He looked at her in amazement, not understanding why such a remark had been made. Then, after a long pause, he began to slide down ever so slowly, stopping every few inches as if he did not know what to do.
"Well, perhaps I shall try it—who knows. In a day or two, but not at once as I must study the ground."
With this odd good-bye he slid very rapidly out of sight, and landed on the ground with a clean jump.
In less than two minutes he had loafed back into his quarters looking slily round to see whether his absence had been observed.
CHAPTER XI
It was more than a day or two before he put into execution the plan suggested to him in such an unexpected manner. What alone fascinated him was the unknown. Like all his race, he was inherently inquisitive and full of the spirit of research into the causes of facts and events which were new to him. But a mystery solved was a last season's novelty—something which it was hardly worth bothering about.
So he sat in the dusk, when his work was over, with his bird-cage in his hand trying to teach his mynah to talk as the others did, and not thinking of much else. But the bird had become stupid, and the half-formed words he thought he had once caught were no longer to be heard. He was anxious to have a talking bird, for every one knew it was possible to teach some birds to talk if you showed patience and tact. Suddenly one evening he tired of the pastime. He remembered the door that had puzzled him, and cage in hand he sauntered very indifferently to the spot indicated to him. With the long curved copper-hook of his cage firmly grasped in his mouth, he at length swarmed up the outhouse, making a great noise in the process, but getting himself soon enough astride of the compound wall.
In the little courtyard below him there was no one to be seen. He could not see a single shadow or a single movement behind the latticed windows, and he quickly imagined that every one had gone out.
He sat surveying this silence for some time, humming to himself mechanically. At this hour just before dusk the world was always very quiet and peaceful. All work was over. Men and women far and wide were gossiping and passive, the squabbles and bickerings of the day forgotten. As he sat with his feet comfortably pulled up under him, he finally fell into a brown study from which he was brought by a laugh. He looked to the right, he looked to the left; but after scanning every possible hiding-place, he could detect no movement.