“Don’t keep on talking such absurd stuff, Ned,” cried Jack, half angrily, half amused; for in the early stages of suffering from hunger there are symptoms of a weak hysterical disposition to laugh.
“But I’m so hungry, sir!”
“Well, push on, and we may get a chance at a big bird of some kind. But suppose we should shoot one—we might—these arrows may be poisoned.”
“Wouldn’t matter, sir. They say cooking kills the poison. Which way now?”
“Keep bearing to the right up the mountain, but always well within shelter. We must not be taken again.”
“Good-bye to the wild bananas that grow below,” muttered Ned; and he pressed on eagerly, but keeping a sharp look-out all the while, and whenever an opening had to be crossed, setting the example of going down on all fours.
“Won’t do though to keep like this, sir,” he said; “why, they’d shoot at us at once for wild beasts of some kind. But do look here, sir! Ain’t it wonderful—ain’t it grand? My arm feels as if it had been bottling up all its strength, and to be readier than ever now. Oh, if we could only see something to shoot at.”
But saving small brightly-plumaged birds, they encountered nothing to tempt the venture of an arrow, and at the end of what must have been quite two hours, when the cave of the lava flow was left far behind, and several hundred feet lower, Jack dropped upon his knees beside a lovely little pool, into which trickled through the rocks and stones a thread-like stream of the clearest water.
“No, no, sir, don’t drink—it’s bad. Cold water when you’re hot, and on an empty stomach.”
“But I’m so thirsty, Ned, and it looks so tempting.”