“Hail him, sir, with that there lot o’ black ruffyians just landing! Why, it’s saying to ’em, ‘Here we are, my lads; come an’ catch us.’”
“Of course! You are right,” cried Panton, excitedly, as he stood wiping his face. “But what are we to do?”
“Two of us must try and track him,” said Drew. “Do you think they heard me shouting before?”
“Dunno, sir. On’y hope as they didn’t, that’s all, sir,” said Wriggs.
“Perhaps they did not,” said Drew, hurriedly. “But look here, Lane can’t have gone far, he was too weak to make much of a journey. Here, Wriggs, come with me. You two keep quite close in hiding.”
At that moment from one of the trees at the edge of the forest, there rang out the hoarse, cawing cry of one of the paradise birds, and directly after they saw that a little flock had taken flight, and were crossing the open land to make for the forest, far away toward the slope of the mountain.
A sudden thought inspired Drew, and signing to his companions, he put his hands close to his lips and gave vent to a very fair imitation of the bird’s note. In fact, so close was it, that they saw a couple of birds in the little flock wheel round and come back over their heads, till evidently detecting that it was a deceit, they flew off again.
“There; what’s the good of that, man?” cried Panton, angrily. “You couldn’t deceive them.”
“No, but I may trick poor Lane. He’ll think it is some of the birds, and come back eagerly to try and shoot one.”
“Bah!” ejaculated Panton; but Drew took no heed of his impatient, angry manner. Putting his hands to his mouth again, he produced a capital imitation of the bird’s call note, and then stood listening.