Off to the Wilds Part 43

"Yes, but you must come and show us."

"Shure an' Masther Chicory there will lade you to the very spot, and I couldn't do any more. He lies did bechuckst two big lumps of sthone, an', as I said, he's as big as a waggin."

"Oh, but Dinny must come," said Mr Rogers.

"Shure an' how will I get the breakfast riddy if I come, sor?" persisted Dinny. "I did my duty last night. You gintlemen must go and fetch him home."

But Dinny's protestations pa.s.sed unheeded, and he had to go with the party, shouldering his rifle like a raw recruit, but glancing uneasily to right and left as they went along.

d.i.c.k observed this, and said quietly,--

"What a lot of poisonous snakes there are amongst these stones!"

Dinny gave a spasmodic jump, and lifting his feet gingerly, deposited them in the barest places he could find; and for the rest of the journey he did not once take his eyes off the ground.

As it happened they had not gone fifty yards farther before they came upon a great swollen puff-adder, lying right in their path.

Chicory saw it first, and shouted a word of warning, which made Dinny wheel round, and run away as hard as he could go, till the shouts of the others brought him back, looking terribly ashamed.

"Oh, it's wan o' thim things, is it?" he said, looking at the writhing decapitated viper. "Shure I thought it was the jumping sort that springs up at yer ois, and stings ye before yer know where ye are.

There was a cousin, of me mother's went to live in Hampshire, and she got bit by wan o' thim bastes in the fut, and it nearly killed her. Ye can't be too careful."

Dinny felt as if he was being laughed at for the rest of the way, and looked quite sulky; but the sight of the great fallen tree, and the huge rhinoceros surrounded by vultures busily working a way through the tough hide, revived him, and he marched forward to examine his bullet holes with the look of pride worn by a conqueror.

It was quite refreshing to see him walk up the hind leg of the rhinoceros, and then along its huge h.o.r.n.y-hided body to the shoulder, where, lowering the rifle he carried, Dinny placed the stock upon the creature's neck, and rested his arm upon the barrel, regarding his fallen foe in quite a contemplative manner.

"Mind that rifle don't go off, Dinny," cried Jack.

Dinny leaped off the rhinoceros and stared.

"It's a very dangerous thing to rest your arms on the muzzle of a gun,"

said d.i.c.k, who enjoyed poor Dinny's discomfiture.

"Well, Dinny," said his master, "I congratulate you upon having slain a monster. Where did you stand?"

"Oh, over yonder somewhere," said Dinny cavalierly. "Anywhere to get a good soight ov him."

"Stood here behind tree where nosros no get at um," said Chicory, innocently, in his eagerness to explain all he could.

"Ah, ye avil little baste," muttered Dinny. "See if I give ye the laste taste of anything I've got. Ah, yes," he said aloud, "I did get one shot at him from behind that big tree; but I cud see him best out in the open yander. Shure an' how big is the baste, sor?" he added, as Mr Rogers ran a measuring tape along the animal from nose to tail.

"Just over eleven feet, Dinny," said Mr Rogers; and leaving the General to hew off the great blunt horn, they returned to breakfast.

CHAPTER THIRTY SEVEN.

d.i.c.k TRIES THE VEGETABLE FISH-HOOKS.

Directly breakfast was over they started--this time without Dinny, who seemed to be very nervous for fear he should be asked to go--to get some of the honey, Coffee and Chicory each carrying a zinc pail, and the General a small tub.

Long before they reached the patch of forest-trees the little bird came fluttering and twittering about them, having apparently forgiven their past neglect, and then went on, and flew from bush to bush, leading them straight to the big trees, perching as before upon one close by, and then silently watching the manoeuvres of the party.

The General was about to take the lead, but Coffee and Chicory uttered such a strong protest in their native tongue, that he smilingly handed his hatchet to Coffee; while Chicory collected some tolerably dry peaty growth, struck a light and set it on fire, causing a dense cloud of smoke to rise up round the tree that contained the wild honey, and stupefying and suffocating the bees that flew to and fro.

The boys grinned with delight at their task, and danced about, heaping up the smoke-producing leaves and stalks, till feeling satisfied that they might ascend, there was a bit of an altercation as to who should go, ending in Chicory giving way to his brother as he had been ill.

Coffee then took the axe and stuck it in his loin-cloth, and a patch of burning turf in his hand. Then nimbly climbed up to the hole, where he held the smoking turf before him, to keep off the bees from his naked body, and clinging tightly with his legs, he proceeded to ply the axe so vigorously, and with such skill, that the rotten bark soon gave way, the tree being little more than a sh.e.l.l, and he laid bare range upon range of the beautiful comb.

A little more tearing away of the bark was necessary, and then Coffee descended for a pail and a knife, dispensing now with his burning turf, and going up to return with the pail full of delicious comb.

This was turned into the General's tub, and the boy ascended again, filled his pail and descended, and once more going up filled the other.

The General then solemnly took a piece of the comb and placed it in the fork of a tree for the honey-guide, a.s.suring those who looked on, that it was necessary to propitiate the bird and pay it for its services--a plan of which the little thing seemed highly to approve, for it flew to the comb at once, and began to feed.

Enough having been procured to fill the pails and tub, Chicory, evidently approving of his brother's sticky state, went up the tree in turn, and cut out three combs for present use, offering some to each of his masters, and then dividing the remainder between his father, brother, and self.

In fact, after removing to a little distance from the hive-tree, all sat down and had a good feast of the delicious honey, Coffee and Chicory grinning with delight as they munched up the wax and sweet together.

"Well, of all the sticky objects I ever saw, they beat everything," said d.i.c.k, laughing. "Why, Coffee's all over honey."

"Yes, tick all over," said the boy, rubbing his finger down his chest, and then sucking it, for he had got to be pretty thickly smeared in carrying the honey down.

"Didn't the bees sting?" said Jack.

"Only tiddlum's back;" said Coffee, giving himself a writhe.

"Yes, tiddlum's back," said Chicory, applying honey to three or four places upon his arms. "Don't mind."

"No, don't mind," a.s.sented Coffee; and they filled their mouths full of honey and wax and cried, "Good, good, good."

They had spent so long over the journey for the honey that evening was coming on fast as they began to ride slowly back, d.i.c.k and Jack making excursions here and there in search of something fresh as they crossed a bushy plain strewn with great ma.s.ses of stone, which rendered their progress very slow, any attempt at a trot or canter being absolutely madness, unless they wished to lame their steeds.

"I wish we had got father's gla.s.ses," said Jack, "we might have seen something from this high ground."

"I have got them," said d.i.c.k, gazing through the binocular at the prospect of undulating plain, across which his father and the Zulu were making their way now, quite a mile in advance. "I've got them, but I can only see some quagga right over yonder."

"I can see something close by," cried Jack, pointing at a tall, dimly seen object that slowly pa.s.sed out of a clump of bushes, and then went slowly forward into another.

"What can you see?" said d.i.c.k.

"Giraffe!" cried Jack.

"Nonsense! Where?"

"It just went into that clump of bushes there. Come on."

"No," said d.i.c.k, "father's making signals for us to go to him."