I looked at my companion incredulously. "What an extraordinary thing!" I exclaimed. "I could have sworn that I saw--" I paused from sheer astonishment.
"What?" asked the other passenger, curiously.
"What?" I echoed. "That is just the question. It looked like a tree--a skeleton tree. Absolutely white, with curved ribs of branches--and there were tongues of flame." I paused again, looking out on what we were passing. "It must, of course," I continued, "have been some curious effect of light on that stunted tree yonder. Its branches are curved like ribs, and, if you notice, the bark is lighter."
"Exactly," assented my companion. Then he told me a long botanical name, and pointed out that there were many such trees or bushes in the low jungle, all distinctly to be seen against the darker kinds, distinctly but not blindingly like that curious effect of dawn-light I had seen.
I had, however, almost forgotten my vision, as, thus started, we talked over our tea, when he suddenly said, "Going on to Agra, I suppose?"
"No," I replied, "I'm globe-trotting for sport. I'm going to spend all I can of my return-ticket in these jungles after leopard and tiger. I hear it's first-class if you don't mind letting yourself go--getting right away from the beaten track and all that. I mean to get hold of a jungle tribe if I can--money's no object, and--"
I ran on, glad to detail plans for what had been a long-cherished dream of mine, when my companion arrested me by the single word--
"Don't."
It was in consequence of my surprise that he told me the following story:--
"I surveyed this railway ten years ago. The country was very much the same as it is now, except that it was all, naturally, off the beaten track. There were two of us in camp together, Graham and myself. He was a splendid chap; keen as mustard on everything. It did not matter what it was. So that one day, when he and I were working out levels after late breakfast, he jumped up like a shot--just as if he had not been tramping over these cursed rubbish shoots of red rocks for six hours--at the sound of a feeble whimpering near the cook-room tent.