Chapter Fifteen.
Bluejackets, Charge!
“Halt!” Dick Stapleton lifted his hand above his head, and crouched low in the jungle, while the sailors who followed him in single file, slashing a path through the dense undergrowth, copied his example. “H-h-hush! Did you hear? There it is again!”
Dick whispered in Jack Emmett’s ear, and Jack, to whom bush work was a novelty, stared back at his friend in amazement. For he had seen nothing, and there had been no sound to arouse his suspicion. Indeed, all about the little party looked quiet and peaceful. Overhead towered enormous cotton trees, running to the height of two hundred and fifty feet, while beneath their overspreading branches were yams and plantain trees, huge ferns and every variety of forest growth, many of these latter being giants in themselves, but dwarfed by the ponderous girth and height of the cotton trees. At the feet of these wonders of the African forest clustered vines and trailing creepers. Orchids and lovely lichens clung to the boughs, while huge masses of buff, violet, pink and brilliant yellow convolvuli hung suspended in festoons, brightening the gloom which pervaded this underworld of the jungle. Not a native could be seen. Indeed, the bush was so dense that Dick and his party could not see beyond a few feet, and every yard they advanced had to be won by diligent cutting with sword or cutlass. Yet our hero was suspicious.
“There, listen!” he said again, in a low whisper. “Listen to the birds.”
“I hear them. But what of that? There are heaps in these woods, no doubt,” was Jack’s reply. “That does not say that the enemy are near. Wait, though. That was a cheer. Our men must be somewhere in the neighbourhood.”
At that moment a distant cheer had come to their ears through the barrier of boughs, and at the sound both sat up suddenly and listened. Then Dick began to crawl forward again.
“We can go on,” he said quietly. “The calls of the birds were not real, of that I feel sure. They were made by the enemy, purposely to let each man know that he was near his fellows. It’s a good idea. Halt again!”