was thrown fore and aft. Carey set his teeth, for he dared not let the blacks see him shrink, and stepped calmly in, to sit down with his knees to his chin and the thickest part of the serpent pa.s.sing round behind his heels, the head and tail lying forward, with the paddlers sitting inside the loop it formed.

They had cargo enough to make the slight vessel seem heavily-laden, but it was sent rapidly across the lagoon, the blacks eager and triumphant to display their successful efforts to their companions, who were all perched up on the bulwarks on either side of the gangway, face outward, waiting to see the portion that would come to their share.

CHAPTER TWENTY THREE.

The proximity of the evil-smelling serpent to Carey's legs doubtless had something to do with the speed of his movements in quitting the canoe and climbing the side; and on reaching the gangway he looked round in vain for the doctor and Bostock, for they were not visible, neither was Mallam on the deck.

"Where's the doctor?" he said to one of the blacks, but the man merely stared at him blankly. "Cookie?" cried Carey, and the man grinned and pointed towards the galley.

But Carey did not go in that direction, turning aft towards the saloon entrance, where on reaching the top of the bra.s.s-bound stairs he stopped in alarm, for a hoa.r.s.e groan ascended to his ears.

A shiver of dread ran through the lad, for it was evident that something terrible had happened during his absence, and for a few moments he stood listening.

Then, mastering the coward dread, he took a few steps down.

"What's the matter?" he cried, excitedly, but there was only another groan, and he leaped down the remaining stairs to the saloon door, but only to find that it was shut and fastened, and that the startling sounds had not come from there, but from the lower cabin.

The boy did not stop to question, but began to descend. He had not taken two steps, however, before there was the sharp report of a pistol, and a bullet whistled by his ear. Then there was another shot, which was better aimed, striking him in the chest, and he fell back against the bulkhead, to slide down in a half-sitting, half-lying position upon the stairs, struggling to get his breath, while a deathly feeling of sickness made his head swim and everything seemed to be turning black.

It was some minutes before he came sufficiently to himself to realise that he was lying back there upon the stairs, unable to move, and a greater time elapsed before he fully recalled the cause and clearly knew that he had been shot at, the second shot having caused the dull, heavy pain in his breast, with the accompanying oppression.

His first movement was to clap his hand to his chest, the act dislodging a bullet, which flew off and went rattling loudly down the bra.s.s-bound stairs.

The next moment another shot was fired, and struck the wood-work above his head, while before a puff of evil-smelling smoke had risen far there was another shot, with the shivering of plate gla.s.s, which fell jangling down.

There was a feeling as if a tiny hand were pa.s.sing among the roots of Carey's hair and he tried to crouch lower, but it was impossible.

Feeling though, that his life--if he were not already fatally injured-- depended upon his getting beyond reach of the person firing, he gave himself intense pain by trying to ascend the stairs. But at the first movement he could not restrain a sharp cry, and immediately there followed two more shots, which crashed into the wood-work overhead.

Not daring to stir now, Carey clapped his hand once more to his breast, where the pain was most acute, shuddering meanwhile at the thought that his breast must be wet with blood.

But no; his flannel felt dry enough, and plucking up courage as he recalled the fact that the first two shots stung by his head and breast, while the last four had flown high, he felt pretty sure that by crawling to the top he might reach there in safety. Besides, a revolver contained only six shots, and that number had been fired.

Acting upon this, he turned quickly over upon his breast, and in spite of the sickening pain he felt, began to crawl up; but his hope that the last shot had been fired was damped on the instant, for the firing once more began, and he felt certain that his a.s.sailant must be Dan Mallam, since he always carried two revolvers.

Carey was desperate now, and he kept on breathlessly, hearing three more shots fired, nine in all, before he sank down on the landing now by the saloon door, to faint dead away.

How long he lay he could not tell, but it could not have been any great s.p.a.ce of time before in a sickened drowsy way he found himself listening to the distant chattering of the blacks on deck.

Carey's hand went to his breast again, where the heavy dull pain continued; but there was no trace of blood, and, satisfied on this point, he crouched there listening to a dull, moaning sound coming from the bottom of the stairs.

What did it all mean, and where was Doctor Kingsmead? He knew that Bostock was forward in the galley, for the black had pointed there when he asked, and the thing to do now was to go and find him to hear the worst.

Just then, like a flash, came the recollection of the two reports he had heard that morning when he was on the sands, and he began to wonder whether that was in any way connected with what had happened.

And now he tried to rise and get up on deck, but at the first movement the sick feeling came back, and he leaned back to let it pa.s.s off.

As he sat there, there was a burst of laughing from the blacks--a sound so full of careless, boyish merriment that it cheered him with the thought that perhaps, after all, nothing very serious was the matter.

He made another effort, and stood up to take a step or two, with the sick feeling pa.s.sing off as he once more listened to the laughter of the blacks.

And now a fresh thought came to him; he must not let the blacks see that he was suffering, or they might look down upon him with contempt, so that he would perhaps lose the high position he had won in their estimation.

This seemed to give him strength, and, setting his teeth hard he put on an air of stoical indifference as he stepped out on deck, feeling that he was growing firmer each moment.

There was a strange sight before him as he walked aft, for the blacks were gathered round four of their party, who had evidently begun in the middle and worked away from thence towards head and tail, in pairs, skinning the great snake, to the great defilement of the clean deck.