“I wish we could get hold of something with some body in it that we should care to eat.”
“There’s a something upon that tree yonder, sir,” said Smith, “one o’ them little black boy chaps. See him, sir?”
“I can,” whispered Drew. “It’s quite a large monkey.”
“He’d eat good, wouldn’t he, sir?” said Wriggs.
“Yes, for cannibals,” said Oliver, shortly, as he took out his double glass and focussed it upon a black face peering round a tall, smooth trunk, quite a hundred feet from the ground. “Look, there’s another. But time’s running on. Hadn’t we better get back into a more open part and begin collecting?”
“If you wish me to die of starvation,” said Panton. “I can’t work without food.”
“Then for goodness’ sake let’s get on,” said Oliver, pettishly, and he hurried beneath the tree where the first monkey had been seen, and as he passed a good-sized piece of stick whizzed by his ear and struck the ground.
“See that, Billy?” said Smith.
“Ah, I see it.”
“Lucky for that little nigger as they’re a good-hearted Christian sort o’ gentlemen. If they warn’t he’d go home to his messmates peppered all over with shot, and feelin’ like a sore currant dumpling.”