Bunyip Land: A Story of Adventure in New Guinea

  CHAPTER THIRTY FIVE.

  HOW JACK PENNY FIRED A STRAIGHT SHOT.

  There was no stopping Jimmy's snoring. Pokes and kicks only intensifiedthe noise, so at last we let him lie and I went on in a doleful key tothe end.

  "Oh, it ain't so very bad after all!" said Jack Penny, in his slowdrawl. "I call it a good night's work."

  "Good, Jack?"

  "Yes. Well, ain't it?" he drawled. "Why, you've got back safe, and youdon't know that the doctor won't get back, and you've done what you cameto do--you've found your father."

  "But--but suppose, Jack Penny," I said, "they--they do him some injuryfor what has passed."

  "'Tain't likely," drawled Jack. "They've kept him all this time, whyshould they want to--well, kill him--that's what you're afraid of now?"

  "Yes," I said sadly.

  "Gammon! 'tain't likely. If you'd got an old kangaroo in a big cage,and the young kangaroo came and tried to get him away you wouldn't goand kill the old kangaroo for it?"

  "No, no," I said.

  "Of course not. I didn't mean to call your father an old kangaroo, JoeCarstairs. I only meant it to be an instance like. I say, do kick thatfellow for snoring so."

  "It is of no use to kick him, poor fellow, and, besides, he's tired.He's a good fellow, Jack."

  "Yes, I suppose he is," said Jack Penny; "but he's awfully black."

  "Well, he can't help that."

  "And he shines so!" continued Jack in tones of disgust. "I never saw ablack fellow with such a shiny skin. I say, though, didn't you feel ina stew, Joe Carstairs, when you thought it was a black fellow luggingyou off?"

  "I did," I said; "and when afterwards--hist! is that anything?"

  We gazed through the bushes at the darkness outside, and listenedintently, but there was no sound save Jimmy's heavy breathing, and Iwent on:

  "When afterwards I found it was the black I turned queer and giddy.Perhaps it was the effect of the blow I got, but I certainly felt as ifI should faint. I didn't know I was so girlish."

  Jack Penny did not speak for a few minutes, and I sat thinking bitterlyof my weakness as I stroked Gyp's head, the faithful beast having curledup between us and laid his head upon my lap. I seemed to have been socowardly, and, weary and dejected as I was, I wished that I had grown tobe a man, with a man's strength and indifference to danger.

  "Oh, I don't know," said Jack Penny suddenly.

  "Don't know what?" I said sharply, as he startled me out of my thinkingfit.

  "Oh! about being girlish and--and--and, well, cowardly, I suppose youmean."

  "Yes, cowardly," I said bitterly. "I thought I should be so brave, andthat when I had found where my father was I should fight and bring himaway from among the savages."

  "Ah! yes," said Jack Penny dryly, "that's your sort! That's like whatyou read in books and papers about boys of fifteen, and sixteen, andseventeen. They're wonderful chaps, who take young women in their armsand then jump on horseback with 'em and gallop off at full speed. Someof 'em have steel coats like lobsters on, and heavy helmets, and thatmakes it all the easier. I've read about some of them chaps who wieldedtheir swords--they never swing 'em about and chop and stab with 'em, butwield 'em, and they kill three or four men every day and think nothingof it. I used to swallow all that stuff, but I'm not such a guffinnow."

  There was a pause here, while Jack Penny seemed to be thinking.

  "Why, some of these chaps swim across rivers with a man under their arm,and if they're on horseback they sing out a battle-cry and charge into awhole army, and everybody's afraid of 'em. I say, ain't it jollynonsense Joe Carstairs?"

  "I suppose it is," I said sadly, for I had believed in some of theseheroes too.

  "I don't believe the boy ever lived who didn't feel in an awful stewwhen he was in danger. Why, men do at first before they get used to it.There was a chap came to our place last year and did some shepherdingfor father for about six months. He'd been a soldier out in the Crimeanwar and got wounded twice in the arm and in the leg, big wounds too. Hetold me that when they got the order to advance, him and his mates, theywere all of a tremble, and the officers looked as pale as could be, someof 'em; but every man tramped forward steady enough, and it wasn't tillthey began to see their mates drop that the want to fight began to come.They felt savage, he says, then, and as soon as they were in the thickof it, there wasn't a single man felt afraid."

  We sat in silence for a few minutes, and then he went on again:

  "If men feel afraid sometimes I don't see why boys shouldn't; and as tothose chaps who go about in books killing men by the dozen, and neverfeeling to mind it a bit, I think it's all gammon."

  "Hist! Jack Penny, what's that?" I whispered.

  There was a faint crashing noise out in the forest just then, and I knewfrom the sound close by me that the black who was sharing our watch musthave been lifting his spear.

  I picked up my gun, and I knew that Jack had taken up his and thrownhimself softly into a kneeling position, as we both strove to pierce thedarkness and catch sight of what was perhaps a coming enemy.

  As we watched, it seemed as if the foliage of the trees high up hadsuddenly come into view. There was a grey look in the sky, and for themoment I thought I could plainly make out the outline of the bushes onthe opposite side of the gully.

  Then I thought I was mistaken, and then again it seemed as if I coulddistinctly see the outline of a bush.

  A minute later, and with our hearts beating loudly, we heard therustling go on, and soon after we could see that the bushes were beingmoved.

  "It is the doctor," I thought; but the idea was false, I knew, for if ithad been he his way would have been down into the stream, which he wouldhave crossed, while, whoever this was seemed to be undecided and to begazing about intently as if in search of something.

  When we first caught a glimpse of the moving figure it was fifty yardsaway. Then it came to within forty, went off again, and all the timethe day was rapidly breaking. The tree tops were plainly to be seen,and here and there one of the great masses of foliage stood out quiteclearly.

  Just then the black, who had crept close to my side, pointed out thefigure on the opposite bank, now dimly-seen in the transparent dawn.

  It was that of an Indian who had stopped exactly opposite the clump ofbushes which acted as a screen to our place of refuge, and stooping downhe was evidently trying to make out the mouth of the cave.

  He saw it apparently, for he uttered a cry of satisfaction, and leapingfrom the place of observation he stepped rapidly down the slope.

  "He has found us out," I whispered.

  "But he mustn't come all the same," said Jack Penny, and as he spoke Isaw that he was taking aim.

  "Don't shoot," I cried, striking at his gun; but I was too late, for asI bent towards him he drew the trigger, there was a flash, a puff ofsmoke, a sharp report that echoed from the mouth of the cave, and thenwith a horrible dread upon me I sprang up and made for the entrance,followed by Jack and the blacks.

  It took us but a minute to get down into the stream bed and then toclimb up amongst the bushes to where we had seen the savage, and neitherof us now gave a thought of there being danger from his companions.What spirit moved Jack Penny I cannot tell. That which moved me was aneager desire to know whether a horrible suspicion was likely to be true,and to gain the knowledge I proceeded on first till I reached the spotwhere the man had fallen.

  It was a desperate venture, for he might have struck at me, woundedmerely, with war-club or spear; but I did not think of that: I wanted tosolve the horrible doubt, and I had just caught sight of the fallenfigure lying prone upon its face when Jimmy uttered a warning cry, andwe all had to stoop down amongst the bushes, for it seemed as if thesavage's companions were coming to his help.