They made fast the raft and landed soon after, a little chipping with a crowbar having turned a rough mass into a pier which ran right up to the sand and sort of put an end to the necessity for wading.
Then kits and guns were shouldered, and, light-hearted and eager, Carey followed the doctor, who struck in at once through the great belt of cocoanut palms, and, pushing upwards through beautifully wooded ground, soon took them beyond the parts heretofore traversed by Carey, who now began to long to stop at every hundred yards to investigate a flowering tree where insects swarmed, or some clump of bushes noisy with cockatoos or screaming parrots. But the doctor kept steadily on till a dull humming roar away to the right began to grow louder, and at the end of about a mile of climbing there was a soft moist feeling in the air, which increased till all at once their guide halted upon the brink of a precipice.
“Now then,” he said, speaking loudly, for the roar of the hidden falls nearly drowned his voice; “come forward cautiously and look down.”
Carey and the old sailor approached, parting the mass of ferns and creepers, which flourished wonderfully in the soft moist air; and then they found themselves on a level with the top of the hills which they had seen from the lagoon, where the little river suddenly plunged down into a deep hollow a couple of hundred feet below, and from which a faint cloud of mist floated, now arched by an iridescent bow. It was a beautiful sight, but the doctor gave them little time to admire it.
“You can come up here any time now,” he said. “Let’s push forward and get to the lake and the peak which we have to climb, so that you can have the view.”
“But where was it you saw the crocodiles?” asked Carey.
“Oh, half a mile lower down, nearer the sea. I came straight across to-day, so as to take the nearest cut. The little river runs up through a winding valley right away from here.”
“But we shall be missing all the beauties,” said Carey.
The doctor laughed.
“There’ll be more beauties and wonders than you can grasp in one excursion,” he said. “I suppose you mean to come again, and to use your gun.”