Murray employed himself twice over in the course of that day bathing and dressing his comrade’s wound, and always with good results, for though the lad remained insensible, he sank each time into a more restful slumber, leaving his nurse and surgeon at liberty to watch and plan as to their future.
It was towards evening that he had another scare—one sufficiently real to make him feel that they were again in imminent danger, for though he could not identify a couple of fresh-comers of whose advent he had warning, their fierce aspect, the way in which they were armed, and their action, seemed to show for certain that they belonged to one or other of the slavers’ crews.
Murray heard them approach suddenly, and darting out of the hut, he took refuge in the shelter of the cane plantation, from amidst whose thick growth he saw them step to the front of the hut, which in no wise excited their curiosity; but they stopped short for a few minutes, just long enough for one of them to climb one of the cocoanut trees and hack off a couple of the great husks, to fall with heavy thuds, before the climber slipped to earth again, when both set to work hacking off the husk and cutting away one end of the half-hardened shell.
They were moments of intense excitement for Murray, as he crouched a few yards away, almost afraid to breathe, fully expecting that one or other of the pair might rise from where he had thrown himself down, and entering the hut discover its occupant. But it seemed as if the rough little edifice only represented the hut of a slave in the fresh-comers’ eyes, and having satisfied their thirst with the sweet sub-acid cream, they cast away the shells and sat talking together for a few minutes; and then the crucial moment seemed to have arrived for the discovery, for they suddenly sprang up—so sharply that the lad’s hand flew to his cutlass, and then he had hard work to suppress a cry of relief, as the pair rapidly stalked away.
“It is too risky,” muttered the lad. “I must find some safer hiding-place.”
“So beautiful and yet so horrible,” he thought, as he crouched in amongst the abundant growth, the narrow sunlit openings being visited from time to time by tiny birds whose scale-shaped feathers were dazzling in their hues as precious stones, while they were so fearless that he watched them hang suspended in the air or flit with a low hum to and fro within a few inches of his face. At another time he would be visited by butterflies that were the very perfection of Nature’s painting, while wherever the sun’s rays struck down hottest the jungle was alive with glistening horny-coated beetles whose elytra looked as if they had been fashioned out of golden, ruddy and bronze-tinted metal.
Just when the sun was beginning to sink lower and warning him that it would not be long before he would have the protection of another night, his attention was caught by a fresh rustling noise not far away, and it struck him that this might be the sound made by the returning of the builder of the hut.
So sure did the lad feel of this that he congratulated himself upon the fact that he was well hidden still amongst the foliage around, where he could suddenly start out upon the big black if he should enter the shelter.
But as the faint rustling continued, he awakened to the recollection of the previous night’s alarm, for it now dawned upon him that the movement was not made by a human being, but by one of the reptiles with which he had peopled the thatch.
This was soon plain enough, and whether venomous or not it was enough to startle the watcher, as a serpent some seven or eight feet in length came into sight, travelling through the undergrowth, with its scales ever changing in tint as its folds came more or less into connection with the light that penetrated the leaves.