"We shall cut all that the birds condescend to leave us soon now," said Kirke. "In the meantime the fishery is going on, and the preparation of 'ngapé'! Can't you smell the stinking stuff on the breeze? Faugh!"
"I hope we may get a passage in a boat which carries rice alone," said Ralph, with a face of disgust. "How can the Burmese eat that disgusting stuff!"
The preparation of this favourite dainty in the Burmese commissariat, which is manufactured chiefly from rotten fish pounded up into a paste with various condiments, poisoned the air. Prawns are the favourite fish used, but there were none in this place.
Such secluded valleys as that into which Kirke had strayed, are great homes of this industry, for the fish come up into them in huge swarms to spawn, and are left behind, in the lakes and pools, when the hot season dries up much of the super-abundant water. To catch them is then easy, and the trade a profitable one.
"Oh," cried Kirke, "we won't go in one of those boats! Trust Jamie Kirke for that. Sooner than be stunk out of life like that, we will imitate the Welsh young lady's forefathers in the Flood, and have a boat of our own. We could sell it again in Rangoon. I don't know whether, now that you are here to help me, it would not be as well to cross these plains, and get a boat for ourselves on the Sittoung River. We could navigate it easily between us if we were careful about the bore."
"That would be very jolly," said Ralph. "I and my cargo," pointing to his precious bundle of orchids. "My cargo will not overburden you, I should be loath to part with it now, having brought it through so much peril that I almost have a superstitious feeling that it consists of my 'luck.' We should be more help than hindrance to you."
"You talk of superstitious feelings, Denham, but there is only a slight boundary between faith and superstition. I should not call it superstition on my own part to believe that you had been sent by Providence to me, in answer to prayer for forgiveness and help."
"I know what you mean," replied Ralph gravely. "God does lead us in mysterious ways, and it is among these wonderful places that one learns to believe in what He can perform. We have seen strange things, both of us, since we left the humdrum Liverpool streets."
"Perhaps He was as plainly to be met with there, if we had but opened our eyes to note His footprints. Here we are shaken out of our own common jogtrot ways,—waked up,—have had our everyday husks peeled off, and are brought face to face with nature in its marvellous sublimity and simplicity."
The two young men sat silently after this, watching the movements of a couple of girls, whose occupation had suggested Kirke's simile.