Rob Harlow's Adventures Part 16

"Nay, better than them. A nice, plump young monkey or two."

"What?" roared Rob.

"A nice young monkey or two; and don't shout, my lad. If you make that noise, we shan't be able to hear anything coming."

"Bah!" cried Joe. "I should feel like a cannibal if I even thought of it. I say, look at Mr Brazier!"

Rob turned and smiled as he saw his leader eagerly making up for lost time, and, after climbing about twenty feet up a tree with a hatchet in his belt, holding on with one hand while he cut off a great bunch of flowers hanging from the bough upon which, like so much large mistletoe, it had taken root.

Shaddy saw him almost at the same moment, and turned to the tree, followed by the lads.

"I say, sir, don't do that!" he said, respectfully.

"Why not, my man? We are not trespa.s.sing, and damaging anybody's property here."

Shaddy laughed.

"No, sir, you won't do much trespa.s.sing here," he said.

"Then why do you interfere? This is a magnificent orchid, different from any that I have ever seen. I thought you understood that I have come on purpose to collect these."

"Oh yes, I understand, sir; but you're captain, and have got to order.

We'll get 'em for you. My four chaps'll climb the trees better, and be handier with the axe; and as they'll have scarcely anything to do, we'll set 'em to work at that sort of thing."

"They will have the rowing to do."

"Precious little, sir, now. The rowing's done. All we've got to do is to float along the stream."

"Ah, well, I'll finish this time, and they shall do it another."

"Better come down now, sir," whispered Shaddy. "You see they're a dull, stupid lot, who look up to white people as their natural masters; and, without being a brute to 'em, the more you stands off and treats 'em as if they were servants the more they look up to you. If you don't, and they see you doing work that they're paid to do, they'll look down on you, think you're afraid of 'em, and grow saucy."

"Ah!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Brazier, giving a start, and nearly losing his hold of the branch.

"What's the matter, sir?"

For answer Brazier cut frantically with his axe at something invisible to those below, but evidently without avail, till he struck a small bough so violently that they saw the object dropping down, and Rob had only time to leap aside to avoid a small snake, of a vivid green with red markings, which fell just where he had been standing, and then began to twine in and out rapidly, and quite unhurt, ending by making its escape into the dense forest, where it was impossible to follow.

"Did you kill it?" cried Brazier from up in the tree.

"No," said Rob; "it's gone!"

"Ah," said Shaddy, thoughtfully, "I never thought to warn you against them. That's a poisonous one, I think, and they climb up the trees and among the flowers to get the young birds and eggs and beetles and things. Better always rattle a stick in amongst the leaves, sir, before you get handling them. Try again, now, with the handle of the hatchet."

Brazier obeyed, and s.n.a.t.c.hed his hand back directly, as he held on with his left, after violently striking the branch close to the plant he tried to secure.

"There's another here," he said.

"Better come away, sir!" cried Rob.

"No; I must have this bunch. I have nearly cut the boughs clear from it, and a stroke or two then will divide the stem, and it will drop clear on to those bushes."

"Shall I come, sir?"

"No; I'll keep away from where the thing lies. It is coiled-up, and I only saw its head."

"Better mind, sir: they're rum things. Only got one inch o' neck one moment, and the next they're holding on by their tails, and seem to have three foot."

"I'll take care," said Brazier. "Stand from below; I shall cut the stem at once."

There was the sharp sound of the hatchet, as he gave a well-directed cut, and then a rustling, and the gorgeous bunch of flowers dropped, with all its bulbous stems and curious fleshy elongated leaves, right on the top of the clump of bushes beneath the great bough.

"All right!" cried Rob: "not hurt a bit. Oh, how beautiful!"

"Mind, will you!" cried Shaddy, savagely: "do you hear?"

He whipped out his knife as he stepped forward, and made a rapid cut horizontally above the bunch of orchids. For as Rob approached, with outstretched hand, to lift off this, the first-fruits of their exploration, a little spade-shaped head suddenly shot up with two brilliant eyes sparkling in the sun, was drawn back to strike, and darted forward.

But not to strike Rob's defenceless hand, for Shaddy's keen knife-blade met it a couple of inches below the gaping jaws, cut clean through its scale-armed skin, and the head dropped among the lovely petals of the orchis, while the body, twisting and twining upon itself in a knot, went down through the bush and could be heard rustling and beating the leaves out of sight.

There was a peculiar grey look on Rob's face as he looked at Shaddy.

"Only just in time, master," said the latter. "It'll be a lesson to you both in taking care."

Rob shuddered; but, making an effort, he said, laughing dismally, "I don't suppose it was a venomous snake, after all."

"Praps not," said Shaddy drily. "There, lift the bunch down with the bar'l of your gun. Shove the muzzle right in."

"You do it, Joe," whispered Rob; "I feel a bit sick. It's the sun, I think."

Just then Mr Brazier, who had been scrambling down the trunk of the huge tree by means of the parasites, which gave endless places for hold, dropped to the ground, and stood beating and shaking himself, to get rid of the ants and other insects he had gathered in his trip up to the branch.

"Ah! that's right, Giovanni," he said; "no, I must call you Joe, as Rob does."

"Do, please, sir; it's ever so much shorter. Here it is," he continued, as he lifted the bunch of lovely blossoms off the bush on to the clear s.p.a.ce where they stood.

"Oh, if I could only show that in London, just as it is!" cried Brazier.

"Why, that bunch alone almost repays me for my journey: it is so beautiful and new."

"Give it a shake, Mr Joe, sir!" said Shaddy.

"Ah, yes, let's make sure."

"Can't be anything else in it," said Rob boisterously, in his desire to hide the fact that he had been terribly frightened.

"Never you mind whether there is or whether there ain't, sir," said Shaddy; "I want that there bunch shook."

Joe gave a few jerks, and at the last something fell with a light _plip_ in amongst the leaves at their feet.