He therefore encouraged Ralph to seek sport upon every occasion, and the lad was fast becoming practised in the art, which pleased him much.
Although the village people would not kill for their own food, they entertained no objection whatever to profit by the peril into which, in their estimation, these strangers brought their own salvation; and fresh meat was much nicer than the half-rotten flesh, and that of animals which had died of disease, upon which they would greedily feed, and which entail upon them leprosy and other dreadful disorders. They gratefully accepted all the Englishmen's benefactions therefore, and Denham went out shooting nearly every day.
The fame of the liberal-handed Englishmen, and their absurd fancy for out-of-the-way plants from the jungle, had spread during their stay in this village, and on the day before Mr. Gilchrist had determined to start upon his return to Moulmein, a man arrived from a remote hamlet, bringing with him an orchid of such beauty and rarity as to throw him into a state of the greatest excitement.
"Denham," he said, "we must secure a good supply of this at any cost; it is a perfectly new one. To send this home will be to secure my fame, and be the ground-work of my fortunes. It is worth all that we have got before put together, but the fellow has mangled it terribly in bringing it as he has done. I must find the place where it grows, and take the specimens properly myself, or they would never reach England alive."
"All right, sir," said Ralph; "I'm game."
They made their preparations with all possible speed, retaining the Karen who had brought the plant for the purpose of conducting them to the spot where it grew.
This man declared that it would be impossible to take the bullock-gharrie with them under any circumstances; the jungle tracks were too much overgrown and tangled to admit of so large a vehicle making its way through them. Ponies were therefore hired for the purpose, little vicious creatures, which were used to scrambling and to the hilly country for which they were bound. One of these carried such equipments as Mr. Gilchrist considered necessary.
"I wish," said he sighing, as he added a couple of guns to the other preparations,—"I wish that I could have foreseen, in my youth, that I should ever be likely to find myself wandering about in places so wild as these in which we are now. I would have made myself a good shot in time. As it is, I fear, Denham, that we must trust Providence not to let our lives depend upon the accuracy of our aim at any time."
"We are improving, sir," said Denham. "We cannot call ourselves crack sportsmen, I suppose, but I don't feel as much at sea as I used to do, and we have managed to bring in a good deal of game lately."
"You and Wills have, not I," replied Mr. Gilchrist.