“Why, what’s the matter, Jimmy?” I cried.
“Bunyip,” he whispered, “big bunyip debble—debble—eat all a man up. Bunyip up a tree.”
“Get out!” I said; “it was a big monkey.”
“Yes: big bunyip monkey. Come ’way.”
For the sudden disappearance of the ape had impressed Jimmy with the idea that it was what the Scottish peasants call “no canny,” and as it was his first interview with one of these curious creatures, there was some excuse for his apparent fear, though I am not certain that it was not assumed.
For Jimmy was no coward so long as he was not called upon to encounter the familiar demons of his people, the word bunyip being perhaps too often in his mouth.
The black’s dread went off as quickly as it came, when he found that he was not noticed, and for the next two hours we lay resting, Jack Penny and I seeing too many objects of interest to care for sleep. Now it would be a great beetle glistening in green and gold, giving vent to a deep-toned buzzing hum as it swept by; then a great butterfly, eight or nine inches across, would come flitting through the trees, to be succeeded by something so swift of flight and so rapid in the flutter of its wings that we were in doubt whether it was a butterfly or one of the beautiful sunbirds that we saw flashing in the sunshine from time to time.
It proved afterwards to be a butterfly or day-moth, for we saw several of them afterwards in the course of our journey.
Over the birds Jack Penny and I had several disputes, for once he took anything into his head, even if he was wrong, he would not give way.
“These are humming-birds,” he said, as we lay watching some of the lovely little creatures that were hovering before the flowers of a great creeper, and seemed to be thrusting in their long beaks.