“Hold hard a moment,” cried Oliver, suddenly, and the men ceased rowing, sitting with their oars balanced, and the boat silently gliding over the smooth surface of the water, making a tiny shoal of fish flash out into the sunshine from where the bows cut, and look like sparks of silver.
“What is it, sir?” said the mate.
“I want to know what that noise is. Didn’t you hear it, Drew?”
“Yes, I heard something which seemed to come from the trees there, but it has stopped now.”
“Men’s oars in the rowlocks,” said Panton.
“Oh, no. It was not that,” cried Oliver. “It was just as if someone was making a noise in a big brass tube. Ah, there it goes.”
Just then from out of the grove of palms about a hundred yards to their right came softly and regularly just such a sound as he had described.
Phoomp, phoomp, phoomp, phoom, soft, clear, and musical, rising and falling in a peculiar way, as if close at hand and then distant.
“Native brass band practising,” said Drew, merrily.
“Puffs of steam from some volcanic blow hole.”