“Whisht! Don’t spake so loud, sor. Sure, now, if a cannon-ball made a hole in the side of a ship, isn’t that the safest place to put your head so as not to be hurt. They niver hit the same place twice.”
“Then your hiding-place is my old lodging—my prison?”
“Av coorse it is! The skipper has been there to mak’ sure that ye really are gone; and now he knows, he’ll say to himself that this is the last place ye’d go and hide in; and troth, he’s quite roight, isn’t he?”
Humphrey hesitated for a few moments, and then, feeling how true the man’s words were, he gave way.
“Sure, sor, and it’s all roight,” whispered Dinny. “Aren’t I thrying to keep my head out of a noose, and d’ye think I’d be for coming here if it wasn’t the safest place. Come along; sure, it is a lion’s den, as ye call it, and the best spot I know.”
He whispered to Humphrey to follow cautiously, and crept on all-fours among the dense growth, and in and out among the loose stones at the very edge of the forest, till the tunnel-like pathway was reached in safety, when, after crawling a few yards out of the blinding sunshine into the shadowy gloom, Dinny rose to his feet.
“There, sor,” he said, “we can walk like Christians, now, and not like animal bastes. There isn’t a sound.”
As he spoke, there was a peculiar cry, and a gorgeously-plumaged bird flitted into sight, and perched on a piece of stone in the sunny opening of the tunnel, where its scarlet breast and dazzling golden-green plumage glittered in the sun.
“Sure and ye’re a purty fowl, and I’m much obliged to ye for the information,” said Dinny, as the bird erected its brilliant crest, stared wildly, and then flew off with its long green tail-feathers streaming out behind. “He says there’s nobody about, sor, or he wouldn’t be here. Come along.”
It seemed like a dream to Humphrey after his sleepless night, to find himself once more in the gloomy corridor with the faint light streaming in at the side-openings, instead of in a boat, dancing over the blue waters and leaving the buccaneer’s nest behind. But it was the bare reality, as Dinny went forward, drew the great curtain aside, and he passed in and on from behind the great idol to throw himself, worn-out and exhausted, upon his couch of skins.