“I can hear one of them steam engyne birds coming along, sir,” said Wriggs, from behind.
“What birds?”
“One of them rooshy rashy ones, sir, as you called blow-horn-bills, and makes such a noise with their wings.”
“Hornbills without the blow, my man,” said Lane, laughing. “Look out, all of you. Hornbills are fruit-eating birds, and would be good roasted.”
There was the sharp clicking of gun-locks as the rushing sound of big wings was heard four times over; but the birds passed to right or left to them, hidden by the trees, and all was silent again, till after a few hundred yards had been passed something got up in a dense thicket and went off through the forest at a tremendous rate.
“Lane, man, why didn’t you fire?” cried Panton reproachfully.
“Because I have a habit of looking at what I shoot, and I never had a glimpse of this. Did you see it, Drew?”
“I? No.”
“Please, sir, I just got one squint at it,” said Smith. “You did, too, didn’t you, Billy?”
“I sin it twice,” said Wriggs. “It was a spotty sort o’ thing, and it went through the bushes like a flash.”